Valve makes $50,000,000 per employee with gaming company set to generate $17,000,000,000 this year

Valve, the gaming company behind Counter-Strike and the online game store Steam, has been confirmed as one of the most profitable businesses in the world and is set to pull in $17 billion this year from just 350 employees.

As far as gargantuan tech companies go, Valve runs an extreme skeleton staff that really shouldn’t work.

With Google reported to have 187,000 employees, and Microsoft publicly cutting down the 228,000-strong workforce it started 2025 with, the multi-billion dollar empire that is Valve somehow operates with around 350 people.

Now projecting a $17 billion turnover in 2025, which means the incredible minds that run the company are generating nearly $50 million per person.

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Valve projects $17 billion turnover with tiny staff size, marking the biggest cash-per-person payroll

It’s no secret that the gaming industry, especially after the pandemic boom, is extremely lucrative.

One of the biggest players is Valve.

Formed by American billionaire Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington, the company has produced some of the biggest games of all time, and its Steam product leads the way as the best digital store.

After an excellent 2025, which saw Counter-Strike 2 break peak player records, Valve is now making more money than ever before.

But it’s a miracle, considering its staff count could all fit on a single Airbus A350.

Rhys Elliott, Head of Market Analysis at Alinea Analytics, revealed on X (previously Twitter) that Valve’s Steam platform has generated $16.2 billion in revenue.

Averaging a staff count of 350 people from its launch in 2012 to 2021, this would put the person-by-person revenue generation at $46,285,714.

To compare that to Microsoft, which made $281 billion in 2025, its staff average $1,232,456 per person in revenue generation, 40 times less than Valve.

The staff are reportedly very well compensated for their efforts, too.

According to a report from The Verge in 2021, payroll statistics revealed that the company averaged an annual wage of $1 million for the 181 staff members in its Games division.

Similar average wages were reported for the 79 Steam staff, although the Hardware team averaged $431,862.

Of course, these wages will fluctuate depending on hierarchy levels, but the skeleton staff appear to earn their pennies and more.

How the gaming giant made its billions

Valve is the child of gaming rock star Gabe Newell, who teamed with Mike Harrington.

The duo worked for Microsoft in the ’90s, but after seeing the downfalls of its gaming division, they decided to launch their own product.

Having found success beyond their wildest dreams with its debut game Half-Life in 1998, Valve went on to release Counter-Strike two years later and hold a completely monopoly over the shooter genre.

Then, Steam was launched, and that’s where the real money was made, as it takes a small cut of the game fees and microtransactions that happen on its site.

But the truth behind its profitability lies in the specially hand-picked staff who are rewarded for their unwavering efforts.

“Our profitability per employee is higher than that of Google or Amazon or Microsoft, and we believe strongly that the right thing to do in that case is to put a maximum amount of money back into each employee’s pocket,” the company Handbook reads.

It wasn’t always plain sailing, but now Gabe Newell cruises around the ocean with a $300 million gaming laboratory superyacht, clicking heads to the feel of the waves.

The company is continuing to launch new products that will continue to rival its biggest competitors.

Specifically, the new Steam Machine is set to be an upmarket PC that intends to outperform consoles like the next-generation Xbox and the PlayStation 5.

On the game front, another instalment of Half-Life is reportedly in the works as a revolutionary new shooter experience.

The evolution of Valve

August 1996: Valve was founded by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington
November 1998: Valve released its debut game, Half-Life, a world-renowned commercial success
November 2000: Counter-Strike launches as a standalone game, laying the pathway for the biggest FPS esports in the world
September 2003: Valve launches Steam, now the biggest digital game launcher and marketplace
July 2013: Dota 2 launches as Valve’s answer to League of Legends
April 2019: The company moves into hardware, starting with Virtual Reality headsets like the Valve Index, which would later support Half-Life: Alyx
February 2022: The Steam Deck handheld console was launched

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