Mike Harrington

This article is about the computer programmer. For the American tennis player, see Mike Harrington (tennis). For other people, see Michael Harrington (disambiguation).

Mike Harrington
Harrington in 2009
Born	1964 (age 60–61) [1]
Employer(s)	Dynamix (1985–1987) Microsoft (1987–1996) Valve (1996–2000) Picnik (2005–2010) Google (2010–2011) Catnip Labs (2012–2015) Committee for Children (2016–2018) Amplion (2018–2020)
Known for	Co-founding Valve
Spouse	Monica Harrington (formerly) [2]

Mike Harrington (born 1964) is an American programmer and businessman. With Gabe Newell, he is the co-founder of the video game company Valve. After the success of the first Valve product, Half-Life (1998), Harrington left Valve in 2000. In 2006, he co-founded the photo editing service Picnik.

Career

Harrington was a programmer at the video game developer Dynamix and a designer on the Windows NT operating system at Microsoft. ^[3] In 1996, he founded Valve with Gabe Newell, another former Microsoft employee. ^[4] Harrington sold his Microsoft shares to fund his half of the startup. ^[5] His wife at the time, Monica Harrington, was Valve's marketing strategist in its early years. ^[6]

Harrington and Newell funded the development of Valve's debut product, Half-Life (1998), which Harrington also helped program. ^{[7] [8]} It was a critical and commercial success. ^{[9] [10] [11] [12]} Harrington said: "At Microsoft you always wonder, 'Is it me being successful or is it Microsoft?' But with Half-Life I knew Gabe and I had built that product and company from scratch." ^[7] On January 15, 2000, Harrington sold his stake in Valve to Newell and left to spend time with his wife. ^{[5] [7]} According to Newell, Harrington did not want to risk another project after the success of Half-Life. ^[7]

In 2006, Harrington co-founded the photo editing service Picnik with friend and former colleague Darrin Massena. Picnik was acquired by Google in March 2010. Harrington left Google in March 2011. In January 2012, he co-founded another company with Massena, Catnip Labs. Harrington was CTO at the Committee for Children from 2016 to 2018. Harrington was CTO of Amplion from November 2018 until March 2020. ^{[13] [14]}

References

1. Takahashi, Dean (1998-12-17). "Story-Telling Computer Game Becomes a Big Hit for Valve". The Wall Street Journal.
2. https://www.techspot.com/news/104659-amazon-tried-buy-stake-valve-long-before-steam.html
3. "Mike Harrington Interview". PlanetHalfLife.com. November 20, 1999. Archived from the original on November 3, 1999. Retrieved January 6, 2008.
4. Dunn, Jeff (October 4, 2013). "Full Steam ahead: The History of Valve". GamesRadar+ . Retrieved April 5, 2014.
5. Pastis, Stephe (2024-12-06). "How Valve founder Gabe Newell turned Half-Life into a nearly $10 billion fortune". Forbes Australia . Retrieved 2024-12-11.
6. Carpenter, Lincoln (2024-09-13). "'There's an alternate universe where Half-Life disappeared after release': Valve's first marketing strategist Monica Harrington says she helped navigate its way out of early disaster". PC Gamer . Retrieved 2024-12-12.
7. Keighley, Geoff. "The Final Hours of Half-Life and Half Life 2". Gamespot UK. Archived from the original on October 18, 2012. Retrieved January 5, 2008.
8. CVG Staff (September 28, 2007). "Creative Minds: Gabe Newell". Computer and Video Games . Archived from the original on January 6, 2011. Retrieved January 5, 2008.
9. Green, Jeff (February 1, 1999). "Half-Life". Computer Gaming World . Archived from the original on February 9, 2002. Retrieved April 14, 2010.
10. "Half-Life Review". GameSpot. Archived from the original on October 31, 2013. Retrieved April 25, 2007.
11. Rorie, Matthew (May 18, 2007). "Greatest Games of All Time: Half-Life". GameSpot. Archived from the original on January 19, 2015. Retrieved March 31, 2016.
12. "Half-Life – #1 Top Shooters". IGN. September 13, 2013. Archived from the original on February 28, 2014. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
13. "Mike Harrington's LinkedIn profile". LinkedIn . Retrieved October 2, 2014.
14. Thorne, James (August 12, 2019). "This startup wants to accelerate 'precision medicine' with its growing biological data platform". GeekWire . Retrieved August 16, 2019.