The CEO and upper management do loads to steer the ship. If all they care about is enriching themselves, they will likely struggle to find developers who are in it for the passion.

Look at Google. It is a late-stage, post-IPO business that’s now, frankly, ran by the CFO with a CEO who cares only about the board and an ever-increasing stock number.

The people who have passion left for the most part. Replaced by those who only seek to enrich themselves and climb the perf ladder.

Would those who have passion stuck around if Google was ran by people who still had passion? I’d imagine a much greater number of them would still be there.