By Chris Weller
Just because someone works in Silicon Valley doesn’t mean they’ll be a techie parent.
In fact, some of the highest-profile executives in the tech world, including former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and current Apple CEO Tim Cook, take surprisingly low-tech approaches to raising their kids.
The approach stems partly from tech parents realizing the power of the products they create, and knowing large doses of those products aren’t necessarily good for growing brains.
Here are a handful of tech executives who take the low-tech approach.
Bill Gates set an age limit for cell phones.
Each of the billionaire philanthropist’s three kids are older now, but when they were younger Gates and his wife prohibited them from having their own phones before age 14.
The policy stemmed from a 2007 incident in which Gates felt his daughter was spending too much time playing a video game.
“We often set a time after which there is no screen time and in their case that helps them get to sleep at a reasonable hour,” he told the Mirror in April 2017.
Steve Jobs banned his own tech at home.
Jobs, the CEO of Apple until his death in 2012, revealed in a 2011 New York Times interview that he prohibited his kids from using the newly-released iPad.
“We limit how much technology our kids use at home,” Jobs told reporter Nick Bilton.
The late-CEO was famously interested in Zen Buddhism, believing in the value of minimalism. His first home in Palo Alto, California had hardly any furniture.
Tim Cook doesn’t want his nephew using social networks.
Cook, the current Apple CEO, said in January that he doesn’t allow his nephew to join online social networks.
“I don’t have a kid, but I have a nephew that I put some boundaries on,” Cook said, according to The Guardian, conceding Apple products aren’t meant for constant use.
“I’m not a person that says we’ve achieved success if you’re using it all the time,” he said. “I don’t subscribe to that at all.”
Chris Anderson is strict with his no-tech policy.
Anderson, CEO of the drone company 3D Robotics, told Nick Bilton of the New York Times that his kids called him a “fascist” for implementing no-tech policies.
Anderson’s five kids “say that none of their friends have the same rules,” he said. “That’s because we have seen the dangers of technology firsthand. I’ve seen it in myself, I don’t want to see that happen to my kids.”
At the time, Anderson said every device in his home came with a parental lock.
Evan Williams prefers to build a physical library.
Williams co-founded Twitter, Medium, and Blogger, which means he puts a great deal of emphasis on the written word.
But despite the impressive resume, he told Bilton that he and his wife have amassed a collection of books instead of digital tech products to help their two sons become more well-read.
The idea has been to get their two sons reading in the analog world instead of on an iPad or e-reader.
Originally published at www.businessinsider.com
More from Business Insider:
5 mental habits that are making life harder than it has to be
Forget the 9 to 5 — research suggests there’s a case for the 3-hour workday
A start-up added one small step to their job application process — and no one has quit in 3 years