It was a software startup run by someone with a management consulting background (won't make that mistake again), and since the founder/CEO didn't know how to filter good programmers, he just sought "passion" and "fire in the belly" thinking that would make great developers.
Of course, employment situations like this can be "hacked" by doing little Dilbert-esque things like closing ticket tasks at night rather than during the day to make it look like you're working later since the system sends emails to the management. That turned out to be one of my most productive career moves, which meant it was time for me to find a new job.
As the saying goes, programming is not a what, but a how. Hackers don't get passionate about the act of coding any more than carpenters get passionate about driving nails.
I'm interested in programming as a tool to give myself a clearer mental model of language, mathematics, computation, and thought, and I'm interested in writing and reading code that I find artistically aesthetic and elegant.
(Then again, I wouldn't call myself a 'hacker'. I think 'hacker' implies a large degree of making-cool-stuffmanship.)
Which isn't to say they aren't interested in technique. After all, carpenters still like to geek out over tools once in awhile . . .
[edit: well, wikipedia has a whole pile of different things listed under carpentry, so perhaps i remember wrong, or this was a local thing (my grandfather was an odd-job man in leeds, uk)]
[edit2: ah, perhaps the distinction was between carpenters and joiners, which is explained here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joiner - and is a uk-only thing. certainly "joiner" is a word i remember, but that you don't hear any more...]
And also, just like carpenters, the tools they use.
There is real truth in the quote:
Passion is fleeting, transient, momentary on the timescales that achievement requires.
You can certainly dance around the issue and claim that passion is in fact the same as interest, but then you're redefining well-established connotations in order to do an end-around on the guy's main thesis and shoot it down a priori.
Those of us who think a passion for programming is important for programmer take it to mean a fondness or desire to do it. It fulfills a non-temporary need.
The point is that the guy did an end-around of what others meant in his main thesis. It only makes sense to shoot it down a priori.
It is the same as if someone had said 'I think programmers should have passion!' and I responded 'well, i think that is a little harsh, programmers shouldn't have to suffer!'