A train cruising through Pennsylvania passes by an enormous steel foundry complex. Near the tracks is a large office building with the words REARDEN STEEL printed in large neon lights. This leads a few passengers to scoff about Henry 'Hank' Rearden's huge throbbing ego; a professor remarks that individuals don't matter in the grand scheme of things, while a journalist writes a smug comment for his column about Rearden's habit of spewing his name on everything he owns.
As it turns out, Hank Rearden owns quite a lot, so his name is fucking everywhere. He's an entirely self-made man, having started out laboring in an iron mine at age fourteen. He easily moved his way up the corporate latter until at age 30, the mine was about to close down, so he bought it with his savings and kept it open because he's fucking pro. Over the next five years, he acquired numerous other firms, including a coal mine and the steel mill which is now the crown jewel of his industrial empire.
Rearden doesn't understand why mines and mills keep closing. All he has to do is buy up the shitholes for pennies and then hire some smart people to run them for him with generous salaries. This leaves Rearden with a lot of free time on his hands, so he's spent most of the ten years that he's owned Rearden Steel working to advance the science of metallurgy. After a decade of busting his ass hopelessly, he finally invents Rearden Metal, the alloy that Hank Rearden is certain will change the world. It's cheaper, lighter, and stronger than steel, and since he owns the patent on it, the entire industrial world is at his knees.... At least, it would be, but nobody is buying his fucking metal. Haters everywhere are calling his metal dangerous and unproven, and if there's one thing we learned in chapter one, it's that nobody in this world has balls anymore. It's a whole world of nutless mouth-breathers passing their vestigial decayed sacks from one generation to the next.
Then along comes Dagny with her enormous balls and her empty bag of fucks. She needs rails from Rearden to save Taggart Transcontinental, and Rearden needs some good publicity for Rearden Metal. He's described as tall and gaunt, with fierce icy-blue eyes and a super serious face that rarely expresses emotion; however, today, he's anything but serious, because now Hank Rearden is literally having the happiest day of his life while he watches his huge super-efficient excellently-run steel mill pour the first batch of Rearden Metal. To commemorate the occasion, he has a simple chain bracelet fashioned out of the batch to be a gift to his wife. When he giddily returns home that evening, he finds his mom, his wife Lillian, and his brother Philip hanging out with an old friend of Hank's named Paul Larkin.
Hank is just bursting to tell his family the news about Rearden Metal, but as soon as he walks through the door, Lillian gives him a raft of shit about being late and missing dinner. Hank's mood is immediately ruined, and suddenly wonders why he was going to bother sharing the news about Rearden Metal with them. They don't care. So instead he greets Paul Larkin as warmly as he can manage. Larkin is just dropping in to see what's up, and Hank feels mildly sheepish about missing the chance to have supper with him. Hank's wife, mother, and brother immediately jump on his nuts about having a superiority complex; apparently, in order to be fulfilled, he needs people around who depend on him for support.
Hank's wife and mother are a pair of bleeding vaginas who make no effort to hide their hatred for Hank, but he's clearly in denial about it. They repeatedly accuse him of being a selfish bastard who lords his wealth and power over them, while Hank just wants to achieve great things and provide for them while he does it. Poor Hank is confused, and wonders why they profess to love him, yet despise all of Hank's (in his own view) best qualities. Hank's younger brother is cut from the same cloth; a dickless wonder who went to college on Hank's dime, never held a real job, and hates Hank as much as the others.
Eventually, Lillian asks Hank if he can mark 10 December on his calendar to attend a huge party she's throwing for their anniversary. Desperate to please her, he agrees. Afterwards, Larkin has a word with Rearden in private. Larkin is worried because Rearden gets a lot of "bad press". He's not popular with "the public". Rearden's like "Whatevs, bro, haters gonna hate. I'm selling steel, not myself." Larkin isn't satisfied. You see, Rearden employs a lobbyist in D.C. to look after his interests and to keep The Man off his back, but he only does this because it's generally understood that everyone employs such men. It's not a part of his business that he takes seriously, so he doesn't pay any attention to it. Paul Larkin seems conflicted, but he manages to force himself to give Rearden a cryptic warning:
"How's your man in Washington?"
"I dunno lol. Good I guess."
"You sure bro?"
"Should I be sure?"
"Yes."
"Any particular reason why?"
"Ummmmm... no."
And then Larkin immediately lightens up, as though he's done what he came to do. Throughout all this talking, Rearden has been dropping obvious hints that he's had a great day at work, and that he's been up to something big. Finally, Paul Larkin bites, and Rearden tells everyone about his first Rearden Metal order. Everyone is just blank, and Larkin literally just says "That's nice." So Hank gives his wife the blueish-green metal bracelet, and they all mock him for giving her a cheap-ass accessory made of the stuff of rail spikes and engines, totally missing the fucking point. Rearden's mood plummets further, because he can't get a fucking ounce of validation out of his family.
Rearden tries one more time: he asks Philip what he's been up to. Philip has been busting his ass all day panhandling to business owners to raise funds for an organization he belongs to called Friends of Global Progress. Hank feigns interest in an effort to build some kind of real relationship, but Phil gets all hipster and dismissive. "You wouldn't understand, mannnnnn." They seem to be into psych lectures, folk music, and co-operative farming. Rearden doesn't give a fuck, but he just wants to make someone happy, so he offers to cut Philip a $10,000 check for his little commie-club or whatever.
Philip just gets all bitchy and says "You don't even care about the oppressed people I'm fighting for, do you?" And Rearden's like "I just want to make YOU happy, bro!" But Philip isn't letting him off that easy. "The money isn't for me though. I have nothing to gain here, I'm just doing it for the people. But hey, if you're going to give us that money, can you do it in cash? Thing is, FoGP thinks you're a douchebag, and we don't actually want a paper trail leading to you. It looks bad."
At this point, Rearden is momentarily overwhelmed with crushing depression, so he just says "Fuck it. Take the cash," and Philip hardly even seems to care. The chapter ends with some more hate from Hanks mother and wife for being selfish, and Lillian points out that the chain bracelet is a perfect symbol for his enslavement of them.
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