This isn’t explicitly called out in any of the other comments in my opinion so I’ll state this. Valve as a company is incredibly focused internally on its business. Its business is games, game hardware, and game delivery. For anything outside of that purview instead of trying to build a huge internal team they contract out. I’m genuinely curious why other companies don’t do this style more often because it seems incredibly cost effective. They hire top level contractors to do top tier work on hyper specific areas and everyone benefits. I think this kind of work is why Valve gets a free pass to do some real heinous shit (all the gambling stuff) and maintain incredible good will. They’re a true “take the good with the bad” kind of company. I certainly don’t condone all the bad they’ve put out, and I also have to recognize all the good they’ve done at the same time.

Back to the root point. Small company focused on core business competencies, extremely effective at contracting non-core business functions. I wish more businesses functioned this way.