This paper investigates the impact of perceived passion of a founder on potential co-founders’ decision to join or not a venture team. Employing a conjoint experiment, we find that co-founders are less likely to join when they perceive that the founder has obsessive passion for: (1) the founder’s individual vision, (2) the engagement in multiple unrelated ventures, and (3) the achievement of high performance at all costs. Co-founders are more likely to join, when they perceive that the founder has obsessive passion for (4) improving team members’ capabilities increases. Further, co-founders’ self-esteem moderates the impact of perceived obsessive passion. These findings provide important theoretical implications for the role of passion in team formation."