Cited on HN 4 times, 2022–2025, never outright recommendedscore 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN commenters cite it as a summary of former employees' experience that the flat structure produces informal hierarchy, cliques and stack ranking.
Valve News Network goes through over twenty accounts from ex-Valve employees, mostly from Glassdoor, about what it is like to work at Valve. It covers the company's flat structure and culture.
> keep in mind that he is literally the only one who talks about the company that way from everyone whose ever worked there (many, many have left for various reasons since). That's not true. There's been lots of criticism coming at Valve's management style over the years: There are many people who _hate_ it, but also many people who love it. It really depends on the type of person you are. If you really really dislike bureaucracy Valve's a great place to be, but also don't expect them to enact any quality-of-life systems: If your coworker wants you dead, then that's something you yourself have to deal with. This is also why you see a lot of different opinions when looking through e.g. glassdoor: Some people that do the murdering love it there and thrive, but that system only works if people are there that can be murdered. Some people I know have described the atmosphere as "prison yard style": You trade rigid bureaucracy against a "you have to know who you have to know" bureaucracy. Richard Geldreich's account lines up pretty well to what I have heard about valve's emergent self-organization system. A couple of years ago there was a video: [this video] that summarized the working environment.
Summarizes Valve's working environment from a former employee.
This anecdotal review from a former Valve employee seems to indicate as much. [this video] Yet it's interesting that despite Valve having what is essentially a monopoly on PC storefronts and the implicit corporate hierarchy with alleged double-crossing, there is little complaint about Steam as a service from most users.
Former employee's anecdotal review of Valve's hierarchy.
Only anecdotal, but there may be cultural problems stemming from the flat structure at Valve that make organizing around products difficult. This video came out 4 years ago so I don't know if anything's changed since then, but it's one ex-employee's experience of their work culture at the time. Basically he claims that even though there's a flat corporate structure within Valve, in practice an implicit management structure arose in which those with the most political clout controlled others without it. Plus they used stack ranking at the time. [this video]
Ex-employee describes implicit hierarchy and stack ranking at Valve.
Another source from 6 years ago: [this video] It seems like the flat management structure allowed an ad-hoc hierarchy of cliques to form in the office anyway, pitting entrenched teams of old-timers against new hires, but implicitly. When you think of the lack of support for TF2 over the years, this is illuminating. It's astounding that Valve/Steam are still as successful as they are in spite of this culture.
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