Designing an economy that pays creators

David Baszucki, Founder & CEO of Roblox, has quietly built one of the largest & most complex systems on the internet: a real-time, global platform with ~150 million daily active users, 35 billion hours of engagement per quarter, and a $6.8 billion digital economy running on top of massive AI and infrastructure.

But Roblox isn’t just scale — it’s a fully functioning economy. The platform has paid out over $1.5 billion to creators, with top 1,000 developers earning over $1.3 million on average, turning games into businesses and players into entrepreneurs. Underneath it all is a deeply engineered system.. 40+ global data centers, hundreds of thousands of servers, and hundreds of AI models powering everything from creation and discovery to safety and real-time interaction.

We go deep on how Roblox designed this economy from first principles, why AI will accelerate (not replace) creators, and what it takes to build a platform that blends gaming, social interaction, and entrepreneurship into one system. This is a curious blueprint for the future of the internet & real life where anyone can create, earn, and participate in a global digital world.

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David Baszucki: https://x.com/DavidBaszucki 

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𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒

(00:00) David Baszucki, Co-Founder & CEO at Roblox

(01:21) A spicy start

(03:53) The 10% global gaming ambition

(05:40) The early vision that built Roblox

(07:45) Vision vs metrics

(09:08) The most underrated part of Roblox

(10:55) Why Roblox data matters for AI

(12:55) The future of AI-powered games

(16:27) AI won’t replace creators

(20:46) Virtual concerts and the future of AR/VR

(22:28) What “4D gaming” actually means

(24:29) Staying relevant across generations

(27:00) The viral engine

(27:58) Lessons on human behavior