Valve Corp co-founder Gabe Newell recently talked about why he became an early investor in food and technology startup ChefSteps, comparing the way the company’s founders approach food and cooking to the way he approaches video game development.

“They talked to me like a scientist, like an engineer, and this isn’t how I thought people in the cooking world talked,” Newell explained in a recent interview with Eater. “These guys are cooking nerds. And the science is super interesting.”

“Their understanding of what’s going on in the experience of cooking resonated with my experiences in the world of creating entertainment,” he continued. “In the end, your target is the subjective experience of the consumer. You have to know all this hard stuff, but at the end of the day you have to have a really good connection with the inside of someone’s head to be good at it. This intrigued me. Every time I talked to them I felt like I learned something new.”

Newell originally discovered ChefSteps after when he bought a dinner for 10 from an auction at his son’s middle school. The meal was cooked by Chris Young, who is now CEO of ChefSteps, and Grant Crilly, who is also part of the company.

“They came over and it was easily the best food I’d ever had,” Newell said. “Spectacular in its design and execution.”

Aside from investing in the company, Newell also made a brief cameo in a recent video ad for ChefSteps’ sous vide device called Joule.

Sous vide is an increasingly popular cooking method that uses vacuum-sealed plastic bags to keep food contained while it is cooked in a hot water bath. Joule works by keeping the water in a cooking vessel circulating at a consistent temperature, and users can control it using an app on their smartphone.

Joule is currently selling at a discounted rate of $199 until January, and ChefSteps says the device will begin shipping in May 2016.

You can watch the full ad for Joule, along with Newell’s cameo (at around 1:29), below:

Screenshot via ChefSteps | YouTube