Comment on Amanda Watson, the engineer who pioneered the AirLink and several other technologies for Oculus, was hired at Valve.

SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

• Kraiden@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  I agree with the sentiment, and I’m sure Valve are one of the better companies to work for, so I’m happy for her…

  But Valve aren’t small.

  They ARE the PC gaming industry. They generate billions in revenue and control something like 75% of the global PC distribution market. I know they keep trying to sell themselves as just a small company, because they’re a small internal team, but I really wish they’d snap out of it and scale up a bit to match their market. Especially when talking about their hardware side. I live in New Zealand, and the number of conversations I’ve had with people who have gone to some pretty extreme lengths to get a hold of Valve hardware is ridiculous. I’m not even talking about the new stuff, I mean the damn Steam Deck. I find it incredibly frustrating to hear people refer to them as a small company. Jolla is a small company. Valve is not.

  Anyway, sorry, /rant

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  • SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Small was in regards to the number of people they employ. Valve runs a lean ship of a few hundred.

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  • glimse@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Neither Jolla nor Valve are small companies, 200 and 350 (ish) employees respectively. But company size has nothing to do with revenue or profit, it’s literally just people on the payroll and a cutoff of your choosing.

    I don’t think it’s really fare to compare the distribution capabilities of a hardware company vs a software/service company, though. And doesn’t this hiring kind of imply they’re expanding their hardware side?

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    • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      From employee count they both would easily fit the legal US definition of a small business, as that’s usually 500 or fewer, but can be as high as 1500 in some industries, depends what they’d be classified as

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      • VAK@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Whoa, I think in many other countries it’s small upto 50. 500 feels so high - the ceo wouldn’t even know everyone.

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      • glimse@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        I was being vague about the cutoff because Jolla isn’t in the US and I didn’t want to look up every country’s definition lol

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