0:00
If Roblox someday has 200 million concurrent users and some of them are in art studios and our perfection is there is never a screenshot of someone spray painting something on the wall that's weird.
Search this video
0:11
I don't think we'll ever get to 100% perfection. Is Roblox safe for kids?
0:17
For years the company has faced challenges with content moderation and whether or not it's actually age appropriate.
0:24
>> And now you can just type whatever you want. It's um all those work.
0:30
>> In this episode of Access, we're talking to Roblox CEO Dave Bazooki.
0:32
Hot on the heels of his interview on the Hard Fork podcast, which got spicy >> cuz you're you're asking me about this.
0:41
I'm curious if you've done your own research. >> I have.
0:43
I have done some research about >> And what's your take on that? >> Well, I'm asking you.
0:47
We're going through it all from the challenges of content moderation, agegating the internet, how Dave is thinking about AI and its impact on Roblox and more.
1:01
Welcome to Access, the tech industries inside conversation.
1:03
I'm Ellis Hamburger here with my co-host, Alex Heath.
1:06
What's going on, my friend? >> What's up, Ellis?
1:09
We're trying something new with the show format this week.
1:12
Let's uh let's see how it does.
1:14
>> Stick around after the interview.
1:14
We will break down exactly how we thought it went and have a few more thoughts on what's going on in tech and in our lives more broadly. >> All right.
1:23
Well, uh, without further ado, let's get into this convo with Dave Bazooki.
1:32
Support for this show comes from Mercury.
1:33
Running a business is hard work.
1:36
That's why Mercury makes managing your money as simple as can be with banking, cards, spend management, invoicing, and more all in one place.
1:45
It's banking at its most intuitive. Visit mercury.
1:47
com to join over 200,000 entrepreneurs who use Mercury to simplify their finances.
1:53
Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank.
1:57
Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column NA members FDIC.
2:07
Uh Dave, thank you for doing this.
2:07
We u we scheduled this many weeks ago.
2:09
Um, but you've been in the news recently and just up top I wanted to get it out of the way um and ask you uh what that has been like being in a bit of some pod controversy yourself.
2:25
The hard fork uh duo are friends.
2:28
I consider Casey and Kevin friends and we certainly don't want to relitigate their the conversation without them here.
2:33
But uh but I'm curious um since since it happened if you've been reflecting on it at all and and how you've been thinking about it.
2:43
>> Well well hey take a big step back at at the highest level.
2:46
We like being in the news, right?
2:49
We're um it's a big world out there and we're con constantly trying to innovate on a wide range of things including something super important to us which is safety and civility.
3:02
something we started on 20 years ago when we got started and I I it's such a big thing to us and such a top priority.
3:11
I I think I I wouldn't want there to be any confusion that it's something we want to talk about all day long.
3:19
And so I would say in the night in in really the midst of any news um if it's about making kids safer, we like to be a part of it.
3:29
If if you could go back though and and redo any of that conversation, would you do you think that there was anything lost in kind of how that went?
3:39
>> If I could redo that um conversation, I think I would have even leaned in harder in trying to share how much of a focus we put on safety and civility and um really fill in a lot of the cracks, go deeper on some of the things.
3:55
But all in all, I read I read the transcript and um we had a great focus on that.
4:01
I do think tone is super important and I think um tone my tone could have optimally been slightly probably more patient in that.
4:13
But all in all, I think um talking about safety and civility, which is a you know, I think the house is going to be talking about it tomorrow with 20 new bills about keeping kids safe.
4:21
It's really a universal when when we look at all the topics in the news.
4:27
A lot of topics in the news have one side or the other to the topic.
4:32
Keeping kids safe is like the universal.
4:36
It's like a magnetic monopole instead of like there's positive and negative.
4:41
Every everyone wants the same thing.
4:43
And I I think as a society uh societyy's starting to grapple with how how do we all want the same thing?
4:52
You know, it's it's pretty interesting over the last 20 or 30 years, the the arc of technology and what we've seen with a lot of technology.
5:02
30 years ago, we didn't have phones.
5:05
We didn't have 9-year-olds with phones.
5:07
We computers were a new thing.
5:07
I grew up with computers that weren't connected that like no one can imagine a non-connected computer.
5:17
There there used to be non connected.
5:20
And in the last 30 or 40 years, we're we're in a whole new era. A wide range of apps.
5:25
Everyone's spending a lot of time on screen time, a lot of options, and society, I think, working together to figure out what's the best way forward in this that we want to play a big role in that.
5:40
>> It's a charged topic, right?
5:40
I mean, and rightfully so.
5:42
It's it's incredibly important.
5:43
And I think that came through in the hard fork conversation is that there's just a lot of emotion about this.
5:49
And uh it is difficult I think with a topic like this, isn't it, to try to find the nuance and try to understand where progress is being made and how it's actually being made.
5:59
I I wonder do you feel like that conversation has been getting more difficult for you in the last couple of years or do you feel like it's kind of been trending the same as always?
6:10
How would you characterize how that conversation broadly has been going for you and the company?
6:15
>> Yeah, I I would say behind the scenes, we're very much a couple things like taking a step back and thinking about Roblox arguably what a fortunate position we're in.
6:28
You know, uh we started with this huge vision of bringing together people optimistically and creatively.
6:37
we saw what we thought was and I believe is a brand new category um whether it's UGC gaming or self-service creation or the metaverse or snow crash or whatever but this this really a new category that um hundreds of thousands of people can create experiences along the way something fortunate I feel happened for us and that is rather than um not to throw advertising under the bus but >> no let's Please throw advertising under the bus.
7:10
>> We um you know, we made a move from a what I would call a cheesy club membership model where we we actually had some rough spots because our user growth was going up and our revenue was flat to going down.
7:25
And in the back of our heads, we we knew along the way there was this thing out there called a virtual economy that would have a very small percentage of the people on the platform buying some Robux and creators um moving from hobbyist to build a business or follow your dreams or maybe build a studio and ultimately what became self-service gaming.
7:51
But the the the short end of that story is what a fortunate thing because that economy we built to some extent scaled pretty linearly with ours and users and it's gotten better and it's it's been more of a perpetual motion machine that in a way took away some of the pressure of ad sales and who do we target?
8:16
do we, you know, we didn't have that.
8:19
Do we go after young people?
8:21
A and in a way gave us the ability to take the long view in the company rather than maybe the, you know, analytical view.
8:30
Part of that news came from us really taking a unique position of we're going to estimate the age of everyone on the platform.
8:40
No one else is doing that.
8:42
Social media companies aren't doing it.
8:44
Gaming companies aren't doing it.
8:45
Um, one could say, "Oh my gosh, that might be a little concerning on the metrics."
8:50
Um, we think long term it's going to pay off in a big way.
8:55
>> I definitely uh empathize with you, Dave, as I listen to that podcast and I read some of your recent announcements.
9:01
I was at Snapchat for several years and I had to spend half my day trying to convince my former reporter friends that Snapchat was actually real.
9:08
It's a pretty funny thing when you have 400 million DAU and if media isn't using your product, you're always going to face an uphill battle.
9:18
And that was always a bias I thought was seriously challenging.
9:23
And I mean, these days, you could put plenty of stuff on the platform, but if media or regulators aren't aware, don't have kids in their daily lives, um, it I I don't even know if it's even possible to perfectly convey what you're doing.
9:37
I feel like more so people are just like looking maybe for some sign that there's good faith stuff going on, but the exceptions always make more news. I don't know. Would you disagree?
9:50
>> Well, first I'm a huge Snap fan and I just saw a billion MAU number today.
9:52
I don't know if that's real >> or not.
9:57
>> I think they're about to hit it unless they just announced it.
9:58
Yeah, it should be >> which is um what a testament to the size of that platform.
10:04
I mean, and they've done a lot of really, really good work there.
10:09
You know, I'm not um I'm pretty pragmatic about it, but I do think um the one positive of all of this is it it does create an opportunity for a company to strive for perfection, even if perfection's not possible.
10:24
perfection's not possible. And perfection means uh for us not a single weird screenshot even if someone by themselves hacking it up >> sometimes that's the metric right did a bad screenshot go viral this week >> that's right and so I am optimistic like
10:43
that that um quest which is uh for Roblox what it's what it means is not using AI to examine every new 3D experience But where this is going to go is using AI in real time with 45 million people at the same time where some of those people want to be creative. Some of
11:05
Some of those people want to pull out a can of spray paint and do some art.
11:10
Uh some of those people want to build with Play-Doh.
11:14
Some of them want to use AI commands.
11:16
And so it's it's not just the 3D experiences.
11:19
It's every single user who might be being creative.
11:21
And at what point could a creation become also a bad screenshot?
11:27
And so we we actually are are kind of excited because we think with AI we're going to in real time ultimately be scanning 45 million people in a privacy safe way, freedom of speech safe way, but in a way that's a can give a nudge like hey that creation is starting to get a little out of policy or that hey we know that creation if someone captures a screenshot like people are going to get the wrong impression.
11:57
um if you're 18 and up and in the privacy of a small group probably a lot more latitude.
12:01
So in a way it drives innovation and at the same time we we know there's a lot more work to do.
12:09
>> You talked about striving for perfection even if it's not attainable.
12:11
Do you feel like because of the way that the platform is architected you're never going to be able to fully get rid of the bad use cases because it's such a scaled platform and it's people interacting.
12:23
Do you think you can ever get to zero or is that I don't think any platform's ever done that.
12:29
Well, imagine imagine the like I I think it's fair to say that if the definition um if Roblox someday has 200 million concurrent users and some of them are in art studios and some of them are in clothing studios and our perfection is there is never a screenshot even for five seconds of someone spray painting something on the wall that's weird.
12:54
I don't think we'll ever get to 100% perfection.
12:56
We might get to some number of nines.
13:00
Um, which is how we would think about it.
13:03
Um, and we we can get more and more of those nines all the time.
13:07
And but I think setting that as the challenge.
13:09
And so then and then admitting like we are going to need real-time AI in a privacy and legally compliant way to scan all this like that drives positive innovation. >> Yeah.
13:22
In covering platforms for so long.
13:25
Um, I've come to this thing where I think a lot of people have this POV that I call poop in the water, which is this idea that if there's anything bad in the thing, the whole thing is polluted and it's not worth uh continuing to make better, it's worth getting off of, it's worth ridiculing.
13:42
And then there's people in tech, there's people building these platforms who understand the trade-offs and they view it more, I think, holistically and statistically and about bringing prevalence down, all the things you've talked about with AI.
13:55
And that's just like such a >> I have such a bigger issue with like the optimizing for the wrong thing.
14:00
Like let's say if you if Dave was optimizing for like a very bad you know like selfish behavior that you know let's say like something like just loosely engagement where there's a drive to the bottom.
14:13
I have more issue with that than like teenagers being st stupid and some of these things that have always happened.
14:18
>> I don't know if you were at Snap in the 2016 election cycle. >> I was.
14:23
>> So um I won't name any platforms but I can name even myself.
14:29
I could feel the optimization of the feeds on various platforms and I could tell they were optimizing for short-term engagement rather than long-term enterprise health because I was getting flooded with news clips from friends in high school who I hadn't seen in a long time.
14:46
I was getting so pissed off that I I was using those platforms every day.
14:53
like the the outrageousness was sucking me in on a short-term basis even though it was even though long-term I don't use any of those platforms anymore. >> Yep.
15:02
And so I think there's always the question of like could we be doing more?
15:08
And I mean part of it too is that I think it's inherently a tough space once again going back to the idea especially on Snap where people like adults can't see the messages that their kids are sending.
15:18
It's always going to be scary, I think, as a parent.
15:20
And one of the things Evan always said that I thought broke through to adult audiences whenever he would travel around was that like your kids are going to do dumb They're going to make mistakes as kids always do.
15:31
Would you rather be on the ephemeral platform or on the platform where their employers are looking and parents are like, "Huh, yeah, interesting."
15:37
And uh I think to some extent a lot of these platforms, you know, do get flak for the type of controls that parents wish they had over their own kids.
15:46
I I I would say the other thing um that is unique about Roblox is we we face the reality that I feel when younger kids get phones um saying your platform is 13 and up isn't the full solution because a lot of a lot of 10 and 11 and 12 year olds when they get a phone and a phone number they can get on platforms where there's free text unfiltered text image sharing video sharing communities, all of that stuff.
16:20
There there is a little benefit to um accepting that reality and then kind of doubling down on that.
16:26
So I I do feel there's a huge benefit for us long term to think about safety for 9year-olds and 14y olds and 25 year olds.
16:35
14y olds and 25 year olds. I guess what I was getting to earlier with that comment uh before Alice cut me off but it's okay Alice was like I don't know Dave do you do you see this tension where people especially I think in the media feel this way you look at
16:49
something if there's anything wrong with it um it's kind of zero sum and it's like you know >> I I feel I feel over time that there is some hope that the statistical nature of society starts to reflect in the media and and one can imagine, you know, it's interesting on Roblox right now. Um
17:09
Um there are thousands if not tens if not hundreds of thousands of people making their living on Roblox.
17:16
And um there are arguably in the millions um although we can't validate it, possible kids who said, "I want to learn STEM and study computer science or maybe art or maybe production."
17:32
Those those stories are starting to get out as well.
17:35
And so as the statistical cross-section of all the experiences gets reflected on, I'm I'm kind of optimistic and I think there have been other platforms I think um YouTube went through quite a bit a few years ago when just video was a new thing and I think they've they've more and more we society's learn to understand what a platform like that is.
18:00
So, I'm um I both would say forever more safety will be top priority for us and we'll always be focused on it even if at the same time I'm optimistic about progress in a way.
18:14
>> One of the funny things as you grow is that I feel like once people start figuring out what's going on that you guys perhaps have the world's biggest active metaverse on a daily basis. Is that true? >> Yeah.
18:27
Define, you know, define metaverse.
18:28
Um I would say, >> yeah, having a character, being able to form a group with friends, and being able to transport yourself and all your stuff in between different experiences, be they met over saying, >> it's so funny how the metaverse has been around in sci-fi forever.
18:49
Some of the things in sci-fi we've always hoped and predicted are are already here with the web.
18:53
Some are just in process AI and bots.
18:56
The metaverse, no crash, hollow deck, all of that.
18:59
The matrix has been talked about.
19:02
I do feel we have uniquely thought of the metaverse not as hardware but as um more the 3D platform and more more had the vision that this 3D digital immersive multiplayer stuff that is created by the users should be accessible phone tablet computer console VR headset all of that I that's been a good decision for us and I feel um it's going to keep getting better and better.
19:36
It's going to get AI supercharged.
19:39
It's going to get photo realistic.
19:40
Um what we thought of as the hollow deck.
19:44
Um my my my take away from sci-fi is if you can imag if you can see it in a sci-fi movie and kind of imagine the physics maybe being possible, you are going to see it someday.
19:55
So that that Star Trek holiday, we're going to see it someday.
19:59
And so I do in a way that whole collection of things I do think we we've been very focused on and gotten to a good critical mass.
20:08
>> But are people actually using these headsets to use Roblox? >> They are.
20:12
I I have a chart right next to me of MetaQuest live active users.
20:17
>> Oh, you you should share that.
20:17
They don't >> I can't share that. >> Come on.
20:21
>> We can see it in the reflection of his glasses.
20:22
Alex, >> um I just think it's so fascinating.
20:25
You know, I I'm I'm always interested in Silicon Valley's idea of what a great product is.
20:31
And I'm not sure many of them have a strong taste for the aesthetic, at least as it stands, of a lot of toys, including Snapchat or Roblox.
20:40
But when you look at it, this is the vision that they were describing, I think, for whatever you want to call it.
20:47
And I guess my next question is, do you feel like you're prepared for being seen as something like that?
20:51
Especially as things get more photoreal, people importing images and things, putting them on the sides of their cars, let's say.
21:00
Are you ready to see all those images and talk to the world about what you think is acceptable?
21:05
Um, what do you feel like is your latest and greatest thinking on that with regard to free speech and censorship and and all that?
21:13
>> Uh, well, I'm glad you asked that.
21:13
I I feel we've been preparing for four or five years on the AI front and it's it's another area we've been fortunate.
21:21
So with all of the pressure and a lot of that internal for image moderation, text moderation, audio moderation, the move from human um and and sometimes not just one but multiple human to AI moderation was is something we've been undergoing for quite a while.
21:42
And it's why we we say we have over 400 models working.
21:44
We built them all ourselves.
21:47
They run on our own infrastructure.
21:51
Um so we we've been like a boring AI company before it was cool to be AI.
21:54
And arguably that was a very utilitarian form of AI.
21:59
We're now getting into 3D generation and you know NPCs and all of that.
22:05
That's a lot more consumerfacing.
22:08
So I do feel we've been doing that work.
22:10
And then where that leads is not just do we have the AI that's available to scan every single image. We already do.
22:16
Do we have the AI to categorize every image, analyze the text? We do.
22:22
analyze the text? We do. it start I I liked where you were going with that on the free speech side because um as much as possible we don't want to be a company where you call me at 3 in the morning and say Dave what's your call on that user or that
22:41
piece of content because that that can be a very arbitrary thing it's much better if it's systemic we we have been thinking about this and I think where we think this will go ultimately is to to what extent can we look at the laws of the physical world? Um I'm in Um I'm in California.
23:01
What is the state law in California for what someone can say on stage at an amphitheater for example? Okay.
23:11
So we we figured that out in the physical world.
23:13
How much can we use that to make decisions?
23:16
And so I think we would like to be much more in that type of a mode where if if maybe you need an ID, maybe you need to be 18 and up or something to go in that auditorium, but then someone can go on stage and do a comedy show or a political rally.
23:32
We would probably want that to be okay on Roblox as well.
23:37
Um, so that's one direction we're going.
23:40
I think as we go younger and younger on the platform, that's where we start making our own policy decisions.
23:48
And you know, we we have to be more of the policy makers for what's okay under 13 on the platform because there's not a lot of case law in that area.
24:01
So we we go on in that direction with I think a lot of our own policy that's very transparent and people can read about it on our website.
24:11
>> Is is the end state of all this Dave that the internet is completely agegated and you have to verify your identity to >> Thank you for asking.
24:18
Um so so given the current reality um and the current reality I think we have to face it is 10-year-old wants an iPhone for Christmas, they get the iPhone and off they go.
24:32
And um that is just a reality out there in the world.
24:39
Um when that 10-year-old gets the iPhone today, there's 30 interesting apps they can install.
24:46
uh they get a web browser.
24:46
In the majority of states, when that 10-year-old gets their iPhone or their Android phone or their computer, I'm not singling out Apple.
24:56
In the majority of states, they can crack their browser.
25:00
And you and I know what kids can find when they're 10 in a browser.
25:03
Um probably some porn sites.
25:05
Um >> meanwhile, they can't walk into Cheetahs when they see it out the street. Right. >> That's right.
25:12
>> Going going back to the real world analoges. >> That's right.
25:15
So they they probably get that.
25:17
They probably get a bunch of apps.
25:19
And so I feel where we're going with it is we think there is a what you might call a gold standard for co communication safety which is uh know everyone's age to the best extent possible.
25:31
Um really double down on uh text filtering which specifically means um watching for personal information and blocking it.
25:41
Um and for certain ages, absolutely no image sharing, no video sharing.
25:47
Um ultimately no communication with minors and adults, uh critical harm monitoring and law enforcement.
25:53
So that's where we're going.
25:56
And I think um we'll probably see more and more of that.
26:02
>> Was it you guys who were saying the other day that maybe the OSS should be doing the age verification themselves?
26:10
We um we're careful with that because um we think there's more resiliency above and beyond the OS with um uh signals, facial age estimation and all of that.
26:23
And so if it if it incorporates maybe a lot of thought um so we don't end up with a parent handing kid phone which may not be resilient or may depending on how how it's unlocked and all of that.
26:37
Um, but we basically said, "We're not waiting for that."
26:40
Um, you know, we we're gonna go do it ourselves.
26:45
>> You know, uh, the founder of a popular VR app that we would all know once told me, Dave, that one of the tricks they found to age verification was in VR having someone hold their arms up.
26:55
That that was a very simple way, almost foolproof to >> I like that.
27:02
>> But you can't do that obviously in a phone, right?
27:04
Well, well, the the mathematical way we thought about it is the more ma the more mathematical signals you get with a center and a standard deviation, you can convolute more and more of those signals.
27:17
So, yeah, we we would love to have that signal.
27:20
We would love to have behavioral signals.
27:22
We'd love to have a facial age signal.
27:24
The more of those signals, the more accurate your age estimation can be.
27:34
When I recently decided to start my own media business, I chose Mercury as my banking solution, and I want to tell you a little bit about how I use it day-to-day.
27:41
The thing I love the most about Mercury is how simple it is.
27:43
Setup was easy and painfree.
27:45
I love the way it shows my balance growth at a glance, and it's super easy to sync my transactions to my accounting software.
27:51
A specific feature I love is the ability to upload receipts and have them automatically synced to the right transaction.
27:57
That saves me a ton of time.
28:00
The built-in invoicing feature has already come in handy, too.
28:04
I mostly use the Mercury mobile app to stay in sync with my business finances, but the desktop web interface is also the cleanest I've ever seen.
28:12
If you want to see for yourself what Mercury can do for you and your business, visit mercury.
28:16
com to join over 200,000 entrepreneurs who use Mercury to simplify their finances.
28:22
Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank.
28:25
banking services provided through choice financial group and columna members FDIC.
28:39
So I think uh amidst all of this people are definitely worried about their kids right now.
28:46
A lot of things that are out of sight that they can't control.
28:50
Obviously, even the adults are being affected by the social algorithms and short form video with regard to our attention.
28:58
Um, would you would do do you feel like the kids are all right and and if so, why? >> Okay.
29:03
Well, there's a it's interesting because I feel most it's interesting in society the wide range of things that are out there.
29:12
We have uh social networking apps.
29:12
We have short form video apps. We have AI chat bots.
29:19
We have multiplayer gaming apps. We have dating apps.
29:22
And for many people, I do think it's a big cloud.
29:28
It's just like, oh my gosh, social networking stuff that goes into a big cloud.
29:33
I think when we dive in deeper into that cloud of apps, I think each one of these apps has its potential benefits as well as things to be careful of.
29:43
At the same time, uh short form video, super interesting, right? I I watch them all.
29:49
Um I'm on shorts, reels, Tik Tok, spot spotlight, like I'm watching all of them.
29:55
I have a different >> hear that spotlight.
29:56
I think that's the first and only time it'll be mentioned podcast.
30:00
Yeah, that'll be the first and last spotlight mention on this podcast.
30:04
>> Didn't they in like they were early with Spotlight, weren't they? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
30:08
It's just amazing like that the it hasn't hasn't culturally broken through, I guess, like the other >> Yeah.
30:14
So, I can tell all of those are personalized.
30:16
They're all optimized for my own whatever.
30:18
I see different things on each one.
30:21
Uh but and and so some positives I would say that people are trying to balance is what's the future of the news for 16-year-olds?
30:30
Like they're not in the card catalog.
30:32
They're not in the news rack in the library.
30:38
They're not watching network TV.
30:38
They're not listening to the radio.
30:39
How How are going to get the news?
30:44
>> I hope it's newsletters, Dave. Uh sources. news. Substack. Let's go.
30:48
Well, well, you're on to something because I think the future of the news could be Substack, podcast, short form video more than other things.
30:59
And so I think there has to be some thought in whether we how we legislate that.
31:05
And at the same time, short form video, you know, the research arguably, you know, shows some addiction issues and dopamine issues and all of those kind of things.
31:15
So, there's a balance there.
31:17
Um, >> I think if you had one of those products, I mean, it seems like you're definitely skeptical of the incentives that are created with an advertising model.
31:26
Um, >> I wonder how how you would think about that.
31:29
>> I I I've been thinking about it.
31:29
Uh, when I was young, I used to watch for 30 minutes or 15 minutes The Electric Company and Sesame Street.
31:36
And those were fun, interesting, you know, 30 second to 2 minute educational things around learning your alphabet.
31:48
So, I'm I'm not going to make the advocation for youth short form video here, but I I do think certain formats could be are interesting to think about.
31:58
I I I'm with you on what are we what's being optimized for?
32:01
If if the pure optimization is raw engagement in this one day that may you know that's an you know not sure that's the right optimization.
32:13
>> Do you not goal everyone at Roblox on DAUs or MAUs?
32:17
>> We I think long-term we uh it's interesting we've had a a set of different higher order constructs.
32:23
I think we're more and more leaning towards um being a DAU company, not an hour company.
32:31
Um a and that is because we um we think there's fun spontaneous uses for something like Roblox, you know, five minute check-in with your friends. Uh that kind of thing.
32:43
So we do track hours, we do track DAUs.
32:46
I would say whenever we're um doing search discovery or optimization, we we are really tracking ecosystem health, user health, and long-term system health all together.
33:00
And we are we are constantly trying to optimize for long-term platform health, and long-term user happiness, not what happens today or tomorrow.
33:13
>> So people at Rolex aren't getting bonuses based on like time spent went up x amount this year.
33:17
That's not that's not an overarching. >> No. >> Okay. >> No, no, no.
33:22
>> So, I think one of the things we're kind of talking around here is the quality of the time we're spending on any of these platforms.
33:28
I grew up, you know, doing couch co-op with Halo, with Mario Kart, all this stuff.
33:33
How do you think about the quality of the games that are popular on Roblox versus, you know, some of the conventional stuff we older folks might be familiar with?
33:42
I I would go step back again and um think about the the whole new thing in the last 30 to 40 years of people of all ages on devices versus television and think through um screen time relative to where it was and then and then start looking at the various qualities in the various macro categories in addition to the you know the individual things on Roblox.
34:08
I I do see, you know, the research out there for what is called gaming or multiplayer being together.
34:18
There's a lot of positive research out there around um not being isolated about building teamwork, leadership, you name it.
34:27
Um you know, a lot of people that's um we saw it in COVID.
34:32
we saw in the midst of COVID, what does everyone do for a year when they have kids at home?
34:37
Um, you know, and in that sense, it was a little bit of a validation of the the thesis around multiplayer gaming that it can be a way to communicate and stay in touch, even though we call it gaming.
34:51
That is different than the short form video category we were talking about, which is a little bit more of a solo thing.
34:58
It's a little different than the social networking category, which is arguably can be slightly asynchronous multiplayer, but also has a lot of sharing pictures and um comparison and kind of that type of competition.
35:17
And then, you know, we're we're entering the new era of AI chat bots and those are u arguably, you know, multiplayer human NPC, you know, non-player character bot, but at the same time, I don't know if that's the same as being with a human.
35:34
So, I would say the the category of gaming, I think, has some benefits akin to being on the phone when I was young and it was a rainy day.
35:43
Um, I think being um, yeah, there's some benefits I think to not as much trying to um, preach the benefit of some of the experiences on Roblox, but um, there there can be something in hyperco competitive firsterson shooter gaming like some anxiety creation things.
36:04
Um, competing in a fashion show arguably is less anxiety uh, creating and fun or growing a garden.
36:11
So, I do I do think in a lovely way the the content on Roblox has been kind of creative and broad in a way.
36:21
>> When you have these these games in Roblox that are tens of millions of concurrent players, which I think you've had multiple now, which they break all records of concurrent people in a game-like environment, grow a garden, steal a brain rot.
36:32
What are these people doing?
36:34
Are they all actually playing together, or are they all sitting around and talking?
36:38
like how when you have tens of millions of people in experience can you even know how those people are interacting at scale?
36:44
We we can know um one of the um if we talk about AI like one of the opportunities here is is once again in a privacy safe way with not sharing that data out of the company um you know that has been tempting to other companies in doing that.
37:05
Um there are some really interesting things for creators as well as users ultimately to use that data.
37:12
So so we can know um you know who's chatting, what people are doing more and more where they're going.
37:19
This starts to intersect with safety because knowing what is going on can be used for real time safety scanning of user generated content and things like that.
37:29
And it it runs the gamut.
37:29
But I do think there's a notion on Roblox that even though you're playing hideand go seek, you are also, you know, sometimes designing your own game in that environment or using it as a place to get together.
37:46
So it's it's a mix, I think, of hardcore playing as well as communicating.
37:51
I was going to say, yeah, I mean, when you look at what's happening on there, sometimes as a grown-up, it can it can look pretty impenetrable, I would say.
37:58
Like, compared to some of the games of the past, but I was with my nephew the other night for for a dinner, and he was playing a game called 99 Nights with his friends, and his parents were like, he goes AFK all night.
38:10
They were like, why is his screen time for this game at 7 hours?
38:14
And it turns out, I looked this up on YouTube, he's building a base so that the monsters can't get him and his friends overnight, and I'm like, "All right, that sounds pretty fun and pretty cool."
38:24
But then you hear about the loot boxy games or the other games and maybe not so cool.
38:28
Um, what do you think of the most popular games you're seeing?
38:33
Just uh you're you're a parent, right? >> I'm a parent. I got four kids.
38:36
So, um, I'll first >> there's always that tendency as a parent to want to smack that hand, but at the same time, sometimes you look deeper.
38:46
You're like, maybe it's all right.
38:47
>> We used to Yeah, it's interesting.
38:47
We used to have some incentives uh for creators for raw time.
38:56
>> And we whenever there's a weird incentive, you can see weird things happen.
39:00
Um, you know, we used to, a long time ago, we had a second currency called tickets that the Roblox community loves and is very upset that we removed.
39:11
And in the old days of gaming, the people had these multicurrency systems.
39:15
You'd have one currency that you buy and the other you earn by engagement.
39:18
We're proud to say we threw away the engagementbased currency.
39:23
Like, we just threw it in the garbage.
39:26
um and it was a currency that uh rewarded people for um every day they logged into the platform.
39:34
So we thought it was dystopian.
39:34
We thought it was a bad incentive like trying to do that.
39:40
And so recently the the away from keyboard games as well.
39:45
when we rewarded creators for that, we could see a lot of away from keyboard stuff and creators um rather than making it a good game just be like come up with some cheesy way to like get people to be away from keyboard.
40:00
So I think in this case it's probably a little bit more interesting but in general we don't we don't want the incentives to be the wrong incentives.
40:10
I I would say what we see generally is the creators of these um top experiences are extremely capable individuals.
40:21
They are um it it's a little bit like um taking a million people and obviously not pure skill.
40:31
There's a lot of luck and things and ending up with a hundred CEOs of a 100 top studios that that came from a million down to a hundred.
40:43
It's like the ultimate Mr. Beast game.
40:44
And like who are these hundred out of the million?
40:49
That's like one out of every 10,000.
40:52
And and they're extremely creative, extremely empathetic, extremely thinking about their users, wanting to build quality.
41:01
And um when I meet them, I'm I'm actually quite fascinated comparing them to public company CEOs because I think they're more they're more in touch arguably with their users and quality and good gaming than many studio execs.
41:16
We >> you ever thought about swapping one for yourself on the earnings call even?
41:18
Um it's um in a crazy world it it's fun to imagine if someday I were to retire like how are we going to find the new CEO like would we in addition to the deep bench we have on our executive team we say plus there's like one bonus we're going to interview someone from the community kind of thing.
41:39
But I do think there are CEO capable creators out there.
41:44
So I I do think they're very focused on making good quality.
41:46
Are you hinting at retirement, Dave?
41:48
Are you giving us >> I listen quote me if I ever. >> Okay, quote.
41:54
Dave said on the podcast, "If he were to ever." >> Interesting.
42:03
>> Support for this show comes from Mercury.
42:04
When you're building a business, you need banking that moves with you and helps you build momentum.
42:10
As someone who just started a media company, trust me, this is super important.
42:13
With Mercury, banking is so much more than a place to store your money.
42:17
It's a platform that helps you push your business forward.
42:19
I use Mercury every day, and I love how powerful but easy the platform is to use.
42:25
It's fast and designed for how businesses actually work.
42:28
From one place, you can send payments to contractors around the world, invoice clients, and track what you're owed, and even manage team spend without extra tools.
42:38
With a clear view of money coming in and going out, you can see precisely where you stand, so you know what to do next.
42:45
Whatever you want to do with your money, Mercury makes it feel effortless. Visit mercury.
42:49
com to join over 200,000 entrepreneurs like me who love Mercury.
42:55
Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank.
42:57
Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column NA members FDIC.
43:06
Are there any uh Roblox aur platform uh creators yet?
43:11
>> A Darren Areronowski for for Roblox. >> What does a mean?
43:16
A >> oh just like typically used for like a movie director like let's say Martin Scorsesei who has their defining motifs and there's so muchal intent and >> every detail is looked after.
43:31
I I feel we're going to get there.
43:33
like we're trying to do something really difficult and and arguably in video there's a hundred years of development from film all the way up to the digital camera and now we're 4K and it's kind of a solved problem on the video and the playback and in immersive 3D multiplayer with a lot of people at photo realism in real time with instantaneous joining from everywhere in the world with low latency.
44:07
That's a there's still a lot of invention going on here.
44:08
Like this this is not fully invented.
44:11
We will get to that point.
44:14
We will get to the point where 100,000 people all around the world go to a concert all together. It's photoreal. You hear the audio.
44:23
You can wave at your friend.
44:25
Um, we'll get to the point where that 100,000 player stadium, uh, whoever wants to be the dungeon master or all of them can flip the stadium like in in a inception upside down and wrap it upside down or turn it into a coliseum in real time with generative.
44:44
Um, so I think that's like the spec of what we're going for and it's still a ways away.
44:49
We got to park this conversation in AI, Dave.
44:51
But before we do that, you cannot come on here without So there there's a couple companies, I think, two in particular that have major Roblox FOMO.
44:58
There's Meta with Horizon, and there's Epic with what they've been trying to do with Fortnite and the UGC side.
45:04
You're not allowed to immediately turn it back on and how well you're doing.
45:08
I want you to actually answer, what do you make of those two companies and their efforts?
45:13
What do you think is working for each one of them as they're trying to go more in Roblox's direction?
45:17
Um at at a high level, I mean those are both amazing companies and they're both very valuable companies.
45:24
Uh Meta has just this incredible history of iterating um analyzing making things better and better and better.
45:34
So that that would be a positive thing to say about them.
45:36
I think they would they would agree their roadmap is very broad.
45:42
there are a lot of things going on over there and so uh the broader the road map you know that that's harder than just having absolutely one product that you're focused on and then I would say um same for Epic amazing company so visionary battle royale Fortnite all of that um a lot of their tech around photo realism the breadth of the tech going out of gaming into utility ility uses super cool as well.
46:15
But once again, I would argue a somewhat broad road map.
46:17
C++ game engine, a game called Fortnite, modules inside Fortnite built with C++ like um some of their partnership deals, and then a creative mode built within the game.
46:34
And so that starts to be multiple things working together.
46:36
So, one of the I think one of the dreams of Roblox even when we started was literally it was the dream to have the same name for the product and the company and just have one product.
46:49
And I think in a way we so far we've almost been able to stick with that.
46:55
>> Oh boy, this is Ellis Catnip.
46:55
You started bringing up naming.
47:00
>> I'm a little tired of naming at the moment.
47:02
I mean, you come up with a name for an AI company and not only is there an AI company already by that name, but there's an AI podcast already by that name as well.
47:10
Things have gotten very challenging.
47:13
>> When we did Roblox, we had every domain, every trademark just all in one fell swoop within a week. >> That's visual.
47:20
>> Well, so speaking of uh speaking of meta, I mean, I know you've talked about Roblox as being the future of communication.
47:26
I think in in some ways that seems like kind of the apex of everything that Zuck would have ever wanted is to try and create this new medium for communication.
47:34
And I feel like a lot of this conversation has been about social communication as opposed to how we might typically think of let's say gaming or very like it's a well-crafted game. I love this game.
47:45
I mean, how much of the Roblox benefit is about social?
47:50
>> Yeah, I think we learned our lesson a year or two ago.
47:55
um our focus lesson because at back at the IPO our mission was connect a billion people every day with optimism and civility and jumping from 50 million DAU to a billion like that 20x can be a pretty fuzzy product spec and it's just like okay like what are we going to do?
48:19
So about a year and a half ago, we we analyzed what we think a product like Roblox could be useful for.
48:24
And yes, gaming, gaming, gaming, probably at 300 million daily activives, the majority gaming.
48:34
But with that technology starting to support a lot of the visionary stuff, future avatar chat, future shopping, future co-working together, future immersive concerts, concerts, all of that.
48:49
So we we made the call at our developer conference a year and a quarter ago.
48:54
We threw out this intermediate thing.
48:57
10% of gaming content bookings um is the focus and we said that's probably around 300 million DAUs.
49:06
um our creators, I think our community, everyone got it that the the technology that we would work on for gaming, it's really very similar to all those other markets.
49:18
Um the creator platform, the safety technology, the economy, all of it.
49:24
And so it it was it essentially winnowed that billion spec down to 300 million um in a really elegant way that's given us a lot of focus.
49:34
And I would say now we're deep into um for this year. What is the economy?
49:42
What is the search and discovery?
49:42
What is the tech needed to support a broadening of genres on the platform?
49:46
Um I think people will think of Roblox as a whole new platform when more and more of the experiences you can't quite tell that's a Roblox experience.
49:57
you're like, "Whoa, is that a a Pixar Incredibles game or is that a new RPG game?"
50:03
I think that when we start to see that, people will start to realize, you know, the this opportunity.
50:11
>> Uh your team mentioned that you were on a sbatical recently and uh you've also been thinking a lot about AI and I'm curious what that was like.
50:18
I don't know if you've done that before, but what it was like to take a little bit of a step back.
50:23
I'm sure you didn't fully step back.
50:25
>> Um but what that was like Very humbling. I feel >> humbling. >> Yeah.
50:30
Uh the the humbling for me I felt you know a while back when we started Roblox I used to read all the research physics simulation rendering technology up and down the stack.
50:45
People were thinking about all of these new ways of doing gaming and generally I could understand all of it like the math in these papers and all of it.
50:54
But the the horizontal wave of research everywhere in the world, you know, coming out and the whole gamut of AI is so massive and so fast. It's very humbling.
51:11
Like it is hard to get to a position where you can understand all of those research papers.
51:15
Um you know transformers, diffusion, world models, blah like it's a lot going on.
51:21
So, >> did it give you new clarity about AI as it relates to the company and the strategy you guys need to have?
51:28
I'm sure you spent a lot of time looking at world models, video models.
51:32
That's moving very quickly.
51:35
>> I I think it clarified for me that um we're still very early in the 3D space.
51:42
Um you know, the AI space is arguably a very physically unnatural space right now.
51:49
this thing called text and this thing called images.
51:54
You know, there's these things we all made up and we're now training AI models on this thing we made up rather than not necessarily on the 3D raw material of the world itself.
52:05
And I I think I came away feeling um we're going to see multiple versions of these types of products.
52:13
We're going to see arguably everyone at Snap and Facebook and Tik Tok is probably thinking what happens instead of swiping.
52:24
Does that turn into continuous video?
52:27
Is it generated in real time? What's the UX for it? Is it a swipe? Is it a camera angle?
52:33
Is it the way I'm looking?
52:35
How do I signal what direction to take that potential realtime video rather than a, you know, swiped video?
52:45
Um, so I think there there's a whole category of these types of things.
52:46
I think one could imagine the um AI command line that we're like, you know, everyone's got their chat GPT, Google, you name it command line turning multimodal to the point of having a video option as well as a chat option.
53:09
And you know, if you're learning a language, you could imagine that starting to stream video and to say walk down the street and go into the French cafe and start talking to someone.
53:16
Um, so I think that's possible.
53:19
Um, that said, I'm still a huge optimist that communication between people or people and AI bots um is is going to be a big thing.
53:32
And that's that's more and more going to take some very sophisticated technology to synchronize many people in 3D to make them photorealistic to support many many NPCs at the same time um and to put all of that together in a natural way.
53:48
So I'm I'm actually very optimistic we're going to see multiple classes of products uh stemming from some of this early video gen work.
53:58
I spend a lot of time, especially recently, with founders, working on a lot of these world models and video models and trying to understand where they think things are going.
54:05
And to be honest, I think several of them think they're going to be able to make something that can be roadblocks, but with a prompt.
54:12
They think it all collides.
54:14
And there's a lot more complexity to what you do, especially on the economy side, all the safety stuff we talked about, but the sheer asset creation, the 3D of it, the hanging out in it. Um, what is that?
54:24
How as a company that's what 20 years old, you have a lot of revenue and users to protect.
54:30
You have a stable, you know, you have an infrastructure to protect all these things.
54:33
Like how do you adapt quick enough to what is coming with this and do you agree that that is coming?
54:40
>> Yeah, I mean there's like look at the gamut of the reaction of various big companies and then map it downward. Right.
54:47
arguably Google, which five or six years ago looked sleepy and whatever, and they got some alpha chess stuff, whatever, but thinking ahead around the corners and the potential to link what used to be search with AI, with TPUs, with a cloud facility, with their own research all of a sudden turns into like a formidable stack.
55:09
And then we can name a lot of other companies that 30 years ago were the biggest startups in Silicon Valley and what happened to them, right? They're gone.
55:20
So I think I think the only way to um keep building a successful company is being trying to get 10x bigger uh having a vision for that and knowing you have to be innovating towards that future with your own unique future.
55:35
So I think on on what you you've said I I think that's a logical thing for many founders to say um we've we've seen it before like it's a compliment that five years ago it was the Roblox for high-end gaming or six years ago it was the Roblox for this.
55:54
So that that is a compliment.
55:57
I do feel um we internally um given the 400 models we've built really have to be knowing how to build all of these knowing how to build single player video streaming highly coordinated photorealistic multiplayer and one of the advantages we have in the company which is we always treat carefully and privately is the um data of our users.
56:25
We we have 10 billion hours of data every month.
56:28
Not a video, but a 3D immersive human interaction.
56:35
People deciding whether to open a door, people chatting with each other, people jumping into cars and driving them around. >> It's a crazy stat.
56:42
I mean, is that is that like YouTube level yet in terms of hours?
56:48
I I'm pretty sure YouTube is showing to users much more than 10 or 11 billion hours a month of video.
56:55
I I don't know their latest stat >> and I haven't compared it to the amount of video coming into YouTube.
57:01
Someone can probably do that, but it is like I I think Tesla published something like look our fleet is generating x amount of video data per day.
57:12
I think we're orders of magnitude above that.
57:16
Um, and it's it's not from the viewport of the cameras on a vehicle.
57:20
It's true 3D data um that could be rerendered from any camera angle um that could be possibly reviewed at some point.
57:29
So that data I think one of the futures of AI companies is the mixing of more and more of what's publicly available data all the text in the world maybe that with what is proprietary data and doing uniquely vertical things with that data.
57:48
>> So I know we're almost out of time and thank you for uh for coming on with us.
57:52
Uh if we could take it even farther into the future.
57:54
You know, I think there's reason to believe that uh someday, whether it's, you know, 10 or 20 years from now, it will be possible to inhabit, you know, a photorealistic world with friends, with games, with school, whether it's Ready Player Oneesque or it's more utopian or more dystopian.
58:10
How do you feel about that?
58:13
Would that excite you or is there some some point where we should say, "Let's keep half our day in the real world?"
58:16
Do you have any more specific thoughts about that?
58:22
Yeah, once again, um, you know, staying within context as a parent and a believer in our Roblox values, which is we are responsible and we're trying to take the long view.
58:35
I'm a huge advocate for parents being thoughtful about screen time, especially screen time, you know, at night where we're not used to blue light, um, you know, so circadium rhythm.
58:46
I think I'm a advocate of being thoughtful about that.
58:52
And then I I would say I'm also an advocate of um outdoor time.
58:54
I think the the opportunity for roadblocks and you hopefully you'll see us do it over time is the raw potential of invention is somewhat of a neutral thing.
59:07
Like there there's this neutral inexurable marching forward of invention that >> you know in certain cases society can't stop.
59:16
it's just going to happen.
59:16
It does create an opportunity for certain companies to try to be thoughtful about the introduction of new invention and and to try to do them in a balanced way.
59:29
So, I would say that would be the um the thoughtful way we'd approach it in thinking broader than just the raw invention itself.
59:38
>> Dave, we appreciate your time.
59:38
We'll let you get out of here. Thanks for joining us.
59:42
>> Good chatting with you guys. Take care. >> Thank you.
59:47
All right, Ellis, how'd you feel about that?
59:48
Your first time meeting Bizooki Builderman?
59:52
>> Yeah, I mean, I'm just fascinated by everything happening on this platform and how much I don't see it as someone who reads tech news every day.
59:59
And I mean, it really does remind me as as uh we discussed in the pod of my years at Snapchat and feeling like, man, I wish people could just see what's happening on this platform, but if you're not 13, you're just kind of not seeing it. Yeah.
1:00:14
Do you feel like we were too soft on him?
1:00:17
>> I mean, as these public company CEOs show us time and time again, they're only going to answer what they want to answer.
1:00:22
And you can make it awkward if you want, but uh not usually by style. >> How about yours?
1:00:29
>> Yeah, I I think it's a really tricky balance. I mean, you're right.
1:00:31
like there's nothing we're going to ask on the obvious questions uh of a co like Dave that he hasn't been asked a million times and that you know hard fork covered in depth for like an hour just recently.
1:00:45
So I thought we got him to open up in ways that I hadn't really heard him open up before and actually talk about the incentives of the platform which I think are you know upstream of a lot of the things that people are worried about.
1:00:57
I think rightfully so on Roblox. Um, yeah, maybe.
1:01:01
I always wish interviews like this, maybe I wish I would have pushed harder a little bit here or a little bit there.
1:01:05
Um, but you're right, like you're only going to get so much uh in an environment like that.
1:01:10
And like this is also just not a I don't know.
1:01:12
It's not an environment where like you can just like uh snipe someone repeatedly. I don't know. It just doesn't work.
1:01:21
>> This isn't this isn't exactly a congressional hearing.
1:01:23
Um, but I mean the hard fork thing I mean did I I don't know.
1:01:27
Did they did they like get any quote unquote news out of him like successfully or was the only news that it was very awkward?
1:01:37
>> I want to give him more credit than that.
1:01:38
I mean I I said it to Dave like I consider Casey and Kevin, you know, the co-s for >> I don't actually know. I was asking you. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:01:45
No, I I I think they got him flustered about this stuff and that was the news and uh you know and that's that's fine and that's that's their prerogative and like u it was a very interesting thing to watch.
1:02:01
I yeah I do think we got we got stuff from him that I haven't heard.
1:02:04
I mean the fact that he's like talking about retirement on a podcast um I think is interesting.
1:02:10
Um but yeah, man, I don't I don't know.
1:02:14
It's these conversations are tricky.
1:02:15
I feel like we walked the line pretty well and I feel like we also tried to talk through the nuance of this stuff in a way that is hopefully interesting and has more depth for people.
1:02:26
Uh I've interviewed Dave a bunch of times and it was nice having you here because you are a parent and I think you just have that perspective that I don't.
1:02:33
And I always felt kind of weird.
1:02:35
weird. Uh I remember I interviewed him at the code conference the last year the code conference and um I felt weird kind of being the guy grilling the CEO of Roblox who is not a parent you know um and I I just feel like that probably brings like more perspective although you didn't really talk about it but I think it just I think it just naturally
1:02:51
infuses like how you would ask someone like that questions right >> yeah I think the one thing that I kind of wish we would have gotten more of is just some opinions from him and I kind of asked it a couple times you know some opinions from him on like is this you quality entertainment or is this just kind of kids kicking the can in the parking lot? You know, is that what a
1:03:10
You know, is that what a lot of these games are?
1:03:12
Some of the ones certainly look like that.
1:03:15
Though I don't want to pass judgment though, as I shared, I kind of like the idea of that 99 nights survival game.
1:03:21
But, um, I do think it's income.
1:03:24
I mean, he, you know, he's talking about parents being thoughtful, but I mean, if I'm being a thoughtful parent, I may rather have friends over for my kids to play Mario Kart on the couch than do whatever online.
1:03:38
Like, that is an important conversation.
1:03:40
Which of these is a better experience for your kids, you know? >> Yeah.
1:03:43
>> And so, but without more knowledge, I'm not even sure that we're there yet. >> Yeah.
1:03:48
>> To make that comparison. >> Yeah.
1:03:49
I mean, it's Eye of the Beholder, you know.
1:03:51
It resonates with me a lot like that.
1:03:53
Um, you can use a platform like Roblox as a young person and like build things and also meet people.
1:03:58
I mean, so much of my career and what I'm doing and like honestly like getting out of the Midwest and like moving to interesting big cities was the result of being on forums as a kid and playing video games and meeting people online that I would have never met otherwise, right?
1:04:17
And like relationships that I still have to this day that were super, you know, formative for me.
1:04:21
And that stuff is happening on Roblox.
1:04:23
It's it's it's hard to weigh.
1:04:25
Yes, there is awful there are awful things happening too. There are predators.
1:04:31
You know, there's been lawsuits over that.
1:04:33
Uh and there's also like, you know, teenagers learning how to like build things and and communicate and even build businesses and become developers.
1:04:42
And like a platform that contains all those things is, I think, inherently very messy to talk about.
1:04:48
And I think a lot of the way that the media talks about these platforms can get very reductive uh because it's hard to parse through all that.
1:04:55
And I thought we did a pretty good job of that. >> Yeah.
1:04:57
And I mean there's definitely that you know puritanical streak with modern helicopter parents that well if you're not going to let your kids go out and play and bike down the street, what exactly do you expect them to do?
1:05:09
Like build a castle made of blocks every day after school?
1:05:14
Like there's got to be an outlet.
1:05:16
There's got to be a social outlet.
1:05:17
And that's what we were always saying with Snapchat as well is that kids desperately do want to hang out with their friends.
1:05:23
But if you look at the numbers, it's declining in terms of those after school or even weekend playdates.
1:05:29
Even just with the rise in, you know, extracurricular activities, harder to get into college, you want to get more out of college, like the playtime, the unstructured playtime, I feel like, uh, uh, is maybe what this could represent at its best. Yeah. Yeah.
1:05:44
>> So, uh I am happy that Dave said he's he still appreciates some outdoor time once in a while. >> That is good to know.
1:05:50
Um that's very good to know.
1:05:52
I'm curious even so after, you know, reading all the horror stories, the prep that we did for this episode, interviewing the CEO, would you let your girls on Roblox when the time comes?
1:06:03
How do you feel about it these days? >> Yeah, I would.
1:06:06
I think you have to try this stuff if you want to understand if there is a safe, fun way to use it.
1:06:12
I think what's important to me is not being immediately skeptical of the new rock music.
1:06:18
I mean, maybe I am too extreme about that where like I try to like everything like whatever's on the radio, I'm going to really try to like it even if I kind of hate it.
1:06:27
Like that's my worst fear is being an outofouch uh being an out-ofouch, you know, dad or or granddad or something like that.
1:06:36
were so excited to show me geese a couple weeks ago. >> Yes.
1:06:40
But I'm also like I'm also kind of butt hurt from all those years at Snapchat of people telling me that these real relationships people were having on there were f were frivolous because it was sharing selfies.
1:06:51
And it's like well I snap with my grandma all the time cuz that's all she wants to see is my face, not whatever coffee I'm posting on Instagram. I'll tell you that much.
1:07:02
>> I'm not sure if that No, not anymore. um streak.
1:07:07
>> Yeah, I'm not saying that's the majority of use cases on Snap.
1:07:09
But when you look at something like ephemererality that now a lot of people take for granted, especially in in, you know, places and under governments where things are more heavily surveiled, there are a lot of reasons that ephemererality is nice, just like in the real world.
1:07:22
And so I guess I always uh I always, you know, try and see things for myself if I can. >> Yeah.
1:07:30
Anything else going on with you?
1:07:32
Are you gonna let your dog use roadblocks? >> My two dogs.
1:07:37
>> I'm sure they would if they could. >> Yeah.
1:07:40
Anything else going on with you, >> man? I don't know.
1:07:43
Uh I need a vacation from the vacation after uh after five days of babysitting over Thanksgiving.
1:07:50
So, yeah, I'm going to after this, I'm just going to sit in peace and and turn around my little desk chair and stare at the wall for a little while. >> I feel that.
1:07:57
I'm I'm in New York this week uh for the Dealbook Summit.
1:07:59
Uh Andrew Ross Sorcin, who I consider to be the goat of business, financial journalism, uh is obviously very wellversed in tech as well, does this one day thing that I'm very fortunate to get to go to that is kind of this masters of the universe event.
1:08:15
Um that is also great inspiration for me as I'm thinking about events on my own with sources.
1:08:22
Um and he's got Dario Amade from Anthropic and Mr.
1:08:25
Beast and a bunch of Brian Armstrong from Coinbase.
1:08:28
It's going to be a lot of interesting people. Uh, very excited.
1:08:32
>> Are you a master of the universe yet or just a just a mere padawan? >> Not yet Jedi Council.
1:08:38
>> Maybe entering like Jedi, but definitely not master.
1:08:40
Um, and >> do you have a leather jacket? That's what's important. >> I do.
1:08:44
And I just got a trench for your well on your way. Oh, of course.
1:08:46
Um, it's it's it's a cool conference, man.
1:08:51
It's very succession-y like down to the music that they play when the person comes on stage.
1:08:55
It's very like you are in the show and it's like at the Javit Center overlooking Central Park. It's it's very cool.
1:09:01
So, shout out uh Sorcin uh the goat.
1:09:04
And uh I do actually wish though that I was in San Diego of all places this week.
1:09:08
A sentence I have never said.
1:09:10
Do you know what's happening in San Diego? >> What? You like San Diego? >> No. >> Oh, okay. >> Yeah.
1:09:18
>> I mean, it's >> I told you I'm a contrarian. >> Look, it's fine.
1:09:22
Um it's a lot of retired uh you know army people and Republicans.
1:09:27
Um but what's going to happen is that uh that concentration of people is going to also have the highest concentration of AI researchers in the world for one week only in the beautiful city of San Diego uh just a few hours south of us.
1:09:40
Uh it's called Neuralypse.
1:09:42
It's this academic conference that uh is now kind of where I would say the next year gets set in the AI community.
1:09:47
And these are the people actually building the models.
1:09:51
And it's become this like world job fair where as the money in AI gets bigger and bigger.
1:09:55
All the big companies show up, they throw crazy parties and they try to, you know, it's it's like a juiced up version of your high school job fair with like trillions of dollars at stake.
1:10:06
And the candidates are, you know, the smartest AI minds in the world that are all in San Diego next week.
1:10:12
Uh if there was ever an opportunity for God to be like, "All right, bye-bye, you know, to this whole thing.
1:10:18
Let's get the coastal erosion going. Just a one fell swoop.
1:10:20
This whole coastal shelf goes into the ocean.
1:10:25
>> I guess >> we're not going to have AI though if that happens. >> Yeah, I guess not.
1:10:31
>> You're not going to have clients. >> Okay. Don't do it, God.
1:10:38
>> Anyway, uh maybe next year for Neuralips.
1:10:40
I'm sure it'll be in like Switzerland or something.
1:10:41
Um they always move it around.
1:10:42
But uh >> Neural IPS, it's really got a ring to it.
1:10:46
Yeah, I I'm hope I'm probably not saying it right.
1:10:49
I'm sure an AI researcher will will correct me.
1:10:52
>> So, Alex, let's talk about your scoop.
1:10:52
I read it over lunch today while eating hand rolls here in Little Tokyo.
1:10:56
And uh I was having a lot of fun reading it.
1:11:02
Can you tell us a little bit more about it? >> Oh, yeah.
1:11:03
The back to work uh mandate is is coming.
1:11:06
Instagram, back to five days a week, baby. No more remote work.
1:11:11
Uh it was only what it was two or three years ago when Zuck was saying we're going to be the most remote friendly big tech company.
1:11:18
Uh and now I think they're one of the first to do mandated 5 days a week back.
1:11:24
It's not for the whole company. It's Instagram.
1:11:28
It's still a lot of people.
1:11:28
Uh but yeah, I published this internal memo from Adam Oseri, the head of Instagram, basically outlining why they're doing this, the culture reset they want to do.
1:11:36
It's a lot of like, you know, the natural big tech bureaucracy creep that happens and every once in a while you have a senior manager be like, "Okay, like we're resetting.
1:11:47
No more reoccurring meetings, uh, unblocking sessions or whatever, which is like, you know, it's just these big tech things that if you're in big tech, you totally get it.
1:11:56
And if not, you're probably like, "What the hell is this?"
1:11:58
Well, I just love that it's like all this stuff that, you know, you think, "Oh, this is the upper echelon of uh corporations. They're so innovative.
1:12:10
They've got the best software.
1:12:10
They've got the best talent.
1:12:13
They've got everybody going to neural."
1:12:17
And then you read the memo and it's like, "Everybody please make sure that meetings have a goal." >> Yeah.
1:12:24
>> And it's like, "Yeah, uh, they're all just like us.
1:12:27
They're just Ivy Leaguers.
1:12:29
>> Yeah, we're all humans, man.
1:12:30
>> Yeah, >> we should all cancel our one-on ones and we need DRI, you know, directly responsible individuals and if somebody overschedules your focus block, please try and decline it and I will take the >> the, you know, hate for that.
1:12:43
And I mean, every company I've ever been at has kind of had the same problems.
1:12:47
And it's just it's just ironic to me.
1:12:50
you know, we spend all of our days trying to build this new technology, all these new productivity tools, and I don't know a single company that seems to have resolved some of these core issues around recurring one-on- ones and meeting agendas.
1:13:04
I mean, of all the companies you've talked to, is there one that you feel like is kind of like the most organized?
1:13:09
I mean, I feel like that base camp company was talking about how uh they had all these different rhythms.
1:13:15
They do or don't use email.
1:13:15
They have Wednesdays blocked off.
1:13:18
You know, some companies are kind of known for their culture, but I'm not sure how true any of it actually is. >> Yeah.
1:13:24
Nothing apparent comes to mind.
1:13:24
I don't think anyone's figured it out.
1:13:28
It's like you're either fully remote or you're some weird hybrid that's a disaster or you're five days a week.
1:13:33
Those are those are the three options.
1:13:36
And Instagram's kind of trying to have both.
1:13:38
Like if you actually read the memo that I put on sources.
1:13:40
news, like there's a lot of wiggle room.
1:13:42
But, uh, the headline that the manager wants to communicate is five days a week.
1:13:46
Um, which is also like quiet layoffs, right?
1:13:51
That's that's gonna force certain people to not come back and that's okay. Um, and yeah, man. I don't know.
1:13:56
I just uh I'm actually surprised you didn't mention the thing I thought you would mention up first, which is like that there.
1:14:03
He was saying no more decks.
1:14:03
Uh, I don't know if you ever had to experience deck overload inside >> Oh, a thousand%.
1:14:12
>> But, uh, >> thousand%.
1:14:13
I don't know if the decks are necessarily any different from like stat strategy docs or whatever, but like that's one of the things called out is that like we can't spend half our time doing decks and strategy docs.
1:14:26
>> Part of the problem though is that I think like as is the case with pretty much every company, it's like when you're presenting uh something like a product or you know piece of marketing or brand creative, it is a story, right?
1:14:39
And sometimes the VP may not deeply understand the audience that you're trying to serve, which is their fault of course, but this is what happens when you become VP and you get a bit more out of touch with certain things. And so we'll see.
1:14:53
Maybe the pendulum will swing back toward Dex eventually.
1:14:55
I mean, I do believe work culture is is very cyclical with all this stuff.
1:14:59
But the other thing that comes to mind is just, you know, on the tail end of the Roblox convo.
1:15:03
Uh it is kind of ironic, you know, there's that point where like uh this was actually a Casey Newton tweet from a long time ago where Casey was like Zuck is in this weird place of trying to convince congressman that uh Facebook can't really change any voting behavior but convince every advertiser that that is what Facebook is best at is changing buying behavior. Mhm.
1:15:26
>> And it's the same thing maybe with Roblox, which is which is that like all right, all these companies are let's let's just keep it to meta for a second with their VR stuff like Horizon Worlds.
1:15:36
>> They're talking about how unbelievable all this, you know, VR stuff is for socializing or whatever they're making these days, but then they're telling all their employees to come to work because collaboration is better there.
1:15:47
I mean, I feel like it's fairly obvious at this point that just about everything is better in person if we have the luxury of being able to do that.
1:15:54
Obviously, not everybody has that luxury, whether it's with, you know, flexibility with kids or disabilities or otherwise.
1:16:00
But, uh, yeah, it's a funny dance uh that that tech is forced forced to dance when all these trends go back and forth.
1:16:09
>> Yeah, the metaverse may be in Roblox, but it's not in uh Quest headsets right now.
1:16:15
>> It's not the metaverse we wanted to build.
1:16:19
Well, on that note, uh thanks to Dave for coming on the show, especially sticking in uh and still coming after the hard fork thing.
1:16:27
Uh appreciated him doing that.
1:16:29
Uh yeah, send us out here, Ellis.
1:16:32
>> We're a new show, so please follow, like, subscribe everywhere you get podcasts.
1:16:36
You can also find us in video via Access Pod on YouTube.
1:16:40
>> If you like this episode, leave a fivestar review or thumbs up and please share it with a friend.
1:16:45
You can find me at hamburger on Twitter and yes, I will continue to call it Twitter and at meaning. comp.
1:16:52
>> You can find my newsletter at sources. news.
1:16:55
>> Access is part of the Vox Media podcast network and is produced by Hooked Creators. >> Bye-bye.
1:17:06
Support for this show comes from Mercury.
1:17:07
Growing as a business means being able to evolve and adapt with the changing times.
1:17:12
So, when it comes to finances, you need a partner who can adapt with you and let you do anything with your money.
1:17:17
Banking, cards, spend management, invoicing, and more.
1:17:20
With Mercury, you can do it all from one place, tailored to you and your business.
1:17:26
It's banking at its most intuitive.
1:17:28
Trust me, I use Mercury every day to run my business. Visit mercury.
1:17:32
com to join over 200,000 entrepreneurs who use Mercury.
1:17:34
Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank.
1:17:38
Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and column A members FDIC.