Link: https://fortune.com/2026/02/21/peter-thiel-bill-gates-steve-jobs-steve-chen-tech-billionaires-publicly-shielding-their-children-from-tech-products-social-media/

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

Eat the rich

That social rot you smell? It’s you. You’re the social rot.

Hmmm it appears they understand how evil all the tech companies are, harvesting data to the fullest extent. Spying, influencing, etc.

Goddamn, it reproduced already?

The most disturbing part is these ghouls reproduced.

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.

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.

Never get high on your own supply

So blame the victim...?

Does musk even see any of his kids often enough to set rules?

Musk is the most Twitter addicted person I am aware of.

Why do they have kids? Inheritance Tax Now!

Tech lords are among the most hated people on the planet.

"Dad, why people think you're a self absordeb, pathetic, nazi snowflake???"

Theil reproduced?

First of all these billionaires can afford to replace for their kids; what social media is with actual socialising that is destroyed by fear, nimbyism, and systematic destruction of third places for normal people. that's what private cities and walled off estates are for. They will continue to enjoy the fruits of socialism while selling capitalism for everybody else.

This is not a force to be triffled with or dismissed as so easy to escape from.

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)...

I say bullshit, these people aren't involved enough in their kids lives to even know if their "1 hour a day" or whatever rules are happening. Their kids are absolutely doing whatever the fuck they want.

that’s what private cities and walled off estates are for

I would just like to add that there is a school (I think in California) that the rich sends their kids to, where electronic devices are prohibited (and access restricted I believe). Though from the video, it does look lie the interact with others outside of that circle.

Here's the video: YouTube Link

Half an hour per weekday and an hour on weekends with the switch, plus strict rules on what als can be used. No roblox.

But we flood our kids with books or comics. If they want to read a book, well make it happen

Kids are fine with it. Boredom sparks creativity.

Nothing to do with any virtue to be interested in their kid’s mental health and everything to do with avoiding getting blackmail using their kid’s identities

Even when I was a kid, in the 80s and 90s, I spent plenty of time playing NES, computer and watching TV. This was of course long before social media.

I don’t see how you could possibly limit a kid to 1.5 hr screen time per week. How do we define screen time? If it’s only social media on phones or tablets, then that’s probably okay. But if you are including console, computer gaming, tv, then I don’t see how that’s even possible. (And of course now most games have an online component, so the line gets blurry there.)

It’s the shitty “social” aspect of online that is harming children, not the concept of a screen.

You look at the eugenicist natalist 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's so much Zone of Interest.

I can imagine he has access to crazy surveillance of them and their mothers.

That's what the paid 24/7 nanny is for.

What, Musks too? He's not known to have much to do with family.

I think social media and any game with micro transactions. We got the kids the switch, because with Nintendo, there are no shitty loot boxes or buy diamonds to skip time shit.

The hard truth is, games are way more addictive than in out youth. And parents need to deal with that and guide kids to good games

Of course you do hey do but millions of us keep eating the shit they put in front of us, me included.

If Trump were still on Twitter he'd be a strong contender lol

But he is known to talk out his ass

"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."

My son was never interested in video games, nor does he use any social media. Instead, he reads and watches movies.

He's a film studies student, and knows films inside and out because he's seen almost everything, from every country, from every era. He's also an avid reader of classics, and just finished Moby Dick. It wasn't an assignment, he just wanted to read it.

He wouldn't be that smart if he'd buried himself in video games and social media.

"Are you kidding? I KNOW how addicting we make that shit. I don't want my kids anywhere near it."

Most Sociopathic Oligarchs see their offspring as future organ donors, so they can live forever. The Goblin DEFINITELY thinks like that. Those kids are livestock, nothing more.

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.

That would require him to spend more time around his children than photoshoots and using them as human shields

That should be enough evidence for the rest of the world…

Leave it to natalists to make extinction seem the better option.

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.

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.

the antichrist guy

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.

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.

I honestly think this is more likely the case. It’s a story they sell us idiots. But if it’s true, it’s not because they care about their kids.

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.

Fucking degenerate assholes, pushing drugs knowing full well how harmful it is.

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.

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.

the American guy who has been pushing for chat control through Europe so he can get paid destroying all privacy and spying on all European citizens through his Palintir, you mean, and ultimately delivering all power to the US.

it takes a certain kind of evil to literally recreate Sauron's Palintir. What is it Gandalf tells Saruman?, "There is only one Lord of the Ring, only one who can bend it to his will. And he does not share power." He is literally following the script lol.

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.

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".