THREAD
Highlights from Peter Thiel's "Founder as Victim, Founder as God"
blakemasters.com/post/245786838…
Great article on Girard's mimetic theory applied to the startup world.
Thanks @mistermircea and @Rahul_Ramc
Highlights from Peter Thiel's "Founder as Victim, Founder as God"
blakemasters.com/post/245786838…
Great article on Girard's mimetic theory applied to the startup world.
Thanks @mistermircea and @Rahul_Ramc
Many traits are normally distributed throughout the population... Perhaps the founder distribution is an inverted normal distribution. Both tails are extremely fat. Perhaps founders are complex combinations of, e.g., extreme insiders and extreme outsiders at the same time.
The dynamic might work like this. People start out being different. They are nurtured to develop their already somewhat extreme traits. Those traits become more important, and they learn to exaggerate them. Others perceive that inflated importance and exaggerate in turn.
examples: Richard Branson, Jack Dorsey (from punk style to Prada), Sean parker
Like founders, classical heroes often had extreme combinations of traits: Consider Oedipus. He was both an extreme insider and an extreme outsider. He was the king. He was so brilliant that he was able solve the riddle of the sphinx.
But he was abandoned to die on a hill as an infant. He was a foreigner from a different place. And then he had the incest accusations and ensuing downfall.
Perhaps the most classic founding of all is the founding of Rome. Romulus and Remus were disadvantaged, common orphans who were raised by wolves. They were outsiders. But then they became founders and lawmakers. Romulus killed his brother and became a lawbreaker and king.
On sacrificial scapegoats: Very often, they would be worshipped before they were sacrificed. People would give the scapegoat a certain amount of power before tearing him apart. That scapegoats were either worshipped or demonized follows from their being all-powerful.
One working theory is that monarchy originated this way. The Aztecs, for instance, would basically crown someone a quasi-god king for a period of time, after which point he would be sacrificed.
Julius Caesar was a classic insider/outsider. Eventually, of course, he was assassinated. Every subsequent Roman emperor pretty much had to be a Caesar. And the sacrificial cycle repeated an infinitum for centuries thereafter.
A modern version of Kings as scapegoats: Celebrities. See "King of Rock" (Elvis), "King of Pop" (MJ), "Princess of Pop" (Britney) etc.
Similar to Aztec sacrifice => put on pedestals and worshipped => torn down, villified (hounded by paparrazis, tabloids, scandals) => idol worship after death (e.g. 27 club: Hendrix, Cobain, Winehouse)
Abraham Lincoln was an extreme outsider turned insider. He was born in an isolated log cabin. probably our poorest President. very smart and very ugly. And he, probably intentionally, uglified himself even further with his strange beard. Lincoln was always on both extremes.
Next, some great excerpts from a speech by Lincoln, on whether ambitious people can be satisfied by working within existing institutions, or would always try to be founders:
Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in adding story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief.
It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving freemen.
Famous 20th c entrepreneurs had similar story arcs to the sacrifical scapegoat kings: Howard Hughes(got hooked on painkillers), Bill Gates(antitrust), Steve Jobs(fired from apple).
@Rahul_Ramc also adds Musk, Kalananick and Zuck to this list
A startup is basically a monarchy. One person makes decisions, but no absolute power(need to attract people to work for you, and these people want some power too)
One way to avoid being "sacrificed": Extend the founding period. In tech companies, foundings last as long as technological innovation continues. The question is thus how long it takes for the substantive technology focus to yield to process.
The dual founder thing is worth mentioning. Co-founders seem to get in a lot less trouble than more unbalanced single founders. Think Hewlett and Packard, Moore and Noyce, and Page and Brin.
There are all sorts of theoretical benefits to having multiple founders such as more brainstorming power, collaboration, etc. But the really decisive difference between one founder and more is that with multiple founders, it’s much harder to isolate a scapegoat.
It is very hard for a mob-like board to unite against multiple people—and remember, the scapegoat must be singular. The more singular and isolated the founder, the more dangerous the scapegoating phenomenon.
For the skeptic who is inclined to spot fiction masquerading as truth, this raises some interesting questions. Are Page and Brin, for instance, really as equal as advertised? Or was it a strategy for safety? We’ll leave those questions unanswered and hardly asked.
Further reading on Girard: imitatio.org/brief-intro
@MimeticValue @Rahul_Ramc know any other resources on startups and mimetic theory? Surely applicable to VC funding (mimetic rivalry between VC firms trying to get in on a funding round) or things like Bezos' Blue origins vs SpaceX
