For someone who, apart from some mental issues, seemed to be the personification of the 'Randian Hero' Atlas ended up not getting much love around here.
I thought the
Randian Heros actually created something in those stories? All Atlas did was expose everyone to his diarrhea of the mouth! He was actually more like the villains who just sat around and talked.
Exactly - Atlas had all the ideas of the "Randian Hero" but he possessed absolutely zero followthrough to his ambition. Which sort of misses Rand's point. I do think that Atlas put forward some ideas and ambition that OTHERS actually wound up acting on - often with substantial changes, but he put things out there and drove the community in the early days. IE I think bitcoin's trajectory might have been quite different without Atlas for all his flaws.
I doubt it. Atlas was an idea man, for sure, but just because he thought of some things first doesn't mean that they wound't have been thought of by others in due course.