In the AI era, Mark Cuban, Mary Barra, and even Sam Altman have one tip for Gen Z: unplug and go analog

Billionaire Mark Cuban put it bluntly: “It’s time we all got off our asses, left the house, and had fun.”

That level of candor might seem surprising coming from the former Shark Tank star who has long positioned himself at the forefront of tech trends. But Cuban has also been clear that there’s little point in working hard if there’s no room to live fully outside of it.

“In an AI world, what you do is far more important than what you prompt,” he added in an interview with  Inc.

This back-to-basics mindset extends to the Fortune 500 C-suite. General Motors CEO Mary Barra, for instance, does not have AI handle her communications. Instead, she picks up the pen and paper and personally responds to letters she receives.

“I get [letters] from customers … when their odometer turns over to 200, 300, 400,” Barra said at the New York Times DealBook Summit in December. “I also get letters from consumers who are unhappy about something, and I respond to every single letter I receive. To me, this is such a special business.”

Even Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and an architect behind ChatGPT, makes a point of stepping away from technology altogether. Many weekends, Altman retreats to his Napa, California, ranch with his husband and son, where they often hike in areas without cell service.

“I end up living in a weirdly isolated world,” Altman said. “I fight that every inch … I think the more you let the world build a bubble around you, the more insane you go.” 

While Cuban, Barra, and Altman come from vastly different backgrounds—and carry very different responsibilities—their actions reflect a shared belief: as AI becomes more powerful, the most valuable skills for Gen Z may be the ones technology can’t replicate. Nine out of 10 executives said that human skills are more important than ever for career growth, according to a 2024 LinkedIn survey.

Today’s escape from AI echoes social media pushback

The moment echoes an earlier technological reckoning more than a decade ago. As social media became more popular, executives celebrated unprecedented connectivity—only to later grapple with its effects on attention, mental health, and autonomy.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, best known for creating the messaging app Snapchat, has taken a notably restrictive approach at home. Spiegel previously said he limited his children’s screen time to about 90 minutes per week. He has also credited his own parents with enforcing a no-TV policy until he was “almost a teenager.”

“I think the more interesting conversation to have is really around the quality of that screen time,” Spiegel told the Financial Times.

That emphasis on quality over quantity has been echoed by Steve Chen, YouTube’s cofounder and former chief technology officer, who helped build the platform before it was acquired by Google in 2006.

“I think TikTok is entertainment, but it’s purely entertainment,” Chen said last year at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. “It’s just for that moment. Just shorter-form content equates to shorter attention spans.”

In more recent years, tech leaders have become increasingly vocal about how algorithm-driven platforms shape behavior.

“We are being programmed,” Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey said in 2024. “We are being programmed based on what we say we’re interested in, and we’re told through these discovery mechanisms what is interesting—and as we engage and interact with this content, the algorithm continues to build more and more of this bias.” 

Some executives have taken that warning to its logical extreme. Danny Hogenkamp, CEO of Grassroots Analytics, a Washington, D.C.-based fundraising software company described himself as a “Luddite.” He uses a flip phone, avoids social media entirely, and openly encourages others to follow his lead.

“I’m out on a limb here, right? A lot of people think I’m crazy,” the millennial told Washingtonian. But, he added, “all of science is on my side,” pointing to research linking constant digital engagement to declining attention spans and cognitive overload.

Escaping technology isn’t a possibility for some business leaders like Jensen Huang

Not every executive agrees that unplugging is the answer. 

Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, has publicly supported the demanding “996” work culture—clocking in from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week—a practice that has since influenced parts of the global tech industry.

“If we find things we like, 996 is not a problem,” Ma said in a blog post in 2019. “If you don’t like [your work], every minute is torture.”

For Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, constant engagement is part of the job. He works every single day of the year, answering thousands of emails and thinking constantly about the future of his company—even while doing mundane tasks like watching movies or washing dishes.

“You know the phrase ’30 days from going out of business,’ I’ve used for 33 years,” Huang said on The Joe Rogan Experience last year. “But the feeling doesn’t change. The sense of vulnerability, the sense of uncertainty, the sense of insecurity—it doesn’t leave you.”

Still, as AI becomes increasingly woven into daily life, a growing number of leaders are suggesting that progress doesn’t require total immersion. Instead, they argue, it may demand clearer boundaries—before the technology designed to enhance human potential begins to erode it.

Gen Z, for its part, may already be heeding that advice. Many younger consumers are gravitating toward so-called “analog islands,” embracing tactile, offline experiences as a counterweight to constant connectivity. From learning to drive stick shift and collecting vinyl records to playing board games and writing handwritten notes, the shift suggests that even in a digital-first generation, there’s a growing appetite for slowing down—and staying human.