I'm a father. Best thing I ever did, but it is work, it is hard.

In ways, it really crisped up my time working on work. My wife and I have some bottom lines, we're invovled, we have dinner as a family every day. We go to school events, all of them. We go to sports and activities, all of them (although there have been some times we had to split up and each to a different one.) I'm at the table when my kids have breakfast, every day except when I travel for work which is a week or two per quarter. It's great for the kids, it's great for the family but suddenly it feelds like your day is shorter. Personally, I have tried to find other "thought time" and that has resulted in much better execution when I get to writing code or plans or whatever. I used to sit at the blank editor and start to compose but now I am forced to think more before hand. I've built a few things I honestly don't think I could have built before kids, just out of necessity, I've had to be more efficient and effective.

There are also times of utter exhaustion but I had those before kids. I'll also went through the process of sort of cutting out extras to make time, once your kids are in that 10-11 age, they'll have friends and interests, I've added some of those extras back because they are busy on Sunday afternoons or whenever.

In the article, then named figures in technology (Paul Graham, DHH, Jeff Dean, even Mark Zuckerberg) who are classified as great fathers and great achievers all succeeded before having kids. Who succeeded after having kids and was at the same time great father?

I worked with some ambitious motherfucker who fancied himself so important and so busy his secretary scheduled when he would take a piss.

He told me once that his work was his passion and his legacy. No kids, no wife. And he was brilliant and hard working. But he was running from something in his mind. There was a shakeup at the top and he got pushed out in the ensuing politics.

His legacy is a cautionary tale. But I don’t remember his last name.

A lot of juggling with words here: being ambitious, a builder, competing etc. It really boils down to the same thing: making more money + fame. The author should really stick to that and stop hiding behind big words. There's nothing noble about the recent slop-producing startups that YC funds. They do not make the world a better place.

Money can solve most of these problems? Send your kid to daycare, hire a nanny or two and then the world will believe you can be a great father and ambitious and successful in your career. They do not see the village taking care of your kid while you are busy with work

This is something that makes me really sad, because as an extremely ambitious man, I've found it difficult to make friends with men who are similarly ambitious. It seems that everyone gives up once they have a kid and becomes a helicopter parent. I like to think I'm a good dad (have four kids; work from home; regularly do sports, music, etc with them; cook regularly) and also pretty ambitious (work in a MAANA company, have side businesses and gigs, have a good marriage, hobbies, exercise, etc), but it's difficult to find other dads into this. Or at least that's my perception here in Portland, OR. I've met a few, but most ambitious people seem uninterested in kids, and the ones interested in kids seem thoroughly unambitious in my opinion.

Articulates my thoughts and conundrums better than I could have.

The capitalist LinkedIn-dwellers are obsessed with productivity. They can claim that AI will raise productivity and that we will need to work even more at the same time. Ultimately, most of the productivity gains in the recent decades are focused on displaying more ads, in one way or another.

Edit: I have realized my original comment/rant might have come off as a negative sentiment towards the post author. While generally, I sympathize with the author and agree with the original post. My rant has been focused exclusively on the current market trends and double-speak of AI productivity gains, layoffs and increased workload.

This hits home

So, a time-constrained ambitious dad spends his time on HN and reads extensive biographies.

Good luck :)