Why do high-impact people choose to have kids?
Austin's Notes Posts Why do high-impact people choose to have kids? Get Notion free Why do high-impact people choose to have kids? Created time June 15, 2025 3:07 PM Date June 15, 2025 3:07 PM Manual Date Empty Tags Empty And what does this mean for aspiring do-gooders? (Work in progress.) The puzzle If you care about having a lot of impact, should you have kids? Naively, it seems like having kids would be bad for impact & career success. Kids take up time, energy, focus, all of which could be directed towards working harder. But in the last few years there’s been a bumper crop of babies, among a bunch of people I respect for their work: Scott Alexander & Megan Holden Karnofsky & Daniela Amodei Paul Christiano & Ajeya Cotra Sam Altman & Oliver Mulherin And many other figures I look up to, have had kids for a while: Bill Gates & Melinda Gates Paul Graham & Jessica Livingston Dustin Moskovitz & Cari Tuna (?) Elon Musk Then, zooming out to some reference classes of successful people: Bill
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