Yaron Brook (; born May 23, 1961) is an

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

i- American Objectivist writer who is the current chairman of the board at the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), where he was executive director from 2000 to 2017. Prior to joining ARI, he was a finance professor at

Santa Clara University Santa Clara University is a private university, private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California, United States. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university' ...

, where he taught for seven years.

Biography

Yaron Brook was born in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

and raised in

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

. His parents were

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

socialists Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and socia ...

from

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. When he was 16, a friend lent him a copy of

Ayn Rand Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; , 1905March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which s ...

's ''

Atlas Shrugged ''Atlas Shrugged'' is a 1957 novel by Ayn Rand. It is her longest novel, the fourth and final one published during her lifetime, and the one she considered her ''magnum opus'' in the realm of fiction writing. She described the theme of ''Atlas ...

'', leading him to embrace Objectivism. After graduating from high school, he served as a

first sergeant First sergeant is typically a senior non-commissioned officer rank, used in many countries. Singapore First sergeant is a Specialist (Singapore), specialist in the Singapore Armed Forces. First sergeants are the most senior of the junior spe ...

in Israeli

military intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis List of intelligence gathering disciplines, approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist Commanding officer, commanders in decision making pr ...

(1979–1982) and then earned a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering in 1986 from the

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is a public university, public research university located in Haifa, Israel. Established in 1912 by Jews under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire, the Technion is the oldest university in the coun ...

Career

Brook became an associate of leading Objectivist intellectuals, such as philosopher Leonard Peikoff. In 1994, he co-founded Lyceum International, a company that organized Objectivist conferences and offered distance-learning courses. In 2000, he left Santa Clara University to succeed Michael Berliner as President and Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute, which was then located in Marina del Rey, California. In 2002, ARI relocated to

Irvine, California Irvine () is a Planned community, planned city in central Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It was named in 1888 for the landowner James Irvine. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the ...

Views and opinions

Politics and economics

Brook is an outspoken proponent of ''

laissez-faire ''Laissez-faire'' ( , from , ) is a type of economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies or regulations). As a system of thought, ''laissez-faire'' ...

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

. In appearances on

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

and several articles and speeches, he has defended the rights of corporations and businessmen and upheld the

virtues A virtue () is a trait of excellence, including traits that may be moral, social, or intellectual. The cultivation and refinement of virtue is held to be the "good of humanity" and thus is valued as an end purpose of life or a foundational pri ...

of capitalism. In a January 7, 2007, editorial in ''USA Today'', he defended multimillion-dollar CEO pay packages against the attempt by the government to regulate them. In a 2010 interview, Brook called the efforts of Democrats to raise taxes on multi-millionaires "totally immoral." He criticized

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...

for signing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which regulates corporate accounting practices. He has also argued that antitrust laws are "unjust and make no sense ethically or economically." Brook is co-author, with Don Watkins, of the book ''Equal is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality''. “What we care about is whether individuals are able to rise by merit—and the fact is that many of the policies the inequality critics say will improve mobility actually make rising by merit much harder,” they argue in the book.

Israel

Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...

, Brook argued that "Zionism fused a valid concern—self-preservation amid a storm of hostility—with a toxic premise: ethnically based collectivism and religion."

Islam

In 2018, a public event featuring Brook and Carl Benjamin, a controversial

YouTuber A YouTuber is a content creator and social media influencer who uploads or creates videos on the online video-sharing website YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006 ...

known as "Sargon of Akkad", as speakers was protested by masked activists. Brook has claimed that "Islamic ideology" is not compatible with the moral values of the contemporary

Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also const ...

Personal life

Yaron has two sons, Niv and Edaan.

Published works

Books

* * * * * * *

Other

* ''Corporate governance: a study of director liability, firm performance and shareholder wealth'', University of Texas, Austin, 1994 hesis
''Shareholder wealth effects of directors' liability limitation provisions''
Brook, Yaron; Rao, Ramesh K. S., Journal of Financial & Quantitative Analysis, vol. 3, 1994, 481–497 * ''Terrorism in Israel'', Yaron Brook, ''The Intellectual Activist'', Vol. 10, No. 4, July 1996

, Brook, Yaron; Hendershott, Robert; Darrell Lee, Journal of Finance the journal of the American Finance Association, , vol. 6, 1998, 2185–2204
''Do Firms Use Dividends to Signal Large Future Cash Flow Increases?''
Brook, Yaron; Charlton, William T., Jr.; Hendershott, Robert J., Financial Management, (Tampa, Fla. : Financial Management Association International) vol. 3, 1998, 46–57
''Corporate Governance and Recent Consolidation in the Banking Industry''
, Brook, Yaron; Hendershott, Robert J.; Lee, Darrell, Journal of Corporate Finance: contracting, governance and organization, (Santa Clara U; Kennesaw State U), vol. 2, 2000, pp. 141–164
''Hype and Internet Stocks''
Brook, Yaron; Hendershott, Robert J., '' The Journal of Investing'', vol. 2, 53–64
''"Just War Theory" vs. American Self-Defense''
Yaron Brook, Alex Epstein, ''The Objective Standard'', Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2006
''"The 'Forward Strategy' For Failure''
Yaron Brook, Elan Journo, ''The Objective Standard'', Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 2007

*

References

External links

*
Yaron Brook on YouTube channel

Yaron Brook's profile page
from the Ayn Rand Institute
Yaron Brook on C-SPAN
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brook, Yaron 1961 births Living people 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers American people of Israeli descent American people of Polish-Jewish descent American people of South African-Jewish descent American political writers Ayn Rand Institute Israeli academics Israeli emigrants to the United States Israeli Jews Israeli people of South African-Jewish descent Israeli political writers Jewish American non-fiction writers Jewish anti-communists McCombs School of Business alumni Objectivism scholars Objectivists Santa Clara University School of Business faculty Technion – Israel Institute of Technology alumni