Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki maintains a two-decade-old vision of building a "holodeck." This long-term, stable goal allows the company to frame new technologies like AI as powerful tools to accelerate that vision, rather than as disruptive forces that require a strategic pivot.
While AI tools reduce the cost of creating game assets, Roblox's CEO argues this won't change the competitive dynamics. He believes consumer expectations for quality and polish increase at the same pace as the technology's capability, keeping the bar for success perpetually high.
The rise of AI doesn't change your team's fundamental goals. Leaders should demystify AI by positioning it as just another powerful tool, similar to past technological shifts. The core work remains the same; AI just helps you do it better and faster.
Roblox's CEO identifies the central challenge for large-scale virtual worlds not as physics simulation, but as efficiently synchronizing the state and memory of thousands of simultaneous players. This deep infrastructure problem is where new AI and data representation breakthroughs are most needed.
Roblox CEO Dave Bazooki articulated the company's grand ambition: to expand from its current 3% share to capture 10% of the entire global gaming market. This strategy positions Roblox not as a single game but as a foundational platform for creators, similar to an operating system for interactive experiences.
Adopting the philosophy of 'building for dying' (向死而生), the founder views his AI product not just for current productivity, but as a future 'playground.' In a world where AI automates most jobs, the product's purpose will shift to providing fulfillment and the pleasure of 'pretend work.'
Instead of saving gameplay as video (raster data), Roblox intends to store its entire history as vector data. This would allow any event to be replayed and "re-shot" from any camera angle, creating a uniquely powerful dataset for training AI and enabling new user experiences.
When transitioning Box to be "AI first," CEO Aaron Levie explicitly communicated that the goal was not to reduce headcount or cut costs. Instead, he framed AI as a tool to increase company output, speed, and customer service, which successfully aligned employees with the new strategy by removing fear.
Roblox balances its ambitious long-term "holodeck" vision with a culture of rapid, weekly iterations. This "get stuff done" approach breaks down monumental goals into manageable, consistent progress, preventing the long-term vision from becoming an intimidating, un-actionable dream.
The rapid pace of AI innovation means today's cutting-edge research is irrelevant in three months. This creates a core challenge for founders: establishing a stable, long-term company vision when the underlying technology is in constant, rapid flux. The solution is to anchor on the macro trend, not the specific implementation.
Dave Baszucki posits that as photorealistic 4D simulation improves, it will become the primary communication medium. Standard video conferencing will become a "legacy analog mode," a down-sampled version of a richer, more interactive 4D experience that offers superior features like spatial audio.