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The Tim Ferriss Show

#834: David Baszucki, Co-Founder of Roblox - The Path to 150M+ Daily Users, Critical Business Decisions, Ketogenic Therapy for Brain Health, Daily Routines, The Roblox Economy, and More

with David Bazuki

Published November 5, 2025
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About This Episode

Tim Ferriss interviews Roblox founder and CEO David Bazuki about his family's multi‑year struggle with his son Matthew's severe bipolar disorder and how a medically supervised ketogenic diet produced dramatic improvements after many medications and hospitalizations. They discuss metabolic psychiatry, ketosis, continuous glucose and ketone monitoring, and how physiology can underpin mental health. The conversation then shifts to the origin and growth of Roblox, its user‑generated economy, safety and civility at scale, the role of AI in the platform's future, and David's own health routines and long‑term decision‑making as a public company CEO.

Topics Covered

Ketogenic diet Mental health Entrepreneurship Artificial intelligence Sleep Leadership and management Online safety User-generated content Roblox Metabolic psychiatry

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Quick Takeaways

  • David's son experienced years of severe bipolar disorder with multiple hospitalizations and failed medication trials before showing rapid, unprecedented improvement within three to four weeks on a strict ketogenic diet under medical supervision.
  • Ketosis provides an alternative fuel source for the brain via ketones, and both David and Tim describe noticeable effects on mood, cognitive clarity, sleep, and even physical performance when in nutritional ketosis.
  • Tim notes that addressing underlying physiological and metabolic issues can be a prerequisite for making progress with talk therapy, and that relying on therapy alone can risk a sense of learned helplessness if the 'machinery' is malfunctioning.
  • Roblox began as a user‑generated platform and later unlocked massive growth by building a shared virtual currency and economy that allows creators to monetize their games and even make full‑time incomes.
  • The company deliberately optimizes for creator earnings and user engagement over maximizing short‑term profits, aiming for revenue to scale roughly in proportion to hours spent on the platform.
  • Roblox invests heavily in safety and civility, including filtered communication for young users and plans to use AI and age estimation via phone cameras to better cluster users by age and restrict risky interactions.
  • David views 3D, real‑time, shared virtual spaces as an inevitable next step in human communication, with future applications ranging from work meetings to concerts and political rallies.
  • Continuous glucose monitors and emerging continuous ketone monitors are tools David uses and promotes internally at Roblox to help people see the real‑time impact of food choices on metabolism and energy.
  • As a CEO, David emphasizes staying out of constant fight‑or‑flight by supporting his own physiology (sleep, diet, movement) so he can make long‑term, strategic decisions instead of short‑term, reactive ones.
  • He follows relatively simple but consistent routines around low‑carb eating, intermittent fasting, strength and CrossFit‑style training, and uses tools like an Oura ring to periodically scan key health metrics without obsessing over them daily.

Podcast Notes

Introduction and how Tim and David connected

Tim introduces the guest and Roblox

Tim states that his guest is David Bazuki, founder and CEO of Roblox[0:09]
• Tim notes that many listeners, especially those with kids, will know Roblox and calls it gigantic
Roblox background and accolades[0:09]
• Tim says Roblox was started in 2004, the same year as Facebook, and iterated its way to current scale
• He mentions Time named Roblox one of the 100 most influential companies and Fast Company recognized it for innovation and gaming
David's previous company Knowledge Revolution[0:44]
• Tim explains David previously founded Knowledge Revolution with his brother Greg and created Interactive Physics
• Interactive Physics was educational physics and mechanical design simulation software; kids' usage and excitement informed Roblox's development

Contact links and start of conversation

Tim shares online links for David[1:06]
• Mentions X.com slash David Bazzucchi, YouTube, and BazzucchiGroup.com as places to find him and related work
Opening banter and kettlebells[1:55]
• David says he read one of Tim's books 10-15 years ago, which inspired him to start kettlebell training, and he did some the morning of the interview
• Tim asks how David "jazzed up" his kettlebells after seeing a photo of them
Custom painted kettlebells[2:34]
• David recalls Tim's book describing a DIY travel kettlebell made from plumbing pipes
• He says he has five iron kettlebells at his gym and took them to an auto shop that customizes lowriders to get sparkle automotive paint jobs in red, orange, and green

Connection via metabolic health and introduction to Matthew's story

How Tim and David actually connected

Tim explains the real reason they connected was metabolic health, not Roblox[2:52]
• They share a friend, Dominic D'Agostino, whom Tim calls "Mr. Ketone" and an expert on exogenous ketones
• Tim had also interviewed Chris Palmer of Harvard about metabolic psychiatry, and David's name and the Bazzucchi Group kept coming up

Setting up the story of Matthew's first manic episode

David gives permission context and parental hopes[4:53]
• David says his son and family are comfortable sharing the story, giving him flexibility to speak
• He describes having the typical hopes and dreams for his son Matthew, a successful high school student in math, science, academics, and athletics, as he started at UC Berkeley
Freshman year pressures and onset of first manic episode[5:42]
• Matthew started at Berkeley in computer science, was rushing a fraternity, and had many demands on him
• David says they received alarming cryptic texts from Matthew and from his friends, and when David went to get him he found Matthew in what he calls a manic episode
• He describes a manic episode as something shocking and different that no parent has seen before
Eight- to nine‑year journey with severe bipolar disorder[6:23]
• David says this incident began an eight or nine year journey involving hospitalizations, not knowing how to care for Matthew, and navigating the medical system
• The journey included going to Stanford, where Matthew was locked up on a psych ward
• David says the situation was only ultimately solved by getting Matthew on a ketogenic diet

Discovery of ketogenic diet as a treatment

Hearing about metabolic diet for bipolar from another CEO[7:19]
• David recounts meeting another founder‑CEO who said they improved their own bipolar disorder with a metabolic or ketogenic diet
• He initially thought this sounded like the craziest thing he had heard after eight years of medications, hospitalizations, and disruption
Working with Chris Palmer and trying ketogenic diet[7:48]
• David says they worked with Dr. Palmer and others and Matthew tried a ketogenic diet
• Within three to four weeks they saw progress never seen with any drug or medication, which David calls mind‑blowing and a miracle
• This success catalyzed David and his family to go deeper into the ketogenic route

December 2017 crisis and the logistics of getting Matthew to a hospital

Matthew runs away and goes off medications

Running away to Southern California[9:27]
• By December 2017, Matthew had run away, flushed all his meds, and was streaming on social media as he went
• He caught a bus, went to San Diego, and lived in a lifeguard shack; David knew he was full‑blown manic at that time
First failed attempt to get him hospitalized in San Diego[9:08]
• David traveled to San Diego, called the police, and tried to get Matthew into a hospital, but Matthew convinced the officers he was fine and ran away from his father
• David describes this as very scary and says the police would not detain Matthew because he insisted he did not want to go to the hospital

Matthew disappears in Los Angeles

Period of not knowing where he is[10:17]
• David says they later heard Matthew had hitchhiked from San Diego to Los Angeles with just a phone and laptop
• For one or two days they did not know what to do; David describes the terror and powerlessness of having a son "gone AWOL" in Los Angeles despite having many resources
Chance contact from a Starbucks[10:34]
• By what he calls a miracle, Matthew texted David from a Starbucks while still full‑blown manic
• David gently persuaded him to stay put by saying it would be fun to have lattes together, and Matthew surprisingly agreed to wait there

Travel to LA and driving Matthew to San Diego

Finding Matthew in Starbucks[11:20]
• David flew to LA, got a rental car, rushed to the Starbucks, and found Matthew essentially like a street person with only a plastic Safeway bag containing his laptop, phone, and charger
• He decided not to call the police again because he feared Matthew would run away as before
Convincing Matthew to visit relatives and Uncle Alex[12:42]
• David suggested visiting relatives in San Diego; Matthew agreed and asked to buy cigarettes, which David accommodated to keep him cooperative
• During the drive to San Diego, David texted many people, including his wife and Matthew's uncle Alex, a psychiatrist in Carlsbad, lining up Alex as a "hot stop"
• He framed the visit as just grabbing dinner with Uncle Alex, and Matthew responded positively

Devising a plan to get Matthew admitted without involving police

Using injured hands as entry point to hospital[13:44]
• David notes Matthew's hands were badly beaten up from unknown street activities, possibly punching a wall
• Uncle Alex suggested a steak dinner and then checking Matthew's hands at a hospital on the way, which Matthew accepted
• They pre‑alerted the hospital by text, arrived, and had to keep Matthew engaged for about 30 minutes in the waiting room so he would not run away
Gaining Matthew's agreement to stay and emergence of insight[15:19]
• A prepped doctor examined his hands and gently suggested he might want to take a rest for a day or two off the street
• David emphasizes how huge it was that Matthew did not run and was open to staying, and he interprets this as the start of a small amount of "insight" into his condition
• He defines insight as a sliver of awareness in bipolar patients that things are not quite right and a willingness to participate in treatment

Tim reads from Matthew's mother and asks why ketosis might work

Emotional impact of the family story

Tim reads from Matthew's mother's writing on Metabolic Mind[18:18]
• Tim quotes her description of lying on the bedroom floor at 4 a.m. convinced her son was dead after his social media went silent following alarming posts about sleeping behind a dumpster and in a lifeguard tower
• She described multiple hospitalizations, ten different medications, and 18 hours without contact from Matthew, which Tim says makes him emotional given similar patterns among his friends with bipolar disorder

Question: mechanisms and plausibility of ketogenic therapy

David explains basics of glucose vs ketones[20:17]
• David says most people live burning glucose day to day, and high glucose can lead to insulin resistance and diabetes
• He explains the body has a second energy system using ketones, which most people never tap, but which activates during fasting or very low carbohydrate intake
• He gives examples: northern populations eating mostly seal blubber and historical humans before the agricultural revolution likely spent more time in ketosis
Agricultural revolution and modern carb intake[21:36]
• David notes that about 10,000 years ago the agricultural revolution enabled production of large amounts of carb‑rich food, shifting diets away from the more ketogenic patterns of hunter‑gatherers
Brain energy and hypothesized link to bipolar disorder[22:57]
• He says ketosis provides very consistent and clear energy to the brain
• His thesis is that many people, especially those with large, active brains like some people with bipolar disorder, may suffer from inconsistent brain energy due to glucose spikes and crashes, and bipolar symptoms could partly be manifestations of inadequate brain energy
• He notes ketogenic diets have long been used for epilepsy and that ultra‑endurance runners historically used high‑fat foods like pemmican, which are effectively keto

Matthew's strict ketogenic protocol and results

Details of Matthew's diet[23:57]
• With a dietitian and Dr. Palmer, Matthew adopted a diet with less than 20 grams of carbs per day and more fat than protein
• David emphasizes how low 20 grams of carbs is in modern life, noting that about a quarter of a can of Coke can have that much carbohydrate
• He also observes that the diet likely had more fat than protein, which is unusual given many people have reduced fat intake in recent decades
Comparing many medications to diet response[25:03]
• David reiterates that after 20+ medications and many interventions, the ketogenic diet produced clear positive changes

Practical challenges of ketogenic diet and monitoring

Tim's personal experience with long stints in ketosis

Tim on difficulty and benefits of cyclical or intermittent ketosis[24:24]
• Tim says he has spent roughly a year in nutritional ketosis overall and always sees benefits but often leaves it due to compliance challenges, especially with travel
• He plans to spend two to three weeks in ketosis over the next month and mentions many upstream benefits such as activating anti‑cancer pathways, anti‑inflammatory effects, and building metabolic machinery with durability after 4-6 weeks in ketosis

Story of Mexico trip and how easy it is to slip out of ketosis

Avocado miscalculation and emerging manic symptoms[26:00]
• David describes a family trip to Mexico where they thought they had Matthew's keto meals dialed in at restaurants
• They underestimated avocado carbs; although high in fat, avocados carried more carbs than expected, nudging Matthew out of his strict ketone zone
• After a few days, Matthew showed early manic signs: trouble sleeping, increased agitation, and edginess
Correcting the diet with extremely strict meals[27:04]
• They realized the error and for two days Matthew shifted to small portions of fish with large amounts of butter and olive oil, asking the chef for more
• He rapidly stabilized again, and David says this showed him how tightly linked the diet and symptoms were

Eating out, social events, and strategies

David's restaurant ordering tactics[28:41]
• He pushes away the bread basket and orders items like a burger without a bun, with extra mayonnaise and butter, and maybe lettuce and tomato, skipping fries
• He notes Matthew is even stricter, close to carnivore, focusing heavily on animal products
Tim's practical keto pattern[29:23]
• Tim describes using two large salads a day within a feeding window roughly between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., with lots of olive oil and sliced ribeye steak, plus intermittent fasting
• He cautions that very high protein at one sitting can knock a person out of ketosis via gluconeogenesis in the liver

Measuring ketones, subjective feeling of ketosis, and breath hold experiments

Finger‑prick meters and continuous monitors

Finger‑prick experiences and feeling ketone levels[30:11]
• Tim mentions using the Precision Xtra device and says he can feel when he is at about 1.2-1.3 mmol of blood ketones, and notes Matthew can likely sense 2-2.5 mmol
David on CGMs and continuous ketone monitors[32:19]
• David compares finger‑prick ketone checks twice a day to continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) that give a two‑week graph of glucose on a phone
• He says continuous ketone monitors (CKMs) are now available for sale in Canada, likely to be approved in the US within about a year, and jokes he is in a "smuggling ring" bringing CKMs into the US
• He offers to send Tim a CKM so he can watch his ketones 24/7 and notes it aligns closely with what Tim already infers from his experience

Subjective effects of ketosis on mood and cognition

David's description of mood shifts with diet[34:23]
• David says he can simulate a slight optimism or a minor depressive feeling by how deep he goes into ketosis or how much he allows a glucose crash
• He characterizes the feeling in moderate ketosis as a calm optimism with a sense that challenges are solvable rather than overwhelming
Tim on sleep, OCD rumination, and ketosis[39:16]
• Tim shares that in ketosis he needs 2-3 fewer hours in bed, wakes up feeling fully awake, and often has reduced sleep latency compared to his usual 47+ minutes
• He notes that he has clinically diagnosed OCD with ruminative looping, and ketosis takes the mental "volume" from about 10 down to 2
• He suggests his improved sleep in ketosis may be partly due to less ruminative thinking at night

Tim's extreme breath hold experiments in ketosis

Increase in breath hold from baseline[40:02]
• Tim says his usual breath hold is about 45 seconds due to compromised lung function, but in heavy ketosis with Wim Hof-style breathing he reached 2 minutes 50 seconds
Nine‑minute breath hold in hyperbaric chamber during prolonged fast[46:02]
• On day 9 of a 10‑day water fast at roughly 4-5 mmol ketones, in a hard‑shell hyperbaric oxygen chamber at 2.4-2.5 atmospheres, he performed breathing exercises and then held his breath on an exhale for 9 minutes before stopping out of fear, without strong urge to breathe

Physiology vs talk therapy and metabolic underpinnings of mental and neurological issues

Limitations of talk therapy without mechanical fixes

David's 'mechanical therapy' framing[42:12]
• David suggests it is interesting that people often go first to talk therapy rather than what he calls mechanical therapy, which addresses the machinery of the brain
• He argues that if the brain's machinery is not functioning or has core molecular issues like insufficient energy, talk therapy may not help much
• He believes physiological and mechanical issues should be the first place to look, and that in many cases fixing these can resolve a lot
Tim on risk of learned helplessness in therapy[44:34]
• Tim says he does regular talk therapy and views it as necessary but not sufficient
• He warns that if someone does a lot of therapy but makes no progress due to an undiagnosed physiological problem, they may develop learned helplessness and self‑blame for not being able to "fix" themselves despite doing the work
• He suggests that in such cases the issue may be purely physiological, not due to lack of effort or intelligence

Examples: Alzheimer's, infections, and Lyme disease

Exogenous ketones and Alzheimer's family members[44:49]
• Tim has three relatives with Alzheimer's and has given them 25-30 ml of beta‑hydroxybutyrate bonded to 1,3‑butanediol, noting improved verbal acuity and longer sentences within 20-30 minutes
• He acknowledges concerns about possible liver toxicity from extended use of 1,3‑butanediol
Tim's Lyme disease and long Lyme symptoms[46:30]
• Tim describes having two documented Lyme infections plus co‑infections, treated with antibiotics, followed by long‑lasting cognitive and joint symptoms
• He believes many lingering symptoms were due to neuroinflammation and says three weeks of strict ketosis resolved his post‑Lyme symptoms
• He reports recommending strict ketosis to four or five friends or their spouses with verified Lyme and says it has been 100% successful at eliminating their cognitive symptoms and joint pain in his experience

Roblox overview, mission, and vision for 3D communication

High‑level description of Roblox and human need for connection

Tim asks for an overview of Roblox and future vision[49:36]
• Tim notes Roblox creators earned more than $1 billion in the past year and that an open development community seems key to its growth
David on evolution of communication technologies[49:21]
• David traces human efforts to connect: from language and campfire storytelling to mail systems, telegraph, telephone, text, and then video chats which exploded during COVID
• He argues we are not done yet and that more advances are coming, which he does not see as necessarily dystopian
• He imagines walking around ancient Rome with his dad or having his father virtually present in his office, highlighting future shared 3D experiences

Current scale and nature of Roblox platform

User base and user‑generated content[53:15]
• David describes Roblox as a 3D gaming and play platform with about 120 million people on it every day
• All games and creations are made by users, ranging from 12‑year‑old hobbyists to teams of 50 people making around $10 million a year
• He estimates that about 3% of all global gaming now happens on Roblox
Examples of emergent genres on Roblox[53:31]
• Top experiences include "Dressed to Impress", a fashion game where players choose clothes and compete in a fashion show, and "Grow a Garden", where players maintain and improve a persistent garden

Responsibility, hours, and all‑ages design

Scale of use and safety responsibilities[54:47]
• David says there are about nine billion hours of use per month on Roblox and over 40 million concurrent users at peak times
• From day one, Roblox has been built as a platform for all ages, including nine‑year‑olds whose communication is entirely filtered and who cannot share images
• He emphasizes enormous effort on safety and civility and notes Roblox explicitly chose to acknowledge and design for young users, unlike many 13+ social platforms

Building Roblox's digital economy and strategic decision making

Early revenue model and its problems

Club membership approach[59:54]
• David says Roblox started with a club membership model where for $5 a month users got perks like more building places and cosmetic website features
• He calls it a dangerous model because building and creating should never be paywalled
Growth vs revenue divergence[1:00:21]
• Roblox had strong user and hour growth, but revenue began to stagnate or decline, prompting forensic analysis of what had changed

Decision to build a full virtual currency and marketplace

From tweaks to strategic overhaul[1:01:42]
• The team spent months trying to identify broken pieces and small tweaks, stack‑ranking about 50 possible fixes, and implementing the top 10 with little impact
• In the back of their minds they knew the real fix was difficult: build a virtual currency (Robux), allow players to buy it, allow creators to sell items for Robux inside games, and let creators cash out
Implementing Robux and creator monetization[1:02:17]
• They decided to commit to the big strategic solution, which was expected to take 2-3 months to build across multiple systems (currency, in‑game purchases, cashout, discovery)
• David says once they accepted this, it felt relaxing and fun compared to constant patching, because they believed if it worked, it would really work
• They also realized this could enable creators to make a living, not just operate as hobbyists, providing a "secret afterburner" of creator effort
Launch and early signals of success[1:04:04]
• On launch day, within four hours, 22 of the top 100 creators had already integrated Robux features into their games
• Users had begun buying Robux and spending them in experiences, and David says they knew almost immediately it was going to work

Optimizing for creators vs maximizing short‑term profits

Creator revenue as a priority[1:05:16]
• David highlights a deliberate choice to optimize creator revenue over company profits, keeping operating costs efficient so more money flows to developers
• He says if Roblox doubles users or hours, revenue generally doubles as well, reflecting a system where revenue scales with engagement
Constraints: civility and mission[1:06:37]
• Their mission is to connect a billion users with optimism and civility, so growth is constrained by those values; they would not accept any path to a billion users that undermined civility
• David wants users to possibly become more civil through their Roblox experience than if they had never played

Copycats, niche games, and Roblox's recommendation logic

Handling clones of successful games like Grow a Garden

IP protection limits and gameplay cloning[1:09:18]
• David says Roblox applies normal IP and copyright protections to names, avatars, and art, but gameplay mechanics themselves are not typically protected
• He gives an example of someone making a game called "water your plants a lot" that functions like Grow a Garden; this is hard to prevent legally
Search and discovery favoring originals[1:10:24]
• Roblox uses data about concurrent players to surface the most relevant game when users search; for example, the garden game with 25 million players will rank above garden games with only 10 players
• They do not block creators from trying similar concepts but rely on discovery systems to help users find the primary experiences

David's personal favorite kinds of Roblox games

Role‑playing airline simulation[1:11:18]
• David describes a game simulating an entire airline: players buy tickets, wait in lounges, board planes, take seats for an hour‑long flight, and take roles such as passengers, flight attendants, pilots, and executives
• He likes it for its deep role‑playing potential and inclusivity of roles, from first‑class passengers to baggage handlers
Digital model railroading[1:12:32]
• He enjoys railroad games because they echo the model railroading hobby that used to be common in basements, bringing it into a digital environment

Safety, age segmentation, and AI at Roblox

Advice for kids and parents on staying safe

Keeping kids on Roblox vs other apps[1:28:56]
• David says Roblox works hard to keep kids on Roblox itself, where text is filtered, images are not shareable, and critical harms can be monitored
• He contrasts this with many 10‑year‑olds who can install 13+ apps on phones that allow unfiltered communication and image sharing, leading to risks like blackmail and attempts to meet in the real world
Parental controls and acceptance of reality[1:29:51]
• Roblox offers parents options such as limiting their child to communicating only with approved contacts
• David notes many kids are handed phones at 10 and try various apps without parental communication, so Roblox designs for safety even when parents are not deeply involved

Using AI and age estimation to enhance safety

Planned age estimation via phone cameras[1:30:16]
• David says by the end of the year Roblox plans, using AI and age estimation from phone cameras, to know the approximate age of everyone on the platform
• They intend to cluster users by age so that, unless users already know each other, people of widely different ages will not be allowed to communicate

Roblox as an AI‑heavy company

In‑house AI models and applications[1:32:19]
• David says Roblox runs hundreds of AI models built in‑house, including text and voice safety models, recommendation systems, and translation
• They have begun debuting 3D creation tools powered by AI so that users can describe things verbally and have them generated without advanced 3D skills
Future possibility of AI‑generated evolving worlds[1:33:01]
• David acknowledges interest in AI creating evolving games in real time as people walk around, like a dream world or holodeck that fills in around them

CEO life, long‑term thinking, and personal health routines

Long‑term decision making vs fight‑or‑flight

Metabolic state and CEO choices[1:40:37]
• David says if a CEO's "machinery" is functioning, they can make more long‑term, strategic decisions, whereas glucose crashes and fight‑or‑flight states push toward short‑term, tactical reactions

David's weekly exercise and diet patterns

Movement and training[1:40:37]
• David aims for some form of movement every day and mentions doing CrossFit three times a week and hiking with a weighted vest three or four times a week
Diet, fasting window, and alcohol[1:40:37]
• He tries to stay in moderate ketosis with low carbs, plenty of meat, eggs, butter, and vegetables, and to eat in roughly a 1-6 p.m. window similar to Tim
• He keeps alcohol very low, noting he had a glass of wine two nights prior and could feel its impact
• He tries to get to bed closer to 9 p.m. rather than 11 p.m.

Use of wearables and not obsessing over data

Oura ring usage[1:40:37]
• David wears an Oura ring but says he looks at the data only about once a month, to avoid getting freaked out by imperfect sleep scores
• When he does look, he scans projected stress score, cardio age, lowest nighttime heart rate, HRV, and temperature trends
Continuous monitors to tune diet[1:40:37]
• He has worn CGMs and CKMs for extended periods to dial in his diet and calls wearing a CGM his top recommendation, noting they are available on Amazon

Roblox employee health initiatives

CGMs and snack labeling at Roblox[1:40:19]
• David says Roblox gives every employee a CGM (he mentions the Freestyle brand) and labels all office snacks on two axes: whole food vs not, and "good energy" vs not, based on metabolic effects
• He reports engineers sending him messages about life‑changing effects after using CGMs, such as realizing large nightly white‑rice portions were problematic, cutting them out, losing about 30 pounds, and feeling sharper

Books, influences, and closing themes

Books that influenced David

Finite and Infinite Games[2:58:50]
• A board member gave David the original book on the infinite game concept (Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse), which influenced how he thinks about play, fun, and building Roblox as a long game
Explorer narratives vs business books[3:00:00]
• David says he has never really liked business books; instead he was obsessed in youth with books about explorers like Magellan, Captain Cook, Mutiny on the Bounty, Joshua Slocum, Amundsen, and Scott
• He suggests these stories of venturing into the unknown and handling catastrophe may be more useful than traditional business books that rely on retrospective complete information

Billboard message and final advice

Feed Your Head as a metaphor[3:03:25]
• Asked what message he would put on a metaphorical billboard, David chooses "Feed Your Head", referencing the Surrealistic Pillow album and connecting it to ketosis and brain fuel
Heavy cream coffee as an accessible keto step[3:05:06]
• David recalls Tim's earlier experiments adding oils to coffee and says he drinks coffee with whole (heavy) cream, which is zero carb, as an easy way to get fat without carbs
• He notes that heavy cream has been used historically in ketogenic diets for children with epilepsy when butter and other fats were hard to get them to eat, calling it a key to "feeding your head"
Tim's closing reflection[3:06:50]
• Tim closes by urging listeners to be a bit kinder than necessary to others and to themselves, and says sometimes you need to fix physiology rather than trying to think your way out of everything

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Address the underlying physiology and energy supply of the brain before expecting talk therapy or willpower alone to resolve serious mental health challenges.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What physical or metabolic factors (sleep, diet, blood sugar swings) might be undermining your ability to benefit fully from therapy or self‑help work?
  • • How could you work with a clinician to systematically test whether changes in nutrition or metabolic state affect your mood and cognition?
  • • What simple experiment (for example, tracking sleep and food for two weeks) could you run this month to get clearer data on how your body is influencing your mind?
2

When a system is fundamentally misaligned, it can be more effective to make a bold, structural change than to keep iterating small tweaks that only address symptoms.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your work or life are you repeatedly applying small fixes to a problem that keeps resurfacing in a similar form?
  • • How might reframing that situation as a systems or business‑model issue (rather than a surface bug) change the solution you design?
  • • What is one ambitious, structural change you have been avoiding because it feels hard, and what would be the first concrete step toward testing it?
3

Designing platforms that share value generously with contributors creates stronger long‑term ecosystems than trying to maximize short‑term profit capture.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In your current projects, how are you incentivizing the people who create value around you (employees, partners, community members)?
  • • How could shifting a bit more economic or reputational upside to your contributors increase the quality and durability of what you are building?
  • • What is one policy, revenue split, or recognition mechanism you could adjust this quarter to better align your success with the success of your collaborators?
4

Using measurement tools judiciously (like CGMs, sleep trackers, or ketone monitors) can reveal non‑obvious patterns and help you personalize routines for energy and focus, as long as you avoid becoming obsessed with the data.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Which aspect of your health or performance feels most mysterious right now, where better data could change your decisions?
  • • How might a temporary experiment with a tracking tool (for example, for two to four weeks) help you calibrate your habits without turning you into a full‑time quantified‑self analyst?
  • • What clear rule will you set for yourself about how often you check your data so that it informs you without increasing anxiety?
5

Safety and civility need to be designed into products from the beginning, especially when young or vulnerable users are involved, rather than treated as add‑ons after growth.

Reflection Questions:

  • • If you are building something others will use, how clearly have you defined who your most vulnerable users are and what specific risks they face?
  • • What guardrails or defaults could you implement now that would protect users even if their parents, managers, or future selves are less attentive than you hope?
  • • Looking at a product or community you are responsible for, what is one practical step you could take this month to make it meaningfully safer or more civil without destroying its usefulness or fun?

Episode Summary - Notes by Phoenix

#834: David Baszucki, Co-Founder of Roblox - The Path to 150M+ Daily Users, Critical Business Decisions, Ketogenic Therapy for Brain Health, Daily Routines, The Roblox Economy, and More
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