Pinned post
This is why Peter Thiel was so successful. One of his biggest inspirations was the French philosopher René Girard for his work on mimetic desire (and it's consequences) - here's how it links to @shaunmmaguire's points:
"I left Silicon Valley... Because it's a monoculture... The most extreme group think of any place on the planet."
Girard's central thesis was basically: humans don't desire things autonomously, they copy the desire of others.
People fiercely defend the belief that their desires are individual/authentic (according to Girard "romantic illusion") when in reality they subtly train each other to want the exact same thing (in this particular monoculture it would be status associated with being a tech founder - ARR metrics, raise sizes, valuations, "frontier" ideas etc).
"So what do they do? They start stack-ranking each other... founder of co $100B market cap > founder of co with $50B market cap..."
Girard believed that when actors are in close status, they become mimetic rivals. Everyone is competing for the same narrow definition of success within the same tight ecosystem. They end up trapped in an ordered hierarchy where minute differences in status ($100B vs. $50B drive some sort of psychological rivalry).
"Pure toxicity that nerfs creativity... Reject this nonsense. Stay weird. Think independently."
Girard believes that intense mimetic competition creates homogeneity, sheep like or heard like behaviour. Instead of thinking about how can I create novel technology (a Facebook, a SpaceX, an AirBnB) new entrants focus on "how do i beet my peers at the game?"
This was probably the most dangerous part of a monoculture made up of mimetic rivals (from an investors point of view) - because theres no real alpha left - the competition just competes it all away. Everyones fighting over the same piece of the pie.
Where do you think he got his "competition is for losers" line from?
He got it from Girard.
Founders Fund was basically Thiel's vehicle to invest in anti-memetic ideas that Silicon Valley actively ignored.
1. Palantir - defence was taboo + governments were the anti-thesis of any start-ups philosophy
2. SapceX: Manufacturing and CapEx intense businesses were to be avoided - light scalable software was better
3. FB: Literally a real world social graph built around mimetic cultures (here i guess he was like ok we can profit of mimetic cultures lol).
Everyone should go study René Girard and then go look at all of Thiel's conference talks - it's the same lines over and over again.
pretty cool!
p.s. this is not exclusive to SF - it's exclusive to humans
"I left Silicon Valley... Because it's a monoculture... The most extreme group think of any place on the planet."
Girard's central thesis was basically: humans don't desire things autonomously, they copy the desire of others.
People fiercely defend the belief that their desires are individual/authentic (according to Girard "romantic illusion") when in reality they subtly train each other to want the exact same thing (in this particular monoculture it would be status associated with being a tech founder - ARR metrics, raise sizes, valuations, "frontier" ideas etc).
"So what do they do? They start stack-ranking each other... founder of co $100B market cap > founder of co with $50B market cap..."
Girard believed that when actors are in close status, they become mimetic rivals. Everyone is competing for the same narrow definition of success within the same tight ecosystem. They end up trapped in an ordered hierarchy where minute differences in status ($100B vs. $50B drive some sort of psychological rivalry).
"Pure toxicity that nerfs creativity... Reject this nonsense. Stay weird. Think independently."
Girard believes that intense mimetic competition creates homogeneity, sheep like or heard like behaviour. Instead of thinking about how can I create novel technology (a Facebook, a SpaceX, an AirBnB) new entrants focus on "how do i beet my peers at the game?"
This was probably the most dangerous part of a monoculture made up of mimetic rivals (from an investors point of view) - because theres no real alpha left - the competition just competes it all away. Everyones fighting over the same piece of the pie.
Where do you think he got his "competition is for losers" line from?
He got it from Girard.
Founders Fund was basically Thiel's vehicle to invest in anti-memetic ideas that Silicon Valley actively ignored.
1. Palantir - defence was taboo + governments were the anti-thesis of any start-ups philosophy
2. SapceX: Manufacturing and CapEx intense businesses were to be avoided - light scalable software was better
3. FB: Literally a real world social graph built around mimetic cultures (here i guess he was like ok we can profit of mimetic cultures lol).
Everyone should go study René Girard and then go look at all of Thiel's conference talks - it's the same lines over and over again.
pretty cool!
p.s. this is not exclusive to SF - it's exclusive to humans
I left Silicon Valley 6 years agoView quoted post on X
Why?
Because it's a monoculture
The most extreme group think of any place on the planet
Show up to a dinner party and everyone is in tech
So what do they do? They start stack-ranking each other
And it's a totally ordered set: being founder of co $100B market cap > founder of co with $50B market cap > managing partner of tier 1 venture firm > hired CEO of $50B public co > founder of $10B co > etc etc
Pure toxicity that nerfs creativty
And then as a corollary, people are especially afraid to speak truth to power as everyone knows their place in
"The Hierarchy"
Reject this nonsense. Stay weird. Think independently. Be honest with yourself. Have fun.
