Should You Follow Your Passion? – Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel

TL;DR

The video argues that founders often build a startup around a cool technology (solution in search of a problem) because they are extrinsically motivated by investor approval, peer validation, and following trends. This leads to failure because real startup success requires intrinsic motivators—working on something you would do even without money or recognition.

Key insights

• The failure mode "solution in search of a problem" occurs when founders start with a cool technology and try to find a market for it second.
• Founders trained in school are rewarded for accomplishing tasks and doing what smart friends do, not for having independent opinions about problems; they replicate this model in startups.
• "Follow your passion" often leads people to choose global, abstract problems they do not encounter daily (e.g., the environment) — problems they cannot tell if they are improving.