I left Singapore to study in the US when I was 21. In my freshman year, I met all sorts of people in my dorm. I was neighbours with a football jock, a math champion, wannabe gangsters, and ambitious pre-meds. They had all sorts of wacky hobbies, from skateboarding to deconstructing Rubiks cubes to swing dancing. But something weird happened when I got to my senior year: Everyone set aside their unique quirks, dressed up in the same business suits, went for the same networking events, and applied for the same internships. For all the diversity of my freshman class, the majority of my friends ended up in the same two industries: banking and consulting. What was going on? The answer, I think, lies in the philosophy of a French Social theorist named Renee Girard. Renee Girard and mimetic theory Girard is most well-known for his theory of mimesis. Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel was one of his students....