I've worked for a few startups that have had a cult-like following, and it's never gone well. If you gave notice, you immediately got the cold shoulder from all of the execs - to the point that there weren't officially sanctioned goodbye parties. People got pushed out if they asked any questions that could be perceived as critical of the company or product. At one company I worked at, people would cheer absolutely everything in company meetings ("we missed our Q3 goals by 60%" loud applause "Don't worry, we'll get it next time!"). Company has layoffs, and nobody would believe that it could be due to poor performance, so they went with other implausible explanations.

The unfortunate thing about these cultures is that they self-select for the worst kind of employee. If you think there are areas of improvement in your company or product, and that's viewed as not being loyal, then you end up only with employees who already believe the company or product is perfect. Personally, I'd rather work with people who recognize the faults in their product and are actively working to fix them.

The only exception I've encountered is where there's a cult-like following AND verifiable performance of the product. Apple has a cult-like following among employees and enthusiasts, but they also make products people love and you can tell that objectively from their quarterly earnings calls [note: I'm aware that Apple certainly has it's own sets of issues with its product and work culture, my point is simply that a cult following of Apple is different from a cult following of your shitty benefits platform].

These experiences led me to a, perhaps, cynical conclusion: the more cult-like the culture, the easier it is for the executives and investors to fleece the employees. While everybody is cheering the quarterly losses, and unquestioningly supporting every product release, your executives are negotiating parachutes for when the company gets acquired for dimes on the dollar. It completely makes sense to me that Peter Thiel thinks this is a good thing: he's benefiting from those cults.