As someone who loathes any kind of drama and deliberately stuffs down my own emotional reactions as a result, this would screw me every time. My natural response is to avoid getting outwardly excited.

Excitement for the company can be shown outside of emotional reactions, like writing a very company-specific cover letter, or writing a thank you email after the interview.

I have rejected candidates for that. When you're hiring for a startup it's absolutely vital to have people who believe in the mission and the product and not just doing the bare minimum for a paycheck. If that's all you want, go work for the government, or Facebook.

>it's absolutely vital to have people who believe in the mission and the product and not just doing the bare minimum for a paycheck

Allow me to translate: work indiscriminately long hours in their prime years to make someone else rich from a product or service that will close up shop as soon as the VC money dries up.

Hard disagree. I’d encourage you to reflect on your startup’s culture and figure out what distinguishes a good engineer from a good engineer who can convince you about their passion.

Usually, it’s when startups want employees to work longer hours than the value the they’re calculating on receiving from the equity+pay that’s being offered.

Facebook has the same vital requirement that you believe in its mission. You wouldn't make it past the screening stage if you didn't care about that.

What exactly is Facebook's "mission"? Would I be screened in if I firmly believed in invading people's privacies?

That depends. Is an ICE vehicle manufacturer's mission to pollute the Earth's air or is it to make safe, comfortable, and affordable transportation?

Safe? Air pollution has been estimated to kill about 200,000 Americans per year.

With the recent VW scandal of modifying software to cheat at pollution tests we can eliminate safe in for that company.

Anyone remember when Ford accountants calculated that a Pinto defect in which people would burn to death would be more expensive to fix than the lawsuits so they decided to not recall the car?

"Profit from selling cars" would be a much more honest mission statement for most of them.

Its mission to sell advertising? People on both sides are lying when this question gets asked and answered.

So you hire good actors/liars?