Recently I was listening to a podcast and blogpost mentioned in it which dates back to the year 2013. The blog post was written by – Chris Dixon.
Chris is an investor in technology startups, including Kickstarter, Stripe, Flatiron Health, Warby Parker, Zipline, Pinterest, and Stack Overflow.
The brands he is affiliated with speak for themselves – however, what amazed me was his observation in 2013. I am copy-pasting his short blog post as is below. Which will be followed by my take on it.
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What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years
2013-03-02
Many breakthrough technologies were hatched by hobbyists in garages and dorm rooms. Prominent examples include the PC, the web, blogs, and most open-source software.
The fact that flip-flop-wearing hobbyists spawn large industries is commonly viewed as an amusing eccentricity of the technology industry. But there is a reason why hobbies are so important.
Business people vote with their dollars and are mostly trying to create near-term financial returns. Engineers vote with their time and are mostly trying to invent interesting new things. Hobbies are what the smartest people spend their time on when they aren’t constrained by near-term financial goals.
Today, the tech hobbies with momentum include math-based currencies like Bitcoin, new software development tools like NoSQL databases, the internet of things, 3D printing, touch-free human/computer interfaces, and “artisanal” hardware like the kind you find on Kickstarter.
It’s a good bet these present-day hobbies will seed future industries. What the smartest people do on the weekends is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years.
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How accurate was he?! I especially like the observation of how smart people’s hobbies today will be the average person's day job in 10 years.
So if we apply the same philosophy and approach and reignite it – and ask the same question again for today.
Subsequently, I have a favor to ask you. Go back to the social platform where you found this blog post and answer the following question – I would love to see a crowdsourced answer to this one.
The question is
What are the hobbies that smart people are doing today on weekends, which will become what everyone else is doing during weekdays in 10 years?
Final note and advice
When you see this post do not DM me your answer – regardless of your answer’s controversy or “craziness” grow a pair and post it publicly for everyone else to see.