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Chocolate for breakfast and freshly-killed goat for dinner - here are the diets of some of the most notable tech billionaires
Chocolate for breakfast and freshly-killed goat for dinner - here are the diets of some of the most notable tech billionaires
Paige LeskinMar 9, 2019, 17:45 IST
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Billionaires may splurge on multi million-dollar estates and luxury cars, but that doesn't mean they're digging deep in their wallets for the best and most expensive foods.
Some tech billionaires are well-known for their outrageous and unhealthy eating habits.
These are some of the richest in the tech world who have spoken publicly about their diets.
Just because billionaires have the money to pay for pricey personal chefs or high-end healthy foods doesn't mean they're actually adhering to diets that are good for them.
As you'll see below, some of the richest people in tech have some pretty terrible - or bizarre - eating habits. While some experiment with the latest health fads, like Paleo diets and veganism, there are other tech billionaires who enjoy eating chocolate for breakfast or skip eating altogether for days.
So even though there are some wealthy techies whose diets you'll want to copy to replicate their levels of success, there's no guarantee they'll put you in good health.
Here are some of the diets and foods that tech billionaires swear by:
Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, estimates he drinks 20 cups of tea a day. "I'm not sure how I'd survive without English Breakfast tea," Branson told the Daily Mail in 2016.
Branson lives on his private Caribbean island, Necker Island. The billionaire fills his days with exercise, time with his family, and business meetings, which he prefers to schedule "over lunchtime" to help "lighten the mood." For dinner, he prefers to hold group meals "where stories are shared and ideas are born."
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has said he avoids early morning meetings so he has time to eat a healthy "leisurely" breakfast without any "fatty convenience foods." He's said he uses the extra time to spend mornings with his wife Mackenzie and their four children, but that's likely changed a bit considering the couple recently announced their divorce.
Billionaires are known for being eccentric, and that doesn't stop with their eating choices. In a meeting with a company Amazon had considered (and eventually went through with) acquiring, Bezos reportedly ordered a breakfast of Mediterranean octopus with potatoes, bacon, green garlic yogurt, and a poached egg.
Later in the meeting, Bezos used his breakfast as a metaphor for Amazon's business strategy: "You're the octopus that I'm having for breakfast. When I look at the menu, you're the thing I don't understand, the thing I've never had. I must have the breakfast octopus."
Investor Mark Cuban said in 2014 his breakfast consists of a cup of coffee and two cookies from a company called Alyssa's Cookies. These cookies are high protein, high fiber, and low carb.
Cuban has said these cookies are "all I will eat anymore." He enjoys the cookies so much that he helped launch the business, and has invested in the company.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has said that he loves Diet Coke, so much that he drinks three or four a day. "All those cans also add up to something like 35 pounds of aluminum a year," Gates wrote in 2014.
Gates' eating habits aren't much better. He's said he eats Cocoa Puffs for breakfast, but his wife Melinda says he skips the meal altogether. He also apparently loves cheeseburgers. Joe Cerrell, a managing director at the Gates Foundation, has said that anyone who has lunch with Gates should expect to have cheeseburgers, "no matter who you are."
"If you get the lunchtime slot with Bill [Gates], you’re eating burgers," Cerrell told the Telegraph in 2016. "Someone will always be sent to get bags of McDonald’s. I don’t think Melinda lets him have them at home."
The late Steve Jobs was known for his odd eating habits. The Apple cofounder would sometimes eat only one or two foods at a time, for weeks. At one point, his diet was strictly carrots and apples. At another time, he was a "fruitarian" — a diet where Jobs could only eat fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and grains.
Jobs apparently thought that his vegan diet caused him not to emit any sort of body odor, which he took to mean he didn't need to wear deodorant or shower regularly. Sometimes, Jobs would fast, using the days of not eating to "create feelings of euphoria and ecstasy."
For Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, breakfast isn't something he's too picky about. He'll just eat whatever he's feeling for that day, because he "doesn't like to waste time on small decisions."
But that doesn't mean Zuckerberg hasn't experimented with any wild diets. The Facebook CEO famously set a "personal challenge" for himself in 2011 to only eat meat from animals he had killed himself. His "kill-what-you-eat" diet included goats, pigs, chickens, and lobsters.
Zuckerberg wasn't shy about sharing the food he had killed himself with friends and house guests. He once hosted Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and treated him to goat he had killed. Dorsey said he remembers that the goat was served cold, so he stuck to salad for dinner.
But it's not as if Dorsey is known for standard eating practices. In 2012, the Twitter CEO revealed his daily breakfast was two hard-boiled eggs with soy sauce.
Dorsey has also dabbled in mainstream diet fads. He used to be a vegan, but too much beta-carotene (the orange pigment found in carrots) caused his skin to turn orange. In 2013, Dorsey was following the Paleo diet, the hunter-gathering regimen that forbids eating refined sugars, grains, and processed foods.
But more recently, Dorsey has been "playing with fasting for some time." He tweeted in January that he's been fasting for 22 hours a day, and some days he won't eat at all. "Biggest thing I notice is how much time slows down," Dorsey tweeted. "The day feels so much longer when not broken up by breakfast/lunch/dinner."
For a man that works 80 to 90 hours a week, Tesla and SpaceX CEO doesn't necessarily adhere to a strict diet. Musk has said he doesn't usually eat breakfast, but when he does, he'll eat a Mars bar — apt for a man who's trying to get to the red planet. "I’m trying to cut down on sweet stuff, and I should have an omelet and coffee,” Musk says.
Lunch is just as inconsequential a meal as breakfast is for Musk — whatever his assistant brings him during meetings, he'll "inhale it in five minutes." Instead, Musk focuses on dinner, which often take place over business. Musk said in a 2015 Reddit AMA that his favorite foods are French cuisine and barbecue.