Mike Harrington

Mike Harrington is an American computer programmer, who is best known for being the co-founder of the video game development and digital distribution company, Valve Corporation.

Previously a game programmer at Dynamix and a designer on the Windows NT operating system at Microsoft, Harrington founded Valve in 1996 with Gabe Newell, another former Microsoft employee. He and Newell privately funded Valve for the development of Half-Life.

On January 15, 2000, after the success of Half-Life, Harrington dissolved his partnership with Newell and left Valve to take an extended vacation with his wife, Monica.

Harrington returned to the software industry in 2006, when he co-founded Picnik with long-time friend and former colleague Darrin Massena, which was later acquired by Google in March 2010. Harrington left Google in March 2011, and co-founded another company with Massena, called Catnip Labs, in January 2012.