[MattLaroche]

Passion cannot be faked. And you can't buy true passion. Even if someone offered me $10 billion a year to do something, I'd be passionate about the money and not about my job (well, unless my job is interesting). As others have said, if you can't give high base pay, give equity. Heck, give equity anyway. Ownership helps with passion.

Give someone interesting an interesting problem. Don't hire assholes (in fact, fire assholes). Create a community where genuine mistakes aren't a big deal to their employment (and avoid cover your ass) and the passion will come. Support creativity, support big ideas, support some of the random, one off ideas that come out of creative people (easter eggs, hack weeks) and it'll pay for itself.