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I only got part way through the article because it makes grand claims, yet misunderstands Rand. Rand believed in individualist politics, and created these hero archetypes in her stories, but she also advocated for cooperation by free individuals. There's even a section in Atlas Shrugged where the protagonist tries to go it alone and finds it unfulfilling. Instead, the utopia in the book is one in which people voluntarily associate to form a society. The click-bait title doesn't help matters.

> I'm gonna be honest I don't know what the audience is for a product where you risk losing your entire life savings because you typed a wrong word in a smart contract.

Some of crypto's loudest voices are young, college-aged people who've recently read Atlas Shrugged or Catcher in the Rye and are certain that they will never be the ones to lose their keys.

Here is a list of 200 most popular books sold at Ozon, the biggest on-line retailer in Russia:

https://www.ozon.ru/highlight/top-200-knig-po-mneniyu-chitat...

Of the Top-12, 6 to 8 are some form of a self-help book:

* 1st: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck.

2nd: Say Yes To Life, a self-help book from an Austrian Holocaust surviver.

* 4th: Ben Graham's Intelligent Investor.

* 5th: A Russian-author book on the art of "convincing" & "influencing" people (sound familiar?).

* 6th: Another American book, "Radical Forgiveness: A Guide to Spiritual Healing"

* 8th: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

* 11th: Women Who Love Too Much: If Love is Causing Suffering. Also a US book.

* 12th: Atlas Shrugged. I suppose it's not a self-help book, but it's very much in line with the spirit of "open-your-eyes" literature.

* If you go down the list, there is a bunch of other titles like Rich Dad Poor Dad, the full set of Nassim Taleb's quasi self-improvement books, etc.

We can sort of argue whether some of these books are self-help adjacent or not (like Ben Graham or Nassim Taleb), but the trend is clear: self-improvement literature is very popular in Russia.

This shows that the self-help cottage industry is not limited to the US. I think people just like the idea of self-improvement.

edit: formatting

I also think the amount of hate Rand gets is interesting. I'd also be curious to to how many of those that hate her have actually read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged? The books are long and unreasonably wordy.

But the hate is mostly for the ideas, not the writing. The worlds are certainly fictional. Things are not as black and white as she paints them. The heroes are small minority of supremely talented, hard-working people battling bureaucracy and incompetence. Rand assumes everyone is born on a level playing field and the choices people may determine where they land.

My advice is that anyone Atlas Shrugged is a must read for anyone with an ounce of entrepreneurial spirit. Take it with a grain of salt though.

Seems like the right time to roll out this old gem:

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers

Some people really buy into Objectivism.

>Like a lot of white males, I read Ayn Rand’s bestselling novel Atlas Shrugged when I was 18.

>Rand’s simplistic Objectivist worldview couldn’t be better designed to appeal to sheltered middle-and-upper-class suburban white boys like me

>As soon as I befriended people who were not suburban white dudes, and once I understood that they had to work five times as hard to enjoy half of the privilege that I enjoyed, I realized that Rand was singing a heroic ode to the comfortable.

Stop posting racism that's wrapped up as self-flagellation. It's getting tiresome.