/lit/ - Literature

>>19756728
>Businessmen go on strike
Through strange sets of circumstances, I rub elbows with these people a lot. I've been in the living room where Chipotle was sold to McDonald's. I've spoken with Leo Melamed and Terry Duffy. I've partied with the heads of some of the largest health insurance companies. So let me tell you something:
90% of them are absolute shitheads who were either born into money or got extremely lucky.
They can be charismatic, sure, and nice when they need to be, but I have yet to meet one who actually produced something. At best, they have 'ideas' then hire people to work out the details and build it. If one of them had 'invented' the sky scraper, I guarantee it would had been a scribble on a napkin that read 'a building, but really tall'. The only exception I've known was Brendan Eich, and even he came off a little dickish. I'm not trying to sound bitter, but the rich businessmen by and large aren't inventors (there are rare exceptions; see Brendan Eich), they're either lawyers or have a great network. It's hard to not fail upwards when you have friends/family who can pull you into high-six or seven figure jobs when you need it. The road to success is easier when you know how to out-litigate your opponents.

What I'm getting at is Ayn Rand doesn't know what she's talking about. She was born into wealth, got to know the rich and famous, and confused good circumstance with merit and hard work. Her believing that the rich and powerful businessmen make the world go round is little more than a fantasy to explain why they got to be rich and powerful. Atlas Shrugged is largely a childish and unfounded explanation to 'why do good things happen to bad people?', because 'dumb luck' and 'nepotism' doesn't fly well with the people who identify with Rand's work.

>Leo Melamed wrote a sci-fi book
>It's really bad