David Baszucki

In the late 1980s, Baszucki, together with his brother Greg Baszucki, developed a simulation called "Interactive Physics", which was designed as an educational supplement that would allow the creation of 2D physics experiments.[6] In 1989, Baszucki, together with his brother, founded the company Knowledge Revolution, which was based around the distribution of Interactive Physics.[7][6] Originally released for Macintosh computers, Interactive Physics went on to win multiple awards.[8][9] As a follow-up to Interactive Physics, Knowledge Revolution launched the mechanical design software Working Model in the early 1990s.[10]

In December 1998, Knowledge Revolution was acquired by MSC Software, a simulation software company based in Newport Beach, California, for $20 million.[1] Baszucki was named vice president and general manager of MSC Software from 2000 to 2002, but he left to establish Baszucki & Associates, an angel investment firm. Baszucki led Baszucki & Associates from 2003 to 2004.[11] While an investor, he provided seed funding to Friendster, a social networking service.[12]

In 2004, Baszucki, along with Erik Cassel – who worked as Baszucki's VP of Engineering for Interactive Physics – began working on an early prototype of Roblox under the working title DynaBlocks. It was later renamed Roblox, a portmanteau of "robots" and "blocks", in 2005. The website officially launched in 2006.[13] In a June 2016 interview with Forbes, Baszucki stated that the idea for Roblox was inspired by the success of his Interactive Physics and Working Model software applications, especially among young students.[1]

In a December 2016 interview with VentureBeat, Baszucki said, “We believe we’re starting to see a network effect. Retention is getting higher as more people come to play with their friends and have a better chance of finding their friends.”[14] Baszucki believes that Roblox is ushering in a new “human co-experience” category that will become larger than gaming. In a September 2018 interview with Forbes, Baszucki said, "Right when we started, we imagined a new category of people doing things together. A category that involved friends, like social networking; a category that involved immersive 3-D, like gaming; a category that involved cool content, like a media company; and finally a category that had unlimited creation, like a building toy.”[15]

Baszucki owns a roughly 13% stake in the Roblox Corporation, the company that owns Roblox, a stake estimated to be worth roughly $470 million dollars.[16]

Baszucki spoke at the 2018 Disrupt - San Francisco conference.[17] In 2020, Baszucki funded a study on the effect of Hydroxychloroquine on COVID-19, which showed no evidence of it preventing or treating the virus.[18]