Amazon founder Jeff Bezos famously remarked that whenever he spoke with entrepreneurs interested in working with the tech giant he was always looking for "missionaries" rather than "mercenaries". He believed that the best startups had founders that were focused on making great products or services that would fundamentally change the world for the better. The money side would then largely take care of itself.
One might imagine that such intrinsic motivation is even more prevalent among social entrepreneurs, who by their very definition are focused primarily on improving various social, environmental, or cultural issues. It's a heuristic that's examined in recent research from HEC Paris, which sets out to understand what motivates social entrepreneurs, writes Forbes.