Should founders choose ventures based on personal passion rather than optimizing purely for profitability?

Paul Graham · published Apr 2005

A startup must pursue money as its first priority; if the goal is to be cool and maybe make money, it is unlikely to make money at all.

Making money is hard enough that it can't happen by accident, and divided loyalties undermine the launch.

Scope: doesn't require doing disgusting work like spamming or patent litigation

source Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas

Paul Graham · published Apr 2005

The dominant flaw in the Summer Founders Program applications is that most groups never asked which of all the things they could do has the best chance of making money.

Scope: based on the 227 applications

source Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas

Palmer Luckey · published Sep 28, 2020

Oculus's financial success was a happy coincidence of passion meeting timing, whereas with Anduril he deliberately picked an area where he knew a lot of money could be made

He worked on VR as a hobby for years with no money story until investors required one; with Anduril he set out to work on something he knew could succeed

5:02 20VC: Anduril Founder, Palmer Luckey: "I Am Here To Build a $50Bn Company", How Palmer Evaluates His Relationship To Money Pre & Post Oculus' $2.3Bn Exit & Why The US DOD Needs To Be More Like China in It's Approach

Dominik Richter · published Dec 1, 2023

Founders should build a business in an area they are genuinely passionate about.

You will always hit rough stretches, and it is far easier to get out of bed in the morning through them when you truly care about what you are doing.

5:38 20VC: HelloFresh CEO on Why When You Raise VC You Only Have Two Options, Why Your IPO Price is Irrelevant, Why Timing is So Important in Going Public & Why D2C is Not Dead with Dominik Richter

Jack Zhang · published May 27, 2025

Making money is not what makes you happy; you should pursue the business you are genuinely passionate about rather than optimize a profitable one you don't care about

He started 10+ businesses, achieved financial security, and concluded he didn't like any of them; he wanted to use his engineering skills to create amplified impact at scale

Scope: assumes financial security is already handled

18:09 20VC: The Most Insane Story in Startups: Airwallex: The Angel That Turned $1M into $1BN | The Fund That Pulled a Term Sheet & Lost $1BN | Rejecting Stripe's $1.2BN Offer | Scaling to $1BN in Revenue & 100% YoY Growth for 8 Years with Jack Zhang

Paul Graham · published May 2004

Aspiring wealth creators should be especially skeptical of business plans centered on things they personally enjoy, because that is where their sense of value least likely matches other people's.

Wealth in the money sense is defined by what other people will pay for, which depends on them, not you.

source Be skeptical of plans centered on what you personally enjoy since your value sense wont match others

Paul Graham · published Nov 2012

Because a startup is a business whose point is making money, founders cannot expect to spend all their time working on what interests them most.

The money-making constraint limits how much you can follow interest.

source Moneymaking purpose of a startup limits how much founders can follow pure interest