Tag Archives: entrepreneur

Chris Dixon: The Smartest People Spend Their Weekends On 3D Printing

Chris Dixon 3D Printing

Chris Dixon is a serial entrepreneur and currently an investor with venture capital firm Andreesson Horowitz. In his personal blog, he writes that what the smartest people are working on as a hobby today will be what defines industry in 10 years. 3D printing is among the few industries he selects.

What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years?

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.

It probably goes without saying that we very much agree!

Facebook Investor Peter Thiel Backs 3D Printing Entrepreneur

Peter Thiel 3D Printing

Peter Thiel, the entrepreneur-investor who co-founded PayPal and was an early investor in Facebook, today announced the 2012 class of Thiel Fellows. This set of 20 young entrepreneurs are under 20 years old and embarking on ambitious technical and scientific projects. Thiel will be awarding them with $100,000 each as well as mentorship from his network of investors, entrepreneurs, scientists and innovators.

“Pundits and hand-wringers love to claim that universities are the only path to a successful life. In truth, an inquisitive mind, rigorously applied to a deep-rooted problem can change the world as readily as the plushest academic lab,” said Thiel. “In 1665 when Cambridge University closed due to the plague, Isaac Newton used his time away to pursue self-directed learning and ended up inventing calculus. The drive to make a difference is what truly matters.”

Projects pursued by this class of fellows span numerous areas of cutting edge technology, including energy, robotics, 3D printing, biotechnology and medical breakthroughs, software and digital communication, education, public health, artificial intelligence, and open source ecology.

“We continue to be blown away by the quality of ideas coming from 20 Under 20 applicants,” said Jonathan Cain, president of the Thiel Foundation. “The mentors in the Thiel Network are very excited to work with the 2012 class as they explore new frontiers, experience the setbacks and successes of entrepreneurial pursuits, and begin changing the world one idea at a time.”

We were very excited to see 3D printing as a primary focus of one of the entrepreneurs, Chris Olah.

Chris Olah (19, Toronto, ON, Canada) wants to use 3D printing to reduce the scope of scarcity. His goal: empower anyone with a 3D printer to make educational aids, basic scientific equipment, and tools that improve their quality of life. He is currently working on a project called ImplicitCAD, which is a math-based attempt to reinvent computer-aided design and make it more affordable.

Chris, pictured below presented at Maker Faire NYC, was gracious on Twitter upon being accepted into Thiel’s program.

“I’m pleased to be one of this year’s Thiel Fellows. I’ll be working on crazy 3D printing, functional programming, language design, and math.”

Chris Olah 3D Printing Enterpreneur

Good luck to Chris and the rest of the class!

 

Via MarketWatch.

Peter Thiel photo by thekenyeung used under Creative Commons license.