The first year I worked in a big box bookstore is when I first heard of Ayn Rand. My boss and one co-worker were fans so out of curiosity I read Fountainhead. It was a weird experience; cause when you're reading Fountainhead you naturally think of arguments to counter her ideas, but her characters simultaneously tell you that if you're thinking of These Counter Arguments then it means you're (to use a useful expression) in the Matrix. So the first thing I noticed about her is that she wasn't so much making good arguments as trying to take away your power debate her by saying "And if you don't agree with me then it proves you're stupid."
I started hanging more and more with the co-worker fan--a bit younger than me, and came to Rand in his teens, as I later realized most do. Understandably. We liked to have long philosophical arguments about all kinds of things. Having been taught by Stephen Covey to "seek first to understand before seeking to be understood" I did a lot of listening, asking questions.
Then, I don't know why, I went to the library and got out a couple biographies. Hoo puppy. And then I became a fan. Not of Ayn Rand, but of Ayn Rand biographies. She was mostly a horrible person teaching terrible ideas, but a very interesting woman.
When I reported back to my friend that the woman who espoused individuality above all else, had kept about her a cult of personality and brooked no (and I mean NOOOOO) dissent, it disillusioned him.
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