Roger Ver

Roger Ver is born and raised in Silicon Valley. He attends Valley Christian High School in San Jose.

In junior high he finds a copy of  Socialism by Ludwig von Mises, thinking it to be a pro-socialism book. This spurs an interest in libertarianism and through high school he reads economics books by authors like Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, Fredric Bastiat, Leonard Reed, Henry Hazlitt and Friedrich Hayek:

The more I read the more I realized how government control and regulation is making the world a poor place. I learnt that if something’s worth doing, then you don’t need the government forcing people to do it because they will do it on their own.

He is particularly influenced by the writing of Murray Rothbard:

I devoured all of Rothbard’s books and was persuaded by the logic of his arguments. I remember being almost afraid to read such powerful truths. In all my years of schooling, no one before Rothbard had ever pointed out that taxation is the moral equivalent of theft, and the military draft is the moral equivalent of kidnapping and slavery. It shattered my remaining hopes that the State could be morally justified. For the first time I saw them for the criminal band of thieves, slave masters, and murderers that they are. My life has never been the same since.