That having been said:

She represents two "selfish" heroes as good; one (Rearden) buys up the supply chain tonreduce costs and deliver his new alloy at lower prices, and the other (Galt) is an extremist-capitalist who refuses to give anything away because he believes that it leads to the kind of thing the villains of the book have done. Speaking of, Rearden actually offers to give ten thousand dollars to his brother's charity...and is chastised for it by his brother, who complains that Rearden isn't a true believer, and then demands that the money be delivered in cash so as to not besmirch the charity with a greedy capitalist's name. While Rearden was not giving for the charity's sake so much as he was giving for his brother's sake, it's hard to argue that giving ten thousand dollars to make your brother happy is a "selfish" thing to do.

Allowing people to trump others is presented as good only in the sense that competition encourages improvement. It's not that you've beaten someone, it's that you did so by creating a better metal, or engine, or or or. By letting one man's (better) design become more successful, even at the expense of another man's design, you encourage better design overall. Recall the bright young engineer who made an exceptionally efficient diesel engine, and was worked to the bone for 12 hours a day in response. Were he given a raise instead, others would have found that innovation is rewarded. If the ones who do not make new, better engines are given the same money for less value, then why should anyone make new engines?

As for the problem of the great minds versus the small ones, that's where Rand falls flat. She is right on the money re: value and rewarding it, but she fails to consider that the people who have great ideas are a fairly small group, and that the people on the assembly line are still worth rewarding for other kinds of hard work.

I only know that Rand came to the USA in the midst of the cold war, which explains why she'a so upset over commies.