According to an article that originally ran in the Press Telegram (now reprinted here), Los Angeles Dodgers General Manager Paul DePodesta is a serious fan of Ayn Rand’s writings:
During an hour-long interview, Paul DePodesta mentions convictions often, and reveals the famous novelist, Ayn Rand, and the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, as individuals who have had influences on his life.
“I have DVDs on Ayn Rand and have read most of her books,” he says of the author whose most acclaimed book, “The Fountainhead,” stressed the virtue of American individualism. “Howard Roark (the main character in ‘The Fountainhead’) was a guy loyal to his own ideals and principles and he eventually triumphs over every form of spiritual collectivism. He had big…” [Quote cut in the original, for some reason. –JZ]
DePodesta also has a printout on his desk of a quote from Theodore Roosevelt in regard to criticism.
He admits it serves as a source of inspiration for him, and he reads it to me verbatim:
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
See the full article for additional information about the celebrity Ayn Rand fan.