This has already been submitted as a one-page some time ago, but it didn't end up getting much love.

I rather enjoyed it, so I figured I'd give it another stab.

One-page is here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6471/the_valve_way_gab...

Favorite part: "Premature monetization is the root of all evil."

Back in 2003, the source code for Half Life 2 was leaked by somebody in Germany.

The hacker eventually contacted Valve himself, and expressed interest in working for the company. Valve then staged a fake job interview, and tried to trick him in to coming to Seattle. There, they waited with FBI agents, and prepared to arrest him.

Fortunately, he was detained in Germany.

That story, combined with this story, raises my eyebrows, especially because Valve is trying to show off "The Valve Way".

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/11/valve-tricked-h/

I'm not grasping your point.

He is illustrating unbecoming behavior from Valve.

He's one of the guys who thinks Valve should have given the German guy a job, and is still upset at Valve over it.

I think he is a lot more upset that Valve tried to lure him to the US where he would have faced drastic punishment. Getting caught in Germany (where the punishment he received didn’t destroy his life) was the best thing that could happen to him but Valve didn’t make that happen.

That’s the truly disgusting part. Valve wanted to destroy his life.

Valve wanted to punish him for crimes he commited. HL2 was a big deal.

As for the magnitude of what Valve was seeking? Among other things, they were probably scared; not every hacker is a friendly, innocent curious kid working alone. They should have taken his word for it? Hah, since when is it a good idea to trust criminals?

They could have cooperated with the police in Germany.

Powerful insight from Gabe applicable to startups:

"No -- we don't recruit for games. We recruit people..."

Replace 'games' with 'products'.