I think Valve's flat structure strategy has mildly failed and they should try something else. Unless they still desire to all-in on the strategy of creating products and hoping to land a another billion dollar baby, then sure, this strategy is good for that. However Valve kind of advertises itself as a video game company, and if someone is interested in making video games I feel like they'd actually be a bit disappointed after a while of working at Valve, simply because it seems so unlikely for them to actually ever release a video game.
And the bonus structure that I recall also seems dated. iirc it was setup in a way such that delivering new projects would land you a bonus. But this incentivizes creating things, but there is no incentive to continue supporting or updating or iterating on it. In my opinion the bonus structure should be done in such a way so that if you deliver something new, you would land a bonus, and then you'd get larger bonuses at the 1 year mark, 2 year mark, etc, if that thing has been updated and improved.
Many things these days are not just a single product that you release and that's that. They continually live on, they're a service, they're interacted with for years. Valve has fallen behind in this regard. Even smaller things like mini-features in Dota 2 for example would be released, which likely earned someone a small bonus, then left by the wayside to fall apart.
I love Valve conceptually but I really wish they'd iterate on their company design instead of thinking they've "solved it" I guess. I wish they were more video game focused. Obviously I don't know how it actually is in there these days, but things like this manual and other hearsay / rumors are the best I have to go off of.
I see this echoed relatively often, and I have to wonder by what metric people consider valve have "failed" when they're the largest video game distribution platform on PC, raking in money hand over fist and constantly trouncing their competition such as EGS, Galaxy, Origin and UPlay. People don't just use steam because they have to, they choose to use it because it's the superior product.
> I wish they were more video game focused
I suppose a lot of people look at Valve and think because they haven't made a hit game in a while that's why they're a failure? Personally I couldn't care less if they never made another game again; there are thousands of video game companies making great games every year, and no-one else is doing what Valve are doing in regards to Proton and other Linux desktop work. The steam deck isn't a particularly novel idea, but it's definitely one of the best examples of a handheld portable gaming device running a desktop OS.
For someone who used to be a diehard GOG fan due to their no DRM policy, my entire library is now on Steam due to their Linux efforts, not just because it's the best client, but because I want them to keep doing what they're doing.