The Weirdest Hobbies of Tech Superstars

Much has been said about the enormous sum of money Larry Ellison spent to host the 34th America’s Cup, and the nearly equal enormous sum spent on his team to defend. But it turns out that Ellison is not alone in his indulgence.

He is among other tech icons that pursue unusual hobbies, sometimes regarded as weird, to unwind themselves from the stress of extraordinary jobs they do. Read on to know the 8 tech icons and their weird hobbies as compiled by Business Insider.

1. Larry Ellison: A yacht and boat fanatic
The co-founder and chief executive of Oracle Corporation is a yacht and boat fanatic. His boat team has completed its miraculous comeback and won the 2013 America’s Cup! Larry Ellison has owned several super-yachts: the 58 meter Lurssen yacht Ronin, the 75 meter Blohm and Voss yacht Katana, the 138 meter Lurssen yacht Rising Sun and now the 88 meter Feadship Musashi.

2. Jeff Bezos: Building 10,000-year clock
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is funding the construction of a gigantic, 10,000-year clock on his land, to remind us all to stay humble about how teeny-tiny our individual lives are.

3. Tim Armstrong: Sports fan
The CEO of AOL, is a lifelong sports fan. He skis, plays tennis and coaches his kids’ lacrosse and soccer teams. He owns the Boston Blazers, a National Lacrosse League team, and is an investor in the United Football League.

4. Bob Parsons: Hunts Elephants
The CEO of GoDaddy, has an notorious hobby: elephant hunting. Parsons sparked outrage in 2011 by releasing a video of him killing an elephant. Parsons got in touch with Mashable and told his side of the story. “I’ve been going to Africa for six years,” he says, “and I progressively became aware of the elephant situation and what a problem it is for the locals.” Animal rights activists have taken a harsh tone toward Parsons’ actions, saying there are many other ways the elephants could have been removed from the fields.

5. Sandy Lerner: loves jousting
She co-founded of Cisco Systems with then boyfriend Leonard Bosack. After leaving Cisco, she founded Urban Decay cosmetics. She decided to move to the exclusive enclave of Upperville, Virginia, in 1997 saying “because I could.” Among other things, Sandy thought it would be the perfect place to practice her hobby of jousting in period costume, which gives her “a chance to spear cabbages.” She owns lances, period costumes, and even an 800-acre farm in Virginia where she raises Shire horses for matches.

6. Steve Wozniak: loves Tesla
The co-founder of Apple, loves Tesla. If you check his Foursquare account, you’ll know he’s quite a frequent visitor to Tesla’s California charging station. He visited about 351 times.

7. Nick Ganju: plays music in parks
One of the founders of the online medical care scheduling service ZocDoc, plays music in parks and sometimes gets mistaken for a panhandler. When BI asked him what he does when he’s not running $700 million doctor appointment company, Ganju told us he’s a musician, and he often plays guitar for enjoyment at various public places in New York City.

8. Aaron Levie: The magic performer
You could refer to the CEO of enterprise cloud sharing company Box as ‘That Magic Guy.’ Aaron Levie became magic trick-obsessed as a kid, performed professionally for several years, his favourite trick involved disappearing into giant boxes, and disappearing coin trick. He still does tricks around the office.