5 ms·

Here's some notable examples of no-or-low-tech households of high-tech individuals: Steve Jobs, Sundar Pichai, Susan Wojcicki, Alexis Ohanian, Mark Cuban, and

Here's some notable examples of no-or-low-tech households of high-tech individuals: Steve Jobs, Sundar Pichai, Susan Wojcicki, Alexis Ohanian, Mark Cuban, and Evan Spiegel to name a few. What I don't personally understand is that this isn't news per-say. Many of the "tech elite" don't get high on their own supply. It's not hard to see why. Tech is addictive. Even the WHO declared screentime for kids under 4 shouldn't exceed an hour right before the pandemic...Montessori schools definitely have been on the rise for awhile too. https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/311664 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/311664

spaetzleesser 5y ago
I bet you will see the same with fast food or tobacco execs. I would be surprised if the families of MacDonalds top management ate a lot of fast food.
- pempem 5y ago
  The CEO famously does not.
vkou 5y ago
Montessori schools have been on the rise for a while because traditional schooling is dehumanizing and authoritarian, not because traditional schooling has too many electronic devices. I don't know enough to comment on whether or not their educational outcomes are 'better', or what definition of 'better' we should use.
- pempem 5y ago
  Can it be both? There are schools using facial recognition - not just electronic learning devices (1) 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20843076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20843076 I'm not sure the frustration is any different than when my teachers would pop in a movie rather than teaching me about a subject
- AniseAbyss 5y ago
  Montessori schools attract rich families. It really helps if you're not schooling kids from the ghetto and have a nice budget to hire extra teachers.
  - vkou 5y ago
    Yes, that's one perk of private schooling, but it's not specific to any particular form of private schooling.
rmbyrro 5y ago
I wasn't aware Mark Cuban is a high-tech individual
- peanuty1 5y ago
  He's not.
- shagmin 5y ago
  The big thing that got him most of his wealth was creating an internet radio website - broadcast.com. He got lucky he sold it right before the dotcom bubble crashed.
  - jonathanlb 5y ago
    It wasn't just that. Cuban also had 14.6 million Yahoo shares at $95 valued at $1.4 billion. He had put options at an $85 strike price, so when Yahoo cratered to $13 during the crash, he made bank.
    - Kranar 5y ago
      To clarify, he didn't make bank off of Yahoo crashing, he just locked in the value of his shares at $85. It's not like he profited from Yahoo crashing, it's more that after buying the puts he guaranteed a worst case outcome if Yahoo crashed. If Yahoo didn't crash and just stayed at $95, he'd still have made the same amount of money. If Yahoo went up in value by a significant amount, he'd have actually been better off (he'd have lost value on his options but regained all of it and then some on the value of his stock).
    - exdsq 5y ago
      Yahoo, the company that had just acquired his broadcast.com startup ha!
- phamilton 5y ago
  A fun story to read: https://blogmaverick.com/2011/04/07/shark-tank-success-motivation/ https://blogmaverick.com/2011/04/07/shark-tank-success-motiv... He attributes a lot of his success to reading software manuals. That opened doors for him that he never expected (including his first real success in business). He may not be an engineer, but I'd say he's a high-tech individual.
pempem 5y ago
Because our public schools are buying and creating and adoption this type of 'crack' software and we're advised to buy software to keep our kids engaged.
mym1990 5y ago
The people interviewed in the Social Dilemma hit on some of this. Being closest to the source and truly understanding how they used different techniques to manipulate people's attention scared the daylights out of them. The sad this is that now they made their buck and are turning on the industry to try to look like saints.
- hef19898 5y ago
  Giving them the benefit of doubt, so, they maybe didn't understand when they entered the industry. It takes time to realize the problems, then it takes time for that really sink in, followed by some more time of elaborating whether or not it really that bad. Followed by some more time to finally come to a conclusion regarding what to do about it. And they decided to do something about it, not like the rest staying in that industry also knowing what's going on.
fractalfinity 5y ago
microtherion 5y ago
But that's what the author meant with high tech individuals mirroring the opinions of their middle class peers. Besides, the jury is still out about the outcome of said low-tech upbringings. Steve Jobs' kids are now adults (the oldest is older than 30), and while it's already an accomplishment for somebody in that income & privilege stratum to be leading an entirely scandal free life (as far as I can tell), it's not like any of them seem to have done anything truly impactful with their lives either. So maybe the reason for that low tech upbringing was that they were not really expected to have to do anything major, but were being raised, essentially, to be modern gentry, to clean up nicely, sit on the board of family foundations, keep a clean nose, and remain somewhat detached from the grubby details of the actual running of the world. Nice work if you can get it, to be sure, but necessarily a line of work available to non-billionaires.
- exdsq 5y ago
  I think it’s very very hard to judge what a child of someone like Steve Jobs can be capable of or do in isolation of that fact such that it’s a useless comparison.
jcelerier 5y ago
Steve Jobs also went for naturopathy for treating cancer (which apparently did pretty much nothing). I don't think one can simply assume rational good decision from these actors except in the cases they could prove they were successful at.
- hef19898 5y ago
  I just finished "Becoming Steve Jobs", great book by the way. And with all the truly impressive stuff Steve pulled of the way he went after his cancer is probably among the most stupid things I have seen anyone do. I had cancer, colon cancer to be precise so in totally different ballpark then Steve's. Between diagnosis and surgery where 10 days. Followed by 6 months of bi-weekly chemo therapy sessions since it spread to some nearby tissue (all of which was removed). Steve got really lucky, his cancer was one of the rare ones with a half way decent chance to be cured. And then one of the smartest guys around, one who really learned to not wait around and drag his feet in business, waits for 10 months doing nothing. And then, after surgery when he knew it had spread, decides to forgo chemo therapy. Quite interesting if you think about it. But then I know this stuff can be really scary, it was for me when for a short moment there was the possibility cancer was back. So I'm not judging him, not by a long shot, even if it sounds that way. Fear can really blind you and throw your normal reasoning into chaos. Just to add something more meaningful to the discussion. From the book, Steve struck me as a guy who liked to have an almost simple life. Maybe to have some balance for the Apple high tech environment. Maybe people in the tech world not having that tech in their private lives that much is the same as cooks not regularly cooking at home.

spaetzleesser 5y ago

I bet you will see the same with fast food or tobacco execs. I would be surprised if the families of MacDonalds top management ate a lot of fast food.

pempem 5y ago
The CEO famously does not.

vkou 5y ago

Montessori schools have been on the rise for a while because traditional schooling is dehumanizing and authoritarian, not because traditional schooling has too many electronic devices. I don't know enough to comment on whether or not their educational outcomes are 'better', or what definition of 'better' we should use.

pempem 5y ago
Can it be both? There are schools using facial recognition - not just electronic learning devices (1) 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20843076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20843076 I'm not sure the frustration is any different than when my teachers would pop in a movie rather than teaching me about a subject
AniseAbyss 5y ago
Montessori schools attract rich families. It really helps if you're not schooling kids from the ghetto and have a nice budget to hire extra teachers.
- vkou 5y ago
  Yes, that's one perk of private schooling, but it's not specific to any particular form of private schooling.

rmbyrro 5y ago

I wasn't aware Mark Cuban is a high-tech individual

peanuty1 5y ago
He's not.
shagmin 5y ago
The big thing that got him most of his wealth was creating an internet radio website - broadcast.com. He got lucky he sold it right before the dotcom bubble crashed.
- jonathanlb 5y ago
  It wasn't just that. Cuban also had 14.6 million Yahoo shares at $95 valued at $1.4 billion. He had put options at an $85 strike price, so when Yahoo cratered to $13 during the crash, he made bank.
  - Kranar 5y ago
    To clarify, he didn't make bank off of Yahoo crashing, he just locked in the value of his shares at $85. It's not like he profited from Yahoo crashing, it's more that after buying the puts he guaranteed a worst case outcome if Yahoo crashed. If Yahoo didn't crash and just stayed at $95, he'd still have made the same amount of money. If Yahoo went up in value by a significant amount, he'd have actually been better off (he'd have lost value on his options but regained all of it and then some on the value of his stock).
  - exdsq 5y ago
    Yahoo, the company that had just acquired his broadcast.com startup ha!
phamilton 5y ago
A fun story to read: https://blogmaverick.com/2011/04/07/shark-tank-success-motivation/ https://blogmaverick.com/2011/04/07/shark-tank-success-motiv... He attributes a lot of his success to reading software manuals. That opened doors for him that he never expected (including his first real success in business). He may not be an engineer, but I'd say he's a high-tech individual.

pempem 5y ago

Because our public schools are buying and creating and adoption this type of 'crack' software and we're advised to buy software to keep our kids engaged.

mym1990 5y ago

The people interviewed in the Social Dilemma hit on some of this. Being closest to the source and truly understanding how they used different techniques to manipulate people's attention scared the daylights out of them. The sad this is that now they made their buck and are turning on the industry to try to look like saints.

hef19898 5y ago
Giving them the benefit of doubt, so, they maybe didn't understand when they entered the industry. It takes time to realize the problems, then it takes time for that really sink in, followed by some more time of elaborating whether or not it really that bad. Followed by some more time to finally come to a conclusion regarding what to do about it. And they decided to do something about it, not like the rest staying in that industry also knowing what's going on.

fractalfinity 5y ago

microtherion 5y ago

But that's what the author meant with high tech individuals mirroring the opinions of their middle class peers. Besides, the jury is still out about the outcome of said low-tech upbringings. Steve Jobs' kids are now adults (the oldest is older than 30), and while it's already an accomplishment for somebody in that income & privilege stratum to be leading an entirely scandal free life (as far as I can tell), it's not like any of them seem to have done anything truly impactful with their lives either. So maybe the reason for that low tech upbringing was that they were not really expected to have to do anything major, but were being raised, essentially, to be modern gentry, to clean up nicely, sit on the board of family foundations, keep a clean nose, and remain somewhat detached from the grubby details of the actual running of the world. Nice work if you can get it, to be sure, but necessarily a line of work available to non-billionaires.

exdsq 5y ago
I think it’s very very hard to judge what a child of someone like Steve Jobs can be capable of or do in isolation of that fact such that it’s a useless comparison.

jcelerier 5y ago

Steve Jobs also went for naturopathy for treating cancer (which apparently did pretty much nothing). I don't think one can simply assume rational good decision from these actors except in the cases they could prove they were successful at.

hef19898 5y ago
I just finished "Becoming Steve Jobs", great book by the way. And with all the truly impressive stuff Steve pulled of the way he went after his cancer is probably among the most stupid things I have seen anyone do. I had cancer, colon cancer to be precise so in totally different ballpark then Steve's. Between diagnosis and surgery where 10 days. Followed by 6 months of bi-weekly chemo therapy sessions since it spread to some nearby tissue (all of which was removed). Steve got really lucky, his cancer was one of the rare ones with a half way decent chance to be cured. And then one of the smartest guys around, one who really learned to not wait around and drag his feet in business, waits for 10 months doing nothing. And then, after surgery when he knew it had spread, decides to forgo chemo therapy. Quite interesting if you think about it. But then I know this stuff can be really scary, it was for me when for a short moment there was the possibility cancer was back. So I'm not judging him, not by a long shot, even if it sounds that way. Fear can really blind you and throw your normal reasoning into chaos. Just to add something more meaningful to the discussion. From the book, Steve struck me as a guy who liked to have an almost simple life. Maybe to have some balance for the Apple high tech environment. Maybe people in the tech world not having that tech in their private lives that much is the same as cooks not regularly cooking at home.