Mike Harrington was the co-founder of the computer game development company, Valve Software and a lead programmer of the game Half-Life. Previously a games developer at Dynamix and a developer 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 through the development of Half-Life. Half-Life became a game industry phenomenon, winning more than 50 Game of the Year Awards; it was also named the "Best PC Game of All Time" by PC Gamer Magazine, the leading PC Games magazine.