I’m a retired engineer. I discovered the philosophy of reason, objective reality, rational selfishness, and the fundamental basis for capitalism in 1969, but only discovered Ayn Rand in 1977, when I saw “Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal”, and “The Virtue of Selfishness” in a bookstore, and read them and Rand’s novel speeches before reading her novels.

In the 80s I bought all of Rand’s writings and other objectivist sanctioned writings from Palo Alto Book Service, and created a whole objectivist section in my library.

I only ran into other Ayn Rand fans a few years later.