Yanis Varoufakis has been named Greece's new finance minister. A lecturer at the University of Athens, Varoufakis worked for two years at Valve.
While he doesn't play games, Varoufakis said he was fascinated by the virtual currencies Valve had created and how they worked. At the time he commented, "Think of it: An economy where every action leaves a digital trail, every transaction is recorded. Indeed, an economy where we do not need statistics since we have all the data!"
During his stay at the company during 2012 and 2013, he kept a blog dedicated to analysing the company's virtual currencies. Varoufakis was hired after Gabe Newell read one of his posts about the Eurozone economic crises and recognised the comparisons with Valve's own currencies and platforms. Varoufakis, who also occassionally lectures in Texas, flew out to Seattle for a meeting and was taken on board as a consultant.
Varoufakis discussed, among other things, how Valve hires and fires people differently to pretty much everywhere else, why people gift in Team Fortress 2, and the sophisticated bartering which takes place around trades.
I study economics myself and fully believe developing Half-Life 3 is just what the Greek economy needs to be pulled out of its current situation.
