Roblox Confronts Calls for Increased Diversity Among Staff

During a virtual all-hands meeting on Zoom in spring 2021, Roblox Corp., a prominent video-game company, addressed the issue of gender diversity among its top leadership. An employee raised the question via text, expressing concern about the limited representation of women in higher positions. Sources present at the meeting reported that David Baszucki, the co-founder and CEO of Roblox, acknowledged the query and explained that the company maintains rigorous hiring standards.

Several women said they found the comment disparaging, but not surprising. In public and private forums, Baszucki, 60, and his deputy often stated that the San Mateo, Calif.-based company’s goal was to “hire the best people.” Three of the 15 current or former female employees, who spoke to Bloomberg on condition of anonymity because of professional backlash, said Roblox executives did not encourage them to continue raising such diversity issues at higher-ups or in meetings.

Desiree Fish, Roblox’s vice president of global communications, said in emailed statements that Roblox “encourages honest conversations among our employees” and is “always looking for high-performing” individuals. “Roblox makes a conscious effort to build a diverse and engaged workforce that comes directly from leadership,” he said.

Founded by Baszuck and Erik Cassel in 2004, Roblox attracts more than 66 million people to its platform every day and is at the top of the children’s gaming world. Roblox contains millions of social online games and offers software that allows anyone to make them. Games like the pet simulator Adopt Me! and role-playing adventure Brookhaven RP have each received more than 30 billion hits.

During the pandemic, when schools and gathering places were closed, young people adopted Roblox as a way to play and socialize with their friends. As usage skyrocketed, Roblox expanded its workforce, growing from 830 full-time employees in 2020 to 2,100 at the end of last year. Revenue rose from $924 million to $2.23 billion in the same period.

The company now embodies the enormous financial opportunity and cultural impact of the video game industry. But it also reflects some of its most visible shortcomings, particularly in terms of gender and racial diversity. Like many of its counterparts, both Roblox’s executives and front-line workers are heavily male, according to internal metrics Roblox shared with Bloomberg. Roblox said it has no goals for hiring or promoting diverse employees.

Over the years, Baszucki, who is worth $3 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has embraced diversity at the company, according to several people who have worked with him. Like many technical leaders, he has a meritocratic view of the culture, that the best employees rise to the top without proactive institutional intervention. Roblox said that to this day, he personally approves every company’s salary.

“What’s the definition of the best people? It’s subjective,” said Genie Harrison, a lawyer who represented several women who sued Riot Games over discrimination allegations, leading to a $100 million settlement this year and the video game company’s agreement to pay for a diversity and inclusion program. “Regardless of the decision-makers’ definition of the best person, it automatically disqualifies some people.”

In response, Roblox spokesperson Fish said the company believes in “diversity and c support our mission to connect a billion people with optimism and courtesy.”

The company also provided Bloomberg with internal data showing that the proportion of women at the company has increased over the past three years, as has the racial diversity of its workforce.

A spokesperson cited Roblox’s “unbiased system for evaluating and selecting top talent,” which does not mean setting targets for the demographic makeup of the company’s staff. More than two years ago, Roblox introduced an equitable performance review program, which Fish said should ensure “fairness and consistency in the review process.”

More than a dozen current and former employees, most of whom requested anonymity for fear of career repercussions, said Roblox’s efforts have not gone far enough to address their concerns about diversity and the exclusion of women and minorities.

Former Roblox recruiter Brandon Davis, who is black, said that in his nine months at the company starting in June 2021, Roblox made little effort to hire diverse candidates, unlike other tech companies he’s worked for, including Meta Platforms Inc. He said he once tried to recruit colleagues to the website for a photo shoot that would highlight Roblox’s commitment to diversity, but faced challenges in getting enough diverse employees. “There weren’t enough black people to make ‘Black at Roblox,'” he said.

A company spokeswoman, Fish, responded that the company is devoting resources to “inviting underrepresented groups to the forefront of our hiring process.” A new part of the company’s recruiting team is dedicated to reaching out to diverse talent, including participating and sponsoring events and conferences aimed at increasing the number of women and minority workers in the tech industry. Roblox declined to say whether these initiatives have increased the number of black or Latino employees.

Many current and former employees who spoke to Bloomberg described their own experiences of being sidelined at the company, which in some cases led to a new job search. In 2021, Roblox offered one female employee tens of thousands of dollars in severance pay in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement after she decided to leave the company, citing confusing experiences with gender and race. Her last straw, she says, was International Women’s Day in March 2021. Half a dozen Roblox employees chatted at the bar during happy hour and shared their concerns about the company’s lack of female leaders.

In response, Roblox’s vice president said he was trying to hire women who could eventually become leaders, the people present said. Then, according to three people at the bar, he wondered aloud if that counted as “are they all yellow.”

Three people said they were shocked. According to company spokesperson Fish, the matter was later reported to staff, and Roblox conducted a thorough investigation immediately after the incident, which resulted in the vice president being coached and in a disciplinary process, as well as an apology. He continues to manage employees, and Roblox said there have been no other complaints about the person’s behavior.

“We do not condone or condone racist or discriminatory language,” Fish wrote in an email, noting that employees can anonymously voice concerns about workplace incidents using the company’s internal reporting tool.

Roblox employees have long expressed frustration that, unlike many of its Silicon Valley partners, the company does not publish diversity numbers. But in response to Bloomberg’s inquiry, the company agreed to review its diversity efforts. A few years ago, as it prepared to go public in 2021, Roblox announced that it would begin a series of changes aimed at diversifying its staff and making life for minorities more inclusive within the company. The company hired a female C-suite executive, brought on board a chief people and culture officer who is black, and acquired Imbellus, a female-led startup that aims to make hiring fairer by circumventing traditionally biased ways of evaluating talent. .

At the same time, the percentage of female employees at Roblox grew steadily from 24% in 2020 to 27% in May 2023, according to internal data, while the percentage of female executives at the director level or above increased from 22% to 30%. . At the same time, the share of employees identifying as white fell from 43 percent to 36 percent. In 2022, more women were promoted than men. The dropout rate for women in 2023 was 12.5%.

In recent years, accusations of systemic sexism have hit several top gaming companies, which have responded by seeking to increase the ranks of female employees. As of 2018, the percentage of female employees at Riot Games has dropped from 20% to 27.5%. In 2022, according to Activision Blizzard Inc., 26.5 percent of its workforce were women and non-binary workers. 25.5 percent of Ubisoft Inc.’s staff are women. Despite some progress, the video game industry still lags behind many major tech companies, including Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which have between 32 and 35 percent of female employees.

Roblox declined to provide further information on the racial and ethnic breakdown of its staff or the demographic makeup of its product and engineering divisions, which made up 75 percent of the company at the end of 2022, according to company filings. A company spokesperson, Fish, pointed to an internal survey in which male and female employees gave comparable answers to questions about job satisfaction. 90% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that they were “proud” to work at Roblox.

Current employees at Roblox said the company still has work to do in supporting women and non-white employees.

Four women said they were told in annual evaluations that they were “aggressive” or “emotional” in meetings with supervisors. In a text message to his mother, reviewed by Bloomberg, the former employee told how his supervisor had asked him to be “less direct” and “sound nicer” on Slack, the app that Roblox employees often use for internal communication with colleagues.

Four current and former employees said they received feedback from managers in recent years that included language they believe was racially motivated. One staff member said that “it was common to hear accusatory comments directed at BIPOC teammates such as ‘confrontational’, ‘fierce’, ‘combative’ and ‘aggressive’.”

At a meeting in June, a Roblox employee brought up racism among his colleagues on Blind, a website where certified employees of the company can discuss internal matters anonymously. In screenshots reviewed by Bloomberg, users had directed several racist comments at Roblox’s head of people and culture — including one calling him a “monkey” — during heated discussions about the merits of diversity at the company. According to people at the meeting, Baszucki said he had not seen the messages, which he vehemently denied, adding that the company is race and color blind.

“We expect all employees to treat each other with courtesy and respect, and we do not tolerate discrimination, harassment or unequal treatment of any kind,” spokeswoman Fish said.

In July, Roblox will transition its human resources department to a new leader, Arvind KC, a former CIO at Palantir and director of engineering at Google. According to a July study by the Entertainment Software Association, half of women are gamers. Sources said gaming companies would benefit from workplace demographics that better reflect their consumers, but significant hurdles remain.