10 ms·

Why founders need hobbies

155 points by mijustin 8y ago

mijustin 8y ago
I agree with Josh completely. It's unsustainable to focus 100% on your business. Our brains aren't optimized this way. We need hobbies, recreation, and diversions to be healthy.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  Then there's Elon Musk...who is apparently thinking about a new company to sell bricks made from the mud from his tunnel boring company.
  - lintroller 8y ago
    I feel as if attempting to start a side business in an unrelated field could be considered as a hobby.
    - harlanji 8y ago
      Precisely, even at the micro level. Coding a video platform is different than coding an analytics system. 90% of coding is research and lots of that is done without as another commenter said money+deadline, ie. not a contract. Musk surely has lots of hobbies and Hammock Driven Development happens (Rich Hickey/Clojure style). If Musk ever starts getting chubby then I’ll worry—elsewhere in thread I qualify this.
  - tomc1985 8y ago
    That is classical diversification: commoditizing a most-likely discarded waste product. Pretty innovative if you ask me.
    - Retra 8y ago
      How can something be both innovative and classic?
  - throwaway010718 8y ago
    My hobby remained my hobby even when it started making money. It wasn't until I started focusing on profit where it ceased to be a hobby and started feeling like work. Elon Musk doesn't appear to be motivated by profit and therefore he doesn't need a hobby. Besides, what cooler hobby could there be than building rockets.
    - DmenshunlAnlsis 8y ago
      If he isn’t motivated by profit, why did he recently seek a $2.4 billion dollar raise?
      - steve_musk 8y ago
        So he can pay to develop the platform needed so he can retire on Mars
        DmenshunlAnlsis 8y ago
        He’s a smart guy, he knows that the whole Mars thing is just PR for people who want to believe. Musk is a marketing genius, but when you strip away the money he’s in it for money and power.
        perl4ever 8y ago
        I think of it as axiomatic that nobody is really in it for the money, as that is just a placeholder for the ability to do things or comparative status. When you say he's in it for power, that sounds like you think of power as meaning power over other people, but why can't he be primarily motivated by seeking power over nature - which living on Mars might amount to the ultimate example of?
linkmotif 8y ago
I don't know... I feel like the only hobby you should have with a start up going is exercise. I also understand needing other unstructured off time besides exercise but really... a hobby? If you want to have a hobby you probably shouldn't be trying to start a business...
- amasad 8y ago
  Two birds, one stone: make your hobby something active... I do powerlifting. Adding pounds on the bar week/week is the only metric I'm confident will keep going up ;)
- bretpiatt 8y ago
  If business founders shouldn't have a hobby should they also not have a family or other activities that could (or will) require non-work time commitments?
- freehunter 8y ago
  In one year someone will post an article about how burnout destroyed their business, and I will look for your comment saying "I was totally committed to my business, didn't even have a hobby or anything for fun, and I ended up wandering downtown naked, unaware of where or who I was". All work and no play makes something something.
- harlanji 8y ago
  You’re downvoted and my managers always make me look like a slacker for holding this one singular hobby/2 routines. Each one, while they are chubby and often have poor posture, fooling themselves into thinking they’re on turbo—nope. I can do 12x6 forever but don’t F with my 3-4pm empty gym slot which effectively saves time. Superman. Even when the gym was in the same building. Hour lunch out of office is the other. A couple workspaces have given me hell for this, and I just quit at first sign now. Last workplace was 4 people total and of course my supervisor was the fat ass and others did marathons and crossfit—guess how that went. I do judge workplaces based on fitness level; mind-body.
  - navbaker 8y ago
joshvm 8y ago
> Because the last thing I want is you designing or coding all day and night and then getting burned out and rage-quitting. Yet both examples of employees with hobbies are people who code outside of work. I'm certainly guilty of this, but I would suggest that unless you're 100% devoted to a single goal during the day, you can use your job as a means to tinker with code-related stuff you're interested in. For instance, the people doing ML and AI degrees should be doing it on company time, especially if it's benefiting the business. Ask your boss and you'd be surprised what benefits you can squeeze out. I'd strongly recommend getting into something more creative or totally orthogonal to your career. For example I've done a bit of pottery and learned some basic woodworking - both of which I'd like to improve on. Music or languages are two other hobbies which are generally accessible. You can sometimes find odd passions via work. I've done some projects in smart agriculture and it got me into gardening in a nerdy way. The science behind commercial horticulture is fascinating - it's half cutting edge research and half "old guy" expertise. My tomato crop was a lot better for it. If you want to really nail the hipster, rounded, programmer stereotype, get down to the climbing wall and start brewing beer. No surprises why climbing is popular with programmers. It's a lot of thinking, works just fine as a solo (or group) sport and tends to attract people who didn't enjoy "conventional" sports at school.
wallflower 8y ago
Many years ago, I read a blog, possibly linked from here, that gave this definition of a true hobby that I really like. A true hobby is something that you don't do for money and that has no deadlines attached. Once you start accepting payment to do something, someone else is setting expectations for your work. If you are a pretty good hobbyist photographer, one of the worst things you can do is shoot a wedding. Shooting a wedding, even for professional photographers, is one of the highest stress environments possible for photography. If you have deadlines associated with your hobby, what happens if they "slip"? For example, if you set an artificial deadline to make your first ambitious Arduino project that will do something that will make your friends impressed and you get stuck somewhere, does it really matter? Nothing needs to be said about the combination of paid work and deadlines. That is not hobbying, that is contracting. A long time ago, I did some subcontracting on iOS development. Beautiful weekend? Didn't matter. Monday deadline for client. Sucked.
- keerthiko 8y ago
  I think making money and doing a hobby need not be independent. Being able to earn money doing something you enjoy makes the activity more sustainable and provides resources you can pour back into the hobby to take it to new heights. Additionally I think maintaining ownership and flexibility of schedule is good to a certain point, but having deadlines and external stakeholders (which you preferably choose and control) also helps for motivation. It's always more rewarding when you meet those than question your commitment to your hobby when you forget about it for a few months because "you were busy".
- FooHentai 8y ago
  It gets weird for stuff like cosplay. Hard deadlines, still a hobby.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    Yeah, social hobbies often don't fit the “no deadlines” definition.
    - 8y ago
foobaw 8y ago
Anyone who's been involved in hyper-growth startups knows that having a hobby is extremely difficult. The least one can do is squeeze in gym time at hotels during business trips, but otherwise, time is definitely an issue. For a decently established startup with well-secured funding, this article is spot-on.
- 3pt14159 8y ago
  I dunno. I think it depends. DHH not only open sourced Rails while he built 37 Signals / Basecamp he also won Le Mans racing trophies and wrote a couple books on entrepreneurship. Sometimes there are situations where it truly is a matter of hyper growth and full bore competition, but I think there are plenty of opportunities to build a sub-billion dollar business and still have an interesting life outside of work.
  - harlanji 8y ago
    DHH has been my idol for 10-15 years. His Tweets are legit too. I really should consider the Chicago scene, from Minneapolis originally but gosh do I not wanna deal with snow after a couple years on Ocean Beach/SF. The work culture here is disgusting and my productivity is hampered by management judo-ing me out of hobbies. I am sure I could do a quantative analysis based on historic data, not my forte tho, but I know it. My reputation here is messed from quitting and getting pushed from so many jobs. And I mention elsewhere here, my only hobby is 45min daily empty gym and hr lunch out. The money here gets to peoples’ heads, can also tell by popping bottles for trivial accomplishments.
  - beambot 8y ago
    Be careful that you don't mistake outliers from the norm.
  - rahoulb 8y ago
    Rails and the books were both byproducts of 37 Signals (ie stuff they were doing anyway, so they released it to the public - not that that is cost-free, but it's not as intensive as doing it from scratch). And cars are his hobby.
Dowwie 8y ago
I collect spores, molds, and fungus.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  You and my apartment have some things in common.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- trentnix 8y ago
  Ghostbusters!
- jzawodn 8y ago
  "Egon... your mucus..."
cyberferret 8y ago
+100 on the advice in the article. I work from home and my home office space is actually 50/50 an area where I can do development work, plus a music studio. I literally have to turn my chair around 180 degrees to go from my PC & laptop to a rack of guitars and amps. Makes it easy during those long compile cycles or waiting for an up/download to just reach back and grab a guitar and noodle away for a bit. And to actually get out of the house every now and then for a brain refresh, I recently took up Kendo as a sport as well.
robotkdick 8y ago
When you don’t take a step back, you get caught in the startup echo chamber. Your brain needs a break. About six months ago, I started baking artisan bread as an offset to writing code. Now, while I work fewer hours, I get more done, and I feel healthier. I bake two loaves at a time and give one to neighbors. They absolutely love it, and I have to say, the bread is very good.
- t3h2mas 8y ago
  Do you have a go-to recipe?
mirko22 8y ago
So how come this is specific to founders of companies? And I am not conviced having side projects as a fronted developer makes you a better developer unless you push yourself really hard. What is more likely to make you better developer in any job is working with people who have a lot of experience and are willing to share it. So not necessarily a hobby, or you have to spend a lot of time yourself to discover and think about a lot of concepts, at which point is not really a hobby, more like college. And i would argue also about hiking being a hobby, i never go hiking, but i love walking around the city like a maniac, is that a hoby? oh well maybe, but i’d say it would be more correct to say that you need to relax and gain strength for next working day, how exactly to do it you have to findout for yourself cos not everyone is the same...
dheera 8y ago
I cannot believe people haven't come to this realization yet. I actually feel my brain rotting away when I don't spend time actively pursuing goals outside of work. To me hobbies are as important, if not more important, than your day job. Before you down-vote me, please understand that I'm someone who learned about 95% of my technical knowledge from fun and hobbies. Although I'm full-force into computer vision, machine learning, and robotics in the company I'm co-founding, I wouldn't know any of that stuff if I weren't building robots to chase cats and deliver toilet paper, training algorithms to classify free food e-mails, and toying with neural net ideas 10 years ago when I was an physics undergrad (no, I didn't major in CS -- that was my hobby). And I wouldn't have been a physics undergrad if I hadn't spent hours at night back in high school studying physics and differential equations secretly while my parents thought I had gone to bed already. Likewise, what I do 10 years from now will depend heavily on the things I learn and ponder on nights and weekends today. It would effectively be the end of my life and career if I didn't have, and insist on having, that time to myself now. I'll also add as very much an introvert I absolutely must have sufficient disconnected / off-the-grid / "me" time to recuperate. Like food and water, that's largely non-negotiable beyond occasional stretches of a day or two. I'd probably go into clinical depression if I was forced to be in front of people all day for extended periods of time.
BeetleHead77 8y ago
The comment section is really rich with insights.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bakli 8y ago
I've recently (since about 5 months) started learning Piano (or rather, keyboard) and I've looked forward to playing it everyday. It's relaxing and helps me reduce the stress. Plus, it helps me get out of my comfort zone and give me wonderful new perspective on things. And for the past 2 months, I am also taking tennis lessons, and they've had unexpected positive influences on my life. I am waking early everyday to play, I've improved my stamina, and I get a solid sleep at the end of the day because physical activity tires out over the day and you easily sleep. 10/10 would recommend hobbies to all.
- criddell 8y ago
  Are you taking piano lessons? I'm trying to learn guitar and although I mostly enjoy it, I can't say I look forward to my 30 minutes of practice each day (although once I'm going I usually go long).
  - bakli 8y ago
    Yes, I am. But from a Youtube channel called "Hoffman Academy". It's aimed at kids below 15, but I like it.

155 points by mijustin 8y ago

I agree with Josh completely. It's unsustainable to focus 100% on your business. Our brains aren't optimized this way. We need hobbies, recreation, and diversions to be healthy.

perl4ever 8y ago
Then there's Elon Musk...who is apparently thinking about a new company to sell bricks made from the mud from his tunnel boring company.
- lintroller 8y ago
  I feel as if attempting to start a side business in an unrelated field could be considered as a hobby.
  - harlanji 8y ago
    Precisely, even at the micro level. Coding a video platform is different than coding an analytics system. 90% of coding is research and lots of that is done without as another commenter said money+deadline, ie. not a contract. Musk surely has lots of hobbies and Hammock Driven Development happens (Rich Hickey/Clojure style). If Musk ever starts getting chubby then I’ll worry—elsewhere in thread I qualify this.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  That is classical diversification: commoditizing a most-likely discarded waste product. Pretty innovative if you ask me.
  - Retra 8y ago
    How can something be both innovative and classic?
- throwaway010718 8y ago
  My hobby remained my hobby even when it started making money. It wasn't until I started focusing on profit where it ceased to be a hobby and started feeling like work. Elon Musk doesn't appear to be motivated by profit and therefore he doesn't need a hobby. Besides, what cooler hobby could there be than building rockets.
  - DmenshunlAnlsis 8y ago
    If he isn’t motivated by profit, why did he recently seek a $2.4 billion dollar raise?
    - steve_musk 8y ago
      So he can pay to develop the platform needed so he can retire on Mars
      - DmenshunlAnlsis 8y ago
        He’s a smart guy, he knows that the whole Mars thing is just PR for people who want to believe. Musk is a marketing genius, but when you strip away the money he’s in it for money and power.
        perl4ever 8y ago
        I think of it as axiomatic that nobody is really in it for the money, as that is just a placeholder for the ability to do things or comparative status. When you say he's in it for power, that sounds like you think of power as meaning power over other people, but why can't he be primarily motivated by seeking power over nature - which living on Mars might amount to the ultimate example of?

linkmotif 8y ago

I don't know... I feel like the only hobby you should have with a start up going is exercise. I also understand needing other unstructured off time besides exercise but really... a hobby? If you want to have a hobby you probably shouldn't be trying to start a business...

amasad 8y ago
Two birds, one stone: make your hobby something active... I do powerlifting. Adding pounds on the bar week/week is the only metric I'm confident will keep going up ;)
bretpiatt 8y ago
If business founders shouldn't have a hobby should they also not have a family or other activities that could (or will) require non-work time commitments?
freehunter 8y ago
In one year someone will post an article about how burnout destroyed their business, and I will look for your comment saying "I was totally committed to my business, didn't even have a hobby or anything for fun, and I ended up wandering downtown naked, unaware of where or who I was". All work and no play makes something something.
harlanji 8y ago
You’re downvoted and my managers always make me look like a slacker for holding this one singular hobby/2 routines. Each one, while they are chubby and often have poor posture, fooling themselves into thinking they’re on turbo—nope. I can do 12x6 forever but don’t F with my 3-4pm empty gym slot which effectively saves time. Superman. Even when the gym was in the same building. Hour lunch out of office is the other. A couple workspaces have given me hell for this, and I just quit at first sign now. Last workplace was 4 people total and of course my supervisor was the fat ass and others did marathons and crossfit—guess how that went. I do judge workplaces based on fitness level; mind-body.
- navbaker 8y ago

joshvm 8y ago

> Because the last thing I want is you designing or coding all day and night and then getting burned out and rage-quitting. Yet both examples of employees with hobbies are people who code outside of work. I'm certainly guilty of this, but I would suggest that unless you're 100% devoted to a single goal during the day, you can use your job as a means to tinker with code-related stuff you're interested in. For instance, the people doing ML and AI degrees should be doing it on company time, especially if it's benefiting the business. Ask your boss and you'd be surprised what benefits you can squeeze out. I'd strongly recommend getting into something more creative or totally orthogonal to your career. For example I've done a bit of pottery and learned some basic woodworking - both of which I'd like to improve on. Music or languages are two other hobbies which are generally accessible. You can sometimes find odd passions via work. I've done some projects in smart agriculture and it got me into gardening in a nerdy way. The science behind commercial horticulture is fascinating - it's half cutting edge research and half "old guy" expertise. My tomato crop was a lot better for it. If you want to really nail the hipster, rounded, programmer stereotype, get down to the climbing wall and start brewing beer. No surprises why climbing is popular with programmers. It's a lot of thinking, works just fine as a solo (or group) sport and tends to attract people who didn't enjoy "conventional" sports at school.

wallflower 8y ago

Many years ago, I read a blog, possibly linked from here, that gave this definition of a true hobby that I really like. A true hobby is something that you don't do for money and that has no deadlines attached. Once you start accepting payment to do something, someone else is setting expectations for your work. If you are a pretty good hobbyist photographer, one of the worst things you can do is shoot a wedding. Shooting a wedding, even for professional photographers, is one of the highest stress environments possible for photography. If you have deadlines associated with your hobby, what happens if they "slip"? For example, if you set an artificial deadline to make your first ambitious Arduino project that will do something that will make your friends impressed and you get stuck somewhere, does it really matter? Nothing needs to be said about the combination of paid work and deadlines. That is not hobbying, that is contracting. A long time ago, I did some subcontracting on iOS development. Beautiful weekend? Didn't matter. Monday deadline for client. Sucked.

keerthiko 8y ago
I think making money and doing a hobby need not be independent. Being able to earn money doing something you enjoy makes the activity more sustainable and provides resources you can pour back into the hobby to take it to new heights. Additionally I think maintaining ownership and flexibility of schedule is good to a certain point, but having deadlines and external stakeholders (which you preferably choose and control) also helps for motivation. It's always more rewarding when you meet those than question your commitment to your hobby when you forget about it for a few months because "you were busy".
FooHentai 8y ago
It gets weird for stuff like cosplay. Hard deadlines, still a hobby.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Yeah, social hobbies often don't fit the “no deadlines” definition.
  - 8y ago

foobaw 8y ago

Anyone who's been involved in hyper-growth startups knows that having a hobby is extremely difficult. The least one can do is squeeze in gym time at hotels during business trips, but otherwise, time is definitely an issue. For a decently established startup with well-secured funding, this article is spot-on.

3pt14159 8y ago
I dunno. I think it depends. DHH not only open sourced Rails while he built 37 Signals / Basecamp he also won Le Mans racing trophies and wrote a couple books on entrepreneurship. Sometimes there are situations where it truly is a matter of hyper growth and full bore competition, but I think there are plenty of opportunities to build a sub-billion dollar business and still have an interesting life outside of work.
- harlanji 8y ago
  DHH has been my idol for 10-15 years. His Tweets are legit too. I really should consider the Chicago scene, from Minneapolis originally but gosh do I not wanna deal with snow after a couple years on Ocean Beach/SF. The work culture here is disgusting and my productivity is hampered by management judo-ing me out of hobbies. I am sure I could do a quantative analysis based on historic data, not my forte tho, but I know it. My reputation here is messed from quitting and getting pushed from so many jobs. And I mention elsewhere here, my only hobby is 45min daily empty gym and hr lunch out. The money here gets to peoples’ heads, can also tell by popping bottles for trivial accomplishments.
- beambot 8y ago
  Be careful that you don't mistake outliers from the norm.
- rahoulb 8y ago
  Rails and the books were both byproducts of 37 Signals (ie stuff they were doing anyway, so they released it to the public - not that that is cost-free, but it's not as intensive as doing it from scratch). And cars are his hobby.

Dowwie 8y ago

I collect spores, molds, and fungus.

pavel_lishin 8y ago
You and my apartment have some things in common.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
trentnix 8y ago
Ghostbusters!
jzawodn 8y ago
"Egon... your mucus..."

cyberferret 8y ago

+100 on the advice in the article. I work from home and my home office space is actually 50/50 an area where I can do development work, plus a music studio. I literally have to turn my chair around 180 degrees to go from my PC & laptop to a rack of guitars and amps. Makes it easy during those long compile cycles or waiting for an up/download to just reach back and grab a guitar and noodle away for a bit. And to actually get out of the house every now and then for a brain refresh, I recently took up Kendo as a sport as well.

robotkdick 8y ago

When you don’t take a step back, you get caught in the startup echo chamber. Your brain needs a break. About six months ago, I started baking artisan bread as an offset to writing code. Now, while I work fewer hours, I get more done, and I feel healthier. I bake two loaves at a time and give one to neighbors. They absolutely love it, and I have to say, the bread is very good.

t3h2mas 8y ago
Do you have a go-to recipe?

mirko22 8y ago

So how come this is specific to founders of companies? And I am not conviced having side projects as a fronted developer makes you a better developer unless you push yourself really hard. What is more likely to make you better developer in any job is working with people who have a lot of experience and are willing to share it. So not necessarily a hobby, or you have to spend a lot of time yourself to discover and think about a lot of concepts, at which point is not really a hobby, more like college. And i would argue also about hiking being a hobby, i never go hiking, but i love walking around the city like a maniac, is that a hoby? oh well maybe, but i’d say it would be more correct to say that you need to relax and gain strength for next working day, how exactly to do it you have to findout for yourself cos not everyone is the same...

dheera 8y ago

I cannot believe people haven't come to this realization yet. I actually feel my brain rotting away when I don't spend time actively pursuing goals outside of work. To me hobbies are as important, if not more important, than your day job. Before you down-vote me, please understand that I'm someone who learned about 95% of my technical knowledge from fun and hobbies. Although I'm full-force into computer vision, machine learning, and robotics in the company I'm co-founding, I wouldn't know any of that stuff if I weren't building robots to chase cats and deliver toilet paper, training algorithms to classify free food e-mails, and toying with neural net ideas 10 years ago when I was an physics undergrad (no, I didn't major in CS -- that was my hobby). And I wouldn't have been a physics undergrad if I hadn't spent hours at night back in high school studying physics and differential equations secretly while my parents thought I had gone to bed already. Likewise, what I do 10 years from now will depend heavily on the things I learn and ponder on nights and weekends today. It would effectively be the end of my life and career if I didn't have, and insist on having, that time to myself now. I'll also add as very much an introvert I absolutely must have sufficient disconnected / off-the-grid / "me" time to recuperate. Like food and water, that's largely non-negotiable beyond occasional stretches of a day or two. I'd probably go into clinical depression if I was forced to be in front of people all day for extended periods of time.

BeetleHead77 8y ago

The comment section is really rich with insights.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

bakli 8y ago

I've recently (since about 5 months) started learning Piano (or rather, keyboard) and I've looked forward to playing it everyday. It's relaxing and helps me reduce the stress. Plus, it helps me get out of my comfort zone and give me wonderful new perspective on things. And for the past 2 months, I am also taking tennis lessons, and they've had unexpected positive influences on my life. I am waking early everyday to play, I've improved my stamina, and I get a solid sleep at the end of the day because physical activity tires out over the day and you easily sleep. 10/10 would recommend hobbies to all.

criddell 8y ago
Are you taking piano lessons? I'm trying to learn guitar and although I mostly enjoy it, I can't say I look forward to my 30 minutes of practice each day (although once I'm going I usually go long).
- bakli 8y ago
  Yes, I am. But from a Youtube channel called "Hoffman Academy". It's aimed at kids below 15, but I like it.