Do The Smartest People Predict The Future?
I explore whether the weekend curiosities of smart folks are the things that all of us do 10 years later.
The Teardown
Friday :: December 20th, 2024 :: Approx. 5 min read
👋 Hi, this is Chris with another issue of The Teardown. In every issue, I cover how we interact with technology that powers our day-to-day lives.
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Do you have hobbies?
If yes, have you ever converted one of those hobbies into a business?
Maybe you collected rare model train cars and created a marketplace focused on and devoted to train car hobbyists.
Or, you love working with wood, grew up splashing and surfing in ocean waves, and now sell custom surfboard fins. (PS: check out my friend Josh’s custom fins at that link, I earn nothing. Just love them)
One of my favorite websites started as Randy Nonnenberg’s hobby project. He bought and sold vintage cars and wanted to make those transactions easier. He started BringATrailer, a classic and collectible car auction platform that now does over $1B in sales.
A hobby, to start.
And, a breakthrough site.
BringATrailer began when it was already possible to buy and sell cars through EBay, and the old-fashioned way at dealers and live auctions.
BringATrailer created a focused product for a rabid market and countless iconic collector items. The online auction model now spans numerous sites and auction types, and is a key cog in today’s collector car marketplace.
Chris Dixon at Andressen Horowitz described this phenomenon in software:
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.
But who has hobbies? Lots of people think they don’t. I can’t validate every claim for or against the presence of hobbies. Hobbies require time.
Let me answer the question this way: I have hobbies. Or, so says my wife. Here are a few:
I write this newsletter. I write otherwise too. Writing is a hobby. It started in high school, growing out of my broader history as a musician.
I like technical things. I read about code, about databases, about stitching together systems, about tinkering in a dark terminal.
I’m an engine nerd. That means cars, by extension, but my truer interest is the engine. How does it work? Why design it one way or another? Why use one engine in a particular car over another?
Drums. I don’t play professionally. The same is true of guitar and keyboard.
With those hobbies in my repertoire, am I somehow smarter? Chris Dixon expanded on his idea (emphasis mine):
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.
I thought Dixon’s almost 12-year-old assertion was quite bold. I’m doing whatever the smartest people (still, today) were doing 10 years ago.
Was I doing something 10 years ago that everyone does now?
In a way, yes. 10 years ago I was working in Nashville, part of a team that built and automated all sorts of work around measuring and communicating insurance risk to capital markets investors.
I wrote a lot of SQL and Python code. I tinkered on weekends to be better.
And today, both are ubiquitous in the world of data. Anyone working in any sort of data-focused or adjacent job touched those two languages at some point. They may still use them today, too.
Was Chris Dixon right about the hobbies he observed?
NoSql
Yes, absolutely. It is used all over the place. Non-relational databases are often behind heavy traffic consumer websites like Facebook.
Internet of Things
IBM describes them this way:
IoT devices—also known as “smart objects”—can range from simple “smart home” devices like smart thermostats, to wearables like smartwatches and RFID-enabled clothing, to complex industrial machinery and transportation systems. Technologists are even envisioning entire “smart cities” predicated on IoT technologies.
I think this answer is mixed. Lots of stuff in day-to-day life falls under that broad definition. But many IoT devices are in the background. IoT is not a career track ubiquitous across my friends. No one proactively talks about their IoT devices.
3D Printing
Other than very recent unfortunate popularity (i.e. UnitedHealthCare story), I’m not sure?
What does this Google Trends graph say to you?
Not much, to me. More awareness ov time, yes.
Touch Free Human/Computer Interfaces
Alexa and voice assistants aren’t overwhelmingly large product categories compared to lots of initial predictions.
VR Googles aren’t owned by everyone. Not even close to everyone.
What am I missing?
Artisan Hardware
I’m not sure I understand this category.
Do you know what a Raspberry Pi is? If not, you probably don’t have artisan hardware in your house.
I suspect most of your friends don’t either.
What do you think the most curious or smart people are doing today that will be ubiquitous in 10 years?