Gabe Logan Newell (born November 3, 1962), also known by his nickname Gaben, is an American video game developer and businessman.

He attended Harvard University in the early 1980s but dropped out to join Microsoft, where he helped create the first versions of the Windows operating system.

Newell led the development of Valve's digital distribution service, Steam, which launched in 2003 and controlled most of the market for downloaded PC games by 2011.

[4] Newell spent 13 years at Microsoft as a programmer and technical executive, and produced the first three releases of the operating system Windows.

[9] In late 1995, Doom, a 1993 first-person shooter game developed by id Software, was estimated to be installed on more computers worldwide than Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 95.

Microsoft was hiring 500-people sales teams and this entire company was 12 people, yet it had created the most widely distributed software in the world.

[12] Newell and Harrington funded development of the first Valve game, the first-person shooter Half-Life (1998),[13] which was a critical and commercial success.

[20][21] On stage at Sony's keynote at E3 2010, he acknowledged his criticism but discussed the open nature of the PlayStation 3 and announced a port of Portal 2, remarking that with Steamworks support it would be the best version for any console.

[22] Newell also criticized the Xbox Live service, referring to it as a "train wreck",[23] and Windows 8, calling it a threat to the open nature of PC gaming.

[26] In December 2010, Forbes listed Newell as "A Name You Need to Know", primarily for his work on Steam and partnerships with multiple major developers.

[27] In 2013, Newell was added to the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame[28] and received the BAFTA Fellowship for his contributions to the video game industry.

[33] In October 2017, Forbes listed Newell among the 100 wealthiest people in the United States, with an estimated net worth of $5.5 billion.

[36] The birth of their first son in the late 1990s inspired the final boss of Half-Life, as the couple considered childbirth the most frightening thing they could think of at the time.

[40][4] He also recorded a voice pack for the Valve game Dota 2, which referenced many previous statements and phrases from himself in a humorous manner.