You Don’t Need ”Passion” to Build a $1B+ Company | Pilot CEO Waseem Daher

2026-02-12

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"I think the mission basically doesn't matter."Waseem Daher, CEO of Pilot (and South Park Commons alum), has a contrarian theory about what actually drives startup success—and it's not passion for the problem you're solving. Waseem joins General Partner Aditya Agarwal to unpack the real patterns behind building companies: why his "thinking time" after Dropbox was torture, why he believes passion is an output rather than an input, and why the conventional wisdom on hiring and delegation is dangerously wrong. Waseem Daher: htt...

"I think the mission basically doesn't matter."

Waseem Daher, CEO of Pilot (and South Park Commons alum), has a contrarian theory about what actually drives startup success—and it's not passion for the problem you're solving.

Waseem joins General Partner Aditya Agarwal to unpack the real patterns behind building companies: why his "thinking time" after Dropbox was torture, why he believes passion is an output rather than an input, and why the conventional wisdom on hiring and delegation is dangerously wrong.

Waseem Daher: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wdaher/
Aditya Agarwal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adityaagarwal3/
South Park Commons: https://www.linkedin.com/company/southparkcommons/

Apply to SPC: https://www.southparkcommons.com/apply

Chapters:

(00:00:37) - Intro

(00:02:57) - Why mission doesn't matter

(00:12:36) - Waseem’s miserable time after Dropbox

(00:16:10) - Testing vs sitting around brainstorming

(00:31:38) - The case for micromanagement

(00:34:05) - How LLMs are changing company creation and scaling

(00:37:42) - The mindset shift that makes startups energizing

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