That's not what I said. I don't currently work on any side project. But I have a desire to and I like to think about and discuss project ideas. I assumed everyone is like this.

It's really oddly no. I know what you mean and its hard to word. But yeah there's not a "fundamental interest" like you'd expect.

All the stuff seems "obvious" in retrospect, like...oh...a lot of you went to MIT and did Computer Science because that's what people do but...you went to college to get a degree to get a job, you didn't necessarily become absorbed in it.

But then again most other tech jobs I've been in had that quality 100%. Life is weird.

(I'm a dropout from a state school with a 2.8 GPA, and I honestly don't know if I've ever felt more 'alien' anywhere other than Google.)