What is an “intellectual heir?
In the 1950s and 1960s, Rand sometimes referred to Nathaniel Branden as her “intellectual heir.” According to Branden, she once explained this to a journalist as follows: “It means Mr. Branden is the most consistent embodiment of what I write about, that he understands my philosophy better than anyone, and that he represents the next generation who will carry my work further.” After her break with Branden in 1968, she ceased to apply this designation to him, and she is not known to have applied it to anyone else. Since her death, the term has sometimes been used to describe Leonard Peikoff, who is her legal heir and a prominent exponent of her ideas.
