Mark Rober, founder of CrunchLabs, speaks during the Bloomberg Screentime 2026 conference in Los Angeles, on October 1, 2026. (Photo by Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images)
YouTube powerhouse and former NASA engineer Mark Rober has been calling Netflix for almost a year now, and their partnership has only just begun. In a recent wide-ranging interview at Bloomberg’s ScreenTime, Rober pulled back the curtain on his upcoming competition series Schooled, scheduled for release in early 2027, explained why he decided to venture outside of YouTube, and detailed how the streaming giant is helping scale his Crunch Labs empire.
The partnership between Rober and Netflix first kicked off in August 2025 as part of the streamer’s push to bring marquee internet creators into the fold alongside preschool titans like CoComelon and Ms. Rachel. Since then, Rober’s footprint on the service has rapidly expanded. His curated compilation series, Mark Rober’s CrunchLabs, became an instant global powerhouse in Netflix’s Kids Top 10 across dozens of countries, quickly followed by the December holiday crossover Elmo and Mark Rober’s Merry Giftmas and the summer 2026 release Camp CrunchLabs.
Since his collection of titles has dropped onto Netflix, his titles have picked up 104.8M viewing hours globally between 2025 and mid-2026, equating to 53 million views.
Now, that relationship is reaching its biggest milestone yet with Schooled!, an all-new, high-stakes reality competition series produced in partnership with Jimmy Kimmel’s Kimmelot. During a recent onstage interview, Rober reflected on his journey with the streamer so far, pulled back the curtain on the making of his upcoming game show, and explained why expanding to Netflix is a crucial piece of the Crunch Labs empire.
Here is everything Mark Rober had to say about his partnership with Netflix and what to expect from his upcoming show.
(Editor’s note: Interview quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.)
Inside ‘Schooled’: Turning a Real School into an Engineering Playground
First teased earlier this year, Rober officially detailed the premise, scale, and stakes of his new Netflix project, titled Schooled. The unscripted competition series takes the spirit of his viral YouTube builds and applies it to a real-world campus setting.
As Rober explained, the production reimagines the concept of a school day from the ground up:
The premise is: what happens when you take an actual school and turn it into this engineering playground, and I’m the principal? We had 14 kids, seven teams of two, ages 9 to 17. In each episode, they’re competing in a science or engineering challenge—launching trash can rockets off the roof to get the closest spot on the basketball court, trampolines going down the hallways, lockers filled with gel. It’s really fun. And the winner gets half a million dollars for college and an apprenticeship with me at Crunch Labs.
The jump to a major Netflix production also represented a seismic shift in operational scale for Rober, who built his entire channel from grassroots beginnings:
Normally when I film—I started with just me and a tripod for 10 years, and I didn’t quit my job at Apple until I had 10 million subscribers—I’ve been on the side of doing all the things myself. Here, I’d show up to set and there were around 300 people a day. It’s very interesting to see both sides of the coin.
Picture Credit: Netflix
Why Partner with Netflix? “A Yes-And Situation”
With an audience larger than most broadcast networks, why expand to Netflix at all? According to Rober, teaming with the platform unlocked resources and cross-promotional opportunities that simply wouldn’t have been feasible independently on YouTube, including an unexpected duet with a beloved children’s icon:
With someone like Netflix, one example is they work with Sesame Street. Sesame Street came to Crunch Labs, and I sang with Elmo—heavily auto-tuned, but I sang—a song called ‘Failure is Awesome.’ What an opportunity to work together. Another example is we’re doing an original show with Netflix coming out at the beginning of next year that required a lot of upfront investment I wouldn’t necessarily have had if I were trying to do it on my own for YouTube.
Despite moving into streaming, Rober made it clear that he isn’t abandoning the video platform that built his career, viewing the relationship not as an either/or, but as an expansion of his company’s mission:
At my core, I am a YouTuber and always will be, and we have some very big projects with YouTube and some really banger videos coming. It’s very much a ‘yes-and’ situation—Crunch Labs is becoming a multi-platform brand. If you have a message like we do, it gives you more attack vectors to reach as many brains as possible.
Addressing reports of friction and competition between YouTube and Netflix for top-tier digital talent, Rober confirmed that conversations are ongoing behind the scenes—particularly regarding release strategies:
I’ve had conversations with YouTube. Neal [Mohan] has said it’s good for creators to be multi-platform, and certainly that’s where the future is headed. Some of the conversation has been around the day-and-date situation, which is ongoing right now. But I think Ted [Sarandos] feels this way too—there is a great opportunity for creators. If you have a message like we do, it gives you more attack vectors.
Ditching Traditional TV Polish for “YouTube Authenticity”
Many digital creators struggle when translating their style to legacy TV formats, often because network productions scrub away the informal charm that made them famous in the first place. Rober noted that his team went out of their way to ensure Schooled preserves the direct-to-camera energy of the internet:
If you take a typical show made on a network—something polished and clean, like work I’ve done for the Discovery Channel—and put that on YouTube, it doesn’t get views because people want what is authentic. They want the real. One of the things we’re doing for the Netflix show is trying to bring some of that over. It’s not edited traditionally; it breaks the fourth wall a bit more. We’re trying to make it feel authentic because that does resonate.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos previously mentioned that Rober’s expanding footprint on Netflix drove significant traction back to the creator’s physical business. When asked about that correlation, Rober confirmed that the streamer’s reach has already served as a massive top-of-funnel engine for his STEM kit company:
It was meaningful. That’s awesome because at Crunch Labs, we sell toys that arrive on your porch for you to assemble and learn the science behind them. To have the opportunity to reach more brains with that through Netflix has been fantastic.
With Schooled scheduled to land early next year, Rober’s cross-platform bet will face its biggest test yet as he attempts to turn streaming audiences into the next generation of budding engineers.
Will you be checking out Mark Rober’s Schooled when it debuts on Netflix? Let us know in the comments below!
