Ayn Rand: Still Ruining Lives 

If you follow me on Twitter (or know me in real life), you’ll know I’m not fond of Ayn Rand, her books, or her philosophy. I found it entirely disheartening to read this Re/code article about the suicides of three startup founders from the Downtown Project in Las Vegas.

Damania said there’s a tendency to say the suicides were just a fluke or a coincidence, but that they’re
actually a fundamental problem with entrepreneurship.

“It’s a symptom of this performance,” he said.

It’s part of an ultra-individualistic, stoic ethos similar to one espoused by philosopher Ayn Rand.

“Founders are the worst,” he said. “There’s a Randian — I must be the John Galt — feeling. You can be as
liberated as you want, but there’s a web of connectivity, and they forget.”

It’s incredibly unfortunate that these people, who’ve often given up so much of the structure and support in their lives to go build the company of their dreams, think that they have to do it alone, because, you know, Ayn Rand.

(Yeah, yeah, that’s reductive.)

It was apropos that this week John Oliver covered, to his normal hilarious effect, “How is Ayn Rand Still a Thing?”

A great rule of thumb in life: if someone says they really love Ayn Rand’s books/philosophy/point of view, assume they’re a giant douchebag.