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The key to leading a financially successful business is "creating value for people," says Valve lead Gabe Newell – and that means focusing on customers, employees, and partners.
Speaking in a recent interview with Zalkar Saliev on YouTube, Newell explains what advice he would give people considering starting a new business – and also describes what interested first-time entrepreneurs should avoid doing. "I see a lot of people go into situations thinking that what they need is a pitch document to VCs to raise capital, and that's a deeply distracted beginning to an organization," says the Valve president.
"If you're creating value for people," continues Newell, "the capital will come your way, and probably at a reduced cost than it would be otherwise. Having a big bunch of capital and then saying, 'Oh, I guess all those lies we told in our pitch deck, but now we have to go and, you know, hire a whole bunch of people to be on this trajectory' – I think that's a great way of destroying a bunch of money and wasting a bunch of people's time."
The lead then outlines what people should focus on: "I think the key is to ignore all of the distractions around it and just focus on, 'how do we make our customers happier,' right? If you listen to your customers and focus on them, it's ridiculously easier to build a business. The focus should always be on your customers, on your partners, and on your employees, and then everything else will fall into place over time."
Newell also shares his thoughts on the future of artificial intelligence elsewhere in Saliev's interview, admitting that he suspects AI will eventually lead to a "funny situation" where "people who don't know how to program" could be "more effective" than people "who've been programming for a decade" – while I'm not personally sure I'd agree with that take, I'd say his thoughts on starting a business are insightful.
