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Submitted by poncho_57 on
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 This is a link to Valve's new hire guide book.

I'm interested in your thoughts.

http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf

RDHodgson's picture

Was chatting about this with a friend of mine actually. We agreed that this is probably something that works very well for these particular people, but that it does underscore something Mark likes to bang on about: it's about the people. There's no perfect structure for making your organisation do awesome things. There is something you can rely on though: hiring good people, working to get those people working well together, and then training them up along the way so they can do the same thing when they're managers and interviewers. 

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Rory

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mattpalmer's picture

 I've read that before.  It's a great model of how you can build a particular sort of organisation in a particular way, and have (by all accounts) wonderful success.  Trying to apply it elsewhere, though might not be a slam-dunk...

The trick is that Valve is a creative product company (both of those are important points).  Someone still needs to answer the phones and take out the trash.  Who does that at Valve?  Contractors, by all accounts -- people who don't get all the shiny toys and benefits.  If you're in a similar situation -- where you can outsource all the dross and just keep the cool shiny work, then I'm sure the Valve model would work great.  Doesn't work so well where I work, because we *do* the dross that other people outsource.

On the other hand, that document did give me a few good ideas -- like movable desks and actually *having* an employee manual -- that I'm planning on adopting.  So it's definitely worth a read for everyone.  Gives me something to aspire to build, too, which is always a good place to be.