I think of all the people that have put in hard, boring work...
Those people didn't do their work because they figured it'd be neat if you could share your thoughts on the weather, kittens and startups with the world for free. They did it because it served a goal for them at the time - they were selfish.
DHH did Rails because he wanted a Ruby web framework. Linus did Linux because he wanted a free Unix for his PC. No, they didn't immediately set out to extract money from their efforts (although both did become wealthy from them), but that doesn't make them altruistic.
Avoid things that cost you right now and have only a small chance of providing a return later - I would argue that, despite hindsight being 20/20, both projects had a small chance of success. Sure, they did get notoriety for them, and that was good.
Oh, and Linus got money from Red Hat and VA Linux because they were grateful. I'd argue that they weren't optimizing for personal growth there, either.
Those people didn't do their work because they figured it'd be neat if you could share your thoughts on the weather, kittens and startups with the world for free. They did it because it served a goal for them at the time - they were selfish.
DHH did Rails because he wanted a Ruby web framework. Linus did Linux because he wanted a free Unix for his PC. No, they didn't immediately set out to extract money from their efforts (although both did become wealthy from them), but that doesn't make them altruistic.