I'm mirroring this, BTW, from the "Return to Reason" objectivist site, as I keep having the sad experience of losing files that I don't put in multiple locations...
I'd like to first focus upon a real anomoly in the objectivist experience:
"The Fountainhead" vs. "Atlas Shrugged" (TF vs. AS)
Now please don't assume that I'm taking some kind of trivial stance here. I have read both works many times (starting in 1960 with AS), altho not recently, and in my last reading of them in the late '70's, I didn't find anything that I didn't understand, or so I thought at the time. I've also read most of Rand's other published work, and have collections of the "Ayn Rand Newsletter," as well as a multitude of other documents, audio tapes, albums, etc., somewhere in storage. When I go to the local Ayn Rand Institute lectures, I don't find anything new (which is sad, actually).
So what am I talking about? (This will be an interesting test of my memeory, as well. Oh, look! I just coined a new word!)
OK. In TF there appears a character, a rabble rouser of sorts, who is apparently an anarchist union organizer, i.e., a Wobbly, or something of that ilk. He is treated sympathetically. Meanwhile, the tycoons of business, such as the great architectural houses - Guy Francon, etc., - are given rather short thrift, portrayed largely as craven, manipulative panderers to mass tastes, which are in turn molded by corrupt intellectuals such as Wynand and Toohey.
The contrast with AS is stunning. While the captains of industry include many Phil Larkins, Oren Boiles and Jim Taggerts, Rand explicitly makes the American businessman into a hero. The closest thing to the IWW portrayed in AS is the hellhole that the 20th Century Motors had become, spawning its own nemesis, of course, John Galt.
Where is the reality?
Let's look at some examples.
Let's look at computers, a field that I know rather well, including quite a bit of the history. BTW, in this context, I highly recommend Steven Levies classic 1983 "Hackers," where you will find the origins and underlying philosophies behind everything in computing and the internet today.