Source Memes

Valve is very much a profit focused company. The difference is that they're able to look beyond the next quarterly results and take a more long term view.

This! The idea of "shareholder value" as the ultimate and singular goal was a mistake, as the world and particularly the US is slowly finding out.

It is the same meme as the 'China/Xi strategy; do nothing, win' meme, because its basically the same thing at different scales:

To a much greater degree than their nearest equivalent competitors... both:

Are nowhere near as much beholden to external factors and demands,

Have (though wildly different in nature) actually very effective and efficient internal organizational structures, in terms of actually producing their desires results,

Are just far more competent and less unforced error-prone from a strategic standpoint than their closest competitors/comparisons.

...

To mix up nation state and corporate lingo, Valve is much more 'sovereign', or perhaps 'autarkic', self-reliant, than the vast majority of its competitors.

This isn't to say that either China or Valve are by any means perfect in terms of strategy, nor without moral contention... its just that they are much more independent and effectively governed than their closest comparison rivals, which enables them to do things that seem uncommonly competent.

Valve and China both obviously have weaknesses and exploitable pressure points, but when the rest of the field is a comparative clown show in many ways, well, the clowns are often too busy tripping over their own cloenshoes to be able to effectively act on those weaknesses.