I wonder if you might have skipped or didn't relate to the 50% - 75% travel part. In my experience it's not the travel, per se, even though the jet lag can be

I wonder if you might have skipped or didn't relate to the 50% - 75% travel part. In my experience it's not the travel, per se, even though the jet lag can be killer. It means being On 100% of the time you're away. The raw number of hours of being Always On for your company--around the world, with different people in different contexts--creates an emotional distance to one's family, because your mental world becomes intensely focused and 100% only on work, and work issues. Product issues, team, management, all that you can balance, but being on the road is the chaos of (enterprise) customers. They may love you, but they're needy. And all the time you're together, you're considering every word, and interaction to drive to a preferred outcome. It's never a "dinner". It's part of a never-ending orchestration to achieve specific outcomes. Coming off of /those/ trips, he should have re-engaged with his family, but the challenge is the trips exhaust your mental and (jet lag) physical energy. Re-engaging with family means another "on" time, but it also means the expensive context switch from being able to talk business any time any where, in any state--leaving that mental zone-- to talk about family issues. No, I don't get the sense he meant only engineers should work hard and CEOs should play with their kids. I think the message is CEO's should consider forcing family-life onto their schedule, instead of being 100% consumed by work. Yes, there are other pressing issues, and you might not be able to predict the value, but Scott says take it from someone who has gone though the struggle--it pays dividends at home, and at work. I can relate.