David Baszucki, the co-founder and CEO of Roblox, one of the most popular video games of all time, is a self-made billionaire.
While most people know him for his work founding and growing Roblox, he actually made his first millions selling another company he founded called Knowledge Revolution.
As of 2024, David Baszucki’s net worth is estimated at over $3+ billion.
In addition to his stake in the business, Baszucki owns a portion of several other companies these days. Let’s see how his fortune grew over the years.
How Much is David Baszucki Worth in 2024?
- Net Worth: Estimated at over $3 billion in 2024, largely from his stake in Roblox and other investments.
- Roblox: Co-founded Roblox in 2004, which has become one of the most popular online gaming platforms.
- Early Career: Made his first millions by selling his educational software company, Knowledge Revolution.
- Salaries and Earnings: Earned $239.6 million from Roblox in 2021, with compensation vesting through 2027.
- Philanthropy: Launched the Baszucki Brain Research Fund and donates to various bipolar disorder research programs.
- Real Estate: Owns properties in San Francisco and other locations.
David Baszucki’s Net Worth: Full Breakdown
Very little is known about Baszucki’s earnings at Roblox in the years before 2020, but much of the company’s tremendous growth only occurred in the last few years.
This indicates that most of his fortune comes from his current stake at the company and his most recent salaries as CEO, including the 2021 package that will vest through 2027.
Based on our thorough research and evaluation of his earnings and current assets, we were able to create a detailed breakdown of his estimated net worth in 2024:
| Asset or Income Source | Contribution to Net Worth |
| Knowledge Revolution sale | $20 million (co-owned with his brother) |
| Roblox stake | 13% worth $2.9+ billion |
| Roblox salaries in 2020-2021 | $239.6 million (partially vested through 2027) |
| Previous salaries | Unknown |
| Other investments | Unknown |
| Total Net Worth | $3+ billion |
6 Fun Facts about the Roblox Creator
- David Baszucki interned at General Motors during college.
- He created the educational software “Interactive Physics”.
- Roblox was initially called DynaBlocks.
- He holds a degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
- Baszucki’s son was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, inspiring his philanthropic focus.
- He lives in San Francisco with his wife and four children.
Latest News & Controversies
David Baszucki has been setting ambitious goals for the platform, aiming to achieve 1 billion daily active users.
In 2024, Roblox continues to expand its virtual economy by allowing creators to sell real-world merchandise and price experiences in real currency. However, Roblox has faced increasing scrutiny over child exploitation claims, with some countries like Turkey banning the platform.
Despite the controversies, Roblox’s growth remains strong, and its revenue-sharing model for creators remains a topic of debate.
Early Life and Education
David Baszucki was born on January 20, 1963, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. His parents, Paul and Helen Baszucki, met at the University of Saskatchewan before they moved to the US, where they raised David.
Young David Baszucki grew up in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, where he attended Eden Prairie High School. As a child, he was very interested in science fiction and go-karts and captained his high school TV quiz team.
Following his high school graduation, Baszucki enrolled at Stanford University to study engineering and computer science. While in college, he spent the summer interning at General Motors, learning about controlling car engines with software.
In 1985, Baszucki graduated in electrical engineering as a General Motors Scholar.
These days, Baszucki lives in San Francisco with Jan Ellison, his wife, and their four children.
The Path to Becoming a Billionaire
Most people in the world know David Baszucki for his creation of Roblox, but this was one of two major successes of the entrepreneur.
Before this venture, he co-founded another business with his brother, which sold for $20 million and started a second business that he led for a year before he came up with Roblox.
Knowledge Revolution
In 1989, David and his brother Greg Baszucki designed an educational supplement that allows for the creation of 2D physics experiments, which they named “Interactive Physics”.
Using this simulation as the main product, the brothers co-founded the company Knowledge Revolution, using the brand to distribute their invention.
From the day the business was founded up until December 1998, David Baszucki held the position of President of the company.
The brand’s simulation software product was a major success almost instantly. As such, it won numerous awards, prompting the brothers to found the “Working Model“, a mechanical design software.
Following the incredible growth of the business, the co-founders decided to sell it to MSC Software in late 1998. At this point, David Baszucki left the position of President of the company but remained at MSC as their Vice President and General Manager up until 2002.
Baszucki & Associates
In 2002, Baszucki left MSC to establish his second venture, Baszucki & Associates, an angel investment firm that provided seed funding to Friendster, the famous social networking service. Friendster pre-dated MySpace and Facebook in the social media category.
This gave the businessman another piece of the puzzle that would help him create Roblox, a physics sandbox with creation tools and a social touch.
No one knows exactly when he decided to stop running his angel investment firm and what happened to it.
Roblox
In December 2003, David Baszucki came up with an idea that eventually made him a billionaire.
He and Eric Cassel, the VP of Engineering for Interactive Physics, started working on the prototype of Roblox, initially called DynaBlocks. The partners later renamed their product Roblox as a mixture of ‘robots’ and ‘blocks’.
The official website for the new product launched in 2004 following the name change. According to Baszucki’s interview years later, the idea for Roblox was inspired by the success of his Working Model and Interactive Physics software among young students.
The company behind Roblox is called Roblox Corporation, which oversees the multiplayer game that launched in September 2006, primarily aimed at kids and teens. As of 2023, it was reported that 42% of the game’s users globally are between 0 and 12 years old, using their creativity to create games while playing. In contrast, just 18% of users are 24 and older.
Roblox struggled to attract users in its early days, but it really took off during the coronavirus pandemic. It was at this point that it generated over one billion page views. These days, it counts over 29 million in-game hours per month.
Unfortunately, Baszucki’s partner Cassel died from cancer in February 2013. At that point, the corporation had 68 employees, a number that grew to 163 by 2016.
With his eyes set on international expansion, Baszucki established Roblox International and employed Chris Misner as the President of the new venture in May 2018. Under his leadership, Roblox was launched in Chinese, French, and German.
By September of that same year, the company had chosen Dan Williams to move the product from a third-party cloud computing service to a proprietary service. Following this move, Roblox Corporation acquired the developer of mobile network optimization software PacketZoom in October 2018, which was merged into the corporation.
How Does Roblox Work?
Roblox is a platform for game design more than it is an actual game. It offers a game-building tool that users harness to build their own unique games and experiences. Roblox is entirely reliant on user-generated content but the model has worked incredibly well so far.
In Roblox, games cover a variety of genres, ranging from competitive shooters to obstacle courses to social hangouts.
Developers receive a 70% cut when users play their games and spend the in-game currency Robux, which is bought with real money. Once users stack up at least 30,000 Robux ($35o), they can exchange it for real money.
In 2023, game developers on Roblox earned $740.8 million, a record number. In comparison, game developers earned $328.7 million in 2020, which was 194% up from 2019.
Roblox has had its fair share of controversies over the years, mostly surrounding the prevalence of predators on the platform and disputes over its user-generated content model.
Critics argue that Roblox is employing child labor to make most of its profits, and it’s easy to see why they say that. The company relies on its users, who are mostly children, to build games for other users to play. Roblox even pays them for their work, though its payment model is extremely unfair as it makes it extremely difficult to exchange Roblox for fiat currency. Furthermore, the exchange rate it offers developers is a fraction of the price it charges users for Roblox, effectively taking a massive cut of developer profits.
These days, Roblox counts 71.2 million daily active users and over 216 million monthly active users.
Roblox Funding and IPO
Over the years, Baszucki’s business raised millions from different investors, including:
- First round of funding: $2.2 million led by Altos Ventures and First Round Capital in 2009
- Second round of funding: $4 million in 2011
- Third round of funding: $92 million led by Index Ventures and Meritech Capital Partners in 2017
- Closing series F funding round: $150 million led by Tiger Global Management and Greylock Partners
By October 2020, the corporation started planning how to become a public company, considering whether or not to perform a regular initial public offering or use direct listing instead. In that same month, Roblox filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, deciding on an IPO worth $1 billion, looking to be listed on the stock exchange with the symbol “RBLX“.
However, while they initially decided on an IPO in January 2021, the corporation announced that it would pursue a direct listing instead. In that same month, Dragoneer Investment Group and Altimeter Capital led a series H round of funding and valued the business at $29.5 billion. Once the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) approved the direct listing of class A RBLX stock in February, the shares were ready to trade.
Finally, Roblox went public on the NYSE in March 2021 with over $41 billion valuation at $64.50 per share!
Stake and Earnings from Roblox
As the company’s CEO, Baszucki owns a significant stake in the business and earns quite a high salary. His stake as of 2020 is estimated at 13%, which, based on Roblox’s market cap of $23.02 billion, is worth around $2.9 billion today. His brother Greg, the director of the company, owns 15.6 million shares.
As for his salaries, in 2021, Business Insider reported that Baszucki was the seventh highest-paid CEO in the world, making $232.8 million. The majority of the total compensation was a package of restricted stock options that are dependent on milestones and vest over several years.
In comparison, he earned $6.8 million in 2020. Reportedly, the 2021 pay package included $232.2 million in long-term performance awards, and he will not be getting any other direct compensation through 2027. He will receive his award in parts over the years if the company shares achieve the set milestones.
Philanthropic Activities
In March 2021, following the listing of the company on the NYSE, Baszucki and his wife launched the Baszucki Group, a philanthropic organization. They also started the Baszucki Brain Research Fund, which aims to provide grants to diverse bipolar research programs.
In December of the same year, the family’s donations to the University of California in San Francisco reached $6 million, so the school launched the Baszucki Lymphoma Therapeutics Initiative to increase the availability of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy for patients suffering from lymphoma.
In September 2022, Baszucki, Kent Dauten, and Sergey Brin donated a combined $150 million toward research and treatment of bipolar disorder.
The reason why Baszucki donates so much to bipolar disorder treatment and research is because his son was diagnosed with it in 2016 and has suffered severe episodes over the years. After several trials and a few errors, he was cured thanks to a metabolic health solution, which prompted Baszucki and his wife to fund such research grants.
David Baszucki Net Worth: Other Businesses and Assets
David Baszucki no longer runs his angel investment firm, but he has invested in five other startups as a lead investor:
- ImagiLabs
- Akili Interactive Labs
- Clockwork Labs
- Ready Player Me
- Friendster
His exact stakes in these ventures aren’t publicly disclosed.
Since 2022, Baszucki has been on the Board of Trustees at the Paley Media Center, the nonprofit organization focused on celebrating the significance of the media.
What Can We Learn from David Baszucki’s Story?
David Baszucki started humble by creating educational software, a business that made him a millionaire within the decade, but he didn’t stop there.
He started multiple other ventures, eventually building Roblox into the monolith that made him a billionaire.
His success with both businesses underscores his ability to identify market needs and capitalize on emerging trends.
His second business, on the other hand, which didn’t remain under his ownership for long, demonstrates that no one has magic powers when it comes to business and that you need to learn from trial and error and keep working to find success.
Finally, Baszucki’s commitment to philanthropy, particularly in funding research for bipolar disorder, highlights the importance of giving back to the community.