Who is lifting the world on their shoulders?

Politicians?
Philosophers?
Writers?
Philanthrophists?

None of the above. The right answer is – entrepreneurs / business folks – they are the ones lifting the world. They create new markets, promote new ideas, blaze new paths by fighting the system, fighting stereotypes, taking risks against all odds.

In this post I will introduce you to “Atlas Shrugged” – a magnum opus by Ayn Rand.  This book glorifies the entrepreneurial spirit.

The key players :

Looters

These are the scum of the society – apparently holding top positions. The top brass in the Government, the industry lobbying heads – they do not produce anything but they loot – from the business and from the public. They know only to take and not give anything. They outnumber and control the producers.

Producers

The producers are the entrepreneurs, the inventors, the innovators. They are the ones fighting the system to introduce new ideas and keep the world ticking and moving forward.

Henry Rearden
He is a business man who invents a new kind of alloy that is cheaper and stronger than steel. The Government wants it because their research institute cannot produce anything close to this. He refuses and he is threatened with sanctions, taxes, a govt official watchdog is sent to curb his production ( because the steel industry is fast becoming reduntant ). Yet he fights the system to produce his alloy.

Francisco d’Anconia
A rich man who inherits a copper smelting business owned by his family. However he destroys all his fortune – but before that he lures the looters to buy all his stock and bonds – there by making them lose big.

Dagny Taggart
She runs a rail road. Her brother belongs to the looters group and is the President of the rail road. She fights him and fights the lobby industry to keep the trains running.

John Galt
He is the key person or the hero of this book. He invents a new type of electric device which can generate electricity from air ( its fiction remember ! ) – but he refuses to share it with the world run by looters. Along with this invention he takes the other producers ( Henry Rearden, Dangy Taggart and there are more – a musician, a writer, an oil digger, a banker etc. ) from the world and moves to a world he builds himself – among the mountains unknown to the world. And he brings the world to a halt.

This book is a fat one. 1000 pages with page after page of philosophy being dished out from different angles – on almost all the professions. Then there is a section where John Galt addresses the public on radio – it is a master piece. It runs for some 40 pages if I remember correctly and has thoughts on all aspects – love, honesty, dignity..you name it.

I had written about this book in my personal blog earlier. If you are interested you  can read this post – Who is John Galt?.

If you are a bibliophile and an entrepreneur or planning to jump in – do read this book – it will give you brilliant new insights.

Some memorable quotes from the book:

“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” – This is the oath everyone who joins John Galt should take.

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.

Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man’s values, it has to be earned.

Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it.

The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.

and finally the quote that sums it all up beautifully :

Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns–or dollars. Take your choice–there is no other.

“The FountainHead” by Ayn Rand is an eye opener in many ways. Howard Roark is an architecture school student who has a different philosophy on how buildings should be built. He wanted to build structures that will be aesthetically pleasing, economically meaningful, in tune with the environment and the building should make a statement. Whereas the industry was aping what the Gothic and romantic architectures of the past had built – with meaningless arches, facades and wasted space.

He is thrown out of his college because he refuses to design the traditional architecture and struggles for work – but he never once compromises on his ideals. He waits and his time comes and the world accepts his style of architecture. It is one man against a well established industry who tries hard to keep him down. But the harder you push a ball into water – the faster it rises out and with more force – Howard Roark wins in the end.

As an entrepreneur – you might have battles yourself – as you are trying to blaze a new path, a new product, a new concept. You might be told many a times that your idea will not work. Listen to them to retune your product or offering – but do not get discouraged. If you have faith in your idea just stick to your guns – you will win in the end. There are so many success stories out there where perseverance and believing in oneself helped create an industry.

This book is a hard read – 600 or so pages – and it takes a full 100 pages before the pace picks up. And the first half of the book is quite discouraging because Howard Roark goes to the very bottom – but the second half gets very interesting and you can relish his victories. Somewhere in the middle while Howard Roark is fighting a battle, he gives courage to a drama writer  – to take the hard path. The advice he gives very much will apply to an entrepreneur.

Some interesting quotes from the book :

“Wheeling his bicycle by his side, the boy took the narrow path down the slope ofthe hill to the valley and the houses below. Roark looked after him. He had never seen that boy before and he would never see him again. He did not know that he had given someone the courage to face a lifetime“

” I don’t build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build!”

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me”

Howard Roark you are my hero 🙂