JOHN GALT 2.0
Ross Ulbricht grew up in Texas, an Eagle Scout who went on to study physics at the University of Texas in Dallas. He was a fan of fellow Texan and libertarian Ron Paul; both studied the Austrian school of economics and the work of its father, Ludwig von Mises, who believed in unrestricted markets. Ulbricht earned a master’s in materials science and engineering at Pennsylvania State University. Acquaintances describe him as bright and straitlaced. “He wasn’t the center of conversation or the center of anything,” says a friend who claims to have briefly dated him last year. “He kind of set himself in the background.”