this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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The strategy is called "Not beeing a publicly traded company". Valve is a privately owned company.
Publicly traded companies need to increase value for their shareholders, which means they have to raise their quarterly profits at any cost.
Fun fact actually: GabeN owns exactly 50.1% of Valve so that he gets to be the final shot caller.
Valve might not be a publically traded company, but it sti has shareholders. Some of those shareholders still want Valve to increase value, etc.
The difference is that valve has a songle large share holder who seems to just not give a fuck about those pressures. While most (all) publically traded companies crumble and fall to that pressure.
The thing about privately-held companies with not intention to go publoc is that the long-term viability of the company is more important than ever-increasing share value.
A public company can be the most profitable company in the world but still lose stock value if it isn't more profitable than last quarter.
Can still be more profitable than last quarter, but less profitable than expected. Lost value.
But companies don't always chase profit.
They can also chase growth and the appearance of a company that could or will make money one day. Ex Uber when it first came out and destroyed the taxi industry practically overnight.
Yes, but they chase it in different ways.
A shareholder in a private company that's profitable well isn't losing money on the investment. A shareholder in a profitable publicly-held company might be losing money depending on when they bought in.
Additionally, the shareholders in the private company have to consider the future because they can't dump their shares as easily. That promotes sustainable business practices instead of chasing short-term gains at the cost of long-term viability.
That makes no sense.
The only difference between a public company and a private company (in this sense) is how liquid the asset is, said another way, how easy it is to enter or exit the position, and how regularly the holdings value is recalculated.
I could buy 100k of valve stock of someone tomorrow, and then find myself wishing I'd bought NVIDIA. I could buy NVIDIA tomorrow, and it could crash and I could wish I'd bought in to Valve.
Exactly. When it's more difficult to enter and exit a position you need to take a longer-term view.
That, plus the single large shareholder isn't a dumbass looking for a quick buck
Many private companies also need to increase profits at any cost as they have shareholders, they are just privately owned.
I really feel like this is the reason