Peter Thiel on René Girard

A Compendium of His Comments on Mimetic Theory

As part of my research for Wanting, I compiled a list of anything Peter Thiel, Girard’s most famous student, had said publicly about his Stanford professor’s ideas. Now I’m sharing a partial list with you.

The list is not exhaustive. Thiels’ book, Zero to One, is shot through with mimetic theory from start to finish. This list also doesn’t include the many things (like Thiel’s The Straussian Moment speech and resulting essay) for which public, copyright-free links do not exist.

The worst monopolies are monopolies on ideas. No one thinker should have a monopoly on the interpretation of Girard. In my view, it’s problematic that the weighted value that many ascribe to Thiel’s opinions is greater than the value ascribed to the thousands of scholars and thoughtful people around the world (who are assimilating mimetic theory into their lives) combined—if people are even aware of them.

This is a consequence of something I refer to in Wanting as the “Cult of Experts.” A billionaire is able to affect people at a metaphysical level, even from afar, in a way that an English professor at a small college in the Midwest cannot. It can lead to distortions in the way that we process and evaluate the importance of knowledge. The mediator of the knowledge matters.

Some of the most fascinating insights into mimetic theory come from places where people are not looking (there’s a reason why the great writers have put important truths into the mouths of court jesters, clowns, and town drunks…), which Thiel himself would agree with (see his quote below). I plan to share some of the ones I have found with you in due time.

But I thought this would be a good place to start.

---

“Thinking about how disturbingly herdlike people become in so many different contexts—mimetic theory forces you to think about that, which is knowledge that’s generally suppressed and hidden. As an investor-entrepreneur, I’ve always tried to be contrarian, to go against the crowd, to identify opportunities in places where people are not looking.” —Peter Thiel

1. Business Insider - How an esoteric philosophy book shapes his worldview 

2. Perell.com Blog - Peter Thiel’s Religion 

3. The Week - Secret to Innovation 

4. The Society Pages - Mimesis, Violence, and Facebook 

5. Founders Fund - What happened to the future

6. Hoover Institution - The World According to Thiel

7. Knowledge at Wharton - Want to Build a One-of-a-Kind Company? Ask Peter Thiel

8. Masters of Scale - Masters of Scale Episode: Peter Thiel

9. Conversations with Bill Kristol - Peter Thiel Transcript (story of paypal) 

10. Conversations with Bill Kristol - Peter Thiel Transcript (innovation) 

11. National Review - The End of the Future

12. Cato Unbound - The Education of a Libertarian 

13. Yale School of Management - Peter Thiel at Yale: We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters

14. Hoover Institution - Peter Thiel On “The Straussian Moment”

15. Hoover Institution - WHAT, U.S. WORRY? Is the United States Losing Its Competitive Edge?

16. Medium - Peter Thiel on Stagnation, Innovation, and What Not to Call your Company 

17. Fox Business - Peter Thiel on Leaving Silicon Valley for Los Angeles

18. Youtube (Every PT Video) - Eric Schmidt and Peter Thiel Debate

19. Zero to One - Book 

20. Lesswrong - Growth, Violence, Stories 

21. Tim Ferris Show - Episode 28 Peter Thiel

22. WBUR News - Peter Thiel Wants Us All To Go From Zero To One 

23. TIME - Republican National Committee Speech 

24. Manhattan Institute - 2019 Wriston Lecture: Peter Thiel 

25. Vox - Inside Peter Thiel’s Mind 

26. Independent Institute - Developing the Developed World 

27. New York Times - Peter Thiel, Trump’s Tech Pal, Explains Himself  

28. Youtube (SXSW) - You Are Not a Lottery Ticket 

29. Youtube (Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence) - Peter Thiel on the Failures and “Self-Hatred" of Big-Tech

30. Youtube (The Rubin Report) - Trump, Gawker, and Leaving Silicon Valley 

31. Quartz at Work - Peter Thiel’s Favorite Interview Question (Think Independently)

32. City Journal - The Gospel According to Peter Thiel 

33. Yahoo Finance - Peter Thiel is Trying to Save the World: The Apocalyptic Theory Behind his Actions 

34. Inc.com - What You Can Learn From Peter Thiel's Brilliant Philosophy on Setting Personal Goals

35. FS Blog - Peter Thiel Recommends 7 Reads 

36. Asian Review - Google is Too Big to Innovate 

37. Unherd - Facebook, Jesus, and the Serpent of Social Media

38. Youtube (Big Think) - Keynesian Economics Will Be Dead

39. Youtube (Y Combinator) - Competition is for Losers

40. Youtube (The Aspen Institute) - Higher Education Bubble

41. Youtube (Imitatio Videos) - Optimistic Thought Experiment 

42. Youtube (Imitatio Video) - Peter Thiel On Rene Girard 

43. The Conversation - WhatsApp? Even private chatter now exploited by billionaires

44. The Portal - Peter Thiel: The Portal with Eric Weinstein

45. Youtube (Harvard University) - A Conversation with Peter Thiel and Niall Ferguson - Institute of Politics

46. Entrepreneurship in the Mirror of Biographical Analysis - Political Ideology And Economic Activity

47. COV & R - The Bulletin of the Colloquium on Violence & Religion 

48. WeDevs - How the Idea of a French Philosopher can save Your E-commerce Business

I will continue to update this list. If there is a good recent that is not on it, please leave it in the comments or drop it in our community Discord server.

Talk soon,
Luke