Matt Kaufman

He graduated from the University of California, Davis in 1994 and completed graduate studies in aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech in 1996.⁠[1]

From 2006 to 2007, he co-founded classified-listings service edgeio.⁠[2]

He subsequently served as senior vice president of product development at Oodle through 2013. Oodle provided an online classified marketplace.⁠[2]

He became president of Crunchbase in 2013, later served as head of operations, and left in 2017.⁠[2]

In a February 2015 Tech Tsushin interview, he described collecting CrunchbaseCrunchbaseCrunchbase is a private-company data and intelligence platform headquartered in San Francisco. It launched in 2007 as TechCrunch’s startup database, and its own company profile lists Michael Arrington as founder. It passed to AOL with TechCrunch in 2010 and was spun out of AOL/Verizon in 2015 with backing from Emergence Capital, with Jager McConnell as CEO; it has since raised more than $100 million and launched Pro, Enterprise, API and Crunchbase News products. Since 2025 it has focused on using AI to forecast private companies’ funding, growth and exits, delivering its data through MCP, APIs and third-party AI platforms.Open the full entry data from investors, incubators and community contributors, with staff review and algorithms addressing errors and malicious submissions.⁠[1]

Crunchbase spun out of AOLAOLAOL is an American internet brand offering a news portal, email, and membership services. Its history dates to an online-services company founded in 1985.Open the full entry with investment from Emergence CapitalEmergence CapitalEmergence Capital is a US venture capital firm founded in 2003 by Gordon Ritter, Jason Green and Brian Jacobs. It focuses on early-stage enterprise software and cloud services, with investments including Salesforce, Veeva, Zoom and Crunchbase, and has expanded its focus to AI software and services.Open the full entry. The investor recruited Jager McConnellJager McConnellJager McConnell is an American technology executive who spent 11 years at Salesforce and has been CEO of Crunchbase since its 2015 spinout from AOL/Verizon, leading its shift to subscriptions and an AI predictions platform.Open the full entry as CEO to work with Kaufman and the existing team.⁠[3]

He joined Roblox in September 2017 as vice president of product for the platform, serving until February 2021.⁠[4]

He served as Roblox’s chief systems officer from February 2021 to July 2023.⁠[4]

In July 2023, he became Roblox’s chief safety officer.⁠[4]

He joined senior director of product policy Eliza Jacobs on episode 27 of Tech Talks, hosted by David Baszucki, to discuss Trusted Connections, age verification, moderation and parental controls.⁠[5]

In a signed article, he described Roblox’s cooperation with law enforcement and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, emphasizing investigation, escalation and formal reporting channels. He opposed private sting operations that breach platform rules, arguing that they can increase risks and impede investigations. This was his position on platform governance.⁠[6]

His safety update described checks on complete avatars whenever users change them, targeting combinations that violate rules even when individual items are compliant. Detected violations trigger an avatar reset and an explanation, with a way to report errors.⁠[7]

On August 13, U.S. senators Josh Hawley and Dick Durbin announced an investigation into child safety on Roblox, questioning whether revenue and engagement took priority and requesting preservation of records. The investigation concerned platform safety; it was not a finding of personal wrongdoing by Kaufman.⁠[8]

In a statement to PC Gamer, he said safety underpins Roblox, that the company would not compromise that commitment, and that it welcomed the opportunity to explain its child-protection work.⁠[9]

He obtained a pilot’s license in high school, worked in systems engineering at Lockheed MartinLockheed MartinLockheed Martin is an American aerospace and defense company whose main businesses include military aircraft, missile defense, rotary-wing aircraft and mission systems, and space systems.Open the full entry after university, and later moved into software.⁠[10]

At university, he joined the cycling team and Alpha Epsilon Pi, later describing his fraternity presidency as early management training.⁠[10]

In Tech Talks, he distinguished automated first-line decisions from human quality checks and appeals, saying accuracy should determine whether moderation algorithms are introduced.⁠[11]

He also noted that improved filters can prompt coded language or attempts to move conversations elsewhere, requiring continuous adaptation.⁠[11]

Affiliation: Roblox, https://about.roblox.com/ (opens in a new window). Personal website: https://sites.google.com/view/matt-kaufman/home (opens in a new window). LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkaufman/ (opens in a new window). X: https://x.com/kaufman_matt (opens in a new window).⁠[12]