In my experience people are usually far less passionate about making a bunch of money than they think they are (there are those who really are passionate about the abstract idea of making money or are truly passionate about some derived benefit- but they have to work a lot harder to avoid becoming an... unsavory person). We conflate our desire to generate and create value and wealth- which tends to be subjective at a deep level- with generating income.

Scott wrote for the perspective of success = money, appropriate for the publication and to some degree reflective of his personal passions, but I suspect that most HN users are more interested in the act of creation. Money / being rich remains a very, very powerful method of validation and obviously a primary source of "potential creation" and to a lesser degree freedom- but for at least "makers" it is a mistake to confuse it for a fulfilling passion.

Yeah, the problem is, no matter how good you are at doing something, there is somebody somewhere who is just as good or maybe better at the same thing, and he or she likes it. That person will kick your ass if you follow Scott Adams's advice.

(Advice that he apparently learned from an anonymous lending officer at a bank that isn't around anymore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocker_National_Bank)

" I've worked on projects that I've not been passionate about ..... and I always end up throwing in the towel and moving on"

I've been there. And I have to say you'd be surprised how passionate you get when you get reinforced with money and something works. My guess is that had some of the projects you worked on hit in a satisfying way you would have found great joy and that would have made you more passionate.

But what if the project did make you super rich? You might find some interest, and could hire someone to do the drudge work. I think that's the key to his argument.

I suspect there's truth to both sides of this argument, and you can find a personal anecdote to believe either one. But unless you've actually hit success and walked away, I don't think you can wholly discount the Adams/banker approach.

I had somewhat of a Tiger Mom. She forced me to do multiplication tables while my friends were still onaddition, learn guitar while my peers were learning basketball, play chess while the other kids were playing video games, watch Bill Nye while everyone else was watching Nickelodeon. And I hated it, to some degree I hated my parents for it.

Until I realized all these SKILLS made me really fucking successful compared to everybody else my age. And all of a sudden I had passion. Passion for math, passion for learning, passion for science and technology and programming and computers. Ultimately, those skills instilled within me the passion that leads to me writing this post on Hacker News today.

And I thank my Tiger Mom for that every chance I get.

Conversely, I enjoy learning to do things, and after that magic has worn off I get bored.

Written enough code to put a 3D texture mapped model on the screen? That's enough for me.

Finally made a perfect batch of eclairs? I won't make any more.

That depends entirely on the child - my eldest is a perfectionist and hates being bad at something, the youngest is quite happy doing the activity, even if she isn't very good at it.

Tiger Mom doesn't follow the path of least resistance, and uses emotional and physical abuse to enforce compliance. That the child might achieve enjoyment at the endpoint is only one of many possible outcomes.