David Baszucki has been building Roblox for over twenty years, and his answer to "how do you move fast" isn't what you'd expect: take the long view first. In this episode of Speed, host Keith Lucas talks with Dave about the "magic quadrant" of pairing a long-term vision with daily execution, how speed changes shape as a company grows from 20 people to thousands, how he transfers urgency to individuals on his team, and what ownership really looks like at scale. They close on how Dave tells the difference between an on day and an off day, and why that self-awareness matters for a leader's decisions.

Speed: Moving Fast Towards What Matters is a six-episode limited series featuring six startup founders and operators who exemplify personal speed and have wrestled with it organizationally — exploring the systematic principles of speed and the critical tactics that make it sustainable as you scale.

In this episode

• 0:00 — David on "the keystone of the vision"
• 0:48 — Welcome, and introducing David Baszucki
• 4:16 — How David personally demonstrates speed: "take the long view" and "get stuff done"
• 13:43 — Building speed at 20-30 people vs. thousands: the Roblox Operating System
• 19:28 — How David transfers urgency to one person on his team
• 25:53 — Ownership as a marker of speed and leadership
• 28:15 — What changed (and what didn't) as Roblox scaled from dozens to thousands
• 30:43 — Recovery: how David tells an "on day" from an "off day"

The Guest: David Baszucki

David Baszucki is the Founder and CEO of Roblox, an immersive gaming and creation platform he started over twenty years ago that is now nearing 400 million monthly active users worldwide. His vision has driven Roblox's recognition as one of TIME's "100 Most Influential Companies," and by Fast Company for Most Innovative Companies, Best Workplaces for Innovators, and Innovation by Design. Previously, David founded Knowledge Revolution, where he and his brother Greg created Interactive Physics, a leading educational physics and mechanical design simulation software. David graduated from Stanford University as a General Motors Scholar in Electrical Engineering.

Connect with David:

• linkedin.com/in/davidbaszucki
• https://x.com/DavidBaszucki
• https://www.roblox.com/

The Host: Keith Lucas

Keith Lucas joined Roblox as employee #7 and later served as CPO and CTO, leading product, engineering, and operations as the company scaled. He went on to serve as COO of Instrumental and now advises leaders across AI, gaming, creator platforms, and enterprise technology. He is also the author of IMPACT and host of Speed.

Connect with Keith:

• linkedin.com/in/kvlucas
• https://keithvlucas.com/

Get the book: Impact — https://keithvlucas.com/impact/

Contact us: speed@keithvlucas.com

CREDITS

Produced by : Leah Barnum

Social Media: Julia Guagliardi www.stillwaters-creative.com

Editor: Jon Keur - www.wayfarerecording.com

Content Designer: Natalie Leroux - www.studioeightyseven.com

Studio lighting/Setup - www.175productions.com

In this episode of Speed, host Keith Lucas — who worked alongside Anna at Instrumental from 2018 to 2020 — asks her what it really takes to move fast without breaking things. She talks about pairing conviction with open debate, the "10th man" principle for protecting dissent, and why she traded "leading from the front" for empowering ownership as Instrumental scaled. She also shares how the company pivoted from consumer electronics to AI data center infrastructure, the "2+2+2" framework behind 5x customer growth, and how she resets after a bad day.

Speed: Moving Fast Towards What Matters is a six-episode limited series featuring six startup founders and operators who exemplify personal speed and have wrestled with it organizationally — exploring the systematic principles of speed and the critical tactics that make it sustainable as you scale.

In this episode

00:00 – Welcome to Speed & introducing Anna-Katrina Shedletsky

01:50 – Conviction, debate, and fast decision-making with co-founder Sam Weiss

04:39 – The "10th Man": building a shield for productive dissent

05:44 – "This time better than the last": running pre-mortems, not postmortems

06:54 – A Keithism: the difference between urgent and reckless

08:50 – From leading the front to empowering ownership

16:02 – Instrumental's inflection point: pivoting to AI data center infrastructure

19:12 – Jensen Huang's "speed of light" and finding your limiting factors

20:26 – The "2+2+2" framework: six weeks from signed deal to delivered value

24:42 – Is speed vs. quality really a trade-off? Inside Instrumental's "Play to Win" values

29:42 – How great leaders recover: sleep, agency, and a little vengeance

34:31 – Closing thoughts

The Guest: Anna- Katrina Shedletsky

Anna-Katrina Shedletsky is the co-founder and CEO of Instrumental, which she founded to solve the 20 cents of every dollar spent in manufacturing that's wasted. Instrumental builds a Manufacturing Acceleration Platform, accelerating time-to-market in development and improving throughput in production for the world's most complex electronics. Before Instrumental, Anna spent six years as an Apple Product Design Engineer, leading system product design for the Apple Watch Series 1 and several iPods. She holds two degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and sits on the National Leadership Council for the Society for Science.

Connect with Anna:

• linkedin.com/in/annakatrinashedletsky
• https://x.com/anna_shedletsky
• https://instrumental.com/

The Host: Keith Lucas

Keith Lucas joined Roblox as employee #7 and later served as CPO and CTO, leading product, engineering, and operations as the company scaled. He went on to serve as COO of Instrumental and now advises leaders across AI, gaming, creator platforms, and enterprise technology. He is also the author of IMPACT and host of Speed.

Connect with Keith:

• linkedin.com/in/kvlucas
• https://keithvlucas.com/

Get the book: Impact — https://keithvlucas.com/impact/

Contact us: speed@keithvlucas.com

CREDITS

Produced by : Leah Barnum

Social Media: Julia Guagliardi - www.stillwaters-creative.com

Editor: Jon Keur - www.wayfarerecording.com

Content Designer: Natalie Leroux - www.studioeightyseven.com

Studio lighting/Setup - www.175productions.com

Jesse Stinebring has spent his career solving a problem most people assume is unsolvable: getting speed and quality out of the same system. In this episode of Speed, host Keith Lucas talks with Jesse — co-founder and CEO of Blue Rose Research — about why campaigns can't afford to wait weeks for answers, how Blue Rose centralized its modeling to get both speed and consistency instead of picking one, and what he calls the real difference between fast-but-sloppy and fast-and-disciplined. They also get into how AI and coding agents are changing what Blue Rose builds heading into the midterms, and how Jesse recovers from the highs and lows of working in a business where the stakes are, literally, elections.

Speed: Moving Fast Towards What Matters is a six-episode limited series featuring six startup founders and operators who exemplify personal speed and have wrestled with it organizationally — exploring the systematic principles of speed and the critical tactics that make it sustainable as you scale.

In this episode

• 0:00 — Welcome, and introducing Jesse Stinebring
• 2:03 — The speed Blue Rose has built, and why it matters to campaigns racing the clock
• 7:34 — Building a team and culture organized around speed
• 12:11 — Why speed and quality aren't actually in tension — and what Jesse calls the real answer: discipline
• 19:12 — Speed beyond the midterms: AI, coding agents, and protecting what makes Blue Rose's work unique
• 22:03 — Recovery: how Jesse resets after a hard day

The Guest: Jesse Stinebring

Jesse Stinebring is the CEO of Blue Rose Research, which he co-founded in 2021 after a decade working in Democratic analytics beginning with Barack Obama's 2012 reelect. Today he leads Blue Rose's 50+ data scientists, researchers, social scientists, and analysts working to radically lower the barriers to better opinion research tools for big and small campaigns.

Connect with Jesse:

• linkedin.com/in/jesse-s-b490a22b
• https://blueroseresearch.org/

The Host: Keith Lucas

Keith Lucas joined Roblox as employee #7 and later served as CPO and CTO, leading product, engineering, and operations as the company scaled. He went on to serve as COO of Instrumental and now advises leaders across AI, gaming, creator platforms, and enterprise technology. He is also the author of IMPACT and host of Speed.

Connect with Keith:

• linkedin.com/in/kvlucas
• https://keithvlucas.com/

Get the book: Impact — https://keithvlucas.com/impact/

Contact us: speed@keithvlucas.com

CREDITS

Produced by : Leah Barnum

Social Media: Julia Guagliardi - www.stillwaters-creative.com

Editor: Jon Keur - www.wayfarerecording.com

Content Designer: Natalie Leroux - www.studioeightyseven.com

Studio lighting/Setup - www.175productions.com