I love kite surfing and mountain bike riding. It's kind of interesting; my kite surfing ability has probably deteriorated with the rate of Kaggle's success.
Business analytics or predictive modelling is a $100 billion industry, and $41 billion is spent on outsourced business analytics every year. I think that's about twice the size of the movie industry - it's really big.
Startup stories are always smoother in the telling than they are in reality. A startup is not one, but a series of 'Aha!' moments, and some which seem like 'Aha!' moments but turn out not to be.