Often times they demand that you uphold the fiction in order to work for them, which makes for fun social experiments in deflating mass self-delusion.

Them: "We just really want to find people who are passionate about this work and these tools!"

Me: "Anybody who is telling you they're 'passionate' about making yet-another-dashboards-as-a-service product on top of a tired old Java Spring software stack is lying to you."

Them: "So you're not passionate about dashboards or Java?"

Me: "No. No I am not. What I am is capable of fixing your performance and scale problems so that you don't lose your reference customers and destroy any chance you have at acquisition or IPO. Look on the bright side. At least I'm not lying to you."

Them: "Oh. I see."

Me: "I'm passionate about making money."