- Lauren Sánchez said her fiancé, Jeff Bezos, set a rule not to use their phones in the morning.
- She added that they enjoy the "magic moment" of talking to each other.
- Other CEOs spend their morning differently — from waking up at dawn to eating donuts.
Lauren Sánchez says Jeff Bezos has a rule for them to start their mornings right.
"My favorite part of the day is the morning," Sanchez, 54, told People in an interview published on Thursday.
She makes a coffee for herself and the Amazon founder, whom she got engaged to in May last year. The couple then enjoys the "magic moment" in the morning when it's just them talking, she said.
"The kids haven't woken up yet. And we don't get on our phones. That's one of the rules," Sánchez said.
The couple have a blended family. Sánchez has three kids, one with ex-boyfriend Tony Gonzalez, and two with her ex-husband Patrick Whitesell. Bezos has four children with ex-wife MacKenzie Scott. Which of the children live with them is not confirmed.
Sánchez, a former news anchor, said she would probably use her phone if it were up to her. Bezos "definitely" made the rule, she added. "It wasn't me. But the mornings are just for us as long as we can."
During a 2018 speech at the Washington Economic Club, Bezos said he spends his morning reading the newspaper, drinking coffee, and having breakfast with his children. Calling it his "puttering time," he added that the routine gave him energy and improved his decision-making.
In a December episode of Lex Fridman's podcast, Bezos defined "putter" as slowly moving around. "I'm not as productive as you might think I am," the world's second-richest man said with a laugh.
"I move pretty slowly in the first couple of hours. I get up early, just naturally. And then, you know, I exercise most days," he said.
Morning routines vary among CEOs
While Bezos stays away from his phone, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, does the opposite.
"The first thing I do is look at my phone. I look at Facebook to see what's going on in the world," Zuckerberg said in a live Facebook Q&A in 2016.
"It's a pretty sad situation, to be honest," he said about the habit.
Zuckerberg's morning routine also often includes Brazilian jiujitsu and MMA training and wearing the same outfit to reduce brainpower.
Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, wakes up before the sun rises — at 4 a.m. to 5 a.m. He then spends the first hour responding to emails, he told Dua Lipa on her podcast in November 2023.
Similarly, the CEO of Snap, Evan Spiegel wakes up at 4.45 a.m.
"I get up really early, because that's the only time that's 'Evan Time' for me, when people aren't really awake yet. I get a couple hours between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. to do whatever I wanna do," he said in a 2018 interview published in Entrepreneurship Handbook.
But not all CEOs rise at the crack of dawn. Elon Musk, the CEO of Space X and Tesla, told The Wall Street Journal in February last year that he works late into the night and typically wakes up at 9 a.m.
And although it was not confirmed if he was serious or just joking, Musk once replied to a doctor's post on X: "I eat a donut every morning. Still alive."
Bezos didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside business hours.