also brought a lot of creators onto our platform. But we felt very proud of being able to be a place that people could stay socially connected with their friends and host birthday parties. Obviously, it's a horrific time for people all over the world. COVID really accelerated our business in a lot of different ways. We certainly have done a lot of growing up in the last nine months. The last time we spoke, you told me Roblox wasn't ready to go public.

So we're not really getting caught up in the whole roller coaster aspect of it all. It's more about where this all nets out a few years from now. We aren't overly focused on what happens in the first few days.

One of our cultural values is to take the long view and focus on where we'll be in a few years. How do you feel about going public in this environment?

The market has been a bit of a roller coaster over the past couple of days, especially for tech stocks. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. In an interview with Protocol, Roblox Chief Business Officer Craig Donato predicted that growth will decelerate as the pandemic subsides, but that the company will ultimately be able to retain and grow its user base with concerts, events and even work-related use cases that go beyond just video games. The video game platform provider's direct listing comes after a blockbuster year, with the number of users growing 122% during the first nine months of 2020. Roblox went public via a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, with shares surging 43% to $64.50 on their debut, and valuing the company at more than $40 billion.

Roblox ipo range