You could argue that the pursuit of leisure created Silicon Valley as we know it. Atari was a gaming company. Apple's founders cut their teeth there. And the Apple II was largely bought because it supported games. I think this is one sense of Paul Graham's saying that toy problems are at the origins of great companies. Creativity driven by the sense of fun.
I think about the technical feat accomplished by Blizzard when they created World Of Warcraft. So much time, effort, money, and great minds working so that you could walk around in a virtual world with your friends.
You could argue that the pursuit of leisure created pretty much every business that ever existed. We create businesses to either deliver leisure, or automate things that aren't leisure.
