Despite building an increasingly screen-focused world, billionaire tech leaders are keeping their own children away from the tech they helped create.
As far back as 2010, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs told a New York Times reporter his kids had never used an iPad and that, “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
Since then, the trend of Silicon Valley billionaires keeping their families away from technology has become even more pronounced, thanks in part to the rise of social media and short-form video.
At the 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival, early Facebook investor and billionaire Peter Thiel joined Chen among the ranks of tech leaders who are setting strict limits on screens. Thiel said he only lets his two young children use screens for an hour-and-a-half per week, a revelation that prompted audible gasps from the audience.
Other tech CEOs, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, and Tesla’s Elon Musk, have also spoken about limiting their children’s access to devices. Gates has said he did not give his children smartphones until age 14 and banned phones at the dinner table entirely. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, in 2018, said he limits his child to the same 1.5 hours per week of screen time as Thiel. And finally, Musk, who bought the social media company X, formerly Twitter, in 2022, said it “might’ve been a mistake” to not set any rules on social media for his children.
Yet, as the trials against social media companies continue and country after country moves toward legislating what Silicon Valley’s billionaires have quietly practiced for years, the private behavior of the world’s most powerful tech figures stands in contrast to what they’re promoting and building
Well, they know why. And they know that most of the people are stupid as a stone. This is how they made their money.
Duh. You think the CEO of Kraft feeds his kids mac and cheese from a box?
How cute. They think the things billionaires say for ammo in the evential lawsuit are actually true.
Other tech CEOs, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, and Tesla’s Elon Musk, have also spoken about limiting their children’s access to devices. Gates has said he did not give his children smartphones until age 14 and banned phones at the dinner table entirely. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, in 2018, said he limits his child to the same 1.5 hours per week of screen time as Thiel.
Seems like these failures suing them & demanding government paternalism
Yet, as the trials against social media companies continue and country after country moves toward legislating what Silicon Valley’s billionaires have quietly practiced for years
don’t know how to effectively limit access/use parental controls as tech CEO’s claim to do.
Wow what a surprise. I can’t imagine anyone better to know how unsafe something is other than the lead architects themselves.
banned phones at the dinner table entirely
I would everyone is doing this. Sitting down to eat together once a day and talk isn’t something only billionaires can afford.
This behavior seems to be very similar to NFL stars and how they never wanted their kids to play football.
Everyone involved knows how dangerous social media/football is and many of them are in positions to actually do something about it. But because it benefits them personally, they won’t even rock the boat.
This isn’t new. I remember fifteen years ago some Silicon Valley app engineers forbade their children from playing the games that were being developed.
It’s because they’re engineered to use your psychology against you. This is by design.
Fucking degenerate assholes, pushing drugs knowing full well how harmful it is.
YouTube cofounder Steve Chen said at a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business last year that he wouldn’t want his kids consuming only short-form content, noting that it might be better to limit kids to videos longer than 15 minutes.
I hope this is introduced at the LA trial in some form that demonstrates the why.
I should not be amazed, but I still am, at the entire lack of morality that tech entrepreneurs have post dotcom bursting.
They’re subhumans with no morality or code of ethics whose sights are set on more and more wealth, spiralling them further into the depths of depravity and the cardinal sin of greed.
Greed begets more greed, but unlike gluttony and wrath, the billionaires’ deterioration doesn’t manifest itself physically, so they allow themselves to become evermore corrupted by it until they become a fountain of disease, rotting and decaying everything around them.
“Our technology is perfectly safe and harmless for all ages!”
“So you would let your own children use it?”
“Nooo. No no no no no no. God no.”
“Are you kidding? I KNOW how addicting we make that shit. I don’t want my kids anywhere near it.”
That should be enough evidence for the rest of the world…
Does musk even see any of his kids often enough to set rules?
not if his kids have any say in the matter
I can imagine he has access to crazy surveillance of them and their mothers.
Hmmm it appears they understand how evil all the tech companies are, harvesting data to the fullest extent. Spying, influencing, etc.
I doubt. I think it’s more like they fear us getting to them through their kids.
Imagine doing that to your child. Raising them in an alternate world that doesn’t really exist? That’s not fearing the tech and caring about their kids. That’s control. That’s them proving their children are the same things as a car.
Oh they absolutely know. Zuck’s Meta is on trial right now not only because Instagram creates an addiction for kids, but because it was made delibarately, on purpose. Kids addictron was the goal.
They’ve always known. They just don’t care for the rest of humanity.
Look to the masters, the tobacco industry with additives to make it more addictive (been a while since I researched it and that’s the one that popped up, but they spent 60+ years making it more addictive).
Social media speedran it with something apparently innocuous (‘they trust me, stupid fucks’), and a bunch of corrupt psychologists (and marketers/advertisers also known as corrupt psychologists). Do no harm my ass, wait, that doesn’t apply to psychologists, wait again, that’s more like guidelines for doctors (not an actual vow in most places).
Next bill of rights / constitution needs to address this specifically, there’s a reason why quacks have a special hatred (and if there were one, a special hell)…
Not to excuse that POS, but more on how we got here: You have a product that only makes money when people actively use it. How do you increase your ROI? Make people want to use it and want to use it longer. Do that by making it more interesting, more relevant, more stimulating and appear bottomless so people can use it as long as possible.
Addiction for EVERYONE is the only way FB continues to increase revenue. We just single out Children because they are most easily influenced and impacted.
Oh I’m perfectly aware this is most likely a chain of pressure and responsibility dodging:
- the top demands more users more active,
- the bottom develops some solutions they demo while refusing any responsability for its impact.
- Some middle pressed to meet demand while having only one solution available at the time eventually decide to deploy it, maybe “temporarily”.
