When you are a billionaire, you can certainly outsource all that mundane stuff (like raising a kid) to extremely capable helpers. He only has to do exactly what he wants to do. Pretty sure Zuck isn't changing any diapers or walking the dog unless he decides he feels like it right at that moment.

I'm not sure I'd call raising a kid mundane... hahaha

Yeah, I see what you mean... I guess I meant that compared to running a multi-billion dollar company, changing diapers or reading Cat in the Hat for the millionth time seems pretty mundane.

You're missing what raising a child entails if you think that's all it entails. If you raise a child without the deep emotional investment that comes from a parent, you're not going to raise a child well at all.

I know, I have a two-year-old boy. I'm just saying he can get more of a break than a regular person that doesn't have nannies and whatnot.

I haven't had two hours to myself since the day my kid was born, so the idea of having 100 hours to do a fun project like automating my house is completely out of the realm of possibility for me.

But he's also showing videos how he interacts with his kid. He seems to put some emphasize on his family. Perhaps he just managed to delegate much more than most other CEOs.

Don't forget that as CEO, likely it is true that if he had a question about direction or implementation, a hundred engineers would almost immediately respond to him. This 100 hours' investment isn't like you think of some lone hacker poking around SO; he's gluing something together with instant handholding available.

But the challenge was about doing it by himself. I'm sure he knew who to ask when he was stuck, but don't think he let others write the code.

Not to pile on, but you might be interested to know that Zuckerberg also spent the time to learn Mandarin.

I know he did.

Apart from the whole business luminary/billionaire thing, I think Zuck is a pretty cool and insightful guy. I like both the idea of having a "challenge", as well as the specific ones he's done: running, meeting a new person each day, learning Mandarin, doing a cool side project with his house. (I get to hear about a lot of this as one of my best friends works as fb)

At the risk of sounding a little bit self-aggrandizing, I often think about how similar the two of us are, not because I'm particularly special, but just that he's a torch-carrier for guys like me. I'm a month apart from Zuck in age, I'm about to get married to a woman with a serious career, and Zuck and I both grew up in the eastern US (I'm from Chicago). I had a Chinese girlfriend growing up. My family wasn't rich but we also weren't poor. I worked at Microsoft out of college, something Zuck said he might've done if he didn't found facebook.

He's pretty talented though. I definitely didn't create wirehog. I also didn't go to Exeter or have the quality of education he did, either at Exeter, or later at Harvard. I have to wonder how much that stuff influenced his later life, and whether I should try to get my kids into those places.

Controversies aside, I think he's doing an admirable job of casting the tech industry in a positive light, with his positions on taking time off from work, and trying to hire inclusively. I don't use facebook as I have genuine concerns about privacy, but I think he's a real idealist who thinks making the world more "open and connected" is a genuinely good thing. I'd love to meet him some day.

not to forget that he also has a dog and that requires some work too. :)