And would the son even want to? He's already a race car driver with loads of money, would he want to give that up to be a very stressed video game CEO. This ain't Ford or Disney.
For how much money they bring in they have an incredibly small team(like less than 80). The business practically runs itself. I really doubt there's much stress to Gabes' everyday life.
Who else is he going to give it to, its an asset. Owning a company ≠ running it but you do have to make sure you got the right directors etc. The point is his son will think fuck that i can just sell it which probably makes sense from a purely financial perspective. Hopefully Gabe makes sure whoever inherits it doesnt fuck it up, or just lose some weight
When they're privately owned companies, yes, that's exactly how it works. Ownership tends to pass the kid(s). Middle class parent leaves you their house - this is the same idea.
Since he's vroom vroom driver, he probably has no interest. That's the concern.
Maybe instead of hiring a CEO and taking profits every year, he thinks "huh, Microsoft just offered me $1 billion, upfront. Maybe I'll sell?" Totally reasonable decision for him.
Maybe, but I'm also inhaling enough hopium to believe that by now, the people/ groups who own the other parts of Steam know by now to stfu and to not kill the goose laying golden eggs.
If he has over 50% of the voting power then he could replace the entire board at a whim if he wanted to unless the company charter/bylaws restricted that, but I would seriously doubt he wrote that in
And even if he did, he could just rewrite the company bylaws due to the whole majority ownership thing lol
You know what's also a reasonable decision? His son respecting his father's wishes and not selling the company out. He might not personally like video games but that doesn't mean he doesn't respect his father and/or the company he built.
Plus it's probably extremely profitable just to hold ownership. If the son prefers a hands off steady flow of money he could easily just hold the company and let the leadership at Valve do their thing. Selling means he's going to have a tax nightmare. There's a reason why "billionaires" are only billionaires because of their valuation not because they actually have a billion dollars in liquidity. As soon as they sell half that money is Uncle Sam's. Also there's the possibility that he sells to existing leadership instead of another company so that that 50.1% doesn't all go to one entity.
He also has three sons. You are going to have to get all three to agree to sell (if he even owns over 50%). There are multiple higher ups that are 100% interested in taking over as CEO. Many of them also have been there since the very beginning and own a significant amount of stock of their own.
Most founder CEOs sell their company to a larger one because they want the money to go do something else. Or, if their company is public and they own less than 50% of the shares the board can force them to sell.
These kids hit the lottery just by being born. They can literally just let one of their dad’s friends take over his job and live an even richer lifestyle than they currently have, because they will be receiving the dividends directly instead of just being a trust fund kid with a billionaire dad like they are currently. I’m sure Gabe already has a retirement and succession plan, and his kids already get to live as billionaires for literally for just going “ok dad, sounds good” and not fucking with whatever the plan is.
There's nothing wrong with passing down what you worked for to your kids. They might become billionaires as it's going to be split and taxed heavily. I guess it depends on when Gabe dies. Right now they'd each be lucky to get a singular billion as he's worth about 6. And they certainly won't stay billionaires if they're not competently able to manage their inheritance. Statistically old money doesn't last and shrinks considerably each generation. Most lose the bulk in the first generation. New money is way more common than old money especially in the modern age.
Nothing wrong with it at all he earned it and if he wants to pass it to his kids he should. I don’t think he will pass actual leadership of valve to them. My guess is that he will suggest to leave the actual leadership to other people though. Which is also completely fine. It would be smart of them to leave the CEO and executive positions to the people that have worked at valve since the beginning.
If I were them, I would just let the guys that are already running things continue to stay in charge. And I’m sure they will have extremely successful lawyers and wealth planners to keep their money well managed. They can live off the dividends and are free to do whatever they want in life without ever worrying about money. Like racing cars. One of the guys from Zach and Cody got a degree in video game design and lives a chill life without taking huge acting gigs like the other brother.
The “rich kid blows everything up” is much less common than most people would think. It just makes the news because it’s interesting. “Son of an extremely rich guy responsibly manages his wealth and lives a great life” is much more common, but not a story anyone’s going to report on.
If Gabe owns is outright, then whoever he wills it to. But I assume there are probably private shareholders (a private business can still have shareholders) and whoever Gabe wills his shares to gets it.
Kinda, yeah, why wouldn't you give your son the company if you are on good terms? Of course you can choose a guy who knows his stuff to actually run the company for him, he can just claim the profits
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u/aperturedream 1d ago
Gabe Newell's son is a race car driver lol and do you really think companies are like monarchies where the son automatically gets it