In the last interview before his death, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told his authorized biographer, Pulitzer Prize winning author Walter Isaacson, why he agreed to open up about his life. Usually a private man, Jobs was referring to his children when he said: “I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.” He added: “I wanted my kids to know me.” 
Sadly, I have come to believe that you can have one or the other but not both. I’m not saying that CEOs love their children any less than others or that their children grow up to be terrible citizens because of their CEO parent’s neglect. What I’m saying is that – in almost all cases – high driving, fully engaged CEOs don’t have enough time to devote to their families in a way that benefits them or their children. The typical business leader is always busy, often on the road, working long hours, taking breakfast and dinner meetings and even when home, not fully engaged with loved ones because of the intrusions of phones, emails and couriered papers.

    Many CEOs try to compensate by taking family vacations, but I have never seen one who can fully disengage from work and fully connect with family. Sure, it can happen when they go to a desert island or remote ski lodge, but that’s usually only a few days or a week at the most out of a year of missed birthday parties, unattended school plays and never-experienced soccer games.
    Steve Jobs worked these many hours and more as he drove Apple to the top spot of the world’s technology companies. Indeed, it reached the top spot of many company lists including market capitalization see-sawing with, but just exceeding, Exxon as the world’s most valuable company.
And while Jobs gave us all his brilliance and vision, he realized at the end of his life that he had shortchanged his children. This may be the only failing in a life of superlatives.