Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's amazing if one can claim with a straight face people should `absolutely` be paid for pet projects at work.
pet projects can still be relevant to work.. maybe you've been wanting to make some internal tool, etc
When I introduce this, my criterion is that whatever pet projects people work on during work hours should make the lives of people at the company better, if successful.
Beyond that, I don't care if it's cancer research, self-driving bicycles, an email client someone else at the company uses, or a script to automate some commonly performed actual work task.