New York Time had a great article on Ayn Rand (1905-1982)this last weekend. 25 years after her death, she still has influence on people and inspires many in the business world. I usually give her book, Atlas Shrugged, to new graduates. This book is about the power of human will and it is celebration of life and true happiness. I have blogged about her before, Ayn Rand was one of the smartest women in America and is one of my favorite writers. Here is an excerpts from NYTimes article: "It (Atlas shrugged story)begins in a time of recession. To save the economy, the hero, John Galt, calls for a strike against government interference. Factories, farms and shops shut down. Riots break out as food becomes scarce.Rand said she “set out to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them” and to portray “what happens to a world without them.”
Rand’s free-market philosophy was hard won. She was born in 1905 in Russia. Her life changed overnight when the Bolsheviks broke into her father’s pharmacy and declared his livelihood the property of the state. She fled the Soviet Union in 1926 and arrived later that year in Hollywood,
When they read the book, often as college students, they now say, it gave form and substance to their inchoate thoughts, showing there is no conflict between private ambition and public benefit.
There is something in your inner self that Rand draws out,” Mr. Stack said. “You want to be a hero, you want to be right, but by the same token you have to question yourself, though you must not listen to interference thrown at you by the distracters. "
