Of course it is, but apparently the joke isn't very obvious. Yeah he's making fun of passion; he's using a hyperbole to illustrate the anti-passion he's talkin

Of course it is, but apparently the joke isn't very obvious. Yeah he's making fun of passion; he's using a hyperbole to illustrate the anti-passion he's talking about. He's not using a perfect logical argument to say that having passion is a bad thing; he's making a joke about people who are overtly passionate about their startup to the point where it blinds them to the forces outside themselves to which they should also be paying attention. I've struggled with this as well. My passions first and foremost are science, art, design, photography, literature, philosophy. I am not passionate about sitting behind a computer screen for 12 hours a day. I do it anyway because I want to build something of value and use my full potential to do so. Following my passion is not what I'm always doing with my time; sometimes I have to put my passions aside and get down to digging. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-be-of-use/ http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-be-of-use/ It is fun and illogical to joke about this: if I had my way I might be a nature photographer, following in the footsteps of David Muench, Galen Rowell, and Ansel Adams. I could make a modest living maybe, but it would be a hard path and it wouldn't scale—basically it wouldn't have the large impact I believe I have the potential to contribute using technology. Could I integrate all of this into my work? Of course. And I do. But if I was to follow that passion alone like a Ahab's whale, I may not reach something of true value: there's not a big problem to solve in the nature photography space. Or heck maybe there is, but probably not a good one, or maybe the market is already too crowded, or maybe that's too much of a niche. The point being: simply going after my passion isn't going to net me something of real value to the world. I have to widen my perspective a bit. In other words, I have to get off the couch and get dressed. That's the sarcastic joke. In fact, he linked to an article about the subject: http://venturevillage.eu/sweet-poison-of-the-internet http://venturevillage.eu/sweet-poison-of-the-internet -- It's pretty good. He's not saying "passion is always bad"—he's saying that passion is an inward pulling force, it blinds you to an outside perspective, and that you should be aware of that and balance your passion with the world at large. Excellent advice.