This movie follows Howard Roark, an architect that originally struggles to find his way in the New York building scene. This due to his new and innovative ideas that society refuses to conform to. Roark designs new age buildings, when other architects are focused on past-looking designs that society is used to. The aspect of entrepreneurship that I find particularly interesting in this movie is the fact that Roark is "before his time" when he builds the Enright House. Moving farther into the movie, society began to accept Roark's innovative architecture, and then we witnessed the downfall later on when he sabotaged Cortland. This rollercoaster shows just how much society interacts with entrepreneurship when new innovations arise.
I personally find this entrepreneurial rollercoaster very interesting because is very telling of consumers and society can change their viewpoints in a split second, and it portrays the reality of how entrepreneurs have to work through these challenges to be successful overall. The first time this arose in the movie was when Roark was kicked out of architecture at his college. This is the first inkling we get that his innovation is before its time. Later on, Roark is designing buildings that are not liked by his employer, Mr. Francon, and he is undercutted by a coworker/ex roommate and in the local newspaper. These two events seal in the notion that Roark is creating innovations that society is not ready for. Then, when he designs the Enright House, these feelings are even more solidified. Eventually, Roark does start to gain success in his architecture and is soon at the height of his career when he is designing buildings for important people and projects. During this height, he designs the Cortland houses, which are changed by others in the project, so he gets into legal trouble for destroying them.
These different events fit together into an interesting entrepreneurial journey where Roark has to experience negativity, height and success in his career, scandals, and finally great success in the end. This just shows how important society is for entrepreneurs. When entrepreneurs innovate and create value before consumers/society are ready for this, there will not be a chance for the entrepreneur to succeed at that point in time. However, this does not mean that the innovative ideas of the entrepreneur are all for naught, because public opinion can (and a lot of the time, will) change as thinking advances.
This aspect of entrepreneurship affects society because, it always creates value in the long run, whether it is immediately accepted or not. Oftentimes, society has a way of thinking that originally hinders innovation, but as they warm up to a brand new idea, it becomes more accepted and liked. On the other hand, society can often stifle entrepreneurship because of their unwillingness to accept new ideas. We have discussed this in class, and it can be seen in The Fountainhead when Roark is originally unaccepted by society and forced to work a construction job which underutilized his knowledge and abilities. This also kept society from experiencing the value that Roark could provide. This interaction is a negative feedback loop overall, because society did not accept innovation, and therefore, did not receive the value that would be provided by it. Entrepreneurs assume a lot of risk, because they rely on society to accept the value of their product and be willing to pay the price for it, but oftentimes, society's interactions with these types of innovation are negative.
