Gabes replacement will be the tell all. and as much as i want steam to exist over multiple generations..i dont think it can survive turnover, greed, opportunistic bastards.
I think this is the difference between private/public companies. They don't have to deal with the "growth at all costs" mindset that plague public companies.
I think it would be awesome if he turned it into a nonprofit with a healthy endowment. The charter could say that any profits above $X that can't be invested into improving PC gaming must go to charities that promote indie dev. So the main goal would be to do things like the Steam Deck or build innovative games, and there would be little incentive to screw over customers. It could also be structured like a coop, so if employees didn't like the CEO's direction, they could vote to remove them.
That's what I would do, but I'm obviously not GabeN.