He answers e-mail faster than a speeding bullet. He's able to blow up imaginary worlds with a single keystroke. Gabe L. Newell '84 may not be a card-carrying superhero, but for fans of the computer gaming world, he comes pretty close.

Newell is co-founder and managing director of Valve Software, the creator of the action-adventure game "Half-Life." Released a year ago, the game has taken the computer gaming world by storm.

And even after winning 40 "Game of the Year" awards later from a variety of gaming magazines, Newell is still a little bewildered by the company's sudden success.

"It's odd. We did all of the nuts and bolts things you are supposed to do...but we had no inkling really that 'Half-Life' was going to be as well received as it has been," he says.

Not too shabby for someone whose first post-graduation job was working as towel boy in a German gym.

"I was fired the first day," he deadpans.

Newell spent his first year at Harvard largely undecided on a concentration before settling on Applied Mathematics. The first personal computers were still rare, he recalls, and programming was looked on as a hobby rather than a career.

"The main reason I ended up in Applied Math was that the thought of being yet another lawyer or investment banker was more depressing than the thought of writing COBOL," he says. "It wasn't a deeply reasoned decision."

His Harvard degree, Newell says, was probably helpful in getting his start in the programming business.