Valve founder Gabe Newell says his company is more profitable per employee than either Apple or Google, according to a recent profile in Forbes. An analyst pegs Valve’s 2010 revenue in the “high hundreds of millions of dollars” (a privately-held company, Valve doesn’t release public financial reports).

“Valve announced last October that it was on track for its biggest year ever, with 200% year-over-year growth. Newell says that, per employee, Valve is more profitable than Google and Apple.”

Valve makes video games like Portal and Half-Life 2, but is perhaps best known to gamers for its hugely popular online game download service Steam. Valve made quite a splash with Mac gamers in 2010, finally bringing its games – and opening Steam – to Mac users. Now the company puts Mac users on equal footing with its new game releases, and encourages Steam publishing partners to do the same.

The Master of Online Mayhem [Forbes.com]