Becoming a billionaire doesn't come as a product of a specific formula that just anybody can follow, reveals Valve president Gabe Newell – as it was in his case, it's often due to luck.
Speaking in a recent interview with Zalkar Saliev on YouTube, Newell answers with what he thinks the difference is between billionaires and regular Joe Schmoes: luck. "In my case, it was luck, and it was being surrounded by really great people," Newell, whose reported net worth sits at about $9.5 billion, explains. "I'm not going to speak broadly. I haven't ever bothered to study the subject of billionaires and so on."
The Valve boss continues, describing how correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation in regards to what makes a billionaire. "Whenever I read anything about it, any of the analysis is really unsound. There's this thing called survivor bias, where if you study the people who are in a certain category, you don't realize that just because they share a characteristic, there was no causality to it at all. In my case, I was very lucky in multiple dimensions."
How, though? "I've had the good fortune to, at the beginning of my career, work with people like Neil Konzen, Doug Klunder, and Jeff Harbers," admits Newell, describing some of the earlier Microsoft employees he worked alongside during the 90s. The Steam mastermind goes on to say he was "lucky enough to be around people like them" and "having the roll of the dice continue to go in my way" after departing Microsoft to found Valve in 1996.
Newell concludes: "I think that's how I've ended up where I am. I mean, it'd be great to say I'm just this absolutely fucking wonderful person and I earned all of this and this expresses my awesomeness, but there was an awful lot of luck that went into it." Hey – two things can be true at once, right? The Valve lead's words do make sense, though. When it comes to being a billionaire, everything must fall into place perfectly… and that calls for some luck.
He discusses more throughout the interview, sharing everything from his daily routine to his thoughts on AI, and some handy business advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.
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