If you love your kids, if you set a good example. Right? If you're always chasing your dream and trying to create and build they're gonna be fine. Welcome to the art of Father, a podcast that takes you on the journey of father. Now here's your host art eddie. What's going on? Everybody already here for another edition of the Art Father podcast. I'm very happy to have this gentleman snow, Charles Thorn. Thanks for taking the time. To chat. Me, Sarah. How you doing?
My pleasure Art. Glad to be with you today. Yeah. Man, Looking forward to chatting with you about the great work. You team over or doing over At I ken joe by love bringing Goo guys like yourself to talk about Father. So when you found out you're gonna be a dad for the first time, What was going through your mind, sir. You know, it it's probably the first time I I fought at all deeply about, the impact my father, my parents brought they had on
my childhood. I feel like we all tell ourselves these stories about how our childhood influence who we ended up becoming and what we ended up doing and you know, when I... When I first found out, I was gonna be a father. I realized that those stories I was telling myself, were a little gl and and didn't really all hold together all that well. So I spent you know, when when my wife was expecting and and really,
honestly throughout my kid's early childhood. I ta had spent a lot more time really thinking about the once that my father had on me. Unintentionally, unintentionally, how much seemed like circumstance, How much seemed like it might have just been in innate in some way. My my younger brother actually had kids first and was a dad blogger at a time Had a blog called Dad wagon and wrote 1 person in particular that stuck with me is as I was thinking about what it was gonna be like to be a father,
And that was... That for him, all of father had was deciding on each individual topic, whether to do exactly what his parents did or do the complete dead opposite of what his parents did. And so I I feel like that was the first time I really started thinking about. Alright. Which thing is gonna be in the same bucket, and which thing is gonna be, oh, absolutely not. Let's do this totally differently. In that bucket.
No yeah. I mean, I wanna go... That's that's just really cool to think about that too because, you know, we always think about legacy and what, you know, not only our parents, maybe our grandparents influence. If you know, we are lucky enough to chat with them at a certain age to digest what they were telling us. Right? When When I was speaking to, you know, your grandparents and stuff. But Yeah. For you, that... I I love that train of thought being like, alright. What did I like? It
was almost like a buffet. Like, I like this. Now I'm not gonna touch that. Yeah. You kind of talk to, you know, your brother inspired you, you talk to your brother and maybe your parents or especially your dad, what through your thought process? Or it was just kind of like, this is just me. This is my journey. I'm gonna was gonna do it myself. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, if fans of Japanese directors. This there's a bit of a a Rash. Right? Like, there's
different perspectives on the exact same experience. And my brother's perspective and my perspective on how we were raised were a little bit different. I'll say my father's perspective, was quite a bit different than what either of ours was. And so, absolutely it inspired a number of was really important conversations. I'll give you 1 just sort of specific example. So, you know, as I shared with you before, I'm a serial entrepreneur.
I've spent my whole lie. I literally bought a for debt when I graduated from college, and have been building companies ever since then. But I grew up in a house with a Sierra entrepreneur. My father was a Serial entrepreneur, and I heard about every business he was trying he was all in on every single 1 literally started. I think 35 or 40 companies over the course of his career.
And so when I was a kid, if you would ask me what I was gonna do for living, I would have told you, I'm gonna do kinda the opposite of what my dad did. Because we we saw all of the ups and downs and more downs than ups to be honest financially speaking from a stability perspective of what it means to be self employed to be an entrepreneur. We had houses fore closed on us. Like, we lived in hotel rooms certain certain parts of our childhood.
Like, it was not an easy. So Thought I'm gonna go get a bunch of graduate degrees I'm gonna get a giant job with a giant company, and no one's ever gonna take my family's house away. And then, of course, as soon as I got the opportunity to be self employed literally at the age 22. I jumped into being self employed. So so there's a little bit... You know, my initial gl answer was maybe that's nature versus nurture. Maybe that was just
somehow in me. And what I realized afterwards is that my dad, my parents both created this very, loving and stable environment, despite all of the chaos financially and professionally that existed. And I think what that actually did for me. I thought what I was learning was go do something totally different, but then I couldn't overcome, you know, my Dna. And I think what actually happened was that experience of my childhood made me realize no matter how far sideways things go.
If you love your kids. If you set a good example. Right? If you're always chasing your dream and trying to create and build, they're gonna be fine. My brother and I both went to Stanford. We did fine. Right? Like, we had no money grown up. My parents turned a ton of education and do a very very, very tiny amount of financial resource. And yet it all worked out great. So I think actually what that did was make me way more risk tolerance than I might have been.
Otherwise, And it gave me the kind of wiring and security and safety I needed to go try to accomplish crazy unlikely things, in my professional career. So just 1 little example of something that, you know, you may have interpret differently during your childhood, than once you think a little more deeply about it and realize how it informed who you are, you end up with a little different takeaway than than where you may have started.
Great. Great insight right there, Charles talk a little bit about, you know, especially the stuff that you were learning from your parents. Talk about how you look as a parent and instill values and morals into your kids as they're growing up. I mean, especially being an entrepreneur kinda maybe making it your own way. Before I put any more words your mouth, talk about the route, man.
Yeah. So so for me, that really are kind of 3 3 things that rise to the top when I think about kind of values I'm hoping to instill my kids. And 1 of them is certainly related to entrepreneurship, Albeit, maybe someone indirectly. Agency is, high on the list for me, for sure. So meaning that my kids have the sense that they can affect things in their world, that their energy, and their effort, their commitment and passion will allow them to make changes in the world, and my parents absolutely
raised me with that belief. In myself, that belief in what is just objectively true that I was born into a great situation. My children are born into a great situation. Harder to convince yourself of agency when, you know, you're you're born with a whole bunch of strikes against you, but it's probably even more valuable in those kinds of circumstances that that you you understand that you can
change your situation. And so making sure and my my wife and I are always debating a little bit around this, like, making sure that the boys always have a chance to make their own decisions, whether those decisions end up working out well or poorly, no better way to learn how to make decisions than to keep making decisions. So so agency is, high on that list. And then the other... The other things that matter to me curiosity, you know, I... It's my nightmare that I
might have in curious kids. And, mer, I do not. My kids are super super curious. They wanna understand how things are put together, how they work, Why people make the decisions that they make. They ask questions about absolutely anything and everything that they see, and I love that. I think curiosity is so important. And then probably most important of all, and and this was definitely a huge part of my childhood,
is empathy. So, you know, my my my mother's family were all civil rights workers and or Ordained ministers is, like, literally committed and devoted their lots to the service of others. My dad's family were more kind of entrepreneurs.
And so I've been lucky at my career to to be able to work exclusively on to problems that have a social mission associated with them, which I I understand is an insane privilege, not not very many people get to to build businesses that give you a chance to to win in the world while while doing well as well. But I think it just as a as a human, you know, always leading with empathy.
Trying to make sure you you realize how little you actually understand about the situations of the people that you're interacting with and using that to just inform you know, a bit of an approach to life is you know, maybe the 1 sort of, least negotiable value, that I I hope my kids kinda walk away from their childhood it. Really like the empathy part then also too. So you are the ate atypical a parent that didn't mind their quest their, you know, their kids especially with
the toddlers age asking why? Why dad? Why? I'm sorry yeah. You embrace that curiosity love it. And, you know, probably because I am, predisposed to make things up. It's a part of what I have to do as you, what I do for a living is trying to create something out of nothing. So you know, I'm probably a little more comfortable making up answers of those questions when I don't have them close at hand than than my wife is. But yeah, I love it.
No no better way to figure out to it is that you care about and love and life and to be curious to keep asking questions. Love, Charles. And then we'll get into Ken 1 of the things that you've created with you... Your your great team over there. In a second, just 2 more questions on this parenting side of things. Well, actually Ken joe is involves family and making your kids safe
when they're playing games, like roadblocks online. But For you, what is something that your kids have taught you either about yourself or about life that maybe didn't know was there until you became a dad. Yeah. It's a good it's a good question. I mean, I think for me, the first part of that answer would be the the the realization that I had that we talked about earlier about what impact, You know, how much of who I am is actually a function of the environment that my parents created for me.
I didn't I didn't really have an appreciation. I think for that in advance of of having kids. But, you know, I also back to this kind of value of agency, I've seen how much of an impact it has on kids. When you let them bail for themselves. So let them make a choice and see the negative consequence of that choice. And there's always this very bright line that I think all parents agree on, which is when safety and security is involved. That's not choice. We're gonna let them make a
bad decision on. But anything short of, like, is gonna do long term damage. I'm a fan of letting them just give it a shot and see what happens. And I think that's you know, that's something. I didn't I didn't appreciate how important that was to my own life until I saw in these interactions with my boys, how valuable it is to them to to actually be able to feel like a decision is their decision not a decision that someone else put on on them. And, of course,
I recognized it myself. That's that's been motivating for my whole wife. That's why a I have often taken jobs that probably are, you know, less financially rewarding than if I'd work for someone else, but I love making my own mistakes. For myself and and learning from those. I feel like there's no better, faster way to learn in life, than that. Very cool. And Data hack or piece of advice you offer to dads or new dads or just new...
Or new parents or just parents in general that you'd like to best on on my audience. Yeah. This is a great question. I also have to say that, you know, I think all parents by nature are probably uncomfortable with this question because I... I am amazed by having spoken to so many
you know, creators and influence. Was in the world else you, are comfortable describing themselves as parenting experts because I think the reality is none of us really knows exactly what we're doing, and it's very hard to describe something that you feel like you do, you know, succeed a little and fail a little every way to describe yourself as an expert in that thing is to a hard thing to do. But I think more important
for you piece of advice. I that's why, it's from, you know, piece of advice or Dad hack, because a hack is something where you don't look as an expert. You you're like, oh, I've tried this and it works. Let me let me let me share that with them. So I would say yes yes. What it is. Right I love it. Yeah. Yeah. A hack is not something the experts come up with. Right? A hack is something you come up with, despite the fact that you know you are not an expert. Or self enough to know
that you don't know everything. Yeah. I mean, I would actually tie back to what I was just saying about about decisions. I think there's such a natural instinct for us as parents to take decisions out of kids hands, to try to, you know, literally steer them towards the decision that we believe is best
for them or safest for them. And what you find is that not only will they not get better at making decisions if you take that route, they also won't be attached to the decision itself, in a way that
leads to a successful outcome. And so, you know, my hack as a dad has absolutely been wherever I can to not make a choice that I can put on my children instead, to make for themselves, because as their willingness to adhere to the outcome of that decision is, like a hundred x if they actually feel like they played a part in making it. Just as 1 little example of this, punishment is a great example. Every single time
My kids do something. First of all, when we have a conversation about something they did that they should not have done. There are 0 times, when they believe that they should've have done it. Like, they always know that it was the wrong thing to do. And they always admit to that. Right? No matter how sneaky they were being about or whatever. They're, like, their compass on right and wrong is super solid and strong even when they're the ones
who did the the thing that's wrong. And then if I ask them, to tell me what they think is a fair punishment. Literally a hundred times out of a hundred. They come up with something that is more severe than I would have suggested myself. And by virtue of having recommended it themselves, it's much harder for them to tell themselves or tell me that they think it's a completely
unfair punishment or disproportionate to what happened. So that as a hack, like, if you're trying to figure out with your kids, what the right punishment is, and you put it in their hands and say, like, if you recommend something that seems reasonable and fair, I'm gonna buy into it. You will often find that they will recommend something well beyond what you would have suggested which gives you an opportunity to be a little magna and back it down. Down a little bit.
And you'll find that they just fundamentally believe it's a much more fair outcome than they would add otherwise. So that's my non expert. No. Such... That that is a great piece of insight and hack as a dad. So I love that. No. People should, kinda take that to heart. So thank you very much. Alright. So, Kin, man, I love the fact that, you know, man, as we... People embark in this world of, like, ever changing tech, and everything is going at, you know, you probably know this more than I do.
There was something I'd said like, you, on the 19 hundreds, the the rate of change, like, 25 years for something impact. Now it's like, what, like, every 12 days or something where yeah. Like, the
speed of change, speed of innovation. So kudos to you and your company over at Ken jail for making sure that kids who love to put out online games like roblox is creating a safe environment because we already read those who stories, We see the, know, the headlines being, like, you know, kid gets, you know, abuse or whatever or assaulted
or whatever online talking about playing games. But, like, talk about what you guys do over at Ken, especially for people with parents, you know, who have kids that love to play online, and we want them to embrace that technology, but also know that there are better choices than what the Internet offer sometimes. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So first of all, I mentioned that spent a career as a as an entrepreneur. All of that entrepreneurship for me has been
in the education space. So that first business I've offered. And I graduated are heard from college is was an education business. It was an analog education business. I turn the content from that company into an education technology company and, literally for 25 years have been building companies that work to solve learning problems for kids. 1 of the things that my kids taught me when they showed up in my life was that the current state of education technology kinda
sucks. They make clear to me that relative to the experiences that really hold their attention in a compelling way, and massive social online simulations and games, the difference between what games are today, and what games were when you and I were growing up is night and day, they're all network. They're all social. They're also cognitive complex that there's an enormous amount that is compelling to kids that gets kids into flow
states. It can really help their development in a number of different ways if we, allow that to happen. And so you know, for me, when I got to... This is my sixth... Education technology startup up that I'm building right now, the company you referenced Kin joe. And it's the first 1 that I got the Id 8 as a father. So all of my engagement with learning problems previously was a little more hypothetical and theoretical as things just are when you haven't lived it yet.
And so this time, I got to observe my own children. I got to see as I was, sort of stepping back from my last company of a business I built called Ci morning that and higher education. I got to see a little bit what their generation was struggling with, and what my generation of parents that's was struggling with as well. Right?
I would guess most parents in your audience, I and I would certainly say this about myself would say they probably don't have the healthiest relationship with screens, devices or time in digital spaces. So, you know, back to this idea of not being an expert. Hardly feel like any of us are necessarily experts and how to help our kids develop a healthiest relationship with devices that kind of dominate our lives as well.
But 1 of the things I saw just developmental in my kids is, my boys had both kind of mild Adhd diagnoses. As they were growing up. And what I experienced when I watched them interact with content curriculum, classrooms, digital learning apps, and then games is that things that were not interesting to them couldn't hold their attention or they couldn't hold the attention for very long.
Environments that were compelling to them. I mean, my kids would solve these insanely complex multi threaded problems with, like, 15 friends in these online gaming environments and and take 6 hours to do it. I'm like, I'm in a heart I'm saying this kid has an attention deficit. Like, something about that, because I don't feel like I could pay attention to a problem like that
for that. That much time. So it made me start to think about, you know, as I as I saw the current state of the art and learning technology through their eyes, almost all of the learning apps that we have in the world, were really built initially for the classroom environment for the school environment, and that's because in the states that's who has been buying learning software for the last 25 years. Most of solutions I've built have been sold
to schools as well. Parents haven't been particularly engaged consumers of learning apps. That is changing with this generation of parents. We are generally speaking, more involved, more engaged, less likely to just hand the baton to a school building and assume that ever is gonna be just fine from a life skills perspective, from an academic perspective,
etcetera. And so as I kinda dug in a little bit and try to figure out, what is it that is so much more compelling to my children about these digital environments than about any of the learning environments that I've built and that others have built. What I what I came to find was that there are a few really important elements. 1 of them gets back to the values we're talking about earlier and that is agency.
Kids, particularly young kids have control of so little of their time that when they get onto a screen our device and they get to make their own choices. They have their own agency, doesn't matter how stupid the thing they choose is. They still love the fact that they've got to choose it. Right? Sure. And so that's a huge part of what's compelling to them. The other thing I did is I went down this sort of rabbit
hole of cognitive research, cognitive development. We know so much more about, sort of developmental psychology and and how how the human brain evolves and grows over time, then we did even 20 or 30 years ago. And there's actually a huge amount of engagement that happens in some games. That can be super compelling for kids development. So you know, any parent who's looked over their children shoulder while they're watching Youtube understands there is a spread of the quality of the
content that they are consuming. Right? From you can literally get yourself a Phd in almost any subject in the world just by watching Youtube videos if you were inspired to go do that. Or you could spend countless hours watching F bro, xi profanity and each other. And the algorithm does not... Have a favorite of those 2 paths except. Whichever 1 holds your attention for, like, 1 extra second. Right? Like... And sadly, that's often f shouting profanity at at
each other. So I had these, like, sort of dual recognition of the fact that number 1, The currency of the Internet is advertising. All these platforms are stunning powerful machines that are pointed entirely at consuming our kids time, engagement. Kids love it because they they get to make choices. The problem is they're not actually making choices. Right? They're they're having a subset of choices presented to them algorithm. And the currency that really drives those choices
is advertising. And so my observation was, well, if there is actually, all of this amazing potential in some games, not all games, just like those Youtube videos, some can be super educational informational, some are mind melting. How can I provide sort of an alternative set of recommendations for kids, so that they become a little bit more aware of the
choices they're making? And they're not just blindly clicking on the thing that's has a more compelling thumbnail and we'll melt their brain for the next 45 seconds. Can we actually go through and rate experiences that are better for them developmental manually, cognitive from a learning perspective? And then if we could do that, Can we actually inspire them to choose those? So not lock them down, lock them out.
Everything you see in screen time monitoring Right is about Gotta lock this down and and doctor safety and security, I understand the instinct. Right? Nothing is more important than our kids being. Safe. On the other hand, as I also said, I don't... I'd... I've never seen able to get better at making decisions by having decisions taken away from them. I'd rather my kids got a chance to practice making decisions and saw and felt what good decisions feel like and what bad decisions
feel like. Along the way. So we built Jail really to do a couple things. Number 1, and we started with roblox, largely, selfish officially, my kids, were obsessed with throw roadblocks for much of their early childhood, particularly for kids kind of age ages 6 through 12. It's really an introduction to these digital social spaces. Incredibly popular platform, also an incredibly diverse platform. Literally, tens of millions of different gaming experiences just
on that 1 platform. So many parents think roblox as a game. It's not a game. It's a platform. It's an open platform for the creation of games, and therefore it has millions and millions of games on it just like Youtube. Any user generated content platform is gonna have barb things and amazing things. And so how do we know the difference between those 2 was question number 1, put together a team of gaming and learning experts who were able to come up the 5 year point rubric.
They've actually played through all of these experiences and then use that to score them. For learning value for, kind of content caveats, but really, our focus is less about you know, how do we make sure that there's no content in here that family might be offended by that another family is not. We're really focused on how do we find high quality experiences that are great for kids learning and brain development cognitive development.
Then number 2, once we have found those best experiences, parents told us in no uncertain terms that they don't wanna try to pull have to police their children, and say you can play this. You can't play that. I'm only gonna let you play Robots. If you play these 3 games. They don't know anything about these games anyway, and no kid is looking to get a game recommendation from their parent.
So instead, what we wanted to do to kind of put our finger on the scale from a recommendation perspective is how do we reward kids for choosing experiences that are better for them? And these are not, like Lame Algebra games disguised as real games. They are they are real games that have a strategic cognitive complexity to them where their kids are learning complex problem solving and social collaboration, but they're also a subset of the games that their friends might be playing as well.
So we're not turning them into social P so much of what kids the way kids socialize these days in these spaces and on these devices. That's actually just as a side note, the the et ideology of the name Kin. Ken is Japanese for neighborhood. And the inspiration of that was I learned a ton growing up as a kid playing outside in the neighborhood with friends. These kids digital neighborhood. It... Like, their neighborhood is digital. It is
these spaces. It is these these large scale gaming environments really are the place that they are socializing kind of all day every day. And so we wanted to, you know, leave the joy of that for them, but just help direct them, and frankly, their friends to experiences that are gonna be better for them and safer for them. But still an enormous amount of fun. So that's really what we built it at Kin joe is a way to inspire kids to with awareness, make better choices for how they're spending their
own time. And then at the same time, because kids get this benefit of rewards, kids attach their roblox account to their Ken account, and that allows us to share with their parents, whatever they're doing on the platform. So we can tell parents exactly which friends your kids are playing with, and every parent I talk to you about roadblocks. Their number 1 concern is who their kids are playing with on the platform and are they playing with friends who are actually their friends in real life?
They playing with kids who are actually kids? That is sort of the safety and security concern? I think often on that platform And so what we're able to do is are every single week, we send a digest parents. This is exactly how much time your child spent with each of these friends. If you see a name on that list that you don't recognize, you can have a conversation with your child about it. And see if they can tell you, The number of times my kids have said, yeah. Yeah. III totally another
that guy. That's my friend. And then I asked Mission few more questions about it and realize, like, you met them on red roblox. That's not somebody that you know in real life. And now we know a that's someone just... We're gonna keep an eye on. Right? Same thing with games and experiences. Right? We we help parents actually connect with their kids better. By getting a sense of what the experiences are that they are in love with obsessed with? Right? Like, what is their agency driving
them to choose? What are they choosing to spend time? And they get and parents get in their digest a a view of the skills kids are building, the experiences are spending time on. These are all things that they just can't get. Anywhere else. There's no other way to see which friends your kid is playing with the most Is no other way to see which gaming experiences they're choosing the most and so parents can actually see the quality of kids time spent on the platform going up over time.
From, you know, to give you a statistic on this by our rating, the typical kit on roblox spends well less than 10 percent of their time and the highest quality experiences. Our kids spend 50, 60 plus percent of their time and the highest quality experiences. Yes, with that little incentive of of rewards that we're able to provide for them. Love, man. Again, C what you guys are doing. You know, you mentioned selfish you start with roblox because your kids are on
there. What are they... And I mean, obviously, the you're they're your target market, but also your test audience, what do they think about it? Because of course, everything to parent sounds great. But for our... Know, parents listen to this, what do the kids think? And, you know, what did they, you know, ultimately love about it that, you know, you can share
with my audio? Yeah. You It's funny. So I I say this, with affection, obviously, having been, somebody who's been building learning technology products for 25 years. The largest served audience for learning software is kids. Kids don't buy learning software, period. Like, no kid asks for a screen time control app or an education technology app. That does not happen. They are built, to your point. They're built for grown ups.
Right? They're bought by teachers and, administrators and parents who hope that their kids will like them. Yep. Right? Or talk tolerate them. Forget... The like is probably too strong. Right? They they hope the kids will tolerate them. We built Kin to literally flip that entire script on its head. Right? Are you wondering if your kid is gonna enjoy spending time on roblox. If you have a child between 6 and 12 you are not wondering that.
Like, you already know, they love it. They spend an enormous amount of time there, they love it. So Any... 1 of the... I'd say, almost unexpected benefits of this, both in my family and for, a number of the families that we're now working with, and we've got 75000 kids who have found the app and connected the roadblocks and earn some rewards gonna to start. 1 of the things that happens is kids love that their parents are in any way interested, engaged or even mildly supportive of the
time that they spend. On roblox. So that becomes a a point of connection rather than friction. Yeah. And what we know from what the research tells us that if all you ever say to your kids about the things they achieve are accomplishing in games, and we have all... If you have a kid as a gamer or, we've all had them saying a bunch of words to us that don't really make any sense to us and our and our instinct is to kind of dismiss it. Like, oh, great. You displayed that boss and why don't you do
something useful in the real world. The reality is that actually lessen the positive benefit that kids get from the game. You want them to understand and believe this of the skills that they're using in these games are actually transferable to the real world. Like, it's a really hard complicated
thing you accomplish. You should feel great about that, and I need to let you know in my reaction when you tell me about it, that I'm not missing at, and that you shouldn't feel bad about that time you've invested in those skills that that you have already built. So so we're kind of bringing families together around a top that can otherwise be much more divisive. And that doesn't mean we're inspiring kids to pay
play more roadblocks. In fact, the kids who work with Kin joe and the kids who don't spend almost exactly the same amount of time on average on the platform. So they're not spending more time to earn rewards. In fact, we built the reward mechanism where they don't earn more rewards by spending more time. It's all about the quality of the time that they're spending. So kids... My kids love, the dad cares about roblox understands roadblocks at all more pays attention to
what they've done or accomplished in roblox. They also love for themselves being able to see out they're spending their time on the platform. Because many of these platforms are, you know, almost like casinos. There's no there's no clocks on the wall. Right? For a reason. Yeah. Right?? They're like, and this isn't a roblox thing. This is true of, you know, Youtube is not gonna tell you how much time you found on you. Why would they do that? Tick tiktok not gonna. Right?
So so for them to be able to actually see in a day or in a week? How much time did I spend, which of these games that I play with the most? Which of my friends do I play with the most? And what skills did I build as I was doing that, But they can see all those things through their, through the Ken plus experience for parents. And they never had access to any of that information before us. So my kids are
actually compelled by that. All of that is secondary to the thing they're all most excited about, which is the ability to earn rewards. And, you know, we thought originally that our target audience for this would be the families who spend the most on virtual currencies like Robots and these platforms because really, monetization model is if you're a subscriber of ours, we are going to enable a different speed of reward and therefore, a bet and improved
decision mate. For your kids when they're on the platform. Yeah. And so we figured parents who will already spend a lot of resource on the platform would be our best audience. Well, without actually, is the opposite is true.
The the families that are most compelled by our value proposition, the kids specifically who are most likely to change our behavior dramatically our kids who don't earn a lot of robots any other way or don't have robots just give them to them whenever they want them because this becomes the way that they can actually earn them, instead of having to beg for them. And back to agency, children do not like to have their only way out to be a
big parent for something. If if a parent can then tell them, actually, just make better choices, and you'll be able to earn these rewards for yourself, they're all about it. We've seen them change decisions dramatically, not because anyone's looking over their shoulder not because anyone's told them, they have to do this and not that. But because they can see and get their game. Right?
They can gain this system and figure out, I'm am not gonna earn myself more rewards both by spending more time in these 5 flame experiences and no time in these 0 flame experiences. And now that problem sort of taking care of itself. So we've given, you know, for parents, there's kind of a third way. You don't have to let your kids do anything and everything on the platform and just turn a blind eye. You also don't have to shut them out of this platform entirely.
You can find this third way, which is we're gonna let you spend some time on the platform, but we're gonna put a reward system in place where you'll get feedback on the quality of the choices you're making, and the way to earn the thing you want on that platform is by actually making good choices in spending your time well. Love it. 1 more final question before I finish off with the father with 5 for you. Just... I mean, you've been in this space. Like you said, for many years,
what is something now? Because, like I said earlier, Like, things are always changing. What is something that parents might not be aware of in the sense of, like, I'm using air quotes right now because this is an audio podcast, but danger. Where are certain things? Because I know it's always changing always, you know, evolving and stuff.
But what is something recently that you have seen and your team have seen that maybe you can kinda share with our, parents that maybe they should look out for it. Yeah. I think the... You know, when you're looking at social gaming platforms, in particular, all of them are working to get better at understanding the actual age of players and users and and keeping players kinda grouped appropriately. And really, there's 2... So, you know, obviously,
I've gone deepest on on roblox specifically. And I think there's a couple things on Rob roblox, just to be aware of. Number 1, the level of hysteria online are around these platforms, puts parents in a really difficult position. Because if you spend a little bit of time online, researching the roadblocks platform, you're gonna you're gonna find out 2 things. You're gonna find out number 1. There's are some people who believe that roblox is being used somehow primarily for grooming kids.
And the other thing you're gonna find out is almost every kid in this age range on that platform. And so for parents, this this cognitive dissonance. It's like, how can it be that this thing is so dangerous and evil and everyone is on it. Like, all of my kids friends are all on it. I... It it doesn't make sense. Right? It sort of breaks your brain. To think about that problem. And so the solve to that is, yes, make sure both you and your child
are informed. Like, pay attention to who they're playing with. Obviously, we give you a way to do that. There are ways you can kinda hack your way around that it's gonna take a lot more time. If you're not a Akin subscriber, But you can see your your child's friend list, which can be anywhere from, you know, 2 to 200 friends on the roblox platform. If you log into their account. You
can ask them questions about those friends. Unfortunately, you won't be able to see which ones they're playing with most, which is really what separates the ones you really wanna understand from those that don't. And then the other is just know that there's some experiences, and they may hear about some of these experiences from a friend. They're they're not gonna get recommended these experiences if they're way out of the appropriate age range, but they can find their way to them
that have some caveats associated with them. And so what we try to do is really dis instill all this desktop research and time spent, you know, digging into what's real and what's not real and put it into a a much more consumable kind of format where kids will auto correct a little bit on how they're spending their time based on our incentive system. But as a as a support, parents are... Our parents are dramatically better informed about what their kids are actually doing on the platform
then then they could be otherwise. So I think just knowing that these experiences almost all of them that kids are compelled by right now are fundamentally and foundational social experiences. And for parents of our generation, that's different. The game the video games we played. We're only social if, like, our buddy with sitting next to us playing, and we were, you know, playing street fighter together. There was that kind of social. But now it's much more kind of anonymously
and massively social. And so I think making sure you're informed about who your kid is socializing with on all of these platforms is probably the the best thing that you can do and then what are the experiences they're spending time in? And how does that align by the way, to your family's values? You know, I I grew up in a house where you know, sexual content was much less worried about than violence. Like, we were you know, my parents were post tip, I would say, and
you know, there's, like, no water guns. We're lot... We we couldn't shoot each other with water gun. Because it was, like, a fundamentally violent act. That's what our families values were. We were less worried about profanity than we were about violence. Lots of families feel the
opposite way of that. Right? They're fine with violence, but much less with kind of sexually inappropriate or or age agent inappropriate language from that perspective, having some awareness of the experiences your kids are spending time in and some abilities this is actually 1 of the things that we're rolling out next with them the next week is the ability for parents actually configure. Kind by genre and by caveat to be able to exclude specific experiences. They just don't
feel comfortable with. We don't wanna do that because we don't wanna pretend that every family has the exact same set of values or the exact same care even every kid to be honest. I think age appropriate as a concept is problematic because every kid, both of those words are problematic. Age is not really, concept what matters the most. Every kid develops it in different timeline and appropriate is not really the right thing. Either. We're really looking for things that are developmental optimal.
Rather than age appropriate. And so that's a that's a decision that parents really need to be engaged in. So we're trying to give our parents tools to be able to make some of those calls and actually influence rather than having advertisers be the primary influence over how your kids spend time online, how can we give parents a bit of a voice in that in a way that's very light touch, but allows them to have a little bit more impact on their kids, digital experiences?
Really appreciate the work that you're doing, especially in an in an environment that everybody listening to this knows that their job, balancing work, family in and just Errands and throughout the day. Like, this kid's going to this club? This and then they're like, can I play on this roblox? Because, you know, Jimmy doing it and and Tanya is doing it. Like, can you get, like, I'll look at it later. Let me just look at it later
right or with your like, alright. Can set up your environment, You can make better choices. You'll be rewarded for that. Like you said, kids are more apt to do with the good things if they're able to do do so on their own. And then whenever you get that report, you're like, okay. This is what they're into. This is what they're doing. And then I always find like, you know, I always preach that, like, if my daughter is, like, we talk about everything
at their into. Because if you don't, like, take interest in what they're doing, They're gonna find a different way or find people on mind who care about what they're doing at that moment. Right. So the fact that you guys are doing all of these things to make it easier on... Not just the parents, but the families so they can kinda... Everybody gets what they want in a way that is present and respectable for the family members is great. So I really appreciate what you guys are doing.
And, obviously, people can go to ken dot com. It's KINJ0 dot com. Gonna finish up the file quick 5. Favorite family moving your household. You guys have 1? Good question. We've... As my kids have gotten older, they're at that age where they're their tasty changed. Quite a bit. I'll I'll cheat a little and say, there's a show that we've been watching as a family together a lot, and that is Young Sheldon.
My boys are obsessed with Young Sheldon then and you know, for for me, like, having these kids analyze that character, I'm all about it. I'm all about it. Thanks No. Really good. I will give you a heads out spoiler. Well, you... I don't know Did you watch big Bang theory? Yes. So you kinda know what maybe happens to Sheldon family a certain member. So. They go all in on it. So Yeah. Felt, like, call in on it, but just Right So... Yep. Yep. Appreciate it. Real appreciate
it. Favorite song genre that you couldn't of music that you couldn't wait to do do to introduce your kids to as what. My wife grew up in, Miami. I grew up on the West Coast. We're both big fans of nineties hip hop, and I gotta say back to, like, language inappropriate. My wife's wears, like a sailor and has since, the kids were were babies. So so the language was not a huge barrier for my children, they're kind of, to it at this point in their lives.
But that was the genre that we introduced to early, and they both they both love both the both the nineties and and work current rendition as well. So if we ever have issue with the the content there, we have only ourselves to blame for, getting that haven't started. Guys describe the perfect family vacation where it be. You know, we... We... I don't think we talked about this yet, Arc, but, at a high level, my perfect family vacation is always a an experience that we are
all having for the first time together. So rather than you know, Natalie and I teaching the boys about something that we've seen before that we wanted them to see as well. Like, we we did a family trip to Japan. Between my last company and this 1, we were able to spend quite a bit of time over there about 5 years ago, and it was mind blowing. None of us had ever been before so much to see and learn and do. But in this vein, we are actually just about to embark on a massive family
adventure. In fact, it's kind of already started. We're gonna experiment with learning, living in a number of new locations together as a family. So we're starting in the Us. With a couple spots on the coasts. We're then going to spend 6 or 7 months living in some major European cities, and then may go more broadly globally after that. And it's really inspired by that idea of experiencing and learning brand new things together as
a family, at the same time. 1 of the thing I will say about, you've been just start of it because it's it's different when you've kinda back on your house. That's different from going on a vacation, and you know you're gonna go back to your your space afterwards.
Just being in the same small spaces together as a family and having to deal with each other, like, you you you can't just go to opposite stick corners of a big house and, you know, when when it feels like those quite hitting in the way you hoped, you sorta have to deal with it because it's right in front of you every time. And it's already been kind of mind blowing just in the first few weeks that we've been on this little event adventure. So I'll keep you posted on how that goes. But.
But, hopefully, that will be... It's not a vacation per s, more of a, you know, an an adventure and living and working together sustainably, kind of all around the world, but but I I have a feeling we're all gonna learn quite a bit from from that experience. That at all the different cultures in the different perspective you guys are gonna see is a great. But learning tool for everybody. So
nice. Absolutely. So excited. Favorite game you guys like to play with a board game or a video game of for the family is what Yeah. I'll give you 2 1 of each. Work at a pizza place is 1 of the first ones we started playing on roblox. So fun. I mean, kids love pizza, kids love restaurants of my boys want to be a chef when he grows up. Right. So just cooperation team, of course, I love the elements of sort of entrepreneurship that are in
that. 1 and that lately leads us well to, you know, our favorite board Jam is is monopoly. My my little guy is completely money obsessed. That has to be, I'm I'm hoping that is nature and not nurture because I don't think we've been instilled that in them. But, Boyd does he love beating any other members of the family when it comes to accumulating real estate and cash. In that game. That's it. That's a classic for us. Love it. And lastly, top 3 words you hope your son to
use describe you as a dad. What would you want them to be? Yeah. I I cheated on this 1 just a little bit because I wanted... You know, I saw your question and I wanted to know... I wonder what they actually would say. Forget about what I'd like for them to say. What would they say? The first thing they said was loving. And nice couldn't ask for better than that. I think if, you know, forget about top 3. If there's only 1 that I want my kids to grow up with, it's that they're loved.
And so that was not. Thank you for the question because that was a nice moment for me just to know that we're we're making progress. On on that 1, if that's the first. The 2 others that I would say are, let's say, increasingly aspirational. 1 is present, and that's a part of what this strip. Is about as well. You know, to me the choice between involved and present is a very purposeful choice. Like, I want them to know that I'm there that I care that I love them that
I'm I'm engaged. I may not be involved in the way that mom likes to be involved because I actually think there's some some benefit for the boys to, figuring things out for the themselves and to feel like they can take agency and, not that she doesn't cheat. We we we agree on that for sure. But but but present is number 2. And then number 3, and, you know, my dad as I as I alluded to earlier, was absolutely this for me. Number 3 is inspiring. Like, I I want
I want them to... We all know that our kids are not actually impacted by the words we say to them nearly as much. As they're impacted by watching the way we spend our lives and the things that we really do. And so when I'm not able to be present, when I'm building something brand new. You know, my hope is that the kinds of problems I spent my life trying to work on are inspiring to my boys. You know, as as that third, most aspirational of the 3. But but feeling loved is that foundation for all
the rest of it. Awesome, Charles. Love the work that you guys are doing at ken, people, like I said, go to ken dot com. And again, really appreciate your insight and father. And the way you look at things, you know, I, you know, you talked about making... Being in this, you know, educational space and, you know, space for kids in the in the tech field, man, and you have a passion for it you you know, you said as a dad, this is something that you
have even more of a passion for. But I love the fact that you guys are traveling around the world taking in different cultures and being there together I love that. I wish you and your family continued success. Thanks for supporting the yard of father. But again, it was been a real treat, man. Thanks, Art. I love what you do. The content you're putting out there. So so important, so valuable, it's a it's 1 of the most important jobs search the most important job I will ever have
in my life. Mh is being a father to these 2 boys. So, you know, you're you're you're making some really important valuable ripples in the world. And keep it up. Thanks. That means it's a lot coming you. You, sir. Appreciate it. You got it. Thanks for checking out this week's edition of the art Father hood podcast. Please rate subscribe and review wherever you listen to podcast and
also go to art father dot net. Can have a chance to check out some great articles like the weekly dads doing it right column, the collector of the week and many more. Plus, you have a chance to win some very cool prizes. Like video games, collectible, all that good stuff. Go to art father dot net, and please make sure you rate subscribe and review wherever you listen to podcast podcasts because Greatly appreciate to get the word out on the Art father podcast. Thank you so much.
Thanks for listening to the Art of Father pot. Cast. Leave a review wherever you listen to podcast and go to art of father dot net.