It tells us nothing. People act like this is some big hypocrisy or revelation. First of all, Jobs DID allow his children to use iPads, but it was limited. People take a single quote from the Isaacson biography out of context, assuming that he never let his children have access to iPads at all, forever. Other interviews he gave talked about limiting access - like ALL families should do.

Jobs was literally just parenting. Limiting screen time is something all parents should do. We also limit access to sugary foods and other things that can be damaging in excess. Calling tech executives hypocrites for having common sense parenting limits is not really a dunk.

Not to mention the iPad was only on the market for a year and a half before Jobs passed, in which there was no time for real educational software with traction to make it into schools.

He was talking about a future he was aiming for. I know it's hard to remember the tech optimism we still had heading into 2010, but most people still viewed things as getting better at that time. When Jobs announced the iPad, the iPhone had been on the market for 2.5 years and we basically only saw the conveniences of how cool it was to be able to check Facebook on the go with a cool futuristic touchscreen experience.

It's really easy to see how misguided Jobs was with 15 years of hindsight.

> We also limit access to sugary foods and other things that can be damaging in excess.

Maybe you do, but not everybody does. 19.7% of American kids are obese. The hypocrisy is that tech executives promote and lobby for excessive use of their products (even manufacturing addiction), but know better for their kids.

If the fact that these CEOs responsible for propagating disruptive technologies - CEOs exposed to the effects every day, have unprecedented insights (internal analytics) and the best staff around them to assess the tech's potential positive and negative consequences - DO NOT want to their own to partake in it even though advertising it to anyone else, then - if that tells you nothing - you are just plain ignorant or vested in their companies.

Is this the same Jobs that famously denied paternity of his daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, and was only forced to accept her as his daughter when a US federal court forced a DNA test on him proving she was in fact his daughter?

Yeah, something tells me we shouldn't be taking advice regarding children from this man.

Its a luxury that affluent people have to limit these things. When you're at your limit after a long day of work and still have stuff to do at home the kid gets the phone, iPad, or whatever while parents do the needed to run the household. Wonder why obesity is such a problem for poorer families. Convenience.

Yes, tech companies are liable for pushing this technology that they know to be addictive.

There is no apologist revisionist history for billionaires that are actively making the world a worse place. People act like Jobs was some kind of hero. Dude was a snake. Made some damn good products, but you don't achieve that level of wealth by being a kind person.

Tobacco executives probably prevented their children from smoking, especially as evidence emerged. That's just parenting.

It doesn't forgive them for lobbying ferociously against any regulation of marketing to children.