zlacker

>>evolve+(OP)
Everything valve doing for linux is making such a huge impact.

The HL3 memes don't even seem fair to use anymore. I don't even want to un-seriously make joke fun of them at this point. They are just genuinely doing so much for the community.

>>adverb+H53
Valve is one of the few companies regularly seen on HN where the headline is something like "[company] is secretly doing something really great" as opposed to "[company] is secretly doing something evil"

>>levoca+Yb3
People complain about the gambling/loot box stuff, and yeah there's legit ethical concerns there.

But overall Valve just seems straightforwardly less shitty towards the consumer than other major companies in their space, by a long shot.

>>Tulliu+2d3
The major reason is they are a private company with good business. The don't have a need to keep adding to shareholder value ie stock price instead just need to generate a yearly income. We have reached a point where the shareholders are a companies real customers and that is who they all try to attract.Everytthing else a company does is just to attract shareholders

>>xbmcus+EA3
There's a little known alternative: Steward-ownership [1]. It's the kind of structure used by Novo Nordisk, Bosch or Patagonia.

LLM summary: "Steward-ownership is a model where a company’s control stays with long-term stewards (founders, employees, or a mission-aligned foundation) while profits are limited and the company cannot be sold for private gain. The goal is to protect the mission permanently."

The key, if I understand properly, is that these company cannot be sold (not even by the founders), so there is no "shareholder value" per se to maximize. It is also probably not a good way for founders to maximize their net worth, which is probably why it's not more popular...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steward-ownership

>>Xixi+oF4
This model, unfortunately, often leads to a "well, we might as well spend the extra profits on executive benefits"-issue. Whenever you have money without oversight, you always face a moral hazard.

If the company makes a profit and there aren't shareholders there to keep the stewards in check, excesses can and do develop.

>>nikanj+hH4
Steward-ownership is a philosophy more than an actual structure, my understanding is that each such company is in practice structured somewhat differently.

This article explains roughly how Patagonia is structured: https://medium.com/@purpose_network/the-patagonia-structure-...

For Patagonia a trust owns 100% of the voting rights, while a charity collects 100% of the dividends. I don't doubt that there are ways the structure could be subverted, but it's a far cry from "money without oversight".

Do you have examples of Steward-owned companies that ended up with "well, we might as well spend the extra profits on executive benefits"-issues?

(I personally think Steam should go in that direction, otherwise I'm afraid enshittification is unavoidable once Gabe Newell is no longer at the helm)