Gabe Logan Newell (born November 3, 1962), also known by his nicknameGabeN, is an Americanvideo game developer and businessman. He is the co-founder, president and majority owner of the video game companyValve Corporation.
Newell was born inColorado and grew up inDavis, California. He attendedHarvard University in the early 1980s but dropped out to joinMicrosoft, where he helped create the first versions of theWindows operating system. In 1996, he andMike Harrington left Microsoft to found Valve and fund the development of their first game,Half-Life (1998). Harrington sold his stake in Valve to Newell and left in 2000. Newell led the development of Valve's digital distribution service,Steam, which launched in 2003 and controlled most of the market for downloaded PC games by 2011.
As of 2021, Newell owned at least one quarter of Valve;Forbes estimated that he owned at least half as of 2025. He is also the owner of themarine research organization Inkfish, the neuroscience company Starfish Neuroscience, and the custom yacht manufacturerOceanco. Newell has been estimated as one of thewealthiest people in the United States and the wealthiest person in thevideo games industry, with an estimated net worth of$11 billion as of 2025.
While at Harvard, Newell visited his brother atMicrosoft, which was not yet a major software developer.[6] At the suggestion of the Microsoft executiveSteve Ballmer, he dropped out of Harvard and began working at Microsoft.[6] Newell said later that Microsoft was the best place in the world to learn to program at the time.[6]
Newell spent 13 years at Microsoft as a programmer and technical executive, and produced the first three releases of theWindows operating system.[8][9] In late 1995,Doom, a 1993first-person shooter game developed byid Software, was estimated to be installed on more computers worldwide than Microsoft's new operating system,Windows 95. Newell said: "[id] ... didn't even distribute through retail, it distributed through bulletin boards and other pre-internet mechanisms. To me, that was a lightning bolt. Microsoft was hiring 500-people sales teams and this entire company was 12 people, yet it had created the most widely distributed software in the world. There was a sea change coming."[10] At Microsoft, Newell led development on aport ofDoom for Windows 95, which is credited with helping make Windows a viable game platform.[11]
Inspired byMichael Abrash, who left Microsoft to work on the gameQuake at id, Newell and another employee,Mike Harrington, left Microsoft to found the video game company Valve on August 24, 1996.[9][4] Newell opted to found Valve instead of retiring as he felt working with "other really smart, motivated, socially orientated people to create product that would affect millions of other people" would be more fun.[12]
Newell and Harrington funded development of the first Valve game, the first-person shooterHalf-Life (1998),[13] which was a critical and commercial success.[14] Harrington sold his stake in Valve to Newell in 2000.[8] Newell gave Valve no deadline and a "virtually unlimited" budget to developHalf-Life 2 (2004), promising to fund it himself if necessary.[15] He and Valve came close to bankruptcy during a legal battle withVivendi Games, which ended when an intern discovered an email revealing that Vivendi was destroying evidence.[16]
During the development ofHalf-Life 2, Newell spent months developingSteam, adigital distribution service for games.[15] By 2011, Steam controlled between 50% and 70% of the market for downloaded PC games and generated most of Valve's revenue.[17] At a technology conference in Seattle that year, Newell argued thatsoftware piracy was best addressed by offering a superior option rather than pursuing anti-piracy technology. He cited Steam's success in Russia, where piracy is rife, as an example.[18]
In 2007, Newell expressed his displeasure over developing forgame consoles, saying that developing processes forSony'sPlayStation 3 was a "waste of everybody's time".[19][20] On stage at Sony's keynote atE3 2010, he acknowledged his criticism but discussed the open nature of the PlayStation 3 and announced a port ofPortal 2, remarking that withSteamworks support it would be the best version for any console.[21] Newell also criticized theXbox Live service, referring to it as a "train wreck",[22] andWindows 8, calling it a threat to the open nature ofPC gaming.[23] At the 2013LinuxCon, Newell said theLinux operating system andopen source development were "the future of gaming". He accused the proprietary systems of companies such as Microsoft andApple of stifling innovation through slow certification processes.[24]
In 2009,IGN named Newell one of the top 100 game creators, writing that it was "almost impossible to gauge" Valve's influence on game design, technology and thevideo games industry.[25] In December 2010,Forbes listed Newell as "A Name You Need to Know", primarily for his work on Steam and partnerships with multiple major developers.[26] In 2013, Newell was added to theAcademy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame[27] and received theBAFTA Fellowship for his contributions to the video game industry.[28] As of 2024, Newell had become less involved in Valve and was spending more time on personal projects.[29]
Other ventures
In 2022, with Philip Sabes, Newell co-founded the neuroscience company Starfish Neuroscience to developneural interfaces.[29] In May 2025, Starfish announced that their first chip will be released in late 2025.[30] Newell is the owner of themarine research organization Inkfish, which owns several ships and submarines.[31][29] In November 2022, Inkfish purchased the Hadal Exploration System, a private deep-sea exploration platform, from the undersea explorerVictor Vescovo.[32] In August 2025, Newell acquired the privately owned yacht manufacturerOceanco.[33]
Charity work
In 2020, Newell and the Valve employee Yahn Bernier created acar racing team,the Heart of Racing, to raise funds for children's charities in Seattle and New Zealand.[34] In the same year, Newell worked withWeta Workshop andRocket Lab to send a gnome figure fromHalf-Life 2: Episode Two into space. Newell donated $1 for every person who watched the launch video in 24 hours. The money went to the pediatric intensive care unit at theStarship Children's Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand.[35]
Net worth
In October 2017,Forbes listed Newell among the 100 wealthiest people in the United States, with an estimated net worth of$5.5 billion.[36][37] In December 2021,Forbes estimated that Newell had a net worth of$3.9 billion[37] and owned at least one quarter of Valve.[37] According to Charlie Fish, the author ofTheHistory of Video Games, as of 2021 Newell was the richest person in the video game industry.[4] In 2025,Forbes estimated that Newell owned at least half of Valve and had a net worth of $11 billion.[38]
Personal life
Newell in 2002
Newell formerly suffered fromFuchs' dystrophy, a congenital disease which affects thecornea. He was cured via two cornea transplants in 2006 and 2007.[17] On the same day he founded Valve with Harrington, Newell married Lisa Mennet.[4] They have two sons.[39] The birth of their first son in the late 1990s inspired thefinal boss ofHalf-Life, as the couple considered childbirth the most frightening thing they could think of at the time.[40] As of 2019, Newell and Mennet had divorced.[41]
In 2011, Newell said his favorite video games includedSuper Mario 64,Doom, and aBurroughs mainframe version of the 1971Star Trek game, which was the first game he ever played.[42]Doom convinced him that games were the future of entertainment, andSuper Mario 64 convinced him thatgames were art.[42] Newell was a fan of the animated seriesMy Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.[43][4] He also recorded a voice pack for the Valve gameDota 2, which referenced many previous statements and phrases from himself in a humorous manner.[44]
Within the gaming community, Newell has the nickname Gaben, derived from his work email address.[45] Newell said that he tried to grow into his public image: "[Fans] hug me when they run into me. I'm not a hugging person, but that's what they want. I was with my kids the first time that happened in public, and my kids were pretty cool with it. But I wasn't. 'Dad, roll with it.' Even now, I'm learning from our customers."[46]
Newell was visiting New Zealand with friends when theCOVID-19 pandemic emerged, and elected to stay inAuckland once travel restrictions were eased.[47] As an expression of gratitude for New Zealand's hospitality, he and others arranged a free event, We Love Aotearoa, with live performances from musical artists across New Zealand. It was accompanied by VR stands for Valve games such asHalf-Life: Alyx andThe Lab.[48] The event was postponed from August to December due to alockdown induced by a second wave of COVID-19.[47][49] Newell applied for permanent residency in New Zealand in October 2020, but had returned to Seattle by 2021.[50][51] Newell owns several ships and has lived mostly at sea since the pandemic.[8]
References
^Nichols, Georgia (November 2, 2019)."Horoscope for Sunday, Nov. 3, 2019".Chicago Sun-Times.Archived from the original on September 25, 2021. RetrievedFebruary 5, 2021.If Your Birthday Is Today [November 3]: Video game entrepreneur Gabe Newell (1962) shares your birthday.
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