Roblox: David Baszucki

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2022

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2003, David Baszucki wanted to go viral. He had already sold a company that made educational software, and now he wanted to build something with mass appeal; with build-your-own avatars and myriad opportunities for users to compete and connect online. So in 2006, he and his co-founder Erik Cassel launched Roblox, a platform where you can play millions of different games, set in a wide array of virtual worlds.

You can adopt a pet, escape from jail, build and run your own restaurant, or solve a murder mystery; you can even create games of your own. During the start of the pandemic in 2020, half of the kids in the US were keeping in touch via Roblox, and today, the company is worth over 28 billion dollars.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:10.3	We had some people play it, but we knew within a week, oh my gosh, this is not going to
0:16.7	go viral.
0:17.7	We have a lot more work to do.
0:20.4	And Eric and I had to say, okay, we've got another nine months where we're going to have
0:24.7	to buckle down.
0:26.0	I mean, at times, this has been the hardest thing I could ever imagine.
0:29.9	There's been times when we've all thought, oh my gosh, this is the hardest thing we've
0:34.8	ever done.
0:44.0	Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories
0:50.0	behind the movements they built.
0:55.4	I'm Guy Raaz and on the show today, how David Bazooki pivoted for making physics software
1:01.3	into creating Roblox, a virtual gaming platform with more than 200 million monthly users.
1:08.6	A few months ago, I was going through emails on my laptop.
1:15.7	A nosy, 11-year-old, also my youngest son, was looking over my shoulder when he shrieked
1:21.4	out.
1:22.4	And he said, you have an email from David Bazooki.
1:26.0	How do you know who David Bazooki is, I asked?
1:29.1	Daddy, he replied, everyone knows David Bazooki, he's the founder of Roblox.
1:34.4	Need a list to say, a few weeks later, when I interviewed David Bazooki, I had an in-studio
1:40.8	guest by my side.
	...

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