It’s a dream of many hobbyists: turning their leisure pursuits into a lucrative business. That’s what happened for MIT graduate Limor Fried, whose pastime—tinkering with electronics—not only gave rise to a profitable company, but also positioned her as a leader of a technology revolution.

Since childhood, Fried has built, tweaked, and otherwise modified (or “hacked”) electronic devices, sometimes creating her own unique gadgets. Eventually, at MIT and beyond, she would sell these products—while freely sharing their design plans online—through her startup, Adafruit Industries.

Now, following that formula, Adafruit has become a multimillion-dollar company that’s been called a leader in the open-source hardware industry. And Fried, now Adafruit’s CEO, is lauded as a pioneer of the “maker movement,” a rising culture emphasizing do-it-yourself technology that has proved to be a profitable niche.

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