Gabe Newell is one of the Wealthiest People in America

Valve's boss, founder, and OG neckbeard Gabe Newell, used to be quite the meme, back in the day when his company used to do things. These days, Valve is mostly just the caretaker of Steam, if you want to call them that, which had caused light to drop off Mr. Newell and his activities as people just sort of expect the company to stop making games. I mean, I guess there was that DOTA 2 based card game that everyone got kind of annoyed about, but really, I bet you money you'd already forgotten about that before I had written the sentence, right? That's how inconsequential Valve is when it comes to game design these days.

But just because they're not making games doesn't mean Valve isn't profitable. Quite the opposite, in fact: according to Forbes, Gabe Newell is actually one of the richest men in America, sitting at the ninety-seventh most wealthy individual (THREE away from 100, you'll note) with a total net worth of 5.5 billion dollars.

That's nothing to sneeze at, kids.

"It was another record year for the wealthiest people in America, as the price of admission to the country's most exclusive club jumped nearly 18%. The minimum net worth to make The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans is now a record $2 billion, up from $1.7 billion a year ago."

While Valve doesn't make its finances public, since it's still a private company, it's assumed most of the money comes from their business with Steam rather than games themselves, and from the fact that he's assumed to own at least a lion's share of Steam and, by extension, Valve. So it's not hard to see why they haven't exactly rushed things: just by sitting on their butts and selling game codes, they've turned their big boss into one of the top 100 wealthiest men in the US.

Who says video games are a waste of time?