Unless they are farmers, the answer is basically "no". More generally, are your friends doing something which actually makes the world more wealthy? Manufacturing, construction, cleaning, and public transportation are good examples of non-zero-sum (and non-derivative) industries. If not, it would still be impossible to suggest that everyone could be like them.
Not everyone can be CEO of a major corporation (who would work in this companies?). Not everyone can be an investment banker (there is only so much investment money out there), or a salesman (you have to sell someone else's product to a customer). Simply put, not everyone can have a desk job, or even a well paying job in the modern economy, because these are necessarily a subset of the total economy.
By itself, thats okay. It has always been, and will always be the case. The problem arising is that we are encouraging the population as a whole to put themselves into great debt under the pretense that they will be part this well paying economy. On top of this employee creation force, we have senior people not retiring, so there are a lot of additional employees looking for jobs. Which would be okay, except that the economy is contracting a little, and there is fewer demand for the growing supply.
This is a large, complicated issue. Its a bit naive to say that people just have to work harder.
Disagree. I have known many actuaries in my lifetime (one of my exes was one), and the last thing I would do is describe their job as intellectually stimulating. High paying though, oh God yes.
I have known several actuaries who graduated from college, got great, high-paying offers from major actuarial firms... and then promptly quit their jobs two years later. The amount of tedious boredom in that job drives many people right out of the field.
It's one of those fields that you get into because it's a stable, high-paying job that has a high barrier to entry (years of licensing, so random guy off the street can't replace you - like you (potentially) can with hackers), not one of those fields where you can expect to be challenged and excited all day.
E.g. People get rich without being smart or working hard. They also don't get rich by being smart and working hard.
Ergo Rand-ian assumptions are debatable and their conclusions in serious doubt.
[ This obviously excludes people that have obtained wealth as some sort of 'birthright' ]
What about the other 20-somethings that joined the criticism? The ramen-subsisting founders using a flat as home and office?
The author points out that many people do not have the luxury of enjoying computers. Well there are plenty of other careers that are high paying and intellectually stimulating (sales, actuary, contracting all come to mind). All of them require several years of practice and hard work before they result in a middle class income however.