Peter Thiel explains René Girard's theory of Mimetic Desire: "We're more ape-like than the apes." "That's how you learn language as a child. You copy your parents. And then that's how human culture gets transmitted. We wouldn't be humans if we weren't these incredibly powerful imitation machines." "Napoleon said that it was amazing what you could get generals to do if you gave them medals." "A lot of the builders I would admire the most are ones who had a somewhat idiosyncratic, sustained vision." "Like @elonmusk going to Mars—it was somewhat out there, but man, it was not a socially conventional idea. But the way in which this was extremely generative was it suggested a whole avenue for growth and for building where if you didn't do it, maybe it would never have happened." "I would still rank Elon and in some ways Steve Jobs as the two great non-mimetic builders." "Jobs put together all these pieces, and in some ways they were out there, but he combined them in a unique way to sort of bring forward the internet-enabled phone." Via @WalterIsaacson