We first got to know Daniel Sturman during his time at Cloudera, and have always valued his insights on building great technical teams. Daniel was part of Accel’s original ""Spotlight On"" series, which debuted as a blog back in 2019. His insights on Building Great Teams were as salient then as they are now. In this episode of Spotlight On, we expand upon the subject of team building, by examining it through the lens of today's rapidly evolving AI landscape.

The company name Roblox is ubiquitous among all humans under 13 and many over that. The 3D immersive platform allows users to create their own experiences, or participate in those created by others—and they’ve been building AI into the platform for years.

Daniel, now Roblox’s CTO, believes the recent surge in AI progress has significantly enhanced trust & safety on Roblox and further democratized the platform for its creators. But challenges persist, and for many CTOs like Daniel, hiring top technical talent is a critical priority.

Daniel teams up with Accel's Talent Partner, Pete Clarke, to talk about the hiring philosophies he’s used to build exceptional teams at IBM, Google, Cloudera, and Roblox, as well as the transformative journey of Roblox’s AI development. Conversation highlights:

Read the original 3-part series with Daniel Sturman on effective team-building from Accel.com:

- Building Great Teams: https://www.accel.com/noteworthy/spot...
- Executing an Effective Candidate Search: https://www.accel.com/noteworthy/spot...
- “First Team” Behavior: https://www.accel.com/noteworthy/spot...

#vc #venturecapital #founder #entrepreneurs #tech #CEO #artificialintelligence #AI #roblox #generativeai #ctos #teambuilding

Access the episode on Spotlight On: https://accel.com/spotlighton/roblox?...

Season 1:
Season 1 focuses on AI. In this season, we’re bringing together a range of company leaders across different industries and stages to discuss how they’re navigating the current AI revolution. Learn from 12 leaders applying AI in all parts of the ecosystem. They have enabled new industries and profoundly influenced productivity, creativity, and the global economy. Several founders of AI-native companies we spoke to, such as  @AssemblyAI ,  @ironcladapp ,  @Scale_AI , and  @synthesia-io  embarked on their AI journey years before the current cycle. They were the crazy ones, the early visionaries, the risk-takers, who patiently built early AI products.

Spotlight On:
Spotlight On examines the technology shaping our world. Highlighting a new topic each season, company builders at all stages of company growth will share their learnings, challenges, and breakthroughs.

Accel:
Accel is a global venture capital firm that is the first partner to exceptional teams everywhere, from inception through all phases of private company growth. Atlassian, Bumble, CrowdStrike, Fiverr, Flipkart, Freshworks, Qualtrics, Scale, Segment, Slack, Spotify, Squarespace, Tenable, and UiPath are among the companies Accel has backed over the past 40+ years. We help ambitious entrepreneurs build iconic global businesses.

Host: Peter Clarke, Talent Partner at Accel
Featuring: Daniel Sturman, CTO at Roblox

Conversation highlights:
00:00 - Introduction to Roblox and Dan’s background
03:21 - Where Daniel and the team at Roblox see the most immediate impact of AI, in Trust & Safety and creator-assistance
12:45 - Advice for talent acquisition during today’s AI era where technical talent is extremely competitive
17:17 - How Roblox’s Generative AI capabilities like Material Creator and Code Assist empower creators on the platform
27:43 - Advice for building great teams that can advance and adapt to new AI technologies
37:00 - Daniel's Barbecue Sauce recipe, based on a recipe from @BBQwithFranklin with a few special touches like a base of bourbon, reduced sugar, heightened spiciness, and his secret ingredient: a dash of fish sauce!

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Roblox’s Daniel Sturman | Building Great Teams in The AI Era | Spotlight On: AI | S1E2 | AccelVC
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