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Comment by cameronlpm | Hacker News Reader

I'm an outdoors enthusiast like yourself and feel similarly, but I would wager that the average tech employee is not an outdoorsman/adventurist/athlete, and might not have any hobbies at all aside from spending time with family, watching TV, playing video games, infinitely scrolling on their phones, etc. Also, a lot of these SF headquarters are really nice office spaces with all of the perks (free food mostly) versus the average home office. I have to imagine a lot of people enjoy their offices simply because it's nicer than the space they live in.

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I only have a limited selection bias based on where I work, but it seems like there is disproportionately more athletes in these highly competitive companies in the bay area than I've seen elsewhere.

This person was division I MIT crew, this person runs 200mi ultra-marathons, many coworkers have done an Ironman or two, many are cycling 100+mi/wk, many are running marathons or 10mi a day at sub six-minute pace.

Where I grew up the number for any of these things would be zero, but here it feels common. I'd guess partly highly selective entry from top schools biases towards people that are also athletes, or that there's some positive correlation with competitive/ambitious people and making sure to exercise. I suspect the normal no-exercise indoorsy stereotype is actually wrong when compared to other people on average.

This is my experience as well, atleast among younger employees. Presumably the older employees that have kids don't have as much time for hobbies/passions like that.

Fitness and being fit—especially the right fitness activities—has become a major status/class thing. Lots of articles about it over the last, oh, decade or so, which might pass for documentation of the phenomenon, plus what you can see if you've just been looking around and paying attention to trends, media, and marketing.

Yeah I think there’s definitely a class element.

You don’t see people bulking up and lifting heavy, it’s all time intensive endurance sports that make you thin.

Sports and physical activity (especially competitive ones) have always been a component of upper class education. Soundness of body and mind, less fear of standing out and clashing, greater status, more attractive image.

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