Wait, why is Elon Musk being used as example of someone who doesn't need vacations? We don't know what his personal life is like, in comparison to all we know about his professional life. There is no data.
Digging into his personal life is widely considered off limits. Reporting is not done on it. If I were, for example, to assert that Musk has had two divorces in 2.5 years and that this may in fact reflect that his personal life is a mess, I'd probably get voted down. And maybe that would be fair, because who knows, maybe in that scenario both he and his ex wives are happy to end the lifetime marriage vows early. My point isn't that Elon Musk's life is a mess, my point is we don't know, so we shouldn't be using him as evidence of not needing to "balance" work life, unless we're ready to have an in-depth conversation about what most people consider (rightly or wrongly) to be off limits private matters.
Let the ones who never took a bad decision in an area they are not very familiar with (like personal life when you're all about work) cast him the first stones
You referenced and tried to refute the article, but how do you know Musk is happy? How do you know he has found his personal balance? From what little I know about his personal life -- and it may be unrepresentative, again -- you can argue his personal life is on the rocks. He might also be perfectly happy. But what's the evidence? I don't see any evidence his story supports you point at all.
You're right -- we don't know. My interpretation of the article was that the AUTHOR seemed to imply that that was unbalanced, and my point in bringing it up was that it didn't seem right for the author to critique what is a balanced/not-balanced life, since it's different for everyone.
You keep equating "balanced/not-balanced" with "good/bad".
What do you mean by "balance" if you don't mean the normal definition of "engages in activities/pursuits from all aspects of life"? By the normal definition of balance Elon Musk is not leading a balanced life at all, but a dedicated and focused life. This is not a value judgement, it's perfectly reasonable to make that choice.
This idea that balance is different for everyone makes me think you are using balance to mean "fulfilling" or "happy"?
Digging into his personal life is widely considered off limits. Reporting is not done on it. If I were, for example, to assert that Musk has had two divorces in 2.5 years and that this may in fact reflect that his personal life is a mess, I'd probably get voted down. And maybe that would be fair, because who knows, maybe in that scenario both he and his ex wives are happy to end the lifetime marriage vows early. My point isn't that Elon Musk's life is a mess, my point is we don't know, so we shouldn't be using him as evidence of not needing to "balance" work life, unless we're ready to have an in-depth conversation about what most people consider (rightly or wrongly) to be off limits private matters.