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Dad Steps Down As CEO To Spend More Time With Family

Rachel Stoltzfoos Staff Reporter
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Max Schireson is leaving his position as CEO of a software company, and potentially losing out on tens of millions of dollars, so he can spend more time with his wife and children.

“As a male CEO, I have been asked what kind of car I drive and what type of music I like, but never how I balance the demands of being both a dad and a CEO,” he wrote on his blog Tuesday in a post titled “Why I am leaving the best job I ever had.”

Schireson has three kids, ages 14, 12, and 9, and a wife who is a professor and doctor at Stanford, and he’s tired of missing important family moments, he explained.

“During that travel [about 300,000 miles a year], I have missed a lot of family fun,” he wrote, “perhaps more importantly, I was not with my kids when our puppy was hit by a car or when my son had (minor and successful, and of course unexpected) emergency surgery.”

He is stepping down as CEO at MongoDB Inc., but will remain with the company as Vice Chairman.

“Friends and colleagues often ask my wife how she balances her job and motherhood,” he added in the post. “Somehow, the same people don’t ask me.”

He acknowledged his decision could hinder his career and cost him money, but wrote he’s willing to make that sacrifice. “I recognize that by writing this I may be disqualifying myself from some future CEO role,” he wrote. “Will that cost me tens of millions of dollars someday? Maybe. Life is about choices.”

“Right now, I choose to spend more time with my family and am confident that I can continue to have an meaningful and rewarding work life while doing so.”

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