Reason Foundation Co-Founder Bob Poole on Ayn Rand

Robert W. Poole Jr. was one of the founders of Reason Enterprises, which began publishing Reason with its January 1971 issue (the magazine had started in 1968, under the direction of Lanny Friedlander).

He co-founded the nonprofit Reason Foundation in 1978 with Manny Klausner and Tibor Machan and has held many titles with the magazine, including editor, managing editor, executive editor, editor-in-chief, and publisher. He remains on the board of the Reason Foundation today and is the Searle Freedom Trust Transportation Fellow and Director of Transportation Policy.

"Rand really inspired a lot of people who otherwise might have become conservatives, like me," says Poole. "If you go back and look at surveys that were done of libertarians in the 1960s, '70s, and even the '80s, and asked what single book or thought leader most inspired you to become a libertarian, it was always Rand by a large large majority—always a plurality and usually a majority."

Approximately six minutes. Interview by Michael C. Moynihan, camera by Dan Hayes, and editing by Hawk Jensen.

This is part of the Reason.tv series Radicals For Capitalism: Celebrating the Ideas of Ayn Rand.

Watch the first part of the series, RandORamaThe Long Shelf Life of Ayn Rand at

Watch a promo trailer for the series at

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