Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Now, if you have children,
Speaker 1: the chances of you knowing about Roadblocks are pretty high.
Speaker 1: It's a virtual universe, of course, that allows users to create,
Speaker 1: to collaborate nearly eighty five million daily active users. Roadblocks
Speaker 1: is out with a slew of announcements, including a partnership
Speaker 1: with Google, as well as new parental controls. Shares rallying
Speaker 1: following the news and let's just unpack it all in
Speaker 1: inexclusive conversation with Roblox CEO David Bazuki. David is great
Speaker 1: to have you on the show, and I'm so interested
Speaker 1: in what analysts are calling right now a smart strategic move,
Speaker 1: this partnership with Google. What brands are responding to this
Speaker 1: new partnership we've unveiled.
Speaker 2: Hey, great to be on the show and want to
Speaker 2: highlight you know, we shared a really huge vision of
Speaker 2: having ten percent of all gaming running on Roadblocks, which
Speaker 2: is a really big vision. And you know, we feel
Speaker 2: gaming is still in the prehistoric times as far as
Speaker 2: how people consume and use gaming content. We have a
Speaker 2: huge creator community who is already creating amazing businesses. This
Speaker 2: partnership with Google is another way for those creators to
Speaker 2: help build their business and monetize. And for our older users,
Speaker 2: we're going to give our creators side by side virtual
Speaker 2: currency and side by side subscriptions another way to help
Speaker 2: build their business on roadblocks. We have many creators making
Speaker 2: over ten million dollars a year on the platform and
Speaker 2: some making over fifty million dollars a year. So this
Speaker 2: is really sponsoring big emerging studios building on our platform.
Speaker 1: It's about the ecosystem. I'm interested you say for older users,
Speaker 1: who do you think the brands really want to expose
Speaker 1: themselves to right now? In terms of generations? Is it
Speaker 1: still all about gen z? Is it skewing upward?
Speaker 2: We shared the vision once again of ultimately getting to
Speaker 2: a billion daily active users on platform with this intermediate
Speaker 2: step of ten percent of gaming, and in last quarter
Speaker 2: we shared a lot of fun stats are seventeen through
Speaker 2: twenty four age group is growing very rapidly. We've become
Speaker 2: a platform where more of our users are over thirteen.
Speaker 2: That seventeen through twenty four year old segment is really
Speaker 2: hard to reach.
Speaker 3: More and more of them are on roadblocks.
Speaker 2: As we start to have amazing experiences, whether it's NFL
Speaker 2: Universe dressed to dress to impress experiences where these types
Speaker 2: of users are on our platform.
Speaker 1: Dress to impress immediately makes me think about, well, obviously
Speaker 1: the retail opportunity for brands, but also how it becomes
Speaker 1: synonymous with physical well too, take us forward is what
Speaker 1: really advertising will eventually be? For roadblocks?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, if we step forward, way forward in a
Speaker 2: sci fi scenario, I can imagine, just like it's fun
Speaker 2: to go shopping at the mall today, it's of course
Speaker 2: we're going to go shopping with our virtual avatars. We're
Speaker 2: going to be able to go to stores, see our
Speaker 2: favorite brands. We're going to be able to try clothing
Speaker 2: on and see how it looks on our avatar. We're
Speaker 2: going to have a lot of fun doing it, and
Speaker 2: when we want to buy the physical or the virtual item,
Speaker 2: we'll be able to make that purchase. So we may
Speaker 2: look back in ten or twenty years ago, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: it was weird that all of our shopping on the
Speaker 2: web was two D rather than jumping forward to a
Speaker 2: future three D and ultimately four dimensional world. So someday
Speaker 2: maybe we'll go virtual shopping together.
Speaker 1: Well, advertisers are going to be excited buy it. The
Speaker 1: analyst is excited by it because ultimately this will become
Speaker 1: a bigger and bigger part of your business model. When
Speaker 1: do you think you'll be able to break it out
Speaker 1: and show just how much advertising is bringing to your
Speaker 1: bottom line?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we once again on this journey to getting over
Speaker 2: ten percent of the gaming market space. We've shared we
Speaker 2: expect to be growing our bookings at over twenty percent
Speaker 2: year on year continuously going forward while generating a lot
Speaker 2: of cash. And we are looking forward to when we
Speaker 2: break out the advertising revenue and the commerce revenue we
Speaker 2: haven't shared.
Speaker 3: When we will do that.
Speaker 1: Come on the show, Dave, on the show. What you
Speaker 1: got to break it for us on the show?
Speaker 2: Oh, I can't break it on the show, but I'll
Speaker 2: call you before we break it out and I'll let
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that nook more seriously for brands to really
Speaker 1: commit here and to stick with it, for your users
Speaker 1: to remain it's also all about safety. I know you've
Speaker 1: been putting a lot of thought into that. You've got
Speaker 1: new parental controls that you're announcing today for us, Dave,
Speaker 1: talk us through them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll take a step back even when we first
Speaker 2: launched the platform very early on. Our goal was to
Speaker 2: build the safest place on the Internet, and as a
Speaker 2: Roadbox has become more embedded in our culture, we're constantly
Speaker 2: shipping safety improvements. We're really trying to support parents to
Speaker 2: make great decisions for their family. So we already preemptively
Speaker 2: have screen time limits on Roadblocks. Parents can set that
Speaker 2: with their family. We're announcing today more parental visibility. Parents
Speaker 2: will be able to see where the people and their family,
Speaker 2: the younger people at least, are playing on Roadblocks. They're
Speaker 2: going to have more and more control of who their
Speaker 2: kids are friends with, and they'll actually have control over
Speaker 2: what experiences they might say is not appropriate for our family.
Speaker 2: So this notion of focusing on safety and giving parents control,
Speaker 2: in addition to all of the other safety work we do,
Speaker 2: is really a big priority for us.
Speaker 1: How does that fit with the kids actually experience, Dave,
Speaker 1: And do you think in any way we'll start to
Speaker 1: see less time spent on the product.
Speaker 2: We once again there's something really cool about Roadblocks and
Speaker 2: this form of social media. The form of social media
Speaker 2: that Roadblox is really communication and connection. And when I
Speaker 2: was a kid, sometime on rainy days I would pick
Speaker 2: up the phone and that's how I'd hang out with
Speaker 2: my friends. Roadblocks is less about sharing short videos and
Speaker 2: watching them by myself or sharing images of myself. It's
Speaker 2: about doing things with other people, and so I think parents,
Speaker 2: working with the young people and their family will figure
Speaker 2: out what's right for them.
Speaker 1: At one point, you did suggest that if parents don't
Speaker 1: trust the product, they should keep their kids off. What's
Speaker 1: the reaction been to that, right.
Speaker 2: Well, I think there was a lot more context to that.
Speaker 2: What we were talking about is comfort and the noes in.
Speaker 2: We think parents should be comfortable with what the young
Speaker 2: people are doing on their platform.
Speaker 3: We do.
Speaker 2: You know, safeties are our top priority. We're shipping safety
Speaker 2: improvements every week and this is just one of many
Speaker 2: many announcements. You know, one of the biggest things we
Speaker 2: do on Roadblocks is try to keep people on our
Speaker 2: platform so they don't go to other platforms where they
Speaker 2: may share images or where they may chat with unfiltered texts.
Speaker 2: So that quote I made was about parents should be
Speaker 2: comfortable with what their family is doing.
Speaker 1: How much can AI make them more comfortable?
Speaker 2: So behind the scenes before we're in an amazing time
Speaker 2: with AI right now, it's changing how we create. It's
Speaker 2: changing ultimately how people create on roadblocks. And we think
Speaker 2: what's going to happen on roadblocks is rather than maybe
Speaker 2: the text world or the image world, which is the.
Speaker 3: One D world or the two D world.
Speaker 2: On roadblocks, we're going to be supporting the three D
Speaker 2: world where people are building three D objects behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: We've been building an AI platform for four years. We
Speaker 2: have over two hundred models running on roadblocks. All of
Speaker 2: the images that people use when they're creating, all of
Speaker 2: the text, all of the voice on roadblocks runs through
Speaker 2: some of these models, and so AA.
Speaker 3: Has really been a foundation of what we've done.
Speaker 2: We are our voice model is so good and so
Speaker 2: efficient that we've shared it on hugging Face so other
Speaker 2: companies can use it. I was just at the Game
Speaker 2: Developers Conference. I ran into a startup and I said,
Speaker 2: how are you going to do voice safety? And they said,
Speaker 2: we're going to use your open source voice models. So
Speaker 2: we're really trying to give back to the community and
Speaker 2: these areas where we've got, you know, expertise, and we've
Speaker 2: also joined a consortium to try to make this open
Speaker 2: source for more small companies.
Speaker 1: Now consortium roost Robust online open safety tools alongside Google
Speaker 1: and discord just how collaborative is it with other platforms
Speaker 1: when it comes to or is there more collaboration needed day.
Speaker 2: We're one of the founding members. We want to more
Speaker 2: and more make open source. Some of the models we've
Speaker 2: built for safety Voices is arguably one of the first
Speaker 2: steps for that, and it's exciting to me that I'm
Speaker 2: starting to hear of small startup companies who will simply
Speaker 2: use our voice model. We've also made our three D
Speaker 2: foundational AI model, the Cube model, also open source, and
Speaker 2: we believe once again these foundational models, because we have
Speaker 2: such an expertise in training and building them, can be
Speaker 2: used by others.
Speaker 1: I just go back to what you said at the
Speaker 1: start there, Dave, that you wanted to build the safest
Speaker 1: place on the Internet all the way back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six. The world was such a different place
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, and yes, we might as
Speaker 1: parents have been anxious about what our kids were doing
Speaker 1: on the streets. But now we've got an anxiety level
Speaker 1: around all of what could be going on the Internet.
Speaker 1: And then you add AI on top of that, and
Speaker 1: the moderation crisis that evolves of that have ever more
Speaker 1: content that you have to oversee. Just what does it
Speaker 1: feel like as someone who I know is a parent
Speaker 1: has their nephew nieces using roadblocks is really thoughtful about
Speaker 1: the future of Internet? Does it upset you or how
Speaker 1: does it make you respond when the worst of humanity
Speaker 1: creeps on it.
Speaker 2: I'm surprisingly very optimistic, and I'm surprising, you know. I'm
Speaker 2: optimistic because more and more, from the safety standpoint, AI
Speaker 2: gives us enormous power and enormous tools to help moderate
Speaker 2: both content as well as communication. On the creation side,
Speaker 2: I'm very optimistic because I more and more people on
Speaker 2: roadblocks are going to become creators, and people who feel
Speaker 2: they could never have designed clothing, or could never have
Speaker 2: designed a new house, or could never design a sports
Speaker 2: car are going to start being able to design these
Speaker 2: things by talking about them and not just design them
Speaker 2: one time, but iterate on them, improve on them. So
Speaker 2: just like digital tools like Photoshop replaced oil painting, I
Speaker 2: actually feel AI is gonna make us all feel more
Speaker 2: like creators and supercharged creativity amongst all of us.
Speaker 1: So we love the low five vibes of roadblocks in
Speaker 1: the past. How much is it going to become high
Speaker 1: fidelity what we're currently seeing on our screens.
Speaker 2: The long term spec for the product, and really one
Speaker 2: of the most difficult specifications of any technical platform is
Speaker 2: giving artists complete freedom. And with video right now, we
Speaker 2: could argue that artists have freedom. We see animation, we
Speaker 2: see anime, we see photorealistic, we see hyper realistic. We're
Speaker 2: introducing more and more functionality, and we mentioned this part
Speaker 2: of the the notion that we want to have ten
Speaker 2: percent of the gaming space on our platform, so ultimately
Speaker 2: artists can either go our traditional blocky style, a more
Speaker 2: realistic style, or ultimately, with some of the cloud facilities,
Speaker 2: we're building high res styles that they're used to in
Speaker 2: some of the other types of games they see out
Speaker 2: there in the market.
Speaker 1: You talk about how you want to serve the market,
Speaker 1: the ecosystem, the developers you've done. I mean, the value
Speaker 1: creation that we've seen with one of the key developers
Speaker 1: being Brookhaven, has been phenomenal. They sold out of oldex.
Speaker 1: Do you know the sort of size of deal and
Speaker 1: how many millions are going for those sorts of purchases.
Speaker 3: I can't comment on the size of the deal.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure the deals are starting to get into
Speaker 2: nine figures, not eight figures. At the Roadblocks Developer conference
Speaker 2: last September, one of my ten prognostications was, We're going
Speaker 2: to see a billion dollar market value.
Speaker 3: Deal for a studio on.
Speaker 2: Roadblocks, and arguably we should see that happen. If we
Speaker 2: keep pushing the technology for the gaming space, and if
Speaker 2: we have ten percent of the gaming in the world
Speaker 2: running on our platform, we're going to see more and
Speaker 2: more of those studios start to show up.
Speaker 1: Talking about gaming, but you're also talking about how this
Speaker 1: is ultimately a social endeavor. Who is your competitor right now?
Speaker 1: Is it eyes and minutes spent on TikTok and social
Speaker 1: media or is it other gaming platforms.
Speaker 3: It's an interesting metaphor it.
Speaker 2: As we think about competition, we think more about this
Speaker 2: vision we have in the company, and also what is
Speaker 2: technically possible with today's technology.
Speaker 3: We know it's technically possible ultimately.
Speaker 2: For a young creator to build a really interesting experience,
Speaker 2: have it immediately be live in any country, it be
Speaker 2: within the policies of any country, have it automatically translated
Speaker 2: to any language, and have it run either on a
Speaker 2: very low end device, a two gigabyte RAM phone or
Speaker 2: a super high end gaming PC and allow people to
Speaker 2: join that experience instantaneously without a download. Because we know
Speaker 2: all of this is possible and we're building it as
Speaker 2: quickly as we can. We do sometimes think our competition
Speaker 2: is our own ability to iterate quickly.
Speaker 1: Some might say about TikTok being a competitor. We had
Speaker 1: Jesse Tinsley on the show previously. He said, you're supporting
Speaker 1: his bid for TikTok on a personal perspective? Are you
Speaker 1: still day.
Speaker 2: A high level I won't comment on what bid I'm supporting.
Speaker 2: I do think there's one of the things we're highlighting
Speaker 2: in our discovery system is transparency, and I think there's
Speaker 2: an underlying theme of all of these bids. Whether the
Speaker 2: algorithm is running in the US or at the lead,
Speaker 2: it's completely transparent. I think people all around the world
Speaker 2: would like to see transparency in these algorithms. One of
Speaker 2: the things we're doing more and more on roadblocks for
Speaker 2: the creators who also our users find cool experiences on
Speaker 2: roadblocks is being very transparent with how our algorithm is working,
Speaker 2: so developers can can know how we're forwarding things to
Speaker 2: the user. But I do think whatever the bid on
Speaker 2: TikTok is, we're going to see transparency of that algorithm
Speaker 2: and arguably an air gap where that algorithm has to run.
Speaker 1: In the United States, the administration pretty involved in the
Speaker 1: TikTok bid. Now the administration, the current SEC now inheriting
Speaker 1: a potential investigation into Roadblocks. How is that going day?
Speaker 3: I can't comment on that.
Speaker 2: I constantly say we run an extremely type ship and
Speaker 2: we're very proud of everything we do.
Speaker 1: Pride is something you want to make global. And you're
Speaker 1: talking about how people can create immersive world and immediately
Speaker 1: go into any language, any country right here right now,
Speaker 1: it's quite difficult to be a global country company when
Speaker 1: based in the US. How do you feel about the
Speaker 1: trade anxiety that's currently undergoing and what it means for
Speaker 1: your business?
Speaker 3: I was just in Emirates at the World Forum, and what.
Speaker 2: Was interesting is in Emirates there are some top Roadblocks
Speaker 2: creators who are are contributing code to some of the
Speaker 2: top experiences on the platform, and also some top creators
Speaker 2: who are are fashion creators who are doing quite well
Speaker 2: in the virtual economy on the platform. I'm optimistic for
Speaker 2: platforms like Roadblocks where there's a demand for amazing content
Speaker 2: more and more of our creators, whether they're in the USA,
Speaker 2: whether they're in the Gulf region, whether they're down in Brazil,
Speaker 2: where you.
Speaker 3: Know, we have an enormous activity.
Speaker 2: I'm really excited that we can offer a global economy
Speaker 2: for these creators, and we see our top creators coming
Speaker 2: from all around the world dressed to impress team.
Speaker 3: For example, I believe.
Speaker 1: Is in the UK your username is build Aman. Are
Speaker 1: you still busy building a view that this is going
Speaker 1: to be the metaverse that we're going to live in
Speaker 1: that in the next few years? Is that what the
Speaker 1: ultimate vision is here day?
Speaker 2: The vision we have is humans are always trying to
Speaker 2: find a way to communicate. And we used to use
Speaker 2: the mail system, we use the phone system, we use texting,
Speaker 2: we're on video, we're communicating on video, and we believe
Speaker 2: three D communication is going to sit side by side
Speaker 2: with that.
Speaker 3: Three D communication is pretty interesting.
Speaker 2: We can change our avatar, we can play Hide and
Speaker 2: Seek together, we can go to a concert together. So
Speaker 2: we're really optimistic about what we call this evolution to
Speaker 2: three D and fort dy communication. We think it's going
Speaker 2: to be big. We think this is a natural evolution
Speaker 2: of technology. We're in a great opportunity to help usher
Speaker 2: this in in a safe and civil way. And when
Speaker 2: we get back to building, we actually call our people
Speaker 2: and our team with in Roadblocks builders, so that that
Speaker 2: builder man idea has has really stayed with us.
Speaker 1: David Zuki, great to have you on the show. Co
Speaker 1: founder CEO Roadblocks, Stay well,