Before OpenAI became a household name, before ChatGPT broke the internet, Gabe Newell - yes, that Gabe Newell, the man behind Steam and Half-Life - bet $20 million on the company.
The year was 2018. OpenAI was still a research lab most people hadn't heard of. Newell donated $20,008,279 (apparently he likes specific numbers) and served as the sole member of an "informal advisory board." This wasn't a typical Silicon Valley investment - it was a personal bet on AI research from someone who'd spent decades building one of gaming's most successful companies.
What makes this fascinating is the timing. In 2018, OpenAI hadn't released GPT-2 yet, let alone the models that would eventually power ChatGPT. Newell was betting on the promise of AI, not its proven commercial success. For context, that same year Valve was printing money from Steam and working on VR hardware. AI wasn't an obvious adjacency.
So why did the Steam guy bet on AI? Your guess is as good as mine - the reporting doesn't say. But Newell has always been interested in ambitious technology projects. Valve built its own VR headsets, developed a Linux-based gaming OS, and created experimental hardware like the Steam Controller. AI research fits that pattern.
The "informal advisory board" bit is intriguing. Being the sole member suggests this was more personal connection than corporate governance. What advice does a gaming company CEO give to an AI research lab? Did they talk about using AI for game development? Natural language interfaces? We don't know.
What we do know is that Newell's bet paid off spectacularly - at least in terms of 's success. Whether got anything out of the relationship beyond the warm fuzzy feeling of supporting research is unclear. The company hasn't shipped any obviously AI-powered products.
