I was 18 or 19. And it was pretty much like a rope swing to the other side of the river for me, rather than a convincing argument to go for a swim (i.e. I turned out to have anarcho-capitalist tendencies, rather than Objectivist ones--and I was already an atheist before reading Rand, so there wasn't much room for her to have an impact on that front). But, mostly, I'd be happy if everybody would just agree that the founding fathers of the US got things mostly right (excepting the obvious bugs: slavery, male-only voting) and leave well enough alone. I don't much care for the strident tone of Rand's books (excepting Anthem which was short enough that it avoids all of the mind-numbing angry repetition of all of her other works).