EP.66: Into the Metaverse with Dan Sturman - CTO, Roblox Into the Metaverse

This week Yon welcomes Dan Sturman into the metaverse. Dan is a world class technologist, having spent time leading software and engineering teams and departments at IBM, Google, and Cloudera, before taking on his current role as CTO of Roblox nearly four years ago. 

Coming off of all of the news and announcements made at last weekend’s Roblox Developers Conference 2023 (RDC23) it’s an incredible time to get to chat with Dan about all things Roblox and metaverse.

During their conversation Yon and Dan discuss the importance of Roblox remaining a turnkey platform, how to enable efficiency in the creator marketplace, the new Roblox Connect feature and what that experience will be like, evolving a platform to match a maturing audience, getting to one billion daily active users, and much more.

Chapters:


Defining the Metaverse (01:15)


What Attracted Dan to the Challenge of Building Roblox (04:32)


Differentiating Roblox as a Turnkey Platform (08:15)


Creation and the Building of Business On Top of Roblox (13:12)


Enabling Efficiency in the Creator Marketplace (19:10)


The Importance of Communication and Roblox Connect (22:28)


Expansion onto MetaQuest and Playstation (30:10)


Evolving the Games and Experiences for a Maturing Audience (33:28)


What Needs to be True for Roblox to Get to a Billion DAU (37:35)


Supporting Different Needs for Different Creator Types to Monetize (42:08)


Blockchain and the Future of Interoperability (45:54)


What is Dan Most Excited About for Next Twelve Months (48:22)



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