Valve, being the company that is, has hired an Economist. He's called Yanis Varoufakis and he looks proper hard. He's a professor of economics.
In fact, according to Yannis, "I am a Professor of Economics who has never really trained as an economist..." Okay. He has, however, taught or studied at a variety of institutions including:
University of Essex ("to study the dismal science (of economics)")
University of Birmingham
University of East Anglia
University of Cambridge
University of Glasgow
Université Catholique de Louvain
University of Sydney
University of Athens ("teaching political economics")
But now he's been hired by Valve where he has a blog. He begins his tale of how he joined the games company in that, "What the hey?" way we can all relate to:
"Before the Euro Crisis erupted in 2009, I was just another economics professor..." and on he goes.
"...all of a sudden, as if by the wave of some vengeful wizard’s wand, the tranquility (sic) was shattered and I found myself in the midst of an acrimonious Europe-wide debate watched over by millions."
Right, "vengeful wizard". Anyway, Valve emailed him and said, “We are running into a bunch of problems as we scale up our virtual economies, and as we link economies together. Would you be interested in consulting with us?
“I have been following your blog for a while… Here at my company we were discussing an issue of linking economies in two virtual environments (creating a shared currency), and wrestling with some of the thornier problems of balance of payments, when it occurred to me “this is Germany and Greece”, a thought that wouldn’t have occurred to me without having followed your blog. Rather than continuing to run an emulator of you in my head, I thought I’d check to see if we couldn’t get the real you interested in what we are doing.”
Yup it was indeed from Gabe Newell.
You can read the rest at Valve.
Watch Yanis talk at about 12 minutes on the video below:
In fact, according to Yannis, "I am a Professor of Economics who has never really trained as an economist..." Okay. He has, however, taught or studied at a variety of institutions including:
University of Essex ("to study the dismal science (of economics)")
University of Birmingham
University of East Anglia
University of Cambridge
University of Glasgow
Université Catholique de Louvain
University of Sydney
University of Athens ("teaching political economics")
But now he's been hired by Valve where he has a blog. He begins his tale of how he joined the games company in that, "What the hey?" way we can all relate to:
"Before the Euro Crisis erupted in 2009, I was just another economics professor..." and on he goes.
"...all of a sudden, as if by the wave of some vengeful wizard’s wand, the tranquility (sic) was shattered and I found myself in the midst of an acrimonious Europe-wide debate watched over by millions."
Right, "vengeful wizard". Anyway, Valve emailed him and said, “We are running into a bunch of problems as we scale up our virtual economies, and as we link economies together. Would you be interested in consulting with us?
“I have been following your blog for a while… Here at my company we were discussing an issue of linking economies in two virtual environments (creating a shared currency), and wrestling with some of the thornier problems of balance of payments, when it occurred to me “this is Germany and Greece”, a thought that wouldn’t have occurred to me without having followed your blog. Rather than continuing to run an emulator of you in my head, I thought I’d check to see if we couldn’t get the real you interested in what we are doing.”
Yup it was indeed from Gabe Newell.
You can read the rest at Valve.
Watch Yanis talk at about 12 minutes on the video below:
Companies:
Valve
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