
Why founders need hobbies - mijustin
https://baremetrics.com/blog/why-founders-need-hobbies
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wallflower
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.

~~~
munificent
_> A true hobby is something that you don't do for money and that has no
deadlines attached._

I think that's a little too specific and doesn't fit a lot of hobbies. People
do often make a little money from their hobbies: fixing up and reselling old
cars, thrifting and selling on eBay, refinishing furniture, putting up videos
on YouTube.

Also, many hobbies have time-critical components. Even all-American pastimes
like sports require you to not miss the game.

I'd crystalize it like so: _A hobby is something you sink time into where
failure has no negative consequences_.

Since people like to pick nits here, that probably needs a couple of
qualifiers. The sunk time itself can be considered a negative consequence. And
the failure may have negative consequences within the hobby — if you
accidentally crush your ship in a bottle, you aren't gonna be happy.

But the negative consequences of failure don't bleed out into anything else in
your life. You have no _need_ to succeed. That encapsulation of failure is
what I think makes hobbies safe and thus encourage fun and a sense of play.

The reason it's so often disastrous to turn your hobby into a job is exactly
because of that reason: it means you are now adding real stakes to the game.
If you failed frequently and safely when it was a hobby, that was fine and you
might still love the hobby. Once those failures matter, it can upend the whole
cost/benefit calculation.

~~~
nostromo95
I think that definition is actually too general—ironing my shirts or mowing my
lawn might apply. I think some nod toward personal fulfillment needs to be
there.

~~~
clarkmoody
Append "and is also not a chore" :-)

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joshvm
> 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.

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robotkdick
_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
Do you have a go-to recipe?

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dheera
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.

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cyberferret
+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.

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foobaw
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
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
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.

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bakli
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
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
Yes, I am. But from a Youtube channel called "Hoffman Academy". It's aimed at
kids below 15, but I like it.

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mijustin
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
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
I feel as if attempting to start a side business in an unrelated field could
be considered as a hobby.

~~~
harlanji
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.

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Dowwie
I collect spores, molds, and fungus.

~~~
pavel_lishin
You and my apartment have some things in common.

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mirko22
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...

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linkmotif
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...

~~~
harlanji
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
Do you actually like working 12x6 or do you feel it’s the only way you’ll be
successful?

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wolco
12 to 6 sounds great. Would prefer 9 till 3.

~~~
navbaker
I took the parent comment to mean 12 hours, 6 days a week. Did he actually
mean he works 12-6?

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BeetleHead77
The comment section is really rich with insights.

