“You can’t have it all” frequently comes unbidden into my brain when thinking about this sort of thing.

I don’t know, my goals are more and more about cool stuff I can do with my kids, and far less about business stuff? I’m not less ambitious but my ambitions have changed?

I'm coming out of the period where my kids need less help and it's really great working on projects alongside my kids making stuff. I try to model working on my projects as something that is enjoyable to me and that I am working over a long time period.

The trade offs are real, but a suppressed desire to have kids can lead to dissatisfaction and with time that will be hard to ignore or fix.

Also, let's just not ignore that Musk is wildly successful in having shown you an example that you don't have to choose one thing

Maybe you should read about women's career choices because for them it might be even more challenging to make trade-off btw career and family. Your inspiring figures seems to be mainly men and I don't have a lot of examples of women in tech (I'm not just well informed enough) but in other fields such as politics it might be very inspiring to have their advices. It would be also very meaningful to have a small glimpse at how you and your wife chose to balance careers and life because maybe the balance btw family and work is more at couple level rather than one of the two of you. thanks for sharing your thought here, wishng you good luck for your kids, your wife and you mate ;)

I can think of three other great dads who were hugely ambitious:

* Jimmy Carter * Bill Clinton * Barak Obama

I like it. Great points made.

I would only add that if increasing general family cohesion is one of your goals, I think having lots of kids accomplishes that. Having a large family and multiple automatic life long best friends brings me so much joy.

> setting clear rules on time with kids (weekday dinners, weekends prioritize family) and

Are these examples or an exhaustive list? Eating dinner during the week is.. not a lot. So I assume it's about setting time limits for these activities?

Many years before becoming a Dad, I recall watching a video recorded by the Penny Arcade web cartoon folks while working where they reflected on both becoming fathers and asked themselves if it had been a net drain on their productivity and creativity.

They both concluded (not quickly, they discussed it) no, because it forced both of them to level up their time management game, quit whining and learn to get on with it, to the point where they generally got more done a couple of years in.

I have found this to be true. Our little one is turning 3 in November, and while the first two years were a bit slower (I took half a year of work while my wife finished up her Master's, etc.), in 2026 I've so far had a fantastic year and find myself much more capable of juggling more balls at the same time, finally learned the skill of grabbing sleep where I can, etc. I'm pretty sure I already "had my act together" (as per the article) and was doing well career-wise, but raising the stakes on the family side has definitely only improved things.

Got a whole lot of Open Source work done, reverse engineered an old cult video game I used to play, wrote HMI and firmware for a robot used in the Great Pyramid of Egypt for a scientific mission, taught myself GPRs and built a new radar control system, spent a week rolling around in the dust of millenia inside Khufu's Pyramid, etc., all next to the day job.

The most unexpected professional/skills growth and fun year I've had in a while, and it's all so much more meaningful when I get to share it with the little one.

Love this thinking and wish we'd see more content like this on HN.

Just have a rule that you'll leave the office at 17:00.