The Gospel of Greed

Baldwin Louie — Mon, 19 Jun 2000 15:00:00 -0700

Kevin O'Connor loves Ayn Rand so much that he named his second son, Kian Rand, after her. "Ayn Rand changed my life completely," says the DoubleClick (DCLK) CEO, who got hooked on Rand in his early 20s. "Finally, here was someone who said that it's human nature to act in self-interest and that there's nothing wrong with that."

Long the favorite of business leaders like Alan Greenspan, Rand is everywhere in the Internet Economy - and not just on executive bookshelves. Her biggest fans name companies after her, sneak Rand references into advertisements and proselytize to their colleagues about her.

Rand, credited with founding objectivism and the author of The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism, among others, held that man must exist for his own sake, "neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself." She believed life's highest purpose is the pursuit of man's own rational self-interest and his own happiness. To Rand, laissez-faire capitalism was the ideal - not just a sociopolitical economic goal but a moral imperative. These ideas fit perfectly into the Internet Economy's adoration of entrepreneurs who strive to impress their vision on the uncharted territories of the business world. Just as Scientology is fashionable with Hollywood's elite, objectivism seems to be the reigning philosophy among the Net set.

Evidence of this movement would be spooky if it weren't so bold. A Baltimore-based Web shop called Rand Interactive prints the first line from The Fountainhead on the back of its business cards. WebTV founder Steve Perlman named his incubator Rearden Steel after a corporation in Atlas Shrugged. San Mateo, Calif.-based customer-service software firm E.piphany (EPNY) has an Ayn Rand conference room. Cypress Semiconductor (CY) CEO T.J. Rodgers hired an objectivist philosopher to lecture his executive staff on "the DNA of capitalism." Robert Frasca named Galt Technologies after a character in Atlas Shrugged and sent copies of the book to clients of his company's mutual-fund information service.

"It's psychotic to read that stuff and not live in the Valley," says Bill Cockayne, CTO of Scout Electromedia. "Her work provides a mythos to the Valley." Many people who read Rand gravitate toward industries like the Internet for their open opportunities. Gary Hull, a professor of business ethics at Duke University (dossier) who believes he'd "probably be dead" if it weren't for Rand, says "the Internet is like America's second industrial revolution because it's creating new markets."

Perhaps Rand's biggest cheerleader among the Net set is John McCaskey, cofounder and VP of product development at E.piphany. The engineer in McCaskey loves Rand's rational thinking. While reading her books in college, he was thrilled to find a writer who portrayed businessmen as heroes. He now disseminates Rand literature to fans and prospective converts alike. "John McCaskey is the Johnny Appleseed of Rand," adds Hull.

"Our society says that personal ambition is bad. It's only OK to make money if you give it away," says McCaskey. "But Rand gives you a confidence in the morality of your ambitions. She says it's not only OK but actually good to build wealth."

It's no surprise Internet entrepreneurs are open to this message. Devoted objectivist Yaron Brook, managing partner at San Jose, Calif.-based venture firm BH Equity, believes Rand can help entrepreneurs who succeed but feel guilty about their wealth. Brook, who's also executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute in Marina del Rey, Calif., sends recently funded companies "congratulations kits" with an inspirational Rand quote and an offer for a free copy of Atlas Shrugged.

But not all Rand fans agree that a nagging conscience is a bad thing. Her books also can be unrealistically absolutist, and take free market economics to its most reductionist extreme. Love Goel, CEO of Personify, agrees with Rand that the human spirit is capable of incredible things. "But I feel negatively about her selfishness," says Goel. "Many of us have made more money than our children will ever need. If you've had success, you have a responsibility to make a difference."

Scout's Cockayne adores Rand's characters' chutzpah, but finds her philosophy "incredibly flawed." Says Cockayne: "It assumes perfect democracy and that everyone acts out of rational self-interest. But people are irrational. Egoism and helping others don't really go together."

Outside of the business world, Rand is much less revered. Few universities include Rand in their curriculum, but that doesn't hinder her popularity. "Students just love her, but we can excuse 18-year-olds. They get smarter here at Berkeley and outgrow her," says Steve Tollefson, a lecturer in UC Berkeley's College Writing Program. "I'm horrified, but not surprised, that it holds an attraction for Internet executives. It's a convenient philosophy for them." Tollefson doesn't believe today's Net titans are misreading Rand, although he'd prefer that they would: "They should be out there changing the world, but not in the way they think they should be."

Not surprisingly, Rand disciples see the Microsoft (MSFT) trial as antiobjectivist. To them, Bill Gates' recent philanthropy proves society will mooch off great leaders, and the trial shows that governments want to control the heroic man. The Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism, whose mission is to present "a moral defense of business, profit-making and economic freedom, based on a morality of rational self-interest and guided by the philosophy of Ayn Rand," is one of the more prominent Web-based Microsoft defenders. It homepage links visitors to sites where they can sign petitions opposing the Department of Justice's "assault on success" against Microsoft.

"The Microsoft mishegoss is of serious concern," says Jonathan Hoenig, author of Greed Is Good. "The government is doing a grave disservice not just to shareholders, but to the American way of life." Hoenig rose to Microsoft's defense, armed with copies of Atlas Shrugged, which he sent to Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, Richard Blumenthal, Tom Miller and a few high-ranking officials in the Justice Department. He plans to send copies to all involved in the trial as he believes objectivism is applicable to every component of life.

"We all do business like Microsoft," says Cypress' Rodgers. In 1998 he wrote a New York Times op-ed piece stating that the government shouldn't take action against Microsoft. The paper wanted to cut a reference to Rand. He refused to let the Times print it unless the reference remained. It did.

Still, Rand's philosophy seems to serve as all things to all Net execs. Professed Rand fan and vocal Microsoft-monopoly critic Larry Ellison, for example, seemed to have forgotten Rand's antitrust sentiments when the Oracle (ORCL) chairman and CEO testified against Microsoft to the Senate Judiciary Committee in July 1998.

"Not all fans are out there being evangelists because they are too busy running their businesses," says McCaskey. "Maybe we should develop a secret handshake."

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The Gospel of Greed