I applaud Valve's visionary business organization. As a developer I'm sick of having to work under liars and frauds who have misrepresented their technical ability and knowledge to get into an 'engineering management position' they are not fit for. The costs of job changes is very high to me, and if there were more companies like valve, tech would be a much better place to work.
This is fairly common (liars and frauds...), though there are some great managers out there: they're just as rare as great developers, and worth their weight in gold when you find them.
