Roblox's 2020 S-1 letter from David Baszucki

About this letter

David Baszucki, Roblox's founder, president and chief executive, wrote this letter for the registration statement on form S-1 that Roblox filed with the SEC on 19 November 2020, which described an initial public offering of its Class A common stock. The letter sits before the business section and looks back over the 15 years since he and Erik Cassel launched the first version of Roblox from a small office in Menlo Park.

Baszucki recalls knowing almost everyone in the early community and writing code by day before socialising with users in the late afternoon. When Roblox Studio was released, he and the early team realised users were building things more interesting than anything they could make themselves. He places Roblox in a long history of communication and storytelling technology, calls the category human co-experience, and explains why safety and civility are its most important priority.

What to notice

1. 1

   Baszucki commits Roblox to stay a single platform, single name, single focus company, whose ultimate product specification was always to model reality as accurately as it could.

“We quickly realized what they were building was much more interesting and engaging than anything we could ever make.”