Actually, the Olympic athlete has it all. It is extremely rare to achieve greatness through stick-to-it-ivness without it having a meaning deep into your core.

Actually, the Olympic athlete has it all. It is extremely rare to achieve greatness through stick-to-it-ivness without it having a meaning deep into your core. Lots of programmers work long hours week after week without wanting anything other than a paycheque. They write zillions of lines of COBOL or PL/1 or MUMPS or Visual Basic year after year. Yet they are mere worker bees, their contribution is to do as they are told and that's it. Passion is not entirely orthogonal to the result. And further to your discussion of PhDs, there are many PhDs whose work contributes little of importance to history. The great dissertations are from those who are passionate and dedicated. Sure, enthusiasm by itself is not helpful. Nobody serious about hiring hires passion without anything else. But I haven't read anybody saying "Hire people who are enthusiastic without accomplishing anything." So why argue that point? The OP makes the point that passion correlates negatively with performance. This is bunk.