Rand held academics in contempt. She writes in a shamelessly bumhurt yet somehow incredibly creepy, overwrought style. she believed herself a liberated woman in spite of the fact that every female character except her Mary-Sue in Shrugged is an empty stereotype. Each sex scene (and there are several) in that book is creepier than the last; she believed, for some reason, that good sex must entail violence and near (in fact almost implied) non-consent.

The galt speech sounds nice, but its critical point is deeply problematic from a logic standpoint. Her “philosophy” can essentially be summed up thus:

“waaaaah me and my beautiful, wealthy friends should be allowed to do whatever we want because we’re the only people who do anything and everyone else just leeches so let us do what we want and don’t tax us and let us **** each other and be rich and regular morality doesn’t apply to us.”

Here is an extremely accurate summary of atlas shrugged that will save you a month of your life:

http://www.spudworks.com/article/66/2/