Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the motives behind individuals’ choice to haveparallel business-employment careers (hybrid entrepreneurship) with a particular focus on passion(i.e. to work with something one is passionate about) as the main motive.Design/methodology/approach – A survey was administered to 262 Swedish hybridentrepreneurs. Hypotheses proposed associations of the individual’s age at business start-up andweekly hours spent on the business with passion as the main motive for the hybrid form. Logisticregression was used to test the hypotheses.Findings – The results indicated that first, the ability to work with something one is passionate aboutis the top motive for combining employment with a side business; second, passion is more likely to bethe main motive behind the hybrid form among individuals who are older at business start-up; third,passion is less likely to be the main motive behind the hybrid form among individuals who spend moretime on the business.Research limitations/implications – The study focusses on passion as motive for hybridentrepreneurship, and in doing so, it does not test the extent to which hybrid entrepreneurs experiencepassion.Practical implications – The results support the popular notion that passion drives people to haveparallel business-employment careers. Findings indicating that passion as a motive is more commonamong those who are older at start-up and less common among those who spend more time onthe business suggest the importance of acknowledging hybrid entrepreneurs’ various profiles whenapproaching them in research and practice.Originality/value – This is the first study on motives behind hybrid entrepreneurship.