Male Fertility and the Fleeting Nature of Time | Linus Ekenstam (father of 2, co-founder Sensive)

StartupDad_LinusEkenstam

Linus: When I thought about having kids, I thought I will have kids for a long period of time, let's say 20 years. But the reality is you have kids for like maybe six years. And then they become a different type of thing that you have. They're no longer just your kids, they're shared with friends, they're shared with activities, they're shared with themselves because they start figuring out who they are and what they like to do.

Adam: Welcome to Startup Dad, the podcast where we dive deep into the lives of dads who are also leaders in the world of startups and business. I'm your host, Adam Fishman. And in today's episode, I sat down with Linus Eckenstam. Linus is a designer and serial entrepreneur, having founded and sold several companies.

As well as having been a design leader at Typeform, Bamboo Blockchain, and Flowdesk. He is currently building an AI powered children's story generator at BedtimeStory.ai and a platform to track and improve mental health called Sensive. He's a loving partner and the father of two young daughters. In our conversation today, we spoke at length about his struggles with male infertility, time and relativity, as well as how he and his partner navigate the daily grind with a four year old and a two year old. We were joined by his youngest daughter for part of the episode. Linus works, thinks, and writes a lot about AI. And so we also talked about how he thinks technology will transform his daughter's lives over the coming years.

He shared an optimistic view of the future with AI as a useful tool. I hope you enjoy today's episode.

Adam: I would like to welcome Linus Ekenstam to the Startup Dad podcast. Linus, it is a pleasure having you on the program. Thank you for joining me today.

Linus: Yeah. Thank you very much for having me.

Adam: So most people who are listening to this, probably won't know very much about you. And in fact, I didn't know very much about you until I came across you on X or Twitter or whatever we're calling it these days. So tell me a little bit about yourself. What would you say you do here?

Linus: That's a great question. I ask myself that every day when I wake up, like, what do I do? I think my first calling is that I'm a dad. I got two small kids, two and four. And then my second thing that I do is that I've become completely devoured by artificial intelligence.

And I, you know, I drink the Kool Aid every day, but I also try to distill that and make sense of it all for kind of a larger audience. To get people to tag along basically. And my background is in startup world, so I've been in a few hypergrowth companies. I've started a few companies. I've sold a few companies, and I've learned a lot, failed a lot.

And here I am basically that's my life in a nutshell.

Adam: So we've got the intersection of startups and fatherhood, which is this show. So you are right down the fairway to use a golf reference of guests for the program. On your website, you refer to yourself as an AI gardener. What does it mean to be an AI gardener? Are you tending a garden?

Linus: Yeah, it's. It's funny that like people ask me this and I think the way that artificial intelligence currently work and the way that kind of machine learning has put everything up to this kind of where we are today is that you don't really have full control. Much like you don't have full control over your garden, you tend to your garden and you hope for the best.

There's so many external variables when you're gardening that you can't really control. And I feel that it's a little bit the same now in the land of artificial intelligence where you're like, you do a lot of things. But it might not necessarily turn out the way that you want. And that is exactly what parenthood is about as well, by the way.

So it's all kind of tying in beautifully to each other. And I don't like to call myself an expert in anything because I'm not like, you know, I'm, I like to be the most dumb person in the room so I can ask stupid questions. Usually that is the situation. So I think with me kind of coming up with that label is a little bit of a rebellious because I don't like labels.

And I felt like I need a label to explain myself. So. Yeah, it's like, that's how it ended up being like that.

Adam: All right. I love the humility that comes with being a gardener, which is just like, we're all, hey, we're all doing our best here. Like we’ll see.

Linus: I mean, I mean, no offense to anyone that's really good at gardening, by the way, because like, there are people that might be like, hey, you know, I'm a professional gardener. , if I say the grass will be green, it will be green. Kudos to you. I'm kind of more of the patient person or unpatient person, which is like tweaks, await and see, let nature do its thing.

Adam: Yeah. And you are talking to me from Spain, but you do not appear Spanish to me. And your accent does not sound like many of the Spaniards that I know. So tell me about where you grew up and what life was like growing up. Where are you from originally?

Linus: I'm Swedish. I've grown up in a small coastal town on the Swedish west coast, literally like a hundred meters from the beach. 40,000 people. So not a big place, not a tiny place either, but about an hour south of Gothenburg. That might be the closest reference for people if they think about how Sweden looks like on a map.

I'm born in the eighties, but kind of grew up in the nineties. Like, I don't remember much of the late eighties per se. So quite an interesting situation. My family traveled a lot and we didn't get all the gadgets and trinkets. All my friends had video games and stuff, but I didn't have anything.

Instead, I was like hoarded around the world, looking at old monuments and like seeing different cultures, which was really good. I don't blame my parents at all for that. But I think at some point it just became crazy and I just started to accumulate technology and I, here I am, you know, 30 years later and I'm just kind of, yeah, it flicked the other way basically.

But growing up in Sweden was quite nice. It was a very calm, I think Americanized culture because like everything that we watched in Sweden. Back then and still with coming from the U. S. So it's a very interesting childhood. So like all the references that anyone would make over that side of the pond would be references that we would make as well, music wise and like TV shows and games and whatnot.

Adam: Did you have a particular favorite children's TV show when you were growing up?

Linus: I mean, come on, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, like that must have been it or Power Rangers. I don't know. Like, I don't know which came first, but yeah,

Adam: Those are a couple of my favorites too, of course, now you can watch them like anytime you want. And when we were kids, you had to watch them on like Saturday morning or like Sunday morning cartoons or something like that. So

Linus: Absolutely correct. And I also. Again, back to the gadgets and trinkets, like my friends had like cable TV and all that. We did not. So like, it was like, I was hoarding my way over to a friend to be like, okay, let's watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on a Saturday morning. But I think it came later though. Like I, I do have vague memories of enjoying that in the living room as well.

Adam: Yeah.

Linus: But man, it was a different time different time altogether. It's really interesting when you think about it, cause a lot of things happened since like It's just 30 years. But then it feels like five lifetimes of change, and I can just see my kids now and be like, if I went through all that change, and we're now kind of accelerating even further and faster, can't imagine what they're going to go through. So I spent a lot of time in that intersect, like between. My childhood and their childhood, so that's why I kind of ponder on this a lot. So back to the question.

Adam: That’s interesting. Why do you think that is, that you think a lot about the differences between your childhood and your kid's childhood?

Linus: I think if we look historically, maybe in the, modern society, 100, 150 years and we look at the change that we have gone through compared to our parents, and then the change that their parents had to go through compared to them it was less than if we go backwards in time, the change was less.

So like my grandparents and step to my parents, they did have a lot of overlap, but maybe during the course of 50 years, there were some things that changed, but my parents could still go to the grandparents and ask for advice for life advice. And if you go even further, it was probably even more like that, where you like, you would learn from your elders until they died.

Now I feel that that's not the case anymore. Like I'm a very different human being and living in a very different world compared to the one grandparent I have left alive and my great grandmother is still alive and she's 105 and I can't imagine what world she's living in. So that's why I kind of, I find it very interesting 'cause we have to deal with a lot of things that humans have not had to deal with before.

That's, so it just end up being very philosophical about it, but spending a lot of time going back and forth and trying to learn from history, but also trying to kind of foresee where things are going.

Adam: Yeah. It's pretty amazing when you think about our parents, our parents, parents, like the world that they knew was like, what was in front of them, like what they could see and what they could touch. And there was no internet. There was no, you know, computer there were barriers, right?

Like everything was a border. And then for us, that's kind of gone, right? We grew up with the internet. And then for our kids, like, even more so like they're growing up without even probably needing to type a URL into a web browser anymore or run a search. Like they're just going to say something and something's going to come back to them.

Like what a, what an amazing and maybe sometimes scary time to be alive.

Linus: Yeah. I think we end up in the middle our generation and the generations akin to ours kind of end up in this weird situation where we're going to be alive and kicking, hopefully. You know, in 30, 40 years, if all things go as well, maybe even longer. So we're going to have to deal with that change that our kids are going to have to grow up with.

Like I said, we've grown up with the internet. Like, I remember my first time hooking up a modem and, like, hearing the sound of the modem connecting to the internet. And then everything has evolved as I've been growing older, the internet has been growing older and I kind of make this analogy. I had a Gameboy.

It's basically a few days older than me. And my kids have ChatGPT, like that's their equivalent, right? There's a pretty big step from the Game Boy to the ChatGPT um, but it's their baseline. It's their default. So for them when they're 30 and they're going to look back at their childhood and give, you know, they're going to be like, oh, we had this old thing.

You know, ChatGPT is very rudimentary and like, oh geez, I'm going to be such an old fart. You know?

Adam: Yeah. We're going to be on GPT47 by the time your kids are adults. You won't even have to ask it a question. It'll just know what you want. So you mentioned your kids a few times. You mentioned your partner. Tell me about your family now.

Linus: Yeah. So it's me, my we're not married, but it's my partner, Jenny she's also Swedish and our two daughters, Skylu and Poppy May. And Skylu is the oldest. She's four and Poppy May is two. We got Skylu in the middle of the pandemic. So 2020 which was kind of nice because my partner she was in the last trimester during lockdown.

So we didn't have any social kind of, you know, stress of having to do things. We were just like happily hanging around at home. And then we decided to move back to Sweden for a bit. So we spent actually almost two years on the clock in Sweden and we got poppy.

And we figured out the day that we were driving to Sweden with all of our stuff packed in a big. Big van that my partner was pregnant. So if we had known, we probably would have taken a different decision.

Adam: What was the pole to go back to Sweden during the pandemic time?

Linus: We'd spent, I think, close to seven, six, six and a half years here in Spain, in Barcelona. And we're kind of itchy to, to have a bit more garden, to have a bit more like relaxed time. Just being closer to family and all this stuff that you kind of miss when you move somewhere further away from family and we maybe didn't take into consideration the reasons why we moved in the first place, which is like, we like the climate here better you know, culture is relatively more closer to what we like, I'm Swedish, but I'm not very Swedish in the way that I do things, like I love hanging out with people that I've never met. I love meeting new folks.

Like, you know, we get invited to a barbecue if we meet someone on a Saturday and then the next week you're doing something else and you're best friends within a month, right? So in Sweden, it's very different. It's like, either you've known someone from childhood and you're best friends, no matter what, if you don't see each other for 10 years, you're still best friends, or you met sometime during like high school/uni and in all kind of same situation.

So it's really tricky to kind of punch your way into new constellations of people. So that's why in the first place we decided to go here to have a bit more of an open lifestyle.

Adam: All right. And you're back. So, Sweden was short lived. And then the pull of Spain brought you back.

Linus: Nine months of summer.

Adam: That does sound pretty nice, actually, we're about to hit summer here in the Bay area. I'm excited about it. So, well, I was inspired to invite you on the show because you wrote a very lengthy Twitter post. I can't call it X. I'm still going to call it Twitter on the topic of male infertility, which is something that. You don't see a lot of men talking about, if you do, it's behind closed doors, and you certainly don't see people writing posts about it that go viral on the internet. You do hear a lot about female infertility and that, that is a topic that is discussed a lot, and it's actually been discussed on this pod as I've had some partner combos on the show. But

I'm very curious to have you on to talk about this topic. Because I think it's a good thing for more people to be aware of and for more people to talk about. So take me through the story that led to your Twitter post about this topic.

Linus: Well, to begin with I think it's really important to talk about this in general because it's easy for people, men and women to kind of generalize and start, you know, thinking, yeah it's very important to talk about it. So it's good that we do that. So where this all started, we decided, you know, as you might do in life, if you're keen to have kids that maybe we should have kids and then you're like, oh wait, but we're on, okay.

So you're on birth control pills and. Okay, we need to stop that. And all that, you know, that's, that was the beginning of it. And then we tried very actively to kind of get pregnant. People told us it's so easy, you know, people being like people around us, you just do the thing and you're pregnant. Turned out it's not that easy.

We managed to get pregnant and then there was a miscarriage, and then we managed to get pregnant again there was another miscarriage, and then we started to like, ponder a bit, like, why that was, so we, obviously, because of the first miscarriage, we were seeing doctors on a regular basis, and there was some time between these two miscarriages as well.

So there was like a lot of trial and error and nothing really happened. And the, I think the first reaction we had was like straight to my partner, Jenny being like, okay. You are the one that might have fertility issues. And I don't know why we started there. Maybe it was because we were seeing a gynecologist, yeah, maybe that was why, because we were already like doing things on Jenny's side, and it turned out there was nothing wrong with her. It's like, okay, actually, there might be something wrong with me. And I was, you know, looking around in the family, like, talking to some, you know, male family members and asking, like, if there's any infertility issues running in the gene pool, nobody had any issues, right?

And I'm like, oh, okay, let's just start. Let's just start doing the whole kind of jabang. So I went down the route of doing. Kind of, what do you call it? Pre, pre IVF, kind of, deep dive, basically trying to figure out what's the state of my sperm. So, like, how's everything holding up? So I did that. And then I think the doctors basically called me and like, asked me to sit down and I'm like, well, I was expecting like a cancer kind of, you know, notice and I'm, yeah, sure.

Like, what's wrong? And they're like, we have to tell you, like, you're complete, like, you're unable to get kids. Like, you're, there's no movement in your sperms. They're all malformed. Like, it's all. And then, you know, went to the doctor. They showed me the paper, they showed me the microscope images. And they're like, yeah, we had been hoping that we could go the IVF route and you know, but it's not plausible. It's not, there's not enough. So I'm like, okay, that's pretty sad because I was very keen to, to have the idea of like becoming a dad. Like I was very into that. So think at that point we were like, okay, fuck it. Then we just can't have kids.

Normal way. Like there are other ways to get kids. Like, it's not the end of the world. I was trying to be very stoic about it. Like, obviously a bit sad, but it's tough. It is what it is. And we kind of just stopped thinking too much about it. I went on the internet as you do, starting to be like, is there something you can do about male infertility?

And like, you know, the random stuff comes out, like eat more vegetarian food or like stop doing that. Or, I don't know. I just, I think, I guess I let my guard down a bit and I did some changes. I tried to eat less red meat and I tried to, I actually stopped drinking alcohol and then I think eight months later.

Maybe a year later, eight months later, Jenny got pregnant. Okay. You know, what's going to happen this time? And because we've had all the issues before we kind of instantly got to the point where we got to see someone very early, I think week four or five. To start looking for a heartbeat because the other embryos had not developed any heartbeats.

I think the second one had, but the first one had not. So it was, yeah, the shady times. So there was a heartbeat and then, you know, turned into week 12 and then turned into week 16 and everything was like, just rolling on. So at that point, I'm like, these guys told me like a year ago, I cannot have kids because like I completely leave.

You know, I'm sterile and then here I am, my partner being pregnant. And the first question was obviously said, is it my kid, you know, I said, it's me who made you pregnant?

Adam: Right?

Linus: Was kind of joking. You said so, but like, yeah, it turned out in the end that like, it was me. And yeah, man, it's been such a rollercoaster ride, to be honest.

And it's funny cause like in the end, we're still not sure like what shape I am in right now, cause we're not trying to get more kids, but I wouldn't be surprised that I'm in a very bad shape in general. So it's like. Probably a very lucky situation. And then everything followed through nicely.

We didn't have any complications at birth. We don't have any genetic diseases. Nothing happened to our daughter in that sense, but we were told multiple times that, like, look, just because you're pregnant now doesn't mean that you're going to be good. So we did a lot of the early stage testing in vitro, like DNA testing and all that stuff to make sure that there wasn't high chances of rare diseases, for example.

So, it's a strange journey to be honest, and I can imagine a lot of guys going through the same thing and not having anyone to talk to, because like, I feel when I went through it, I'm like, went through my phone book, like who do I call? Like some friends have kids, like they never talked about their fertility issues.

So like, do I call a woman friend and talk to her about my, like, it was very strange. And then after a while, I'm like, I'm not a fuzzy guy. I am. I feel like I'm very stoic in most things when life gives me shit. So in the end, I just like, I think the best way is just talk about it with whomever, like just be very open about my experience and if, you know, I can meet others through doing that, then it's great.

And maybe I can help one or two other people to, you know, get it off their hearts. So like just have someone to talk to and that would be worth it. Like that was kind of where I came from. And I've mentioned it a few times online. And I think the post that you're referring to was, went kind of viral.

So that was good. And it really came to the limelight. There's a lot of guys actually similar situations or in, having infertility issues, basically.

Adam: Yeah, I read in your post, you said something like 7 or 8 percent of men have issues with fertility, which is when you compare that with the number of people who actually talk about it, you would think it's in the, like, you know, 1 millionth of a percent or something like that. But it turns out it's high single digits, which is a non trivial, you know, seven out of a hundred people, right? That's a, that's a lot of people. So your journey was miscarriage, tried to do IVF, had a doctor tell you it's not going to work. And then miraculously you ended up with two kids. Were the doctors ever able to explain like what happened or what they found?

Linus: No, never got a clear answer. And it's funny cause like in the end, I mean, the body is a mysterious piece of machinery, right? We, there's a lot of things that we do know and a lot of things that we don't know. It's not like I've been under the microscope over a long period of time doing multiple tests.

Like I have no idea. And it's a bit strange. And again, like with the second kid, obviously we were like, okay, It's like, it's a free for all. We can't have kids. Like it's clear. We can't have kids. We don’t have to think about anything. And then you go, wait a minute, you're pregnant again? Like what the, it's time to, it's time to bring out the scissors, like…

Adam: You know, I've heard a lot from people that when they kind of just relax and forget about all the challenges. Now, again, this isn't going to solve everyone's problem like that. There are real medical issues here. But that's sort of like relaxing and taking some of the pressure off yourself has led to a positive outcome. So, and in your case, maybe that is. Maybe that is what happened.

Linus: Yeah, I would like to think so. I think maybe not just the relaxing part, but I was never really stressed about it externally. I was never really like manifesting this, like, oh, you know, what needs to happen now, like, you can see some people have that men or women that they're getting stressful about time and we need to get the kid now, we need to get the things going. I never really had that feeling. But I think subconsciously there was some level of stress, right? Like, why is it not working? You know, what have I done wrong? Have I done something to deserve this? Like, I think that type of stress was there lingering. And then when, you know, got at least an answer, like even if they were incorrect in that answer, seemingly, I got an answer and I was able to be like, all right, you know, now we know what the problem is.

So I think the unknown maybe was a big kind of enabler for having shit happen, right? Like, because I didn't know body was stressed. And then when I knew then, okay, then that could have had impact. Surely, like, I got a kid, so like something happened, but like, you know.

Adam: And you mentioned for you, what helped was just talking about it to anyone. Instead of like trying to pick the perfect person or kind of figure out who in your contact list, should you talk to, so is that some of the advice that you would offer to anyone who is Struggling themselves with this what would you say to somebody, if you were sitting down with them one on one?

Linus: I would definitely say talk about it. Like, that would be number one. Just, every situation is unique. Every person is unique in terms of how they want to handle things and like they're comfortable talking to. So I think it's really hard to give kind of silver bullet advice, but talk about it, I think it's a very good starting point and if you have you know, network or a friend group or a friend that, you know, that you can talk about anything basically, then choose that person. And if you don't, in my case, I couldn't really find someone that I felt like, okay this would be the perfect candidate. I just turned to my second home, which is basically the internet.

And I'd be like, I don't care if I just scream this out in the ether. Like if someone picks this up, it's good. But that's me. That works for me, but it doesn't mean that it works for everyone.

Adam: Yeah. I imagine not everyone would be as comfortable putting it out on the internet. But I think the underlying advice here is solid, which is talk to someone about this. Like, you may learn something surprising, right? You may hear that other people, again, seven out of a hundred struggle with this. So you may find those other six in, in, in conversation.

Linus: Actually funny enough. You would, I think also at least like it's, if you start talking to people, it's like, it becomes like a magnet, right? So even if the person that you're talking to don't know per se anything about this or have those issues, maybe that person have heard someone else who has, and then all of a sudden you're kind of conjuring people together based on, like, what's going on in the grapevine.

So I think that's usually a good advice in many things actually in life, not just fertility issues.

Adam: So I imagine finding out that you were pregnant was a pretty exciting memory. But of course, at the time you didn't know what would happen, right? Because you had with your partner, two prior pregnancies that didn't. That didn't go according to plan. When you eventually kind of let yourself be excited or realize like, hey, this is actually really gonna happen.

What is the earliest memory that you have of becoming a dad?

Linus: I think the week 24, It was kind of when the chip fell all the way down and I'm like, all right, I think, you know, we're going to go through with this. Oh, look at that. Hello, cutie. Hey, of course you're going to come. Du Du får får du sitta nere på rumpan där.

Okay? Sorry.

Adam: It wouldn't be a startup dad episode without at least one child showing up on camera. So.

Linus: Yeah, so, so, so week 24, I was also listening to some podcasts some kind of parenting podcast. And I think that's where it was like dawned on me. And then. The first memory I have was basically when Sky Lou came out, because it was quite a tumultuous experience in there and I was basically to give it like, here, take her and I'm like, what am I going to do with this? Yeah I still have, I know exactly the feeling of like, it's a person, it's a little thing, like, I don't know, can I touch it? Like, get a poke at it. It was a very weird experience and I think everyone goes through kind of the same thing. And I can see myself in that room, like from a third person perspective. And I, today I'd be laughing at myself being like, dude, come on.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah.

Linus: So that was it. I think that was it. Like the first experience there in the, the room, in the OR.

Adam: That's pretty amazing. So, you know, your youngest daughter is walking onto camera as we're talking about this and you mentioned your partner is traveling and you're solo parenting with your two kids, four and two. And I also know that your partner works full time, right at a tech startup herself. So how do the two of you manage the daily grind of work and family? I mean, especially with the ages of your kids, two and four are really demanding ages for parents and for kids, they need a lot and they can't do that much for themselves. So how did the two of you figure it all out?

Linus: Yeah we haven't really figured it all out. I think that's the honest answer. It's funny cause our four year old, she's sometimes older than what she seems and sometimes younger than what she seems. And then the two year old is also older. So it's like they meet in the middle most of the time. So it's like, some days it's like two, three year olds.

So some days it's like a three year old and a five year old. So they're actually quite nice. When I'm alone with them or like when my partner's alone with them, problem is when we're all four and maybe this is something that other parents experience too. It's not like they're manipulative, but it's more that they know that if they don't get what they want from me, they might get what they want from mommy. And then the kind of war can just unfold. We do have them in daycare and school. So, Sky Lou goes to what's here in Spain called I3, which is like preschool, first class. And then Poppy goes to kindergarten.

But we have them short days. So the 9 to 4 is basically the time for them, but it gives me at least 7 hours a day. Or six and a half hours a day where I can focus on my work. And Jenny usually works a bit more, but yeah, it's not easy. It's like, you have to constantly kind of juggle all the things.

Like this morning is a good example. Like Jenny went with a flight to Sweden, like 5 AM. And I had promised two friends to go run with them. And I'm like, what do I do? I'm alone with the kids. It's like, okay, you know, 6:45. Pull them out of bed, put them in jogger, and like down the beach we go.

And then an hour later, you know, back home, push food into their mouths, like, put the clothes on, you know, bags, backpacks, and then off to deliver them to their schools. I think all in all, it's like just constantly trying to be one step ahead. It's the only advice I can give to anyone, basically.

Prep prep and prep. That's the way that you survive the grind.

And there's no end. I don't know when, anyone can please tell me where the end is because I'm. I'm sure I'm getting many gray hairs because of this time.

Adam: I've heard that it's at 18, but I'm not 100 percent sure. So you still got a, by my calculations, you've still got 16 more years until both of them are north of the 18 mark or at the 18 mark. So what did you do when the kids were younger and couldn't yet go to preschool?

Linus: with Sky Lou we were here and here in Spain, they have three months. Initially for the mother and then the dad can take, I think it's another month or so, so like all in all you get four months, but then you can extend and you can like make it work.

So, usually what happens is that you're home with the kids until they're 6 to 8 months, and then you can put them in daycare. Sweden is a bit different. So, because Poppy was born in Sweden. When we lived there when she was born. In Sweden, you get 450 days as a couple. Then there is a bit of a divide within those days. Some days are like high paid days. So let's say 280 of those days are really compensated well, and the others are less compensated, but you can still use them and your employer cannot tell you otherwise, which usually translates to you split between the parents staying home until age of one and a half.

So that's kind of what we did, but I work from home, Jenny works from home. So we just spent a lot of time at home, really trying to juggle the work hours and shuffle things around based on that.

Adam: There we go. Now we have a new guest. I'll ask her, I'll ask her a question next. Um, when you think about becoming a dad twice, and obviously before that, you maybe didn't know what it meant to be a parent. What are some of the more surprising things that you've discovered as a dad?

Linus: I think I'm more patient than I thought I would. I wasn't really super patient before. I'm a very unpatient person. And even with the kids though, I started to realize that like, I can be quite demanding, as a person, and I'm in the relationship between me and Jenny. I am the firm parent. Like I, I like rules, even if they're tiny I want them to kind of not behave because like, you can't tell 2-year-old to behave, but like, you don't bite your sister like, by the way.

And like, I don't try to, encourage that behavior and try really hard to like sort that out and with my four year old, it's interesting because the way, none of them wear diapers, not even this one, the tiny one here. She's diaper free both day and night. It doesn't say anything about me as a parent, but I think it's like, we try to listen to the kids a lot and like, she started to indicate that she wasn't keen on having diapers.

So we kind of like, okay, let's remove the diapers. And you know, what happens happens. And with Sky Lou it was very different. I remember like, oh, being like annoyed with like having to change. Peed, you know, bed linens and like there was poop on the floor when we're trying to do all the, you know, adaptation.

But now the second time around, it's just like, ah, you know, it is what it is. Don't fuss about it. The kind of same mentality I had around the fertility issues, like, okay, it is what it is.

They're going to be just fine. And I think if you allow them to be kind of kids, but also tell them firmly, like things that you think matters to you, like your values and maybe they don't get it, but at least they start to kind of form some kind of boundary or some kind of relationship to like what our family values are.

So for example, four year old, she folds her clothes. Like, I haven't, like, forced her to fold the clothes. I started with this kind of Marie Kondo type thing where we just, we do gratitude towards the clothes in the evening and we fold our clothes. And now she does it without me telling her to do it.

And it's great. Hopefully it will last, you know, and when she's a teenager, I don't have to like run around picking up all of her clothes. And some people might think like, oh, that you're overdoing it. She's only four. To be fair, like I don't mind doing it with her. I think it's a nice little ritual.

Like some people do morning gratitude in the mirror. And when we do this, like it, I think it teaches them a lot of things about life and things in life and not taking things for granted. So I think that is stuff that I would not have thought about before becoming a dad, that all the small things like I'm right now, I'm very mentally kind of in this space of the Japanese word, ikigai, like trying to find the balance in life. And I think me and my partner are pulling different ways here. Cause like, she's really tired of all the chores and, you know, it's constantly having to fix whatever we're going to eat and, you know, what they're going to wear and the logistics.

And it's easy to get caught up in all of that. And I'm trying to be like. How can we turn all of that, which is life, you can't really take it away. If we stop eating, we die. You know, if stop putting clothes on them, they were going to freeze to death. So maybe not here, but in general.

Adam: Yeah. Not in bar, not in Barcelona per se, on the beach, but

Linus: No, but, but how do we take all these daily things that happens and turn them into rituals or like nice little pockets of experiences that we enjoy doing rather than seeing it as like, oh, yet another chore that needs to be completed before the time, you know, before the hour hits 9 PM. And this is really difficult, but I think it's worth pursuing.

I think it's worth pushing the extra effort into that to be like, okay. It's not easy to go out running in the morning with two kids, but it's damn doable. It's just a matter of like where you put your mindset. Same like this, it's not easy to be like, oh, I'm alone with the kids. I'm going to have to record a podcast and God knows what happens.

And now she's sitting here and she's behaving. So it's like, you just have to give it, you have to give it a leap of faith. I think.

Adam: Yeah. Even if she weren't behaving, this would probably turn it into the most viewed episode of startup dad ever. So no, but she's doing great. And it sounds like you are too. So what you just said, brought up something else that you had kind of told me in the prep for this show, which is this notion of time and relativity.

And I'm curious what you meant by that. So tell me what that means to you?

Linus: It goes really quick. Someone told me this. I'm not where I don't know where the source of this is from, but like, the days are long, but the years are short. And this is something that echoes in my head basically every day. I don't like the idea of death. I have very strong anxiety when it comes to the fact that we age and the fact that things get older.

And at some point we're no longer here. So that is like one thing that keeps me kind of vigilant about time with the kids, it's like, you go, oh, they're two and four now. And then, you know, they're six and eight, whatever the ages are. And then you realize, oh, I'm also getting older. It's not just them, it's just me as well. And then this whole idea of like, when I thought about having kids, I thought I will have kids for a long period of time, let's say 20 years. But the reality is you have kids for like maybe six years. And then they become a different type of thing that you have. They're no longer just your kids, they're shared with friends, they're shared with activities, they're shared with themselves because they start figuring out who they are and what they like to do.

And if I think about myself, what I did when I was 12, I had a life outside of my family that was probably as big as the life I had with my family. And then you sleep. I mean, all people sleep quite a lot of time. So I think for me it was this kinda realization that like, this is the time, probably now between like age zero or age two, basically and age six, that I wanna spend most of the time with my kids trying to do whatever I can to reallocate the hours that I have.

And make it work better for them. And I'm not there. I'm not where I want to be. I'm still putting them into, you know, storage every day for at least six and a half hours. But I think ideal situation for me would be, as possibly now is when Pop is actually, you know, a bit older and she's starting to become her own person to figure out a way to like, maybe work way more, way less than I do now, not way more, spend way more time with them and take the next few years and do that.

And then I know that like, I did my best during those years and then I can, you know, I can kind of work harder later. Cause there's always, hopefully always going to be work if not AI comes and takes it all, but not worried about that. I'm actually more worried about not getting enough time with the kids.

It's formative years. I think many people don't realize, but it's very formative years. Like the first six years are super important.

Adam: Have you developed through two kids, any particular frameworks or guardrails for parenting. Anything that you would say is like systematized in your household, by the way, it's totally okay if the answer is absolutely not, but I'm curious.

Linus: I listened to this interview with a guy, I don't remember his name. He's a famous hedge fund person, maybe, or VC. And he kept saying this thing, oh, but this mantra over and over. And I'm like, it's not a framework, but I guess the mantra is there. And it's like, be curious, not furious.

Adam: Mm

Linus: Repeat that to yourself internally they, they being the kids they, everything for them is a game.

Everything for them is like an experience and they're learning and they're learning by observing, by doing, by pushing, by pulling. And we're adults and we're adults. Sometimes we're angry adults and sometimes we are tired adults and it's really hard to stay playful and stay curious when you have rough patches.

And I think that kind of mantra of be curious not furious is something that helped me a lot because I can just be like, okay well, let's look at it from her angle. She's four. She's done something. She knows it's wrong, whatever but she's doing it for a reason and the reason is she's probably want to learn something she want to see what type of reaction you were gonna give she wants to learn and experience and so I think that is the number one thing and then I'm not very big on systemizing or pulling out frameworks.

In general, as a person, there's 1 thing I've started to do. It's kind of because she's a bit older and that is this type of feedback or affirmation feedback where I think a lot of sports coaches do this, where they get down on the kids level. They usually, like, put a hand on the shoulder, then look them in the eye and they give them feedback on something they did, either if it's good or bad.

And then they tell them why it was good or bad. And what that leads to. So basically you, you're going close and really kind of there in their moment. And you try to build the kind of mental model for them. Like, if you do this, that leads to Adam getting this really great thing.

And that leads to you as a team winning, for example. And that's a really helpful way for me to give her a criticism, but also like to give her praise. So, that is something that has worked very well.

Adam: It's interesting that you mentioned that in one of my very first startup dad episodes, I talked with Matt Greenberg and he talked about this concept they have in their household of bringing the limit to the child, which is basically like instead of, you know, kind of shouting across the room or, hey, do that or whatever, like kids are just going to tune that out.

So going them, establishing contact, getting down on their level, basically exactly what you. described and it works. So regardless of what the framework is called, it's a practice that I think. I was certainly me personally can definitely implement more at home and hopefully other people listening to this will benefit from it too.

I know your partner is not here at the moment because she's on a, an airplane or she's somewhere else.

Linus: She's on a work trip. Yeah.

Adam: She's on a work trip. Or as we call that parent vacation um, I have found that partnership is really important when you have kids, but it is also really difficult to agree 100 percent of the time with your significant other.

Where is an area that you and your partner. Don't agree or see things differently?

Linus: It's a can of worms. She's not here to defend herself.

Adam: She'll Probably never listen to this or watch this. So it, you know, it's totally fine. It's just between us.

Linus: Yes, it's just between us. I mean, I'm a tidy person in general, like on the OCD spectrum, preferably. Like I like having order. I like doing things you know, sequentially and like, I, I tidy up afterwards and I like putting the kid. Yeah.

Adam: Every pixel in its place. Right. You're a designer by trade, so.

Linus: Every pixel in its place. Yea. I like to kind of do that with the kids to like, really have a good kind of way of doing things. I think when we're all 4 of us, also the kids are not behaving as well. So it's easy for us to get in this situation where our apartment or home just turns into this inside out explosion, basically just things everywhere. 

Adam: A tornado.

Linus: Yes, and that leads to other things, right? And because if you don't have a clean ground to do things on, then, you know, you can't really cook.

And if you can't cook, then you can't like, so it's just a spillover effect a lot of things. So we don't really agree there because she wants to kind of outsource this and be like, oh, we just get a cleaner. I'm like a cleaner won't really help the situation because we would have a cleaner living with us.

I guess it's a constant so I'm not against having someone coming and helping us clean, but like that's not the issue. And then I think we're very different in terms of parenting style, which I think it's great, but it's also sometimes a bit difficult because I might, again, like I said I'm a bit more firm.

I'm not by any means like hard, but I'm firm and she's a bit more loose and soft, which I think it's good for the kids too, that they have kind of two, two different models to look up to, but it becomes difficult at times when we need to like parent together and like have a unified front, but we're learning.

I think I'm giving up some parts and she’s giving up some parts. It's a compromise. And I think in the end it becomes great, but these are tricky. Tricky situations. And again, like, I don't think there's a one size fits all solution. Everyone's different. We're both very stubborn, which we've also realized with our kids.

Like they're both super stubborn. This one way more stubborn than her big sister. So we got that.

Adam: Yep. Yep. A stubborn household recipe for success.

Linus: At least I know nobody will sit on this person. Like she will be fierce. And I'm looking forward to see like how that turns out.

Adam: You're going to get a lot of phone calls from the school. Speaking of which we talked about at the very beginning the episode, what it means to be an AI gardener. And I'm curious, a couple of things. What are you working on in the world of AI right now?

And then I want to hear about how you think AI is going to change your kids relationship with technology and learning. And again, we're all just speculating here, but, I'm curious about your speculation. So two questions there. What are you working on specifically? And then what do you think your kid's experience is going to be like with AI?

Linus: Yea, so I'm working actively on a few projects, but like, I think the one that we've worked on the longest is BedtimeStory.ai which is a hyper personalization engine for creating stories for kids. So you can basically punch in a really tiny prompt and remembers characters and stuff, and then you can get an infinite amount of stories.

So that's something we've been working on since 2022. Super happy about that. And then I'm doing a few other things in the same kind of realm of the stuff that we learned from doing that we're building a mental health coach that is already existing in an app that we have on the app store, but we're kind of making it better.

And I'm dipping my toes potentially into hardware because I do think there's a huge gap many gaps actually in the hardware/AI intersect.

I think in general, terminology AI will probably kind of dissipate and go away. So it just will become the next version of software in general, but I think experience these kids will have, and I guess entire generation, I guess, from, you know, whatever, whoever is five and younger or 10 and younger today, I hope they will have a better relationship with technology than we had, I don't know, how do I usually talk about this?

I, so we come from an age where we had to curate a lot. We had to search and become almost like a librarian. Like if you're good at searching, you're good at finding and sifting through information. You can somehow build a mental model of things that you will need to look up and the technology that we've used quite dumb, and I think of this iteration, they will become way more driven by kind of curation in a different way.

Where like, if they need information, they'll just be like, they need to be good at inquiry. They need to be good at like asking questions and being curious. And if they can become good at that, they will be very successful because it's not going to be a matter of like, can I find the information through search?

It's going to be a question about, can I figure out the right question to ask? And if I can ask the right question and have some base knowledge, can I then take these sources of information and distill it and curate out the best? And also the fact that I think they will form relationships with machines in ways we never did.

I see very clearly with, for example, the mental coach app that I'm building where like I can actually see myself having a pretty good relationship with my artificial coach, which, and I'm like, if you would have asked me four years ago, will you talk to a computer more than you talk to a human counselor?

I'd be like, no.

Adam: Mm

Linus: And that was very, I do it today. And then they'd be like, okay, what are they going to do in 10 years time? It's going to be super normal, I think, for people to have relationships with machines. I tend to look a lot at science fiction and be like, you know, life imitate arts more than art imitates life, whatever that old saying is or the old quote.

And as soon as we've dreamed something up in science fiction world, it tends to become reality. 10, 20, 30 years after the fact, and now we're kind of in the 30, 35, 40 year realm where we look at things as the tricorder and the communicator from Star Trek, for example, and now we're getting the AI pin and we have smartphones that are basically like, you know, supercomputer in the pocket.

So I choose to be an optimist. Obviously it's really easy to like, look at all of this and be like, you can look at one side of the sword or the other, and you'd be like, okay, there's plenty of bad things that can happen, but I choose to believe in humanity. I choose to be like, okay, we can actually do good things with this. And I hope that my, my kind of my mission again is to like help bring that optimistic future forward. That would kind of end up in a better world than the one that we have. Might look dire at the very moment right now. Like there's a lot of bad stuff going on, but in general, I still, I'm optimistic about the future.

Adam: I love that perspective. Love that optimism. What's not to be optimistic about with those two little kids too. So you've got two working parents and a two year old and a four year old.

And I imagine that that means you need to recharge your own batteries from time to time. So you mentioned going running on the beach with your girls. What are some other ways that you recharge your batteries when you're feeling depleted? 

Linus: I don’t remember, basically. We tried to impose this new rule this year that like, oh, we'll go on a date each month like a proper, we, we will take a day, we'll take a day and go somewhere and do a proper date. We did that January, we did that February, and then we stopped because schedule-wise didn't really work out.

We're supposed to. To have a date tomorrow but since Jenny's in Stockholm,

I was like, okay, let's have a date with myself. And then we try to at least once a week do something that's not like a date, but like we hang out, we do some stuff that without the kids when they're in in school, we take an hour or two and just do something like a long lunch or something.

We're just trying to find timing in the busy schedules that we have. I mean, I was just on a parent vacation too. I spent two weeks in, in the U S I was in San Francisco and I was in Vegas. So like, I got my fair share of, relaxation when I was there. When you don't have to deal with it and it's just like, okay, everything's just hard, like blissful, like you can sleep.

Even if I don't tend to sleep that much longer, I still, you know, nobody's going to wake me up at 3am screaming.

Adam: So thank you for sharing How you've attempted to recharge your batteries with your partner. I have two final questions for you. One is what is a mistake that you've made as a dad?

Linus: So I do mistakes every single day. A hundred percent, like it can be the way that I react to someone throwing something on the floor. Like, let's say we're eating breakfast and, you know, not the two year old, you're like, shit, she's two, but the four year old, she can be like, take her sandwich and be like, dropping it on the floor.

And then I'd be like, I become angry. Like my initial response is then angry. And then I'd be like, Oh shit, no. You know, breathe in, breathe out. Be curious, not furious. Why did you like all these things? But like, I already reacted. So like, that's, you know, these kinds of daily mistakes happen. And I think funny mistakes.

I, I took her driving once, put her in the, you know, her stole in the car and gave her a bunch of blueberries. And then I went driving in this really twist and turn it road. And

Adam: I know where this is going.

Linus: And I just look at the road and I just hear like, and I look over and she had this like white, you know, yellow flower dress that's no longer white is just covered in puke and then I realized I don't have any wet wipes, I don't have any water in the car and she's sitting in this floating of puke in her shirt and I'm like that's a mistake massive mistakes on my mistake on my end. But that's a funny mistake, too but yeah, man, I did it maybe it sounded good, all the stuff that we've talked about in the beginning, but it also comes with a caveat that there is a lot of trial and error going on every day, you know, and I think, I don't know who, again, who said this, but like, you're a parent, if you do more right than wrong, if you're on the plus side on the right stuff, you're doing things good.

Like you just need to make sure you equal that out to like constantly. Putting in more on the right side.

Adam: It's like building software for people. Right. Except you're building, humans. Lots of trial and error in building software. Lots of trial and error in raising humans. I get it. So I wanted to end and just ask. How can people follow along on your journey or be helpful to you as you survive and thrive with your family and on the internet?

Linus: Two ways, closest ways to stay close to me is like, my newsletter, I write the newsletter. Okay. It's supposed to be weekly, but it's like some weeks is more, some weeks is less. So it's insidemyhead.ai. So that's insidemyhead.ai and then I'm on X or Twitter. So that would be x.com slash my name, Linus Eckenstam. And I also, I have this idea this year. It's not like I don't have enough to do, but I'm slowly starting my YouTube. So I like doing video. I like doing talking heads. I like doing a lot of this stuff and talking about everything from technology to kind of parenthood.

So you'll find me on YouTube as well, which is like a second stem and it's probably like two people following you there or five. So feel free to, to become number six. But yeah, that's fine. And I'm also sharing my journey. Cause I'm right now sitting in this new space that we have here in Barcelona that I'm turning into kind of a, you know, second kind of man cave slash studio slash creative outlet space. So I'm posting videos on, on how I'm turning this into that space cause I'm DIYing it. I'm doing everything myself. So that's an interesting journey. Kids are involved.

Adam: I was going to say, like you mentioned, not that you have enough going on, you're also now like building out a room in your house.

Linus: Is an actual, actually it's big space, it's a two and a half, it's a two and a half thousand square feet, three thousand square feet studio space basically a block from where we live, so it's separated from our house, and it's an old warehouse, so it's high ceilings.

Adam: People in Silicon Valley would be very jealous of that space. It's the aesthetic that we strive for here. So, Linus, if you're ready, I'd love to do a quick round of rapid fire with you. And then you can get back to your four year old and two year old. Are you ready for rapid fire?

Linus: Yes. Let’s go.

Adam: Okay. What is the most indispensable parenting product that you have ever purchased? 

Linus: Baby Bjorn. 

Adam: Ooh, the baby Bjorn. Big fan. What is the best piece of parenting advice that you have ever received?

Linus: None.

Adam: What is the worst piece of parenting advice that you've ever received?

Linus: Oh, sleep training.

Adam: Ah, okay. What is your go to dad wardrobe?

Linus: Oh, black t-shirt and black jeans, and then they drool all over it. and it clearly shows that I'm a dad because I'm like going into a cafe and I'm just all drooled on or like there's snot everywhere. So yeah, but I, I, yeah,

Adam: Have you ever used your kids as an excuse to get out of a social event?

Linus: Yes, of course. If anyone tells differently, they're lying.

Adam: Ah, what is your favorite kids movie?

Linus: A good one. And I think uh, Encanto?

Adam: Oh, Encanto. Yeah. Yeah, What is one movie that you cannot wait to force your daughters to watch?

Linus: Oh, I already started forcing them to watch all sorts of random stuff. Maybe something that's a bit more with violence in it. I don't know. Maybe Star Wars. I'm going to force that upon them.

Adam: Yeah, that's great.

Linus: I mean, the caveat here, I'm watching all the SpaceX launches basically with both of my

kids. So I'm indoctrinating them early.

Adam: That's good. Now, your daughter's names are unique. Have you ever mixed up your kids names?

Linus: No.

Adam: Okay, good. Plus one for unique names. How long can a piece of food sit on the floor in your house and you will still eat it?

Linus: 10 seconds.

Adam: Oh, 10. Okay. All right. How often do you tell your daughters back in my day stories?

Linus: Not yet.

Adam: Okay. I imagine you cannot wait to do that though.

Linus: Yes.

Adam: Okay. And then finally, maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow because your partner, Jennie, you said her name is,is out traveling. But how many times in a typical week do you say, go ask your mother?

Linus: I'd say like 10 times a day.

Adam: 10 times a day!

Linus: Cause this again, this is, yeah, 10 times a day, easily. Cause again, it's the whole kind of like, who decides what, like where are the boundaries? Like they try with me. And then like, go ask your mother. It's like, it's, this is her turf. Like, don't try with me.

You know, you're going to get a no, you're going to get a no.

Adam: Awesome. Well, on that note Linus, thank you so much for joining me today on startup dad, this was a really fun conversation and I appreciate you opening up talking about fertility, talking about AI, talking about time and relativity, a fantastic conversation. Really appreciate it.

Linus: Thank you very much, it was very fun.

Adam: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Linus Eckenstam. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, and leave me a review on Apple or Spotify. It'll help other people find this podcast. Startup Dad is a Fishman AF production with editing support from Tommy Heron. You can join a community of over 10,000 subscribers and stay up to date on all my thoughts on growth, product, and parenting by subscribing to the Fishman AF newsletter at www.fishmanafnewsletter.com. Thanks for listening, and see you next week.