- Mark Cuban: "It was incredibly motivating to me. It encouraged me to think as an individual, take risks to reach my goals, and responsibility for my successes and failures. I loved it." source ↗
Ayn Rand's novel of Howard Roark, an uncompromising architect who refuses to design for anyone's approval but his own, and of the battle between his radical individualism and a society that wants him to compromise. Published in 1943, it introduced the world to Rand's philosophy of objectivism through fiction, and became a foundational text of the American entrepreneur's bookshelf — loved and criticized in equal measure.
Cuban's Slate quote — 'incredibly motivating to me. It encouraged me to think as an individual, take risks to reach my goals, and [take] responsibility for my successes and failures. I loved it' — is a founder's conversion story told honestly: the value he took was motivational, not ideological. He has said he read it three times and named a yacht after the book. The founder lesson is Roark's refusal to compromise his standards for the crowd — with the caveat Cuban adds: it is inspiration, not a management system.