Let me share a short story with you:
Yesterday I met with a serial entrepreneur for breakfast (he sold four companies, one to Google, the other three to publicly traded companies — you get the picture); we talked about entrepreneurship and how, for a lot of people in Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship is this “cool thing to do” nowadays. They like the thought of it, they like talking about it, they like calling themselves “entrepreneur” or “founder” — but they don’t actually like the work all that much; they lack a real passion for it…
My friend described this as: These are the people who introduce their teammates as “this is my co-founder” instead of “this is Peter”. Like a woman who introduces the man on her side as “my fiancé” instead of his first name: She wants the husband but doesn’t care all that much about the man on her side per se.
Granted — the story is very black & white (and reality is obviously much more nuanced). But there is some truth in here which I observe as well. They are just not that many people out there who are deeply passionate, principled and do the things they are doing because they just want to do them. Which makes it so special when you find them. And by the way: They often also happen to be the ones who get the funding as they talk the talk and walk the walk (which shows).
I call these people: Heretics! :)