Cargo Cult Startups

 Peter Thiel discusses his encounter with the mimetic theory of René Girard and its applications in his life, business, and thinking.

Peter Thiel has said that the best startups are like a cult that believes in something true.

Such a practical and useful instantiation of mimetic theory.

“Girard discovered that we come to desire many things not through biological drives or pure reason, nor as a decree of our illusory and sovereign self, but through imitation.”

Thiel’s companies are governed by Girard’s wisdom. Girard observed that all desires come from other people. When two people want the same scarce object, they fight.

It’s revealing to think of mimetic desire along a continuum. Certain people and organizational cultures are more prone to mimesis than others. And one thing is clear, on a societal level: any society in which people are no longer struggling with scarcity but coping with abundance will undergo an explosion of mimetic desire. In this universe of desi... See more