Although "The Fountainhead" was one of the older films we watched, I enjoyed it all the same. The plot centers around Howard Roark on his quest to become a great architect, and Peter Keating on his path to mediocrity. In the movie, Peter follows all the rules and designs very boring and basic buildings, while Howard strives for greatness and takes more risks. At first, Peter outperforms Howard in every aspect of architecture; he is more successful, more known, and makes more money. But this does not last long, and eventually, Howard has a breakthrough and accomplishes all of his dreams.
This conflict within the film perfectly represents modern-day entrepreneurship as a whole. The person who settles for mediocrity will never do anything special. In order to become the next Elon Musk, you must be willing to take risks. You must be willing to put yourself out there and not be afraid of what people might think. You must be willing to reinvest all profits and throw your entire life on the line in the pursuit of excellence.
There are plenty of good real-world examples that prove this thesis. Two of the most obvious ones are Mark Zuckerberg and Michael Burry. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, embraced a more ruthless and arguably unethical style of risk, but risk nonetheless. By essentially kicking his friend out of the company, he secured 30% extra equity that he could sell to investors. Although his friend ended up winning millions in court, this was practically a slap on the wrist for Mark when you consider the monstrous company that Facebook became. He took a risk that the average person would not have made, and this propelled him from being a normal entrepreneur to an ultra-successful one. It might not be savory, but it was what was required.
A similar thing can be said of Michael Burry. Burry was the main investor to predict the 2008 crisis, and he did so with his client's money on the line. At first, it did not go well. His clients were losing money every single day for months and pressuring him to liquidate the position. Even with all this pressure, Burry knew the market would flip upside down soon, and he held the positions. Although he received lawsuits, death threats, and much more, once the market turned his clients more than tripled their money and Burry personally profited millions. To this day, he is known as one of the best investors of all time and was one of the first and only people to predict the 2008 housing market crash, which many considered to be impossible at the time. To accomplish this, he absolutely had to employ tons of risk.
In fact, for any entrepreneur to make that step from being mediocre to truly breaking through the atmosphere and propelling themselves to greatness, they must embrace all the risk that comes their way. Whether that means investing all profits back into the company, rapidly expanding beyond your means, or taking on loads of debt, if you want to achieve greatness, you must do it without a second thought. Howard Roark understood this, and Peter Keating did not.
Works Cited
BYLUND, PER L. Seen, the Unseen, and the Unrealized: How Regulations Affect Our Everyday Lives. LEXINGTON Books, 2018.
Vidor, King, director. The Fountainhead. Warner Bros., 1949.
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