Ayn Rand and the Fortune 500
The New York Times has an article today about how the business decisions of Fortune 500 execs are often secretly influenced by Ayn Rand. Funny this article should come up, because I was recently thinking about how relevant her work is in the advertising world. I was watching an episode of Mad Men the other day and Don Draper is given a copy of Atlas Shrugged by his boss. Ironic, because when I started watching this show I thought his character was basically Howard Roark. He should’ve been given a copy of The Fountainhead.
I enjoyed her books a lot more when I was younger, once you get to a certain age being preached to grows tiresome. Not to mention you sort of grow out of a lot of her ideals. She’s a quite a polemic figure, if you bring her up to someone who didn’t care for her books they’ll probably be pretty fired up. All the same, Anthem is one of my all time favorite books. I’d encourage anyone who doesn’t like her two main staples to check this one out because it’s more autobiographical, and very short. I really had no idea the conditions people lived in during Soviet Communist rule until I read this sort of first-hand account. I’ll also mention I own a first edition copy of Atlas Shrugged. In spite of drifting away from most of her work, I will always believe working your best and hardest benefits everyone around you.
Update
It’s been so long I’ve actually confused We the Living for Anthem. We the Living is the book I was speaking of, but Anthem is also a great read and is rather similar to A Brave New World. So much for favorite book 
Thanks to Jen or I wouldn’t have even noticed.
I’ve never read Anthem, I’ll have to check that out.
I actually started writing something about The Fountainhead last week, along the lines of the Clevo web scene being run by Peter Keatings, and the parallels of our local “experts” parading around their fancy all Flash and table-based websites, patting each-other on the back with awards and press releases.
However I didn’t finish it because I need to get away from the whining, and because I’m no Howard Roarke
Ahahahaha. Who is Howard Roark anyway? I don’t think I could ever be so stoic. But Anthem is a pretty cool book, it’s about a woman who is in love with a man working for the government and she’s also in love with a man leading the resistance.
We the Living gives that same look into Soviet life, I think, that Anthem does. I’ve always like that one.
I agree with you that opinions about Rand change as you grow older … I definitely don’t feel the same way about Atlas and Fountainhead as I did years ago, but the basic truth about a sense of self and hard work is an important one.
I meant more in terms of talent than personality
You know what, I’m espousing about my favorite book and here I think I’ve confused Anthem and We The Living! Ha, shows how long it’s been! We The Living is the book I was referring to, but Anthem is great and I’ve always wondered if A Brave New World ripped it off.
You have “We the Living” confused with “Anthem.” “We the Living” is the semi-autobiographical book dealing with the Russian Revolution, while “Anthem” is her version of “1984″ or “This Perfect Day.”
[…] has been sitting at the bottom of my Netflix queue for a year now, but my interest was piqued by last week’s discussion. It’s a fairly straightforward two and a half hour documentary about the life of Ayn Rand. […]
I’ve read Atlas Shrugged, but not The Fountainhead. I’ve seen the movie of the latter, but am fair enough not to judge a book by the movie (though I lost interest when they started dynamiting buildings or whatever, yeah my attention span was short when I watched it). I really like the capitalist ideals in Atlas Shrugged and loved the story. But like you, the preaching got to be much. I almost skipped that really, really long 20 or 40 page speech rant. How many times can you re-read the same principle?
I was also slightly annoyed by Ayn’s fairly obvious ego. To me, she clearly tried to describe herself through her description of Dagny. All the guys love her, she’s a genius, she’s the hardest worker, yaddy yadda. It’s no wonder Angelina Jolie shows interest in playing Dagny. For capitalist ideals? Yeah right (I doubt she’ll play it unless they drastically sever the message of the book, which they probably will do anyway).
Okay so that rant makes it look like I hate Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. Quite the opposite, I really like the book and think Ayn is a smart woman and a great storyteller. I am just in a jerky-nitpicking mood
Sorry/thanks for letting me rant. (it’s probably obvious as well through my link that my initial interest in Atlas Shrugged was in railroading ha ha)