I think the author makes a great point. In fact, I think that your attitude to parenting even determines the kind of startup you're able to run. My experience

I think the author makes a great point. In fact, I think that your attitude to parenting even determines the kind of startup you're able to run. My experience matches closely to that of the author. Our second kid got born a few months into my startup and on average I think I've spent more time raising our kids than my wife has. I'm a man, but in terms of old-fashioned gender roles, I've become the mom. I think that this has profoundly influenced the kind of startup we've become. Even if I wanted to, I could never do those typical mad coding frenzies, or spontaneous multi-day deep dives, or working through the night because of some important customer/opportunity/deadline. After all, my kids wake up at six (if I'm lucky) and much it's going to be on me. Our company became the kind of company that has a healthy work/life balance, lets people work flexible hours and trusts that they do the work. No pressure to do overtime, no arbitrary deadlines just to create a sense of urgency, no chaos just because we're a startup so there's gotta be chaos, right? We ship fast not by stressing everybody out but by aggressively scoping down and then shipping that when it's done. Thing is, my personality is actually much more hectic than that. I could've totally been that enthusiastic founder that drives half the team into a burnout through sheer passion. Mad beer-fueled coding nights, going for the Ballmer Peak. But I have two kids, I'm off at five, you're gonna have to drink that beer without me. Might do a few hours in the evening but to be frank, I'm often all out of energy once I finally got the boys to bed. I sometimes envy those male founders who just drop everything and go all-in on the company, and just "let the wife handle the kids". In some ways it's almost offensive to me, what is it, 1960? Give your wife some space too, man. But it also sounds exceptionally luxurious. At the same time, why would I want kids if I didn't want to be with them? That context switch twice a day is harsh, it's killing. But I think it's also the only thing that keeps me sane. EDIT: I just noticed that the author makes a related argument in an earlier article: https://femfosec.com/start-a-startup-before-you-have-kids/ https://femfosec.com/start-a-startup-before-you-have-kids/ I don't fully agree, but I do think that you're unlikely to be able to run a stereotypical VC-treadmill super-high-intensity startup while raising small kids.