Gooseman on Gabe Newell: “He started practicing Mongolian throat singing right in the office.”

When it came to his interests, Gabe was a very curious person. He would suddenly dive into extremely unusual hobbies. Once, he became fascinated with Mongolian throat singing. In Mongolia, there are performers who do amazing things using only their vocal cords. Gabe watched a documentary about them, was completely captivated by the concept, and started practicing. He began practicing Mongolian throat singing right in the office. You could clearly hear him trying to make those sounds just as he walked down the hallways. I remember that it really annoyed many of my colleagues, since it’s quite loud. Gabe would walk the hallways and practice throat singing every day. Eventually, people started closing their office doors en masse, so our open-plan office turned into a closed-off one for a while. It was a funny time. Fortunately, his hobby didn’t last more than five months. That’s a decent amount of time, but it’s a good thing he finally stopped, and after a while, we didn’t hear that singing anymore.