Alexis Ohanian Talks Being a ‘Business Dad’ to Daughter Olympia, 4: I Want Her ‘to See Me Working’

Alexis Ohanian shares his 4-year-old daughter Olympia with wife Serena Williams

Alexis Ohanian is all about wearing many hats in front of his daughter Olympia.

While in conversation with the Imposters podcast from Morning Brew, part of which PEOPLE can exclusively share before the full episode goes live on Tuesday, the tech entrepreneur, 39, opened up about being a “business dad” and what that means for his family.

Noting that being a businessman and a father are the “strongest parts” of his identity, Ohanian said, “I spent most of my life, most of my adult life really focusing on just the career part, the first part, and then four years ago [I] became a dad. Things shifted. And that is the lens through which I look at basically every decision.”

“Professionally, … I want to be doing my absolute best work for however long I can so that my daughter can see me doing it, doing it in a way that I’m proud of, that’s she’s proud of, doing it in a way where it’s the best of the best, but aligned with values,” he continued.

“I really want Olympia to see me working, to see me building,” added Ohanian. “And I also think it’s part of my responsibility as a dad and a role model. I want her to see me put in work in something I really care about and being passionate about something and caring about something.”

Ohanian — who shares his 4-year-old daughter with wife Serena Williams — also joked that Olympia currently “just thinks I make pancakes for a living.”

“Which I do,” he continued. “It’s my Sunday. It was my COVID skill that I picked up. I have a very particular setup with squeeze bottles and everything else.”

Ohanian also said that his little one is enthralled by all things Encanto, though he initially thought his family would breeze past the Disney film craze.

“I really thought we were going to miss that trend. And then the songs started to invade, and then now it’s just on all the time,” he explained.

Continuing his conversation on the Imposters podcast, Ohanian also opened up about how he received important advice from Williams, 40, about managing his time as a worker and a dad.

“The lesson that I got from my own wife, which was the biggest thing that I missed, especially early on, was not realizing my own diminishing marginal returns on output where it just felt really good to be the only one up at 4 a.m. working and sending emails and doing stuff because I was like, ‘Man, I’m getting a f—— edge on everyone else,’ ” he explained.

“[But] in hindsight, I realized there’s a certain point … We are still human. We’re not robots at the end of the day,” he continued. “And then when you look to the folks who have the only objective work, that is athletes, every single one of them will tell you that to be the best at what you do, you have to be resting and recovering as well as you are working. And it would be preposterous to think that you could just keep going and going and going and going and going and going and not have a recovery period. It’s impossible.”

“So hearing that from her really helped solidify like, ‘Damn, okay, I need to make sure that when I am off, I’m actually off because otherwise I’m not really recovering.’ I’m not actually able to perform at my best. And that is really what I want,” Ohanian added.

He concluded: “[My wife’s] got like a switch in her brain where when she’s not on the clock, she is off, she is not thinking about tennis or business or fashion or anything. It’s date night or it’s Olympia time. It’s like it is off. I’m certain that is a muscle she’s had exercised her entire career.”

[via]