Entrepreneurs everywhere start companies to create value. They see something missing in the world, or something that could be improved, and they set out to bring their vision into reality. Silicon Valley is the epicenter of high-tech enterprise and research, seeing $48 billion in venture capital investment in 2014.

But Silicon Valley is more than a place: it’s a mindset. And students at Jason Crawford’s STRIVECon presentation were offered the opportunity to understand that mindset through comparisons to the ideas animating Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

A writeup is available online.