Agreed - passion is great when aligned with the business direction, but can be downright toxic when in conflict.

I can only concur, having someone who's extremely passionate about a project but whose vision diverges drastically from the project's leads is hell all around.

Given GP seems to indeed have quite divergent opinions about the product's focus:

> What bothered me about the platform was that I didn't know or connect with my teachers. I wanted to connect with members of my community and learn from them, instead of just digesting information from a black box.

then it's probably a better thing that they went and created their own version focused on what they think is important.

Its where "mac fanbois" or "BOFHs" come from...

I worked with a guy who was so mac focused he was blind to other tools/perspectives and it was often a friction point between team-members...

So many people like this just need a little dose of pragmatism. It helped my worldview immensely.

The problem is that this kind of idealism is often what kindles the passion for various programmings topics in quite some people.