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
Because they know their kids will have an advantage over the stupefied masses if they can keep them unmezmerizes.
Well, they know why. And they know that most of the people are stupid as a stone. This is how they made their money.
Goddamn, it reproduced already?
The most disturbing part is these ghouls reproduced.
I think the most disturbing part is how stupid “regular” people are and how they let themselves get psychologically marketed into lifestyles that rape their humanity and give power and profits to the same people that raped their humanity.
Like… Imagine a crack head prostitute thats treated like shit making fun of the pimp that gave them crack… While they smoke the crack that kills their humanity. That’s basically our society.
So blame the victim…?
You can’t exactly blame people for being stupid when you realize the conditions necessary for well learned, aware citizens with empathy are always being destroyed by these so called billionaires. It’s not a coincidence that private cities and walled estates for the rich are the trend. They live in socialist utopia and sell rugged individualistic capitalism to the masses.
Think about how much industrialization and development happened. Now think about how much we have lost touch with how to live meaningful, fulfilling life without our needs going unfulfilled.
Alas, nothing can last forever. Greed and hubris contribute to the destruction of societies. History teaches us.
You look at the
eugenicistnatalist couples who worship Elon Musk and you realize they are indeed ghouls, and they treat their children like non-sentient garbage. Hitting them during interviews in public. Imagine what they do in private.That article was an insane read. I couldn’t have written more unserious people if I tried
I’m sitting on a train reading that and it must have been a weird look for other passengers as I was constantly grimacing! I may have verbally exclaimed a few times as well!
Leave it to natalists to make extinction seem the better option.
And they turn into whining crybabies when birth rates start dropping. It’s their Achilles’ heel, an actual challenge to their control.
Eat the rich
That social rot you smell? It’s you. You’re the social rot.
I imagine this us more about protecting their kids developing brains from being dopamine addicted gooners than concerns about their data or privacy
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.
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.
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.
Duh. You think the CEO of Kraft feeds his kids mac and cheese from a box?
Why do they have kids? Inheritance Tax Now!
Musk is the most Twitter addicted person I am aware of.
If Trump were still on Twitter he’d be a strong contender lol
