[xyzelement]

Whenever this topic comes up, there's this sort of assumption that passion must be impractical, but I actually find that the "best" people are ones that find a way to be passionately engaged in things that happen to deliver a lot of financial value to themselves and others.

I would say that I am passionate about solving problems with technology - I was coding since GWBASIC on a Soviet 286 when I was 8 years old. I am in product now and I still get fired up about solving problems for my users and clients.

But...

I was also able to channel this passion into lucrative fields. If you asked me 2 decades ago if my passion is derivatives trading software, I'd say no. But turns out this field gave me plenty of space to be creative, enthusiastic, and engaged while giving me and my family a good life. And also I can connect my work to important things (eg: helping asset managers generate good returns for pension funds)

To be honest, I'd hesitate to hire someone who is just all about open source, because if they don't care (that much) about financial impact of their work on their own life, I can't rely on them to care about the financial impact of their software on my company's success either, and I guess it just feels like impractical/unpragmatic decision making.