Mark Zuckerberg: Parenting, Billionaire Life, AI, and Wakesurfing in Tahoe

Zuckerberg's balanced lifestyle prioritizes family, work, and personal pursuits.

### Balancing Billionaire Life: Parenting, Philanthropy, and Personal Passions
* 👶 "By the time you get to the third kid, it's like, **we're gonna use one of your four words** to teach you what sound a bear makes," reflecting a more relaxed parenting approach.
* 🏡 Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla enjoy spending summers at their Tahoe home, which serves as an **escape from their busy lives** in Palo Alto.
* 🐄 Zuckerberg is exploring ranching in Kauai, aiming to produce **high-quality beef** while integrating macadamia nut farming and brewing beer to **enhance livestock nutrition**.
* 📚 Drawing lessons from the Roman Empire, Zuckerberg emphasizes the **importance of building value in society** rather than maintaining a state of conflict, which he believes can lead to **greater prosperity**.
* ⚖ He believes that balancing various activities, including sports and family time, **enhances performance in all areas of life**, and he aims to instill a **well-rounded upbringing** for his children.
* 🌊 Zuckerberg shares his enthusiasm for wakesurfing, demonstrating a **hands-on approach to teaching his kids** while promoting **persistence and resilience in sports**.
* 🤖 He expresses optimism about the role of AI in transforming science, stating that it **fundamentally changes how quickly and effectively** scientific work can be accomplished.
* 🌞 As a light-hearted moment, he humorously acknowledges his **need for sunscreen**, showcasing his down-to-earth personality amidst his billionaire status.

Our 1-year-old has only four words so far... Stop. And one of, and for whatever reason, one of the words we've chosen to teach her is, "What sound does a bear make?" She just goes "Grrr," and we're like, "How is this?"

It's like this is such a third-kid thing that, it's like with the first kids, it's like, oh, I'm gonna teach you everything about the world. By the time you get to the third kid,

it's like, we're gonna use one of your four words to teach you what sound a bear makes. So sometimes when Mark has a parenting fail with the kids, he'll just say, "Not my best work."

Yeah. "Not my best work." That's just like a thing he says. When I'm braiding Max's hair every day... You braid hair? Yeah, I'm braiding her hair. And she goes, "Dad, let me guess, not your best work?"

Mark Zuckerberg is many things: billionaire, Silicon Valley Hall of Famer, internet overlord, MMA fighter, meme magnet, and also a dad trying to do his best work. I caught up with Zuck and his wife Priscilla at their summer

home in Tahoe, not far from their main home in Palo Alto. Is this like your escape, your oasis from the real world, from your virtual world? It's the real world and your virtual world. I don't know. I like being in Palo Alto and...

And out there too, but it's just kind of nice to spend time up here over the summer and, you know, get the kids out in the lake and teach them some different sports. You've got Tahoe, you've got Hawaii, you've got the yacht.

Are you officially sort of embracing your billionaire era? I don't know. Well, I mean, the Kauai thing is really fun. We're doing ranching down there. I want to try to create the highest-quality beef in the

world, and we have this whole vertical integration plan where we're growing macadamia nuts to feed the macadamia meal and we're brewing beer because that helps them eat more. So that's fun. You do have a bunker there.

Is there something you know that we don't? No, I think that's just like a little shelter under, and it's like a basement, a little shelter. What are you worried about? It's a basement. What are you worried about? It's a basement. No, no, it's

we have the basic house that we built and we built like an office out there because I work out there. And then just like, there's just a bunch of storage space and, like, I don't know, whatever you want to call it, hurricane shelter or whatever.

I think it got blown out of proportion as if the whole ranch was some kind of doomsday bunker, which is just not true. I know you're a student of the Roman Empire and you're big into history. What sort of lessons do you take from that?

There used to be a sense that, like prior to Augustus, there wasn't really a sense of long-term peace. The sense of peace was like a temporary period where your enemies were subdued and not currently attacking you,

but it was like inevitable that they were just going to regain their strength and attack you again. So their whole economy was sort of based on having all these mercenaries and permanent soldiers, and he thought, hey, well

if we can just get people to kind of reorient more of the economy around building things and building value rather than just this kind of semi-permanent state of war, then we'd be able to produce more and it would end up being better for people. And it was sort of counterintuitive at the time,

and like, everyone thought it was crazy. And I don't know, I think there are lessons and analogies like that to some of the things that we do that are sort of counterintuitive. We talked a bunch about open source; at some level, people

like, 'Hey, is this actually protecting your interests?' But it actually, if you kind of set your organization up to just produce more shared value for society, I think in some ways it actually does just end up creating

more prosperity over time. You go all in on everything you do, it seems like. How do you make time for it all—the sports, the side quests, the super engaged CEO, to being a dad? I actually think having balance

Balancing different activities helps you excel in all of them. My parents stressed the importance of extracurriculars beyond academics.  They encouraged sports; I fenced competitively when I was younger.

I want our kids to be well-rounded too. We're teaching them surfing, jujitsu, and martial arts.  I think they're a little young for striking; they need more emotional control. But I want them to get there eventually.

I wasn't ready to face Zuckerberg in the octagon, but I was open to a private lesson from Coach Zuck in a less violent sport: wake surfing. It's like surfing on a lake, but every wipeout feels like a fire hose to the face.

I heard you're a surfer in Hawaii. No, no, I'm from Hawaii and I've surfed before. Great. But I'm not a surfer. Okay. I hear you're a surfer. Yes, Priscilla's quite good.

Dr. Priscilla Chan, Zuckerberg's longtime partner and thrilled recipient of a seven-foot turquoise likeness, heads the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.  This philanthropic effort is leading breakthroughs in health, science, and education.

How excited are you about AI's application to science? I think it fundamentally changes how science is done and how quickly it's done—that's the exciting part. Now it's clear that AI and software are critical to biomedicine.

It's really taken advantage of what I have to bring to the table and what Mark has to bring to the table, where we can figure out how to build a compute cluster. What are the right types of biomedical problems that AI can be helpful in?

So tell me about wakesurfing. Like, how did you get into wakesurfing? Is it like an adrenaline rush? Oh, you'll feel it. Yeah. You're gonna get in the water. We don't need to explain it. Yeah.

It will become obvious to you in a minute. Go for it. Woo! Awesome. Unlike a normal surf wave, a surf wave pushes forward. Just push a little to the side. So you have to lean into it a little bit.

When you get your feet up, do you just hold them there? Sort of inch my feet towards the middle. Your body will know what to do once you get up. That's that's our family sports motto.

Your body knows what to do. We're just like screaming at our kids. It's like your body knows what to do. Get back in there, Max. Ready to rock. Ready, Alohi. Let the board flip. Yeah. Get... Oh, she's so close.

She's so close. What did I do wrong? I think you were pretty close. Yes. Yeah. This is the part when people are like, 'Are you sure this sport is fun?' There's definitely like, there's a photo in there.

of you standing on the board. So it's No, no, no. Okay. She's determined and I do. She's gonna wanna do it. No, I'm gonna, that's sheer will. That's another family joke. It's sheer will.

Will. Well, that's John Wayne. Your body knows what to do, Mark. Yeah. My body does know what to do. All right, go for it. Wow. Makes it look so easy. That was epic. All right. I think we're good.

Go for it. Yeah. There you go. Awesome. Now point the nose in here. Okay. It was worth it. It was Talk about persistence. When I saw you in that talk, people in line were wondering if that was real or AI

generated. Well, I mean it's a good trick if people wonder if it's AI generated, but No, it was, it was not. Yeah. I'm here to say he's human and he really did it. Do you think tech will change the very essence of

what it means to be human? I think if you look over, you know, the last few hundred years, right? Most people had to spend all their time basically farming or working in order to, in order to survive. So I guess it depends on what you mean by more human,

but it makes us, it frees us up to, I think, be more creative and more focused on living out our values. You know, if technology continues, then we'll get more productive, which means that we'll be able to provide for,

People's basic needs with a smaller and smaller portion of all human labor, which means that people will be freed up to do, you know, more creative work and more of the stuff that they want, which I think is great.

Obviously, there are all these challenges that we'll need to navigate along the way, but I'm pretty optimistic about the kind of grand arc here. So I have an idea. Okay. About how to protect us. I brought you some sunscreen because I know you like it.

I do. I'm very... and I just thought this would be good for your book. I'm very thankful. Thank you. This is like about the amount of sunscreen that I need.

Mark Zuckerberg on Life, History and Being Human | The Circuit with Emily Chang (Bonus Clip)

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Bloomberg Originals

Their 1-year-old only knows four words, one of which is "What sound does a bear make?"

Parenting the third child is different; they focus on simpler things.

Mark uses "Not my best work" when he makes parenting mistakes.

Their daughter uses the phrase back when her father braids her hair.

Zuckerberg's life, family, and business ventures

Introduction of Mark Zuckerberg and his family life in Tahoe and Palo Alto.

Discussion of their multiple properties and lifestyle.

Zuckerberg's involvement in high-quality beef ranching in Kauai, including vertical integration.

Clarification about the 'bunker' on their Kauai property; it's a basement/storage space.

Zuckerberg's interest in the Roman Empire and its lessons on long-term peace and economic stability.

Balancing work, family, and personal life

Zuckerberg's belief that balancing different activities enhances performance in all areas.

His parents emphasized extracurricular activities, influencing his approach to raising his children.

Teaching their children surfing, jujitsu, and martial arts.

The interviewer's experience with wakesurfing with Zuckerberg.

Information about Priscilla Chan and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Zuckerberg's excitement about AI's potential to revolutionize scientific progress.

Discussion of AI's applications in biomedicine and the collaborative efforts between Zuckerberg and Chan.

Discussion on whether technology will alter the essence of being human.

Zuckerberg's optimistic view on technology freeing people to be more creative and focus on their values.

The potential for increased productivity leading to more creative work and fulfilling lives.