Ayn Rand [1905 –1982] was a Russian-American writer and philosopher.  She is known for her two best-selling novels, “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged”, and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. 

Ayn Rand displayed characteristic signs of autistic hyperfocus, including:  (a) appearing to live in an inner world that is entirely intellectual; (b) having intense single-minded concentration; (c) seeing every issue in terms of black and white, where a thing is either true or it is not; (d) being outraged by injustice; (e) having a laser-like bullshit detector; (f) fearlessness; (g) writing with a forthrightness that scares people; and (h) having no social awareness of how she is perceived by others.

Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism and rejected altruism.  In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed collectivism and statism as well as anarchism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including property rights.