Tech executives love to talk about disrupting industries and changing the world. But when it comes to their own kids, they’re dealing with the same messy reality as everyone else. Except, you know, with a few billion dollars in the bank and AI assistants on speed dial.
The irony is almost too perfect. The people building the technologies that are fundamentally reshaping childhood are simultaneously trying to figure out how much of that technology their own kids should actually use. It’s like watching someone invent candy and then lecture their children about sugar intake.
When AI Becomes Your Parenting Coach
Sam Altman, the guy literally running OpenAI, has been refreshingly honest about using ChatGPT to navigate new parenthood. He’s asked the AI why his kid wasn’t crawling on schedule, which is both relatable and slightly unsettling. Here’s someone with access to the world’s best pediatricians, and he’s consulting a chatbot at 3 AM like the rest of us would Google “is this normal baby behavior.”
But Altman draws a line. He doesn’t want his kid forming a best-friend relationship with AI. Fair enough. Though it’s worth noting that this concern is coming from the person whose company is actively working to make AI more engaging and personable.
He also dropped nearly two grand on a smart crib that bounces babies before they even start fussing. The most human part of his parenting advice? Stock up on burp rags. Even technology billionaires can’t escape baby spit-up.
The Screen Time Paradox
Mark Zuckerberg built an empire on keeping people glued to screens. His approach to his own kids’ screen time? Strict limits. Shocking absolutely no one, the man who changed how billions of humans interact wants his daughters away from devices “for a long period of time.”
In 2024, he told his seven-year-old daughter that being like Taylor Swift wasn’t “available” to her. A therapist praised this as good parenting, encouraging kids to be themselves rather than chase unrealistic fame. It’s solid advice, though coming from someone who became a billionaire at 23, it lands a bit differently.
Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan make their kids do chores and take them to work to see how they “contribute.” Because nothing says normal childhood like touring Meta headquarters.
Rich People Problems, Literally
Anne Wojcicki stopped her cleaning service from doing laundry on Fridays so her kids could learn the chore. She also cut her children’s hair herself. These are the kinds of performative normalcy that wealthy parents engage in while still having professional house cleaners the other six days of the week.
“It’s so easy to be like, ‘I don’t have to do laundry again,’” she told The New York Times. “But then you’re not normal.” The self-awareness is appreciated, even if the execution feels a bit like cosplaying as middle class.
Bill Gates took a similar approach, following the “Love and Logic” parenting model from the 1970s. No phones until 14. No phones at dinner. And in a 2025 podcast, he revealed he’s leaving his kids less than 1% of his wealth because he wants them to have their own “earnings and success be significant.”
That’s a nice sentiment when your kids are still getting hundreds of millions of dollars. Most parents worry about leaving enough for college. Gates worries his kids might not feel motivated if they inherit too much.
The Truly Bizarre Approaches
Jeff Bezos let his kids use sharp knives at age four and power tools by seven or eight. His reasoning? His then-wife MacKenzie Scott would “much rather have a kid with nine fingers than a resourceless kid.”
This is either admirably focused on building competence or wildly irresponsible depending on your perspective. Probably both. It’s the kind of thing that works when you have unlimited access to the best emergency medical care money can buy.
Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian takes a more measured approach, though he’s also “wholeheartedly” on board with his seven-year-old using AI daily. He had ChatGPT turn his childhood pencil sketches into full-color illustrations for her. Meanwhile, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel limited his then-seven-year-old to an hour and a half of screen time per week back in 2018.
The business of parenting in Silicon Valley seems to involve a constant negotiation between embracing the future you’re building and protecting your kids from it.
What Actually Matters
Sundar Pichai uses Google Lens to help his kid cheat on homework. He admits it casually, like it’s no big deal. In a way, it isn’t. Kids have always found shortcuts, whether it was copying from a friend or using a calculator instead of doing long division.
Microsoft’s Satya Nadella focuses on something deeper than rules about devices. He talks about creating an environment where kids can “set their own pace and pursue what they want.” His experience raising a son with cerebral palsy taught him empathy, which he considers crucial both at home and at work.
Zuckerberg told Bloomberg that “the most important thing is learning how to think critically and learning values when you’re young.” He’s not wrong. The specific rules about screen time or chores or inheritance feel less important than whether kids learn to think for themselves.
These tech leaders are parenting in a world they’re actively creating, trying to give their kids both the benefits and protection from the tools reshaping society. It’s a tension that won’t resolve anytime soon, especially as those tools become more powerful and the gap between the people building them and everyone else continues to widen.
