this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2026
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I imagine gaben hiring a lawyer to be creative and clever to outsmart the puritan censorship control of valve and steam. Then the lawyer taking time to think about it, giving up, and coming at gaben with that as legal advice, resulting in gaben being furious that the lawyer failed and passed that failure as default to what the opposition is trying to strongarm you to do as official advice.
Mastercard+visa: suck my cock and lick my over-ripe anus
Gaben: hey fuck you
Gaben: hires lawyer to try to not have to do that
Gaben: lawyer, I'm not doing that. What are my options?
Lawyer: huh, i am a potato and therefore have no real thought. i hereby legally suggest you suck their cock and lick their over-ripe anus. That'll be $3,000,000. Thanks.
Gaben: what the fuck do i pay you for if that's your opinion?
The lawyer is question is Karl Quackenbush, who has worked with Valve for decades now. He's the one who helped them settle their lawsuit with Sierra over Counterstrike in internet cafes
Most corporate lawyers are there to steer you way around any danger. I used to think they would help me understand exactly where the legal boundaries are, but I’ve been disappointed time and again that they won’t play it even close to the line. To be fair to them, laws are written in language and always have room for interpretation so if you work in an industry where you’re doing novel things, they can’t always say exactly what will get you in trouble.
A lawyer that will lean in and go in hot on issues where it’s well known that you’re operating over the line… yeah that’s a very “wartime consigliere” kind of thing which I imagine few corporate lawyers are able to pivot to at the drop of a hat. Sorry, Tom.
John Oliver had a take on lawyers recently that was pretty good. He said that most lawyers are, as you say, essentially, to keep you from being sued. But he wanted lawyers to make sure that when he is sued, that he will win.
This is suspiciously like what working with AI is like
I've sat in on support calls where the human on the other side paused before answering and then sent responses that were clearly pasted from AI.