Gabe Newell, the president and co-founder of Valve Corporation, has had a very successful career. The same is now being recognized by Forbes, as the business magazine has just released its annual list of the 400 richest individuals in the world. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, the 54-year-old tech exec has beat out the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, and US president-elect Donald Trump.
Forbes listed Newell as the 134th richest in the world, where he tied with Phillip Frost (pharmaceuticals), Jeffrey Hildebrand (oil), Terrence Pegula (natural Gases), Mitchell Rales (manufacturing), Jeffrey Skoll (eBay), Leonard Stern (real estate) and Ronda Stryker (medical equipment). Meanwhile, Trump and Spielberg were tied at 156th and Winfrey was noted as the 239th wealthiest individual. It would seem that, despite popular opinion, Valve is doing quite well for itself.
GameSpot notes that the reason for this might be because Valve is not a publicly traded company, unlike most of its competitors in the tech world like Activision, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. This means that the company is not required to publicly reveal its net worth. Moreover, it can keep its executives' salaries private.
Newell was listed with a net worth of US$4.1 billion. Back in 2012, Forbes listed Valve as having a net worth of US$3 billion. Considering that Newell has half the shares, his net worth at that time can be estimated at US$1.5 billion. Clearly, he - and Valve - have been doing well since. On the other hand, Trump and Spielberg were appraised for US$3.7 billion and Winfrey for US$2.8 billion.
And while Newell's numbers are impressive, it is still nowhere near the top three, which is rounded up by Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates respectively. The three men, who are in charge of Microsoft, Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway, have networths' of US$81 billion, US$67 billion and US$65.5 billion. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg came in fourth with US$55.5 billion.
