Interesting Things to Build in The Future Part 1: Increased Free Time
The year is 2025, and you’re working from home today and just spent the morning playing pickleball with your local athleisure group. You are preparing to write and produce episode 12 of your Family Guy spin-off. Life is good.
Today, I want to write about the future. It is not a fun writing exercise, and it has been brutal trying to get my thoughts into words, but I think it is important. With all of the recent advances in AI, with the move to remote work, and with the aging out of the boomer generation and their social norms, I think we are on the brink of a huge cultural shift, which will affect everything and provide a lot of exciting opportunities for today’s startups. I will make some predictions, highlight some trends that I think will continue, and ultimately provide some insight into some areas I would like to spend time in during my next role.
The future is big and confusing, and so are my thoughts on it. In an attempt to keep this digestible and coherent, I left out some things I am excited about and have split my thoughts into three separate blog posts talking about three overarching trends: 1. Increased free time, 2. Longing for belonging, and 3. The future of content.
In each post, I will talk about the underlying tailwinds, then discuss what I think it will look like in the future. Finally, I will mention some interesting problems I think startups could tackle and highlight some current startups working in the space.
Welcome to post number 1:
Increased Free Time
Over the last 150 years, the entire world has seen a pretty dramatic decline in annual working hours.
There are a couple of things that I think will continue to accelerate this trend:
- Hybrid work
- Changes in work-life balance
- Technological advancements
Since the pandemic, hybrid work has become the norm for many professionals. Rather than spending time commuting to an office and then hours on end in an office pretending to be busy, people are now free to tackle their work on their own schedule, freeing up additional time in their day to focus on other activities.
In parallel to the hybrid work trend, we have seen the increased rhetoric around the importance of work-life balance. Many companies encourage a strict “sign off” time where no additional meetings can be scheduled. And some companies have even been shifting to a four-day workweek model.
Finally, with the rise in AI, additional time is unlocked by its ability to eliminate our decision paralysis. One of the negatives from tech over the last couple of years is that the abundant decisions leave you stuck. This reminds me of the Master of None episode, where Aziz spends hours trying to locate the best taco in NYC.
I would imagine that all of us have experienced something similar. AI is going to change this. I recently read Packy McCormick’s “The Enchanted Notebook”, which is really when all of this clicked for me.
ChatGPT is the Apex Aggregator — it will aggregate the aggregators. And because it owns the customer relationship, because it has attention, it won’t have to spend the $7.8 billion per year that Booking Holdings has to!
Prospective travelers won’t go to Google and search “hotels in Mexico City,” intent that Booking Holdings must pay to acquire; they’ll go to ChatGPT and say, “I like up and coming neighborhoods, nice accommodations, authentic food, lively atmospheres, and first class flights as long as they’re reasonable. My budget is $8k, and I’m traveling with my husband. Can you plan us a 7-day trip in Mexico City and make all the bookings?”
The next travel app will book everything for you, with no decision necessary. The next weight loss app will map out your meals and schedule ingredient deliveries. The next Netflix will start playing shows automatically based on your Twitter feed, your friends watching preferences, and your stated desires.
For the last 15 years, tech has been about increasing information and optionality. The next generation will be defined by technology making decisions for us based on our stated goals.
I think this shift is largely productive for society. With the increased free time, people can pursue other interesting activities, giving them a sense of purpose. While there is a risk that this leads to just more Netflix, through other technological revolutions, people tend to focus at least a part of their time on productive pursuits.
We have already begun to see the effect of this free time on people. The most evident example is the explosion of side hustles. We have all seen the TikToks of the guy who tells you you can make $100k a month by drop shipping. We know in our hearts that this is clickbait, and this guy is probably just trying to sell you some online course, but a tiny part of us wants to believe it. And it has a dramatic influence on kids. According to a Junior Achievement USA and the Allstate Foundation survey, 53% of teens reported having a side hustle in 2020, up from 44% in 2019.
On top of side hustles, people are using their free time to pursue creative activities. In a survey of 2,000 Americans conducted by OnePoll, 75% of respondents said they had pursued a creative hobby during the pandemic. Another study conducted by LinkedIn found that 40% of respondents were interested in pursuing a side hustle, with many citing the desire for more creative expression or a sense of purpose as motivators.
In addition to side hustles and creative pursuits, people now have the time to dedicate to self-improvement, whether learning a new subject, focusing on physical health, or focusing on mental health. According to a survey by the American Psychological Association, 42% of Americans reported that they had increased their exercise levels since the start of the pandemic. A study by Headspace found that 70% of Americans surveyed said they have been more mindful since the beginning of the pandemic, with meditation being a popular way to achieve mindfulness.
This generation is committed to constant learning, improvement, and a search for purpose. Gone are the days of working for the weekend. Social media has proven that you can chase passions and extract happiness and meaning from your daily actions.
Given these trends, there are two main buckets of tools that I am interested in.
Enabling side hustles
With side hustles, people need help organizing their activities. This opens the door for companies like LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer, which help you quickly set up LLCs, and companies like Notion, Airtable, and SMB SaaS tools that help people stay organized.
People’s professional identity is also quite different than in 2002 when LinkedIn was born. I think we will see additional platforms aiming to disrupt LinkedIn by facilitating collaboration amongst creators and designed for the next generation of the workforce. Companies like Polywork are already laying the groundwork for this shift.
Self-improvement assistance
As people work to continue learning and better themselves, companies like Duolingo can continue to succeed. I also think we will see an explosion of companies similar to MasterClass, but more personalized, where people are paired given their complementary expertise and can help teach each other new skills. These could take various forms, focused on the skill, like companies like the Brilliant app, or more on the social element.
Thank you for making it this far! If you are working on something in this space, I would love to chat. I will be back with part 2 shortly.
