Speaker 1: So in real life you're the CEO of Roadblocks, but
Speaker 1: on Roadblocks your builder man, you know that name. We
Speaker 1: just thought it up when um is, maybe two weeks
Speaker 1: after we launched, and we were all picking our own
Speaker 1: user names and everyone picked one night. So you've had
Speaker 1: the same avatar since two thousand four. That's right, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Do you still play? I do. I wish I could
Speaker 1: play the whole day. I have to be a CEO.
Speaker 1: So how often do you play? I'm probably on every day,
Speaker 1: but not as much as I would like. I have
Speaker 1: four kids. I have a nine year old son who's
Speaker 1: on Roadblocks a lot. He said his favorite games are
Speaker 1: the Tycoon games. Oh, lumber Tycoon, theme Park Tycoon. I
Speaker 1: love those. I love all of those. I have a
Speaker 1: bit of a theory. I have four kids, and yeah
Speaker 1: they're now they've grown up watching me do this and
Speaker 1: other they're pretty savvy social media people. But I'm optimistic
Speaker 1: someday they're going to be using Roadblocks for some other reason,
Speaker 1: like communicating or more working or something like that, and
Speaker 1: then they're going to be, oh gosh, as like forest
Speaker 1: to the Roadblocks. Hi everyone, I'm Emily Chang and welcome
Speaker 1: to this edition of the bloom Brook Studio One point
Speaker 1: Oh podcast. On this edition of Boombrook Studio at one
Speaker 1: point Oh, we're speaking with Roadblocks CEO and co founder
Speaker 1: David Bazuki, or as he's known on Roadblocks Builderman, a
Speaker 1: portmanteau of robots and blocks. Roadblocks started as a three
Speaker 1: D world where users could build, share, and play games.
Speaker 1: Thanks to the pandemic, it has boomed into a global
Speaker 1: online gaming juggernaut that kids are obsessed with, racking up
Speaker 1: ten billion plus hours on the platform a quarter. It's
Speaker 1: been a slow build. Roadblocks launched in two thousand four
Speaker 1: and was building its version of the Metaverse long before
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg changed Facebook's name to Meta. In this episode,
Speaker 1: Bazooky paints his vision for the immersive and interconnected future
Speaker 1: where users can not only play roller coaster games, but
Speaker 1: attend town halls, go to school, industry conferences, concerts, and
Speaker 1: even political rallies one day. Is this future really possible?
Speaker 1: And how far out is it? And how do we
Speaker 1: cultivate a civil digital society within it that keeps kids safe?
Speaker 1: Joining me now on this edition of Bloombrook Studio At
Speaker 1: one point Oh, Roadblocks CEO and co founder, David Buzuki.
Speaker 1: David's so great to have you here. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful to be with you. Well, I'm a parent,
Speaker 1: I'm a mom, and so I've been really excited um
Speaker 1: to have this conversation for parents and anyone out there
Speaker 1: who still doesn't quite understand what exactly our kids doing
Speaker 1: on roadblocks. Yeah, kids on roadblocks aren't just playing, they're learning.
Speaker 1: They're hanging out together when they can't be together in
Speaker 1: real life. They're hanging out on roadblocks. They could be
Speaker 1: playing hide and go seek. They could be pretending they're
Speaker 1: running a store or a pizza arler. They could be
Speaker 1: making the next big game or adventure. So it's really
Speaker 1: a wide range of things, and it involves doing things together,
Speaker 1: pretending you're together. So right now it's mostly games or
Speaker 1: experiences for kids by kids. How old are these players,
Speaker 1: How old are these developers? Yeah, so what's really exciting.
Speaker 1: It's almost like in the old days people to have
Speaker 1: a paper route or something like that, and now in
Speaker 1: today's world, we see young players starting to build these
Speaker 1: experiences on roadblocks. And one thing that a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't realize everything on Roadblocks has been built by
Speaker 1: the community, millions of experiences, avatars, what people wear, the clothing,
Speaker 1: all of that. We have young players who are getting
Speaker 1: interested in coding, who are getting interested in designing things.
Speaker 1: But more and more of the community on Roadblocks has
Speaker 1: blossomed into this super rich ecosystem. Thousands of developers making
Speaker 1: a living on the platform. Some of the studios this
Speaker 1: year will have over a hundred people in the studio.
Speaker 1: Some of these developers are making tens or twenties or
Speaker 1: fifty millions of dollars a year. A lot of people
Speaker 1: are starting to make a living on the platform. So
Speaker 1: how many of these developers are really kids? And how
Speaker 1: many of these developers are now grown ups? Yeah, well
Speaker 1: I think two million plus developers. A lot of them
Speaker 1: are grown ups, and more and more, in addition to
Speaker 1: the natural organic people that started on Roadblocks, we're starting
Speaker 1: to studios come in on the platform as well. Professional
Speaker 1: game developers who are developing on other platforms starting to
Speaker 1: take a look at it. So our developer demo naturally
Speaker 1: leans a little bit older, although we've had kids as
Speaker 1: young as thirteen come to our developer conference and actually
Speaker 1: pay to bring their parents to the Developer Conference, which
Speaker 1: is ACT, which is amazing. Of the users on roadblocks,
Speaker 1: which there's over fifty million every day we recently passed,
Speaker 1: the majority of them are over thirteen rather than under thirteen,
Speaker 1: so they've they've grown up with us and they've stayed
Speaker 1: with us. Interesting. Is there something about preserving the ability
Speaker 1: for young kids to be able to make games for
Speaker 1: other kids? I mean, because obviously if you have you know,
Speaker 1: fancy studios muscling in UM, does that change the dynamic
Speaker 1: of the PLATF I think it does. I think we
Speaker 1: see more interesting new ideas that are maybe riskier that
Speaker 1: we might not see from a professional game studio. We
Speaker 1: see interesting game dynamics. UM. One of my favorite experiences
Speaker 1: as natural disasters that's been on the platform forever by
Speaker 1: one of our early developers. It's not the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that I think a normal studio would ever think of,
Speaker 1: but when developed by young creator, you know, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be we're gonna be hanging out together and there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a hurricane and we've got to like run away
Speaker 1: from it, or there's gonna be a lightning storm, like
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. We see a lot of that
Speaker 1: creative gameplay coming from the younger developers. Um, what were
Speaker 1: you into as a kid? Were you a gamer? I
Speaker 1: was kind of a nerd when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: I was studied really hard. I luckily grew up in
Speaker 1: Eden Prairie, Minnesota. At the time, it was out in
Speaker 1: the boonies from Minneapolis, Minnesota's there were sand pits and
Speaker 1: so we did a lot of model rockets, and we
Speaker 1: built go carts, and you know, it's kind of one
Speaker 1: of these idyllic childhoods. The one key thing that happened
Speaker 1: to me very early on as we had a computer
Speaker 1: lab in the school, and then my parents bought me
Speaker 1: an Apple two at the time, and that kind of
Speaker 1: got me interested in this. I also heard you were
Speaker 1: the captain of your high school TV quiz team. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so think of think of Minnesota in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties where every weekend two different schools compete for
Speaker 1: students from each school, you know, in a really funny
Speaker 1: four by four configurations on a quizzble thing. So yeah,
Speaker 1: Eden Prairie had a pretty good quiz Bowl team. I
Speaker 1: love that. You eventually made it to Silicon Valley, went
Speaker 1: to Stanford. You started a company called knowledge revolution in
Speaker 1: the eighties where users could create and test physics experiments.
Speaker 1: That's right. So the science kid in you coming to life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, went to school, had a couple of hard
Speaker 1: years with jobs that weren't really that exciting. Took a
Speaker 1: few months off and I got really excited about there's
Speaker 1: this whole blossoming educational software marketplace in the Macintosh had
Speaker 1: just been introduced, and it was just really interesting, exciting.
Speaker 1: I did a survey of all of that, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the educational software was very pre canned. So
Speaker 1: when we looked at physics, it was a whole different idea.
Speaker 1: Could we make a wide open laboratory where you could
Speaker 1: build anything, any physics experiment, bring it to life, measure it,
Speaker 1: see what it feels like. And a funny anecdote of
Speaker 1: all of that is when we went to watch students
Speaker 1: playing with interactive physics at the time, a lot of
Speaker 1: them were just building stuff, building cars and buildings and
Speaker 1: playing around. Really, you sold that company, made some money,
Speaker 1: you became an investor, and you invested in friends Ster.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, wow, I had a friends Store account. I'm
Speaker 1: dating myself a little bit here, but I had a
Speaker 1: friend's stir account. Um, I'm curious what you learned from
Speaker 1: the early days of social media. Yeah, so one thing
Speaker 1: I learned is it was really fun to invest, but
Speaker 1: it's not my sweet spot. Like my sweet spot is
Speaker 1: trying to build and create things. I remember I think
Speaker 1: having account number seventy nine on Friends there and just
Speaker 1: seeing that wonderful thing of finding other people friend of friends,
Speaker 1: playing around with that early user interface. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit almost thinking of interactive physics where we were simulating
Speaker 1: the world, and then friends they're seeing how important social is.
Speaker 1: Those are a couple of the components that have come
Speaker 1: together in roadblocks. Google almost bought friends stir right, and
Speaker 1: I don't know, but those are the early days of
Speaker 1: social networking, you know, Friendster or kid my Space, pre Facebook.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was things were just getting rolling. I
Speaker 1: just wonder if that had happened, what if something might
Speaker 1: have been different? Right? Yeah, I hate to, of course
Speaker 1: roll back the clock on that company. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: there there were some things I think that added friction
Speaker 1: to them, and ultimately they didn't end up being the
Speaker 1: dominant player. Any thoughts about Twitter, who should buy it? Oh?
Speaker 1: Such a difficult thing, you know, I think the philosophical question,
Speaker 1: is Twitter and newspaper that's heavily edited, or is it
Speaker 1: a platform which is kind of the spigot of all
Speaker 1: the world's information or somewhere in between. Is a very
Speaker 1: difficult job to be the CEO of Twitter and figure
Speaker 1: out what how do we moderate? What's our vision of
Speaker 1: what kind of content is on that platform? Do you
Speaker 1: think Elon Musk could do it better than the job
Speaker 1: has been done so far. I'm a big believer in
Speaker 1: these platforms trying to have a lot of consistency, and
Speaker 1: we think about right now roadblocks when we think about
Speaker 1: how we run civility and safety, which is just so
Speaker 1: important for us. Because we lean so heavily into civility
Speaker 1: and safety, we almost have an easier job. Whereas a
Speaker 1: platform like Twitter, with just such a wide range of
Speaker 1: stories and news and people. What is information? What is disinformation?
Speaker 1: What is fact? What is not? I think it's a
Speaker 1: very difficult job. Interesting, So what do you think the
Speaker 1: solution is we, I mean are I'll talk about roadblocks
Speaker 1: and our vision because we we do imagine there's a
Speaker 1: time when platforms like Roadblocks are for play, for learning,
Speaker 1: for working together. Someday there may even be political rallies
Speaker 1: on a platform like Roadblocks, and so thinking through when
Speaker 1: would we allow that, when would we not? It takes
Speaker 1: a lot of visionary thinking. One thing that's very interesting
Speaker 1: about these platforms is that we do have a set
Speaker 1: of laws and guidelines and things that we're used to
Speaker 1: in the real world. Like we're we kind of know
Speaker 1: what we can do in the physical world. Could you
Speaker 1: do this? Some things, of course we could. We can
Speaker 1: rent a stadium, we can get together with people. Some
Speaker 1: things of course we can't. You know, we can't call
Speaker 1: for violence, we can't sell certain things. So tuning in
Speaker 1: on the laws of the physical world is actually an
Speaker 1: interesting starting point for thinking about how we might run
Speaker 1: a metaverse that someday has a lot of different people
Speaker 1: on it. So when you started Roadblocks in two thousand four,
Speaker 1: were you thinking about any of this or what was
Speaker 1: the idea back then? I wasn't thinking about this question
Speaker 1: right now, which is so difficult. Um what I was
Speaker 1: thinking about And I think this started well beyond before
Speaker 1: two thousand four. There was a trip I was taking once.
Speaker 1: I was driving across the country to northern Canada. It
Speaker 1: was snowing for two days. I was visiting my grandparents,
Speaker 1: and in the midst of that, the feeling of this
Speaker 1: new category for me started feeling almost inexorable. It's a
Speaker 1: category that people have been talking about in sci fi
Speaker 1: for many, many years. We've seen futurists talk about it.
Speaker 1: We've seen a lot of movies. So I started seeing
Speaker 1: this category is going to happen. But we weren't thinking
Speaker 1: about all these complex issues. We were thinking, Yes, immersive
Speaker 1: three D coexperience. What's the next evolution from the from
Speaker 1: you know, telephone to video call to immersive three D call.
Speaker 1: That started to seem very very natural. Kids flocked to
Speaker 1: Roadblocks during the pandemic. We went public in the middle
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. Dollar market cap we spoke on that day.
Speaker 1: Even you have said that kind of growth won't keep up.
Speaker 1: What kind of growth can we expect from roadblocks in
Speaker 1: normal times? Yeah, well this is It's what's so exciting
Speaker 1: for us running this company. It's almost as if um
Speaker 1: it's ten years after Mr Bell developed the phone. You know,
Speaker 1: it's very early on in this, but this is ultimately
Speaker 1: a category we believe every It's gonna be a part
Speaker 1: of all of our lives. It's going to be the
Speaker 1: way we communicate how people get to go to school
Speaker 1: when they can't get into school, how people they're going
Speaker 1: to go to school in roadblocks. I think ultimately some
Speaker 1: people who can't go to physical school will use immersive
Speaker 1: three D technology to go beyond video school, so that
Speaker 1: if we if I happen to be taking my science
Speaker 1: class and I can't get into the classroom and we're
Speaker 1: dissecting a frog, will probably dissect a frog in something
Speaker 1: like roadblocks on a simulation, which I think is going
Speaker 1: to be very, very powerful. And for our company, where
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that are going to end
Speaker 1: up working all around the world, some of us will
Speaker 1: be in the office, some won't. Having a common three
Speaker 1: D place where we can have those water cooler conversations
Speaker 1: where everyone has a desk, but we get that serendipitous
Speaker 1: thing where we both happen to go over and chat.
Speaker 1: I think also is going to be very big. So
Speaker 1: UM this is a very big category. I believe it's
Speaker 1: ultimately going to be just as natural as video or phone.
Speaker 1: We're all gonna have it. But it's very early on
Speaker 1: in that UM. There are now more than two million
Speaker 1: experience ances on roadblocks right you mentioned the possibility of
Speaker 1: political rallies. We've seen concerts. A Little nas concert drew
Speaker 1: thirty three million people. How is it that experiences right
Speaker 1: now rise to the top and how do you see
Speaker 1: that evolving as the platform grows. Yeah, so it's really exciting.
Speaker 1: I met Little Naz at the Grammys. Awesome, And the
Speaker 1: concert was really exciting for us because for artists who
Speaker 1: are used to either Okay, I'm music online streaming or
Speaker 1: I'm doing a physical concert. It's almost as if it's
Speaker 1: the third possible way. It's an immersive, three D concert
Speaker 1: where so many people can come. What was his feedback, Oh,
Speaker 1: we talked about the songs that we used. I shared
Speaker 1: that I watched the concert with my daughter. Um. I
Speaker 1: got a really great picture with him. He was very
Speaker 1: busy because he had just performed, so we didn't get
Speaker 1: to hang out too much. Um. But anyways, No, I
Speaker 1: I do think that, I mean, artists really excited about
Speaker 1: that this potential, right, I think so, I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's almost like when Disney said We're going from black
Speaker 1: and white to color. There's a new medium here for artists.
Speaker 1: I really think this is a third way to perform
Speaker 1: and connect with fans, and I can see I see
Speaker 1: a future where artists who might want a more intimate venue,
Speaker 1: maybe a thousand people, they can connect with simul performing
Speaker 1: with a live audience of a thousand and a digital
Speaker 1: audience of ten million, all at the same time, so
Speaker 1: they can kind of get feedback from that. So I
Speaker 1: really think it's early and it's a huge opportunity for
Speaker 1: artists to connect with their fans. So what happens to
Speaker 1: real world concerts? What changes about the real world if
Speaker 1: there are so many opportunities in the digital world. I
Speaker 1: think real world concerts are here forever. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: so intimate and they're so awesome. But I think what
Speaker 1: may happen is some artists may choose more intimate venues
Speaker 1: where you know, the fans they're participating with our closer
Speaker 1: to them, so they can connect and make eye contact
Speaker 1: and all of that. And it may be that the
Speaker 1: fans that are all the way in the top of
Speaker 1: the stadium still want to be there in person, so
Speaker 1: that's not going to go away. But instead of sixty
Speaker 1: thou fans, I think there'll be ten million fans and
Speaker 1: there'll be a lot more room for other fans. There's
Speaker 1: a big concern about how, you know, the rise of
Speaker 1: digital experiences or the metaverse will impact real world connections,
Speaker 1: real life connections. So you know, you and I have
Speaker 1: done interviews virtually, and I can say, sitting with you
Speaker 1: here right now, it's a it's a totally different and
Speaker 1: much richer experience. Do you worry about that at all? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we think about this a lot, and we think about
Speaker 1: other technologies that have influenced that. You know, the telephone,
Speaker 1: pure audio versus in person. It's sometimes harder to get
Speaker 1: a connection when we're on the phone then we're in person.
Speaker 1: We're pretty optimistic about this, and we're pretty optimistic that
Speaker 1: between all all the different ways people connect phone, video, SMS,
Speaker 1: ultimately super high quality immersive three D, the people will
Speaker 1: naturally choose the balance of them. But yeah, even within
Speaker 1: our companies, M me personally, I think it's hard to
Speaker 1: beat physical connection in most cases. Everybody is talking about
Speaker 1: the metaverse as something that's going to happen in the future,
Speaker 1: but there's an argument to be made that Roadblocks has
Speaker 1: already built a metaverse. What do you think I think
Speaker 1: we've started And um, it goes back to how exciting
Speaker 1: it is to have a company in this space that
Speaker 1: I think is ultimately got so many years of growth
Speaker 1: to it, and as a new category following other types
Speaker 1: of technologies, there's still so much innovation to be done
Speaker 1: and there's so much invention to be done in this
Speaker 1: category that's mind boggling. We're still very far away from
Speaker 1: that that little nas concert having fifty thousand people in
Speaker 1: the stadium and having it feel real. Um, we're still
Speaker 1: far away from when you and I communicate rather than
Speaker 1: calling on the phone, we're gonna do a roadblocks three
Speaker 1: D call. You know, we're ways away from that. So's
Speaker 1: just still so much innovation and invention to happen here.
Speaker 1: The critics think that metaverse, the term is just marketing.
Speaker 1: How do you respond to that? Yeah, I I really
Speaker 1: think this is a huge new category, going all the
Speaker 1: way back to snow crash. You know, it's inexorable. This
Speaker 1: type of technology is much more difficult than the net
Speaker 1: or the web, which was another huge thing that we
Speaker 1: saw predicted and has started to come. But but I
Speaker 1: think we're seeing early signs of it. We're seeing in
Speaker 1: addition to playing on roadblocks um first robotics, for example,
Speaker 1: getting into learning where you know, building robots in a competition.
Speaker 1: Not everyone has access to all of that hardware and
Speaker 1: all of those tools. So starting to think about, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, there's a digital version of it where we
Speaker 1: can build their robots together and go compete. We're starting
Speaker 1: to see those kind of things, and so I'm I'm
Speaker 1: very optimistic that this category is really big. When Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg announced his plan to own the metaverse and change
Speaker 1: Facebook's name to Meta as if it was something new,
Speaker 1: did that kind of bother you, Um, No, of course not.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the This is so big and
Speaker 1: so early, it's really hard to predict. In five to
Speaker 1: ten or twenty years, what are the companies that really
Speaker 1: figure it out. And there's so many elements of innovation
Speaker 1: that are needed. Um, having a U g C community
Speaker 1: one of our strengths. We think that's like a huge
Speaker 1: starting point for us. But we're early in our quest
Speaker 1: for innovation here. I think having these platforms based on
Speaker 1: civility is a huge thing. I'm very proud that we
Speaker 1: started from a younger audience because we've had to focus
Speaker 1: so much on that. So so thinking of these platforms
Speaker 1: is a place where the world ultimately gets better. People
Speaker 1: learn civility on platforms like this, maybe even where they
Speaker 1: don't in the real world. So I'm very optimistic about that.
Speaker 1: Are you optimistic about Meta's ability to do that? Because
Speaker 1: I've spoken to other gaming executives who don't think Facebook
Speaker 1: is an innovative company. You know, I can't call like
Speaker 1: I get. I think everyone's trying really hard, and I
Speaker 1: think everyone realizes this is a huge emerging opportunity. Once again,
Speaker 1: following on telephone video, what's it going to be? It's
Speaker 1: still so early. Every company is trying to figure out
Speaker 1: their own view of this. It's so early that everyone
Speaker 1: has a different viewpoint on what this is. And the
Speaker 1: key point is, I think there's five or ten more
Speaker 1: big inventions and innovations that are going to have to
Speaker 1: happen along the way to make this possible. So still
Speaker 1: very early. Roadblocks has built a huge business selling row bucks,
Speaker 1: the in game currency. I want you to talk to
Speaker 1: us a little bit about what that is. You can
Speaker 1: use it to buy a new outfit for your avatar,
Speaker 1: for example. Does this evolve into a much bigger marketplace? Well,
Speaker 1: I think, um, this is how we've been able to
Speaker 1: go from hobbyists to that paper route for a thirteen
Speaker 1: year old who maybe earns a hundred dollars a month,
Speaker 1: to deciding whether to make this a full time job,
Speaker 1: to start a studio, and everything in between. And it
Speaker 1: was this revelation that people would ultimately make a living
Speaker 1: on platforms like this that started this digital currency is
Speaker 1: very roadblocks centric in that where a system's company or utility.
Speaker 1: So rather than being a roadblocks way that people monetize,
Speaker 1: our developers are very creative. They in birds Simulator UM
Speaker 1: it's all free. The majority of people on our platform
Speaker 1: never pay anything, but if you want to be an
Speaker 1: eagle more quickly, you can use a few roebucks and
Speaker 1: the developer will contribute that. Or if you want to
Speaker 1: buy motor scooter and work at a pizza place, you
Speaker 1: can use a few roebucks. So it has formed this
Speaker 1: robust economy. It's allowed us to keep robocks, you know,
Speaker 1: roadblocks is free for the vast majority, and it's created
Speaker 1: this new living. I think it's very very early because
Speaker 1: as we start to get into UM ways of working
Speaker 1: on platforms like this, on concerts, on other forms, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a huge economic opportunity on this platform. So
Speaker 1: you have Roebucks. Meta is working on something similar. Internally,
Speaker 1: they call it zack Box again you Um, we're very
Speaker 1: proud of Roebucks, right, it's it's tied into our name.
Speaker 1: UM would Roadblocks have a partner with some of these
Speaker 1: other companies working on the metaverse, whether it is Meta
Speaker 1: or Unity or Epic or Microsoft, there's We're always open
Speaker 1: to partnerships, and so when we think about the types
Speaker 1: of partnerships, I think some of these are going to
Speaker 1: be very easy. Some are going to be very difficult.
Speaker 1: The core technology of you know, how are we going
Speaker 1: to ultimately support fifty people in real time on a
Speaker 1: phone going to a concert together and waving it your friends.
Speaker 1: I think that's gonna be a lot of engineering work
Speaker 1: that each company is going to be working on, you know,
Speaker 1: probably individually, and it's going to be really hard. As
Speaker 1: far as ultimately can an avatar go from one place
Speaker 1: to another, I think they'll be lightweight ways of starting
Speaker 1: to think about that. We're already great partners with Microsoft.
Speaker 1: We're on Xbox. We love it so UM love being
Speaker 1: partners with them. We're great partners with Google, We're great
Speaker 1: partners with Apple, and there's a lot of other platforms
Speaker 1: that we might want to be partners with, and of
Speaker 1: course Facebook's got Oculus Quest, which is a VR headset,
Speaker 1: which we're we'd like to be partners with as well.
Speaker 1: So when you talk about the technological difficulties, does this
Speaker 1: mean Roadblocks whose code would need to change in order
Speaker 1: to enable more integration with some of these other parties.
Speaker 1: Not really, because the code we write on Roadblocks right
Speaker 1: now already runs on PCs and Max on iOS and Android,
Speaker 1: on Xbox or actually in this wonderful position where adding
Speaker 1: new platforms is pretty simple and straight interesting. So do
Speaker 1: you envision a bunch of different walled gardens or one
Speaker 1: large garden. I think it's too early to tell, Like
Speaker 1: everyone's trying to figure out what it's almost so early,
Speaker 1: it's like we're almost feel like we're in the CompuServe,
Speaker 1: or you know, it's really early. We just went from
Speaker 1: bulletin boards to CompuServe and the net hasn't been invented
Speaker 1: yet and everyone's still very very early. So figuring out
Speaker 1: what ultimately does this evolve two is is really hard.
Speaker 1: I think at some point in the time, how who
Speaker 1: knows how far out in the future you could imagine
Speaker 1: the same thing that happened on the web. There's the
Speaker 1: lamp stack, there's open standards, and you know, we we
Speaker 1: all kind of connect together. I think it's just a
Speaker 1: question of how far and how long that time is.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about the role you think Apple and Google
Speaker 1: should play here roadblocks back Apple in the Epic Games suit? Um,
Speaker 1: why is that? And what role should Apple and Android
Speaker 1: play in the metaverse? Yeah, so we've been very neutral
Speaker 1: in the suit and both with the Apple and Google
Speaker 1: that typically what we say is, look, um, any money,
Speaker 1: if there was a change in those store fees, if
Speaker 1: those store fees went down, that's money we would just
Speaker 1: move directly to our developer community. They're making all of this,
Speaker 1: and the more the more money that flows through to them,
Speaker 1: the better the creations can go in the In this
Speaker 1: specific example, there is just one key point and I
Speaker 1: wouldn't even you know, you can call it backing Apple
Speaker 1: or whatever, where there's a point around whether platforms, for
Speaker 1: either safety or security reasons can moderate the content on
Speaker 1: their platform. And because we're so we believe safety and
Speaker 1: civility is so important for us. That's when we said
Speaker 1: we agreed with the cord on we do think a
Speaker 1: platform should be able to moderate the content on the platform,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't a universal like yes, yes, yes, So
Speaker 1: what role do you think Apple and Android should play
Speaker 1: in the metaphors and what their policies need to change
Speaker 1: to really support this vision? Yeah, I think right now
Speaker 1: we're you know, once again, the biggest thing we would
Speaker 1: take advantage of if it were to happen, is a
Speaker 1: change in those store fees. We we stay out of it.
Speaker 1: We like Google and Apple kind of run their businesses.
Speaker 1: But when we think about more and more developers making
Speaker 1: a living on platforms like us and having to build stuff, Um,
Speaker 1: if those store fees were to change, we would move
Speaker 1: most of that money back to our developers. So, as
Speaker 1: you said, and you said this earlier, your goal is
Speaker 1: to build an entirely new category of human co experience,
Speaker 1: the next phase of human interaction. How do you moderate
Speaker 1: that on such a massive scale and are you doing
Speaker 1: a good enough It's it's in tremendously important to us.
Speaker 1: And in the third week when we were live, you
Speaker 1: can go imagine Eric and myself back in our small office.
Speaker 1: Eric and I said, oh my gosh, safety and civilities
Speaker 1: that we're going to have to do it. We had
Speaker 1: maybe a hundred people at the time chatting on Roadblocks.
Speaker 1: We saw a few not that egregious, but early signs
Speaker 1: and we just made the call, this is going to
Speaker 1: be the foundation of what we do. In the early
Speaker 1: years of Roadblocks, the four of us then as Matt
Speaker 1: and John came on board. Every day one of us
Speaker 1: was the head moderator and we did it ourselves, so
Speaker 1: we learned how important this is. As we've gotten bigger,
Speaker 1: we've gotten to the point where there's thousands of moderators.
Speaker 1: Every image that goes on our platform gets human reviewed.
Speaker 1: We filter text very stringently, especially for thirteen and under players.
Speaker 1: We use a lot of AI and mL to help
Speaker 1: do this. We're always getting better, but it is a
Speaker 1: key thing for us, and with six employees in the company,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of parents working at Roadblocks, some
Speaker 1: on our civility team who have kids on the platform,
Speaker 1: so it helps reinforce the importance of that. Who do
Speaker 1: you outsource moderation too, and how does that process actually work?
Speaker 1: We don't really outsource, like we build all of the
Speaker 1: safety and moderation tools we do. We use people there.
Speaker 1: They act as roadblocks employees who are trained to join
Speaker 1: our team. There's thousands of them, but we treat them
Speaker 1: like employees. I mean, it's it's one of contracting. This
Speaker 1: is one of the most important jobs in the company, really,
Speaker 1: is that those teams that help us moderate. How optimistic
Speaker 1: are you about AI and tech being able to do that.
Speaker 1: I'm really actually optimistic that if we were to um
Speaker 1: we would never compare to the real world because our
Speaker 1: standards are so much more stringent. But I do believe
Speaker 1: over time, rather than being ten or a hundred times whatever,
Speaker 1: safer or whatever, this will just keep getting better and better.
Speaker 1: And I think over time it will get to the
Speaker 1: point where if a six year old is on our platform,
Speaker 1: it's literally as if the parents wanted to be there
Speaker 1: with them watching everything. We'll be able to offer that
Speaker 1: type of thing. Now, a lot of parents are terrified.
Speaker 1: They're terrified they don't know what their kids or understand
Speaker 1: what their kid is doing on World blocks. They're terrified
Speaker 1: of a future metaverse. They don't understand the parental controls.
Speaker 1: Do you understand that feeling? We do? We actually have to.
Speaker 1: I think it creates a higher standard for us because
Speaker 1: I think we can't assume every parent is going to
Speaker 1: get that involved with their kids and maybe decide, look,
Speaker 1: I only want my my family chatting with friends, or
Speaker 1: my I only want my family playing in these certain places.
Speaker 1: So it's one of the reasons why we take this
Speaker 1: so seriously as we're building a platform um, even for
Speaker 1: parents who maybe don't have the time to be involved.
Speaker 1: There have been some serious content challenges, you know, stories
Speaker 1: about roadblocks being a playground for virtual fascists. There was
Speaker 1: just this story about Kim Kardashian's own child seeing an
Speaker 1: ad for a game that claimed to have a sex
Speaker 1: tape of her. What happened there? That was very unfortunate.
Speaker 1: There was a text blurb very shortly that very very
Speaker 1: few people saw we um, but one of them happened
Speaker 1: to be her. We took the place down, We moderated
Speaker 1: that user, and they're off our platform. It was not
Speaker 1: the video was never on our platform. There was no
Speaker 1: imagery on our platform. It was a very short mention,
Speaker 1: but very unfortunate, and um, well, you know, our vision
Speaker 1: is to be the most civil place for everyone. Do
Speaker 1: you worry about how these communities can shape young people?
Speaker 1: We do. I mean, we're optimistic that the better a
Speaker 1: job we do rather than being in a defensive posture,
Speaker 1: and we can be in an optimistic posture. And I
Speaker 1: think the posture we would like to be is parents
Speaker 1: feel WHOA, my kids are on roadblocks, and I actually
Speaker 1: know they're getting some nudges towards civility so that it's
Speaker 1: not even neutral, it's there. We're learning this. We treat
Speaker 1: everyone with respect, we don't tolerate bullying, we don't tolerate hate.
Speaker 1: So I'm actually optimistic we can go in a positive direction.
Speaker 1: I asked him our Protrive, the CEO of Alphabet and Google,
Speaker 1: this question about kids and tech habits and screen time,
Speaker 1: and he said it's something that even stresses him out.
Speaker 1: You know, this is the guy who runs one of
Speaker 1: the most powerful technology companies in the world. Um, I
Speaker 1: have four kids. You have four kids. Did it stress
Speaker 1: you out? Like? How did you deal with your kids?
Speaker 1: You know, it's probably inconsistently right, harder on the first
Speaker 1: born and then easier and easier and easier as we
Speaker 1: got used to it. And I think it highlights how much.
Speaker 1: Um it's a responsibility of both platforms like us as
Speaker 1: well as parents. You know, we're all trying to figure
Speaker 1: this out. So we're for those parents, you know who
Speaker 1: have kids on our platform, We're trying to be the
Speaker 1: most civil, safe, awesome place that they can be. But
Speaker 1: it is a we're all still trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1: I think the one thing that we're very encouraged is
Speaker 1: that the time spent on roadblocks tends to be more
Speaker 1: like hanging out together or being on the phone together,
Speaker 1: or doing stuff together, and a lot less of it
Speaker 1: is isolated either consuming content by myself or grinding away
Speaker 1: at something by myself. So we do like the fact
Speaker 1: that most of this is either social or involved in creation.
Speaker 1: And your own kids played roadblocks, they did, they were
Speaker 1: that's probably you know, they played very early. They saw
Speaker 1: the very earliest versions of it. Um. I had many
Speaker 1: wonderful moments coming. I remember one moment when my daughter said,
Speaker 1: stopped playing for a while, and I came in the
Speaker 1: family room and one was on the phone and one
Speaker 1: was a computer, and they were laughing, and they were
Speaker 1: pretty They were older at the time, and um, but
Speaker 1: now you know they're into their twenties. Um, they don't
Speaker 1: quite play as well. Did you learn through their eyes?
Speaker 1: You know? Did you make product tweaks through their eyes
Speaker 1: based on their I still continued today and I my
Speaker 1: daughters and my son are all very savvy social media consumers.
Speaker 1: You name the product, they consume it and they give
Speaker 1: me a lot of wonderful feedback. So for parents who
Speaker 1: might be concerned about just how much time their kids
Speaker 1: are spending on technology now that your kids are more grown,
Speaker 1: as there like a light at the end of the tunnel,
Speaker 1: I think there's a light at the end of the
Speaker 1: tunnel that I think there's a formative time when kids
Speaker 1: do need guidance and parents should be very involved. But
Speaker 1: I think as kids get to be eighteen and they
Speaker 1: have a phone, I mean beyond that, it's it's what
Speaker 1: have they learned? And have they learned to self regulate?
Speaker 1: So I think there's both a guiding, interacting time and
Speaker 1: then a time when you know, I have no control
Speaker 1: of you. We need more government regulation here do we need?
Speaker 1: You know? I've you know, there's talk about you know,
Speaker 1: device level regulation, like how do you know for sure
Speaker 1: the age of the kids that are on the platform? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say in general, we take such a firm
Speaker 1: stand on a lot of these issues ethically, safety, morally,
Speaker 1: all of those kind of things. I personally don't believe
Speaker 1: government regulation is going to help roadblocks better. We're very
Speaker 1: open to feedback and all of that. I do think
Speaker 1: there's some exciting technologies coming down the road that that
Speaker 1: someday may help. I don't want to predict what Google
Speaker 1: or Apple are gonna do, but I do think someday
Speaker 1: probably it will be possible to set the age on
Speaker 1: the phone, and then all apps will be able to
Speaker 1: look at that common age and make decisions of it.
Speaker 1: Like that should happen now. Yeah, I don't want to
Speaker 1: get involved in Apple or Google's product roadmap or the
Speaker 1: legal thing, but if that were to be there, we
Speaker 1: would take advantage of it. Okay. Now, so for roadblocks,
Speaker 1: how do you balance you know, your own desire too
Speaker 1: to help shape you know, healthy young kids and screen
Speaker 1: time with the idea to build engagement, you know, the
Speaker 1: desire to build and scale a massive platform. How do
Speaker 1: you balance those two things? Yeah, I think it's um.
Speaker 1: We're always running from a moral ethical standard because we
Speaker 1: have so many people within roadblocks with kids, so we're
Speaker 1: always trying to keep that balance. We we are more
Speaker 1: and more when we think about what people do on
Speaker 1: the platform we tend to stay away from chatty kind
Speaker 1: of thing we tend to lean into. Is this authentic
Speaker 1: human communication that we're hosting. Are we hosting creation? UM?
Speaker 1: I think we'll see more and more creation on the platform.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people are excited about creation,
Speaker 1: whether it's making my own fashion, or whether it's designing
Speaker 1: a race car, or whether it's learning to code. So
Speaker 1: I think like we have wonderful ways to grow that
Speaker 1: we feel are positive UM, either human connection or human creation.
Speaker 1: What about time limits like the platform itself, you know,
Speaker 1: pop up, you've been playing for fifteen minutes or you've
Speaker 1: been on here for an hour, time to go run outside?
Speaker 1: I think we UM are looking into that. I could
Speaker 1: see that being an aid to parents who want to
Speaker 1: get involved in that. I think that could be an
Speaker 1: interesting thing to think about. You've been investing in high
Speaker 1: fidelity graphics. What is the endgame here for? You know,
Speaker 1: more human, more realistic avatars? Yeah, this is UM. I'll
Speaker 1: look way out like a science fiction writer and talk
Speaker 1: about it, and I'm what I'm talking about now super difficult.
Speaker 1: The end game? Sometimes we talk about we would go
Speaker 1: together to a rock concert or whatever concert you like. Um,
Speaker 1: we would be there with fifty thou other people. It
Speaker 1: would feel like a movie. It would feel like real life.
Speaker 1: We might be on our TV, we might be on
Speaker 1: a VR headset, we might be on our phone. We'd
Speaker 1: be talking to each other, we'd be dancing, we would
Speaker 1: wave across the stadium at someone. It would be indistinguishable
Speaker 1: from real life movie, the video that we're on today,
Speaker 1: and UM, when we imagine that that, it's pretty mind
Speaker 1: blowing and it's it's a pretty fun, interactive thing that
Speaker 1: feels both very connected with the artist and very real.
Speaker 1: So are you pushing towards something like meta Horizon World is?
Speaker 1: Does that found you know, more experiences like that for adults? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think this is what when we think about this,
Speaker 1: this is just a really big opportunity, and I think
Speaker 1: it goes beyond any specific product. It goes into We
Speaker 1: sometimes think of roadblocks ultimately as fading into the background
Speaker 1: as a utility like the electric grid. Um, even though
Speaker 1: it's photo realistic and there's all these awesome avatars and
Speaker 1: connection and identity around the world, the things we start
Speaker 1: seeing built on this are a wide range of things
Speaker 1: we have, all the things our kids might play, We
Speaker 1: have musical interactions. We have the Roadblocks office simulation, as
Speaker 1: do others, where we go hang out by the water cooler,
Speaker 1: we have people going to school, so we think of
Speaker 1: it like as a broad utility platform. So you imagine
Speaker 1: this not just for kids but for everyone. Absolutely, is
Speaker 1: that that the vision everyone in the world on Roadblocks? Um,
Speaker 1: maybe a more humble way to see it is, you know,
Speaker 1: if it's ten years after Alexander Bell came up with
Speaker 1: the phone, ten ten years after that saying everyone in
Speaker 1: the world is going to have a telephone. That might
Speaker 1: have seen a little crazy at the time, but we
Speaker 1: do think it's the same type of technological shift. What
Speaker 1: about entertainment? Would Roadblocks ever make a Netflix show? Um?
Speaker 1: What we would like? But when I go back to
Speaker 1: this hope that we're a utility platform, we would love
Speaker 1: it if one of our developers made a Netflix show,
Speaker 1: so we would we would feel much more authentic. If
Speaker 1: one of the creators on Roadblocks, who's coming up with
Speaker 1: avatars and stories and ideas and characters like that, we
Speaker 1: want them to be in the limelight. I think the
Speaker 1: ni there's just an award from Nickelodeon. Actually, Like, what's
Speaker 1: one of the best um games of the year, and
Speaker 1: I think one of our developers won it, which which
Speaker 1: we actually thought was wonderful. It's not Roadblocks, it's one
Speaker 1: of our creators, um Riot Activision. They're all producing movies
Speaker 1: and TV shows as I understand it. So how are
Speaker 1: you thinking about i P or is that something that
Speaker 1: comes back to the developers. I think we would like
Speaker 1: to be an i P generation factory, but the i
Speaker 1: P is owned by our creators, and the Roadblocks is
Speaker 1: the utility where the i P is generated, where interesting
Speaker 1: new ideas come up from our players. You know, whether
Speaker 1: it's Brookhaven, a dot Me, Blocksberg, you name it, where
Speaker 1: they think of stories and situations and they're the famous
Speaker 1: ones more than Roadblocks. Roadblocks Shares took a dive on
Speaker 1: the back of Netflix results, which obviously plummeted our investors
Speaker 1: reading too much into the connection there um for our company.
Speaker 1: I think our company is somewhat unique, and what is
Speaker 1: very exciting to go to work and be the c
Speaker 1: EO is being in a market like this. You know,
Speaker 1: where we think ultimately billions of people are going to
Speaker 1: use this type of technology, and in a market where
Speaker 1: we ultimately imagine billions of people using this around the world, working, playing, learning,
Speaker 1: There's a lot of headroom and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: ways to grow both the age of our users, the
Speaker 1: types of uses they're in, where they are around the world. Um,
Speaker 1: and the other exciting thing about this market there are
Speaker 1: so many big inventions that still have to happen. It
Speaker 1: feels like we're pretty mature that inside our company we
Speaker 1: realize like there's six or seven big inventions we need
Speaker 1: to make to get to that next step. So there
Speaker 1: are big concerns that we just hit a plateau in
Speaker 1: the streaming market. Do you think people are wrong about that? Um,
Speaker 1: that's a different market, right, That's a market for how
Speaker 1: much video we consume, and who are the players in
Speaker 1: that market? I think and pau in that market. I
Speaker 1: don't want to comment on that, but I think what's
Speaker 1: exciting about at our businesses, I think it's it's so early.
Speaker 1: We have so much headroom to where we're going to go.
Speaker 1: So everyone has an idea for how Netflix can change,
Speaker 1: and advertising is a big one of them. Would Roadblocks
Speaker 1: ever consider more in game advertising? Yeah, there's a funny
Speaker 1: trivia note I would share to all the Roadblocks fans
Speaker 1: out there. There was a time the very first way
Speaker 1: we monetize was advertising, and then there was also a
Speaker 1: time when we had pre roll video on roadblocks. UM
Speaker 1: that's all gone now. It's gone for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1: We didn't want it to interfere with the user experience,
Speaker 1: and also our our virtual economy has become such a
Speaker 1: powerful way to power this that we are able to
Speaker 1: take that down in the future. Though. I think there's
Speaker 1: a certain type of advertising that is kids safe, that
Speaker 1: is um immersive, that doesn't get in your way, that
Speaker 1: involves people who want to interact with their brands. UM.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people out there who love Vans
Speaker 1: for example, you know, and UM if we do it
Speaker 1: in the right way where they want to wear their
Speaker 1: vans or they want to skateboard for a while while
Speaker 1: they're doing that. I think there's gentle ways to imagine
Speaker 1: a whole different type of advertising. So would it be
Speaker 1: like virtual billboards or branded objects, and it would it
Speaker 1: look more like Shopify. I think the way we think
Speaker 1: about this, we we like to think about what's the
Speaker 1: most far out visionary way to do that, and that
Speaker 1: would be if I'm a fan of Vans, UM I
Speaker 1: clearly know I'm going to a Vans hosted experience, just
Speaker 1: like when I'm in the mall, I know I'm going
Speaker 1: into the Van store. I'm using them as one example
Speaker 1: of many. It could be Gucci, it could be Nike,
Speaker 1: it could be anyone else. Um. I think then the
Speaker 1: advertising is really more a connection with the brand. I'm
Speaker 1: as less of a brand experience. I'm just I'm going
Speaker 1: to the Van's place to hang out, try on the shoes, um,
Speaker 1: try some tricks on my skip And how do you
Speaker 1: make sure that doesn't take away from the ethos of
Speaker 1: what makes roadblocks gran? Yeah? I think are the people
Speaker 1: on roadblocks, you know, they're they're to authentically connect with
Speaker 1: their friends, and they're there there. It's almost as if
Speaker 1: we together were walking around them all together deciding what
Speaker 1: do we want to do. Do we want to go
Speaker 1: grab coffee and just chat. Do we want to go
Speaker 1: into someone's store and look at some stuff. Do we
Speaker 1: want to go outside and go for a walk. I
Speaker 1: think the players are very sophisticated on these platforms, and
Speaker 1: as long as um what we're doing with these brands
Speaker 1: is very clear, non deceptive, appropriate for those ages, I
Speaker 1: think they'll they'll figure out the balance of how much
Speaker 1: time do we go into a store versus how much
Speaker 1: time do we go to a crazy adventure tycoon and
Speaker 1: you know, build an amusement park together. So either way,
Speaker 1: this could be a huge new revenue stream. I believe
Speaker 1: it's an awesomely huge revenue stream, and at the same
Speaker 1: time we've been very gentle towards it. How huge UM Well,
Speaker 1: when we look at UM I don't want to once
Speaker 1: again give any forecasts, but if we look at the
Speaker 1: potential engagement time on our platform, you know, I think
Speaker 1: we're at around ten billion hours per quarter. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of engagement time, and so thinking of gently monetizing
Speaker 1: some of that with advertising is it's a big opportunity.
Speaker 1: So as you look ahead, what do you think are
Speaker 1: the biggest challenges roadblocks will face if our vision plays out,
Speaker 1: which we hope it does, and we have people of
Speaker 1: all ages on the platform and we're around the world,
Speaker 1: I think maintaining that civility as we grow, as we
Speaker 1: have older people who might want to go to a
Speaker 1: political rally, thinking ways to do that in a systemic way,
Speaker 1: that's a big challenge. It takes a lot of thought.
Speaker 1: I think thinking through the technology. I really like, we're
Speaker 1: very technology driven company. So it's fun to be running
Speaker 1: a company where we have to do these seven big
Speaker 1: inventions and you know, what we're doing right now isn't
Speaker 1: going to cut it. So knowing that technology challenges super interesting.
Speaker 1: And then people right where our whole company is based
Speaker 1: on awesome people and you know, finding the right people,
Speaker 1: the people who share our values bringing them into the company.
Speaker 1: That's also big one. We do a little rapid fire
Speaker 1: section just to spontaneous as I can. UM. First question,
Speaker 1: what's your morning routine? Wake up, go outside of my porch,
Speaker 1: do a CrossFit, workout, take a shower, go to work.
Speaker 1: Where are you most productive? Home or office? Both? Um?
Speaker 1: Different types of productivity homes and state flow state at
Speaker 1: time office connecting, being together, brainstorming post work or nighttime routine,
Speaker 1: hang out with the family, eat dinner together, maybe watch
Speaker 1: a show together. What's your favorite show right now? What
Speaker 1: are you binging? Oh my gosh, I can't. I don't
Speaker 1: even want to get into the TV that I watch.
Speaker 1: It's embarrassing. I actually sit around. I do a lot
Speaker 1: of surfing YouTube videos. Really, what's your what are your
Speaker 1: favorite go to Oh my gosh. If if you look
Speaker 1: at my YouTube history, it's it's this weird mechanical stuff
Speaker 1: off road vehicles and rockets and ships and big waves.
Speaker 1: It's kind of weird. Are you still building stuff in
Speaker 1: real life like you did as a kid? I wish
Speaker 1: I did. I guess, I guess. I it's pretty much
Speaker 1: you know, fitness, family, sleep, and roadblock. Uh um. Mostly nonfiction,
Speaker 1: so I would say, just read Marco Polo Adventure. Really cool. Um,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite sci fi books for the metaverse
Speaker 1: light of other days, very little known sci fi book,
Speaker 1: not as popular as a lot of the other highly recommended. Okay,
Speaker 1: good to know, best life hack. Oh I um. I
Speaker 1: think it all gets down to the joy of health. Really,
Speaker 1: like if if I'm not, you know, feeling centered, but sleep, exercise, diet,
Speaker 1: all of that, everything else just completely falls apart. What
Speaker 1: are your health what are your go choose to stay
Speaker 1: healthy other than CrossFit? I mean, are you eating blueberries
Speaker 1: and drinking red wine? Are not mine? I'm pretty I'm
Speaker 1: pretty particular about my diet. I don't eat a lot
Speaker 1: of carbs. So that's my pretty basic, pretty straightforward exactly. Okay,
Speaker 1: you used to have a talk radio show. Now that
Speaker 1: I've met you in person, I get this. I see
Speaker 1: how you you'd be. You'd be pretty fun to listen to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what were your I mean, what was your style like?
Speaker 1: So my gam was I would say starting in college,
Speaker 1: when I would have insomnia at two am, I would
Speaker 1: turn on talk radio and you know all those famous
Speaker 1: KGO people, Bill Wattenberg, Retelia Pharaoh, all that just listened
Speaker 1: to the people calling in. So I um, after knowledge
Speaker 1: revolution was acquired and I had a year, I had
Speaker 1: a little time to dabble. My jam was really trying
Speaker 1: to talk about outrageous topics, you know, gambling, other controversial things.
Speaker 1: It was in a small market in Santa Cruz. I
Speaker 1: would typically it's really hard to get people to call in,
Speaker 1: so it's really scary if you're a DJ and no
Speaker 1: one's calling inside. I made it really controversial. I have
Speaker 1: people come on and debate interesting kind to pull some
Speaker 1: old tapes or something. I think those have all I
Speaker 1: think I have the only tapes and they're safe. I
Speaker 1: don't think we want those getting Um, if you could
Speaker 1: have dinner with Steve Jobs or Walt Disney, who would
Speaker 1: you pick both? You can't pick both. I probably I
Speaker 1: respect them both. What's interesting about both of them is
Speaker 1: innovation driven companies UM year after year after year, and
Speaker 1: companies that take topological leaps, that take big risks UM.
Speaker 1: And one of the innovations we try and do at
Speaker 1: roadblocks is, you know, there's a certain type of innovation
Speaker 1: where it's about two to three years out, we know
Speaker 1: it's technically feasible. We try to do that guided innovation.
Speaker 1: I think both of them did that. I guess I
Speaker 1: would have to slightly lean Disney just because he was
Speaker 1: not just the usher of the innovation but actually was
Speaker 1: kind of part of the sum of the innovation. But
Speaker 1: I think Steve leaned much more on finding the people
Speaker 1: to drive that innovation. Best advice for your twenties, Um,
Speaker 1: don't freak out if between the age of twenty two
Speaker 1: and twenty five everything is a disaster. Why not, because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of opportunity in life. You're gonna learn
Speaker 1: a lot. You know, my first two to three years
Speaker 1: out of college as calling my parents every day just like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, my job is terrible, Like what am
Speaker 1: I gonna do? And and also I'd say organically try
Speaker 1: things to figure out what is natural for you. It
Speaker 1: might not be. It might be more about trying things
Speaker 1: than being analytical. I remember I had a spreadsheet of
Speaker 1: twelve careers like waited, Like that's not gonna work. Best
Speaker 1: advice for your forties. Um, life is short. It's such
Speaker 1: a valuable commodity every day. What you do, your friends,
Speaker 1: your time, your family is so important. So how do
Speaker 1: you define work life integration? I don't like the word balance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say, can I make my roadblocks job better
Speaker 1: than anything else I would do? Like? Can it be
Speaker 1: better than retiring? Can it be better than a hobby?
Speaker 1: Can I figure out what my unique job as a CEO?
Speaker 1: Every CEO job is different, like I like doing it?
Speaker 1: So can I figure out what my role is? Favorite
Speaker 1: travel destination real or virtual? I guess? Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I wish I could travel more. I was just at
Speaker 1: Lake Tahoe. I love it. Um, I love the ocean.
Speaker 1: I was on a ship last summer, But I don't
Speaker 1: have a favorite. You mentioned your co founder, Eric Castle earlier,
Speaker 1: who died tragically of cancer. Um, if he was here today,
Speaker 1: what do you think he would think of a roadblocks
Speaker 1: that Roadblocks has become? Wow? I think he'd be proud.
Speaker 1: It's a good question, Like I think he would. You know,
Speaker 1: his both of his sons have worked at the company
Speaker 1: a bit um, so yeah, I think he'd be very
Speaker 1: seems like you miss him. He's just such a brilliant partner. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he also set the standard for taking the long
Speaker 1: view on how we engineer things. A lot of the
Speaker 1: technology at Roadblocks is still like, you know, his vision
Speaker 1: lives on and it goes back to your advice for
Speaker 1: you or forties. Life is short, it is, indeed, So
Speaker 1: take us five years out. What does Roadblocks look like
Speaker 1: in five years? I think, um, not like it looks today.
Speaker 1: I think if some of the inventions that we have
Speaker 1: in the pipeline, you know, we have this feeling that
Speaker 1: there's certain types of innovations or inventions that you know,
Speaker 1: they're unpredictable, um where nothing may happen or they may
Speaker 1: change the lands. I think we have some of those
Speaker 1: in the pipeline. So I think in five years, we're
Speaker 1: getting to the point where it's more common to use
Speaker 1: this technology for work. We're getting to the point where, um,
Speaker 1: it's more commed to use this for education. I think music,
Speaker 1: it's very common. Concerts are it's just it's something we
Speaker 1: do all the time. I think there's unexpected uses other
Speaker 1: cool technologies telephone or video. You know, who would have
Speaker 1: thought with video all of a sudden, Remote tele therapy,
Speaker 1: for example, is such a big thing. So I think
Speaker 1: there's unpredictable things too. So in five years, will the
Speaker 1: metaverse exists in you know, in in in the form
Speaker 1: that you imagine, or is it take does is it
Speaker 1: going to take much longer? Like what's the time horizon?
Speaker 1: You've said many times it's gonna take a long time. Well,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting, right because we're right in the middle
Speaker 1: of it right now in a sense, with fifty million
Speaker 1: people every day on our platform. It's already here. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, what is all simately going to
Speaker 1: be possible could be five, ten or twenty years out,
Speaker 1: So it's it's all The metaverse really has existence since
Speaker 1: online dial up MUDs really too d very simple text,
Speaker 1: you could call that the metaverse. It's existed in multiplayer gaming.
Speaker 1: World of Warcraft exists, exists now with more people, and
Speaker 1: in ten or twenty years it will exist photo realistically
Speaker 1: with fifty people. Scaling the metaverse is a massive challenge,
Speaker 1: how exactly are you going to do that? Well, it
Speaker 1: starts with people, So it starts with us, you know,
Speaker 1: building an amazing engineering team that's growing all of the time,
Speaker 1: and it goes up and down our stack of everything
Speaker 1: we're working on. You know, our infrastructure, thousands of servers
Speaker 1: around the world, high bandwidth connections, our core server technology
Speaker 1: that is growing, getting more parallel, hosting more people, the
Speaker 1: client that we're building, the rendering technology, and all of
Speaker 1: these things, possibly more devices that I mentioned, including the
Speaker 1: our headsets. UM, how we handle social how people are
Speaker 1: able to create on the platform? Um? Can you and
Speaker 1: I make our own clothing rather than just buy the clothing?
Speaker 1: That's super important to us. How we communicate? Um? Are
Speaker 1: we How are we doing audio in a safe way
Speaker 1: so that it's safe for both young players and we
Speaker 1: can use it? Um? How realistic are faces when we're
Speaker 1: communicating together. There's just a long range of innovations that
Speaker 1: we're going to bring to the platform. Fascinating. What's the
Speaker 1: role you see for AI in the metaverse? Could AI
Speaker 1: be a real player making its own games, making its
Speaker 1: own designs And is that a little scary or exciting? Well,
Speaker 1: I think we're ways away from the hell computer. Um.
Speaker 1: But what we are going to see is initially even
Speaker 1: as part of creation, having AI supercharge artists and supercharge creators.
Speaker 1: So there there will be a time when instead of
Speaker 1: going and cutting out fabric to make a new piece
Speaker 1: of clothe, probably be able to talk and say, look,
Speaker 1: I wanted a little tighter, I want the fabric to
Speaker 1: be this type of way, and it'll automatically do that.
Speaker 1: I think there'll be times when developers want to create
Speaker 1: a city where rather than building all the components of
Speaker 1: the city will probably use a paint brush and they'll
Speaker 1: take a few pictures of the style of the city,
Speaker 1: and AI and m L will process that and more
Speaker 1: procedurally generate the city, and then longer term, maybe you know,
Speaker 1: AI powering characters on roadblocks that can stand in and
Speaker 1: help in certain ways. I think that's all in the future.
Speaker 1: Where are you on the Singularity And you know the
Speaker 1: people who get scared of computers killing humans, Oh man,
Speaker 1: now we're getting into really crazy stuff. I actually think
Speaker 1: it's much more of an evolution. I don't have any
Speaker 1: guests on the timing, but I guess I would personally
Speaker 1: believe over time computers will get smarter than people. Well,
Speaker 1: and how much, Martyn? What does that mean? Like people?
Speaker 1: People still exist? I think people continue to exist. I
Speaker 1: don't think any happens suddenly. It's not like we all
Speaker 1: disappear or anything like that. And I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a threat for future generations. But I think looking out
Speaker 1: ten thousand years, it's really hard to predict what that is.
Speaker 1: But you think that could happen. I think that could
Speaker 1: happen in ten thousand years. Wow, that's really that's like
Speaker 1: kinde of quite true. It's kind of scary. Okay, you
Speaker 1: clearly have so much passion for this job. Is roadblocks
Speaker 1: your final stop on your Journey's definitely my final stop,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, working with our executives on the board,
Speaker 1: we have to be just watching out how clearly I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm very open to the feedback, like
Speaker 1: how long do you do this? Dave? And but I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of time ahead of me here.
Speaker 1: So just to be clear, in ten thousand years, humans
Speaker 1: might not exist. I think I think humans will still
Speaker 1: exist in ten thousand years. I just think I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just think computers are going to get really smart.
Speaker 1: How smart unpredictably smart to do, like smart enough to
Speaker 1: do what UM obviously too. You know, I don't want
Speaker 1: to get into any movies or things like that, but
Speaker 1: I think it'll be hard to tell whether you're talking
Speaker 1: to a human or a computer, for example. Well, how
Speaker 1: far out is that? I don't know. I don't want
Speaker 1: to predict that. Wow, that's really that's scary. I mean,
Speaker 1: does that excite you or does that scare you? I
Speaker 1: think it does neither. I think for me, it feels
Speaker 1: like a reality, and I think, UM what we think
Speaker 1: some things. I think I can't predict the timing on
Speaker 1: that as it reflects back to Roadblocks. The way we
Speaker 1: think about it is the type of technology we're working on,
Speaker 1: whether we develop it, whether some other company develops it.
Speaker 1: Over time is going to evolve. We get this unique
Speaker 1: opportunity to be good shepherds of the technology and try
Speaker 1: to bring it forward in a civil way. Oh. I
Speaker 1: love that. I'm glad we pulled that threat. Dave Puzuki
Speaker 1: cee Overroadblocks, Thank you so much. Bloomberg Studio one point
Speaker 1: O was produced and edited by Lauren Ellis and Brian
Speaker 1: Carter Gaynor. I'm Emily Chang your host and executive producer