My kids get 'no screen time whatsoever,' says Silicon Valley investor Chamath Palihapitiya
- The CEO of Social Capital and former Facebook executive says his kids still ask "all the time because their friends have it all the time."
- Palihapitiya says he does not want to "feed them a device because that becomes a babysitter."
He runs a $2.6 billion technology venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley.
He was an early Facebook executive and an early bitcoin adopter.
But Chamath Palihapitiya told CNBC on Tuesday he keeps his kids as far away from technology as possible.
The device rules in his household?
The founder and CEO of Social Capital said: "There's no screen time whatsoever."
No iPhones.
No iPads.
No computers.
In a "Squawk Box" interview, Palihapitiya said his three children, ages 5 to 9, still ask "all the time because their friends have it all the time." But he said he never gives in, except for the occasional movie.
Palihapitiya is married to Brigette Lau, a partner and co-founder of Social Capital.
"Here's the life that I live with my children, which may not be for everyone," he said. "I don't like this co-dependency of 'they need to rely on me, and when they can't, I feed them a device because that becomes a babysitter'."
Palihapitiya, who grew up in Canada after his family emigrated from Sri Lanka and was granted refugee status, believes that kids learn and thrive by having real-life experiences.
"You go figure it out. Go outside, skin your knee. Fall on the ground. Play a sport. Lose at something. And then come back to me and we can talk about it. And we'll talk about it as rational human beings. And I'll try to tell you why that's a good thing that's happened to you," he said.
Palihapitiya's comments about kids and technology were part of a broader discussion about the impact of social media, a medium he helped foster when he worked at Facebook.
He told CNBC on Tuesday: "The tools that we have created today are starting to erode the social fabric of how society works."
While saying his feelings about social media are not a knock on his former employer, Facebook took issue with Palihapitiya's comments, saying in a statement that he hasn't worked for the company for six years, and claiming the company has undergone changes since then.
In his four-year tenure at Facebook, which started in 2007, Palihapitiya held various management roles there, including vice president of user growth.