Racheli Kogan is a partner at the Symbol VC fund. Her husband, Ohad Bobrov of Palo Alto Networks, is a serial entrepreneur with several successful exits to his credit.

This Israeli power couple has two daughters, ages 10 and eight. “In the first years of Ohad’s entrepreneurship, we definitely had a lot of difficulties and disagreements” regarding parenting, Kogan tells ISRAEL21c.

Curious about how other entrepreneurs balance family responsibilities, especially in wartime, Kogan surveyed 98 founder parents – men and women, CEOs and non CEOs, early and later stages – to gain a nuanced understanding of the intersection of parenting and entrepreneurship.  

“Founders sometimes talk about their startup as if it were a child they are raising, which is not surprising given the intensity involved,” says Kogan, who always worked outside the home and currently puts in eight to nine hours per day. 

“We also know that for many, this intensity is a cause for worry when thinking about raising actual children – will they have time? Will they be able to balance the two? How do others do it?”

The survey emerged from research at Symbol on women’s entrepreneurship. 

“I’ve been busy for some time trying to understand why there are so few women entrepreneurs and how we can increase this number. We saw that many of their stories were intertwined with family considerations,” Kogan says. 

“So we wanted to understand more deeply the experience of male entrepreneurs who are fathers. We were also very interested in what differences there are between female entrepreneurs who are mothers and male entrepreneurs who are fathers. I couldn’t find any data on this topic — absolutely zero. This was surprising specially in Israel, a country where parenting is such a central thing.”

Some of the questions Kogan sought to answer:

• Is working as an entrepreneur really the most demanding job that requires more hours than any other senior position?
• Do you improve over time in your ability to juggle between the children and the startup?
• To what extent is parenting really affected, both in subjective feelings and in calculating the number of hours you spend with the children?

“We felt that providing data and detailed information about what is actually happening might help those who are considering embarking on the entrepreneurial path but are concerned that it is difficult to combine it with a family,” says Kogan. 

She hoped this data “would also provide some normalization for the entrepreneurs who filled out the survey.”

CTOs vs. CEOs 

Perhaps the clearest message from the survey results is that chief technology officers (CTOs) seem to have more balanced lives than do chief executive officers (CEOs). 

• CTOs are more satisfied with their work-life balance than CEOs, with 43% saying that they were very or extremely satisfied compared to 32% of CEOs. 
• No CTOs reported that their work-life balance juggle had gotten worse since founding their startup, compared to 18% of CEOs who felt that way. 
• CTOs are more likely to say that their time with kids stayed the same or increased since becoming a founder (43% vs. 19% for CEOs).
• CTOs (57%) are more likely than CEOs (45%) to pick up their children from daycare or school at least twice a week. 

• While most founders of both sexes say they make sure to attend their kids’ events (64% get to almost every event; 30% go to around half), 51% of CEOs go to almost every event compared with 71% of CTOs.
• Whereas 43% of CEO who are parents cited guilt feelings as a challenge, only 29% of CTOs did so. 
• One-third of CTOs reported very little impact of work pressure on their relationship with the kids and none reported that they experienced an extreme impact. In contrast, 25% of CEOs cited the highest level of impact. 

Men vs. women 

“There are definitely differences by gender,” says Kogan.

“Women are more likely to report feeling guilt about their dual role and pick up the children from school/gan significantly more often. Men are more likely than women to try and avoid late nights and business travel and to worry about time management with their children. Perhaps this is a different version of guilt.”

• While most founders are part of the pickup schedule for their kids, it varies by gender: 60% of female founders pick their kids up at least twice a week vs. 45% of male founders; and 39% of female founders vs. 9% of male founders pick up from school three times a week. Only 14% of females and 23% of males don’t pick up their kids at all, though this may be because their children are older. 

• Women are more likely to prioritize work commitments than their male counterparts (25% of women vs. 4% of men). 
• Among female founder parents, 61% cite guilt as their main challenge and time management as their second-place challenge (43%). For men, the greatest challenge is time management (63%) and tensions with partners is in second place with 41% (women cite this factor 29% of the time).

• While 65% of male founders reported success in improving their ability to juggle work and family, only 29% of women felt they’d managed an improvement.
• Only 29% of respondents report dissatisfaction with their work-life balance. However, 36% of female respondents chose the lowest ratings on a five-point scale as compared to 26% of men. 

Kogan says the male vs. female finding that most surprised her was that although entrepreneurial mothers consider themselves “maximally committed to children and also maximally committed to the startup,” their answers revealed that “they would almost always give up things related to children and would not postpone work trips or meetings for things related to children, much more than men.” 

This might be due to the need many women have to prove their commitment to being a founder, Kogan speculates.  

Other key findings

• Founder parents of both sexes are more likely to report a decrease in time spent with their kids since becoming a founder (68%) vs. an increase in time spent (13%). Twenty percent report that their time with their kids didn’t change since becoming a founder. 
• Earlier stage founders (pre seed and seed) are somewhat more likely to take late night calls and go on business trips (19% vs. 29%). 
• The majority of respondents reported that the pressure of being a founder impacted their connection with their kids to some extent. Around 4% of both genders report an extreme negative impact on their relationship with their children and around 30% of each group reported a relatively low impact. 

• Only 19% of respondents feel that they are able to mostly disconnect from work when they are with their kids. Most respondents – 76% – report that they are only able to disconnect a little or somewhat and 11% are not able to disconnect at all.
• Most respondents report an improvement in their ability to juggle startup and family life over time, with 61% saying it has either somewhat or significantly improved. For 20% there has been no improvement and another 15% report that their ability to juggle has gotten worse since founding their startup. 

Kogan’s takeaways

“The data made me happy and pleasantly surprised to see that more than 50 percent of the entrepreneurs collect their children more than twice a week and also do not give up on significant events for the children,” says Kogan.

At the same time, “there is broad agreement that the founder role is more demanding than other executive roles. This holds largely true across roles — CEO vs. CTO — and when analyzed by gender.”