Dropping out to start a company is starting to feel like a mimetic trap. It’s become the default advice in AI, and like any default, you should be suspicious of it.
I feel the pressure myself. People are constantly telling me I should start a company. With leaders like Sam Altman saying this is the best time in history to do it, you feel almost stupid if you don’t.
On paper, they’re right. Technology is moving faster than ever. The market isn’t saturated. And it’s hard to argue that four years of tuition for an increasingly inefficient curriculum is a better deal than teaching yourself with the tools we have now.
But the question isn’t whether it’s a good time to start a company. It’s whether you actually want the lifestyle that comes with it. When you commit to a startup, you’re committing to a way of life for the next 3–5 years. In many ways, I’m already living it, and I love it. But I’m still not sure I should start a company. Why?
Because the idea of being “contrarian” has become its own form of consensus.
After I got into startups and investing, I became addicted to the idea of being “contrarian and right.” Peter Thiel was a big influence. And once you read Thiel, you inevitably run into René Girard and mimetic theory. I started to see that in some circles, “being contrarian” and “not caring what other people think” became a new kind of political correctness. I even started calling myself a contrarian.
Being an independent thinker still matters. It’s the only way to do great work or build a life that’s truly your own. You have to know whether you believe something because it’s true, or because everyone around you believes it.
But in the current AI gold rush, the consensus is that you should be a contrarian. The most mimetic thing you can do is announce that you’re not driven by mimesis. You see it at events. People perform contrarianism. They dress and talk in deliberately eccentric ways, hoping to seem a little manic, because they think that’s the archetype VCs look for in great founders.
Wanting to be seen as a contrarian is the opposite of being one. It’s a signal that you care deeply what other people think. It’s a costume. Darkly funny, after the media decided Elon Musk was on the autism spectrum, you started to see founders performing that persona too.
We’re social animals. You can’t just delete the desire for recognition. It’s as fundamental as the drive for food or sex. I went through a phase of trying to prove I was a contrarian. It got me some attention, but it also pushed me into a kind of self-imposed isolation. I felt a need to disagree with people almost by default. The result wasn’t a feeling of accomplishment. It was a deep loneliness.
What I learned is that desire is like any other force. You can’t suppress it with pure rationality, but you also can’t let it run your life. Both are recipes for misery. You have to learn to steer it.
I used to think that my old life—the one that followed consensus—was simply wrong. Then I reacted against it, running to the opposite extreme. Now, after seeing the trap of performed nonconformity, I’m trying to find a balance.
Perhaps the truly contrarian move, right now, is to ignore the pressure to drop out and build a startup. Perhaps it’s to quietly choose the life that fits you, not the costume that fits the moment.