Techbros don't give a shit about Rene Girard, they care about Thiel's interpretations of Girard. I half-read two books where techbros attempt to explain Girard through the funhouse mirror of Thiel (the first on purpose, the second by mistake). Alexander Douglas, unfortunately, doesn't get the Thiel interpretation of Girard, either:

So far, so Girardian (and, regarding academia, unfortunately true). But what is Thiel’s solution? The true innovator, he suggests, must rise above mimetic competition and do what nobody else is doing. That isn’t Girard; it’s Sartre. Girard found no sense in the idea of radical, unmodelled creation. He would ask: where are we meant to get the idea for what nobody else is doing? Clearly not from others. But not from inside ourselves either. Inside is only emptiness. This humbling thought has been quietly dropped from Thiel’s entrepreneurial version of Girardianism.

Thiel's read on Girard is basically "populism through nihilism". Because there is no self, because there is no being, there is no meaning except what we make... and clearly, those who are conscious of their mimetic desire will triumph over those who are not. Therefore, since god is dead and nothing matters, being the biggest asshole on the block means everyone is subconsciously required to emulate you.

Thiel took mimetic desire and went mirror or be mirrored, there is no ethics, there is no morality. It's basically what Milton Friedman said about corporations and responsibility except for individuals. Is it any surprise that the TESCREAL posse laps this shit up with a spoon?