. Glass-blowing, welding, pottery-making and other art forms have also taken off.
Venture capitalist Arielle Zuckerberg, one of Mark’s younger sisters, and several others recently convened 40 friends at a Lake Tahoe compound for Learning Man. The weekend, complete with custom swag, was a studious play on Burning Man; attendees taught one another how to sew, DJ, whip up the perfect French omelet and more.
That’s also a big part of the attraction of woodworking, says Neil Gershgorn, 37, who owns Clayroom. A software engineer, for example, can publish code and then debug it as long as necessary. Whereas, Gershgorn notes that “if you make a mistake with your chisel … it’s completely done.” Working slowly and deliberately can be difficult for people who are trained to focus on speed and efficiency.