In the Spoiler Country podcast, Mark said a false dichotomy between sacrificing people to yourself and sacrificing yourself to others leads to a false understanding of objectivism.

For any group, the group itself is an abstraction. A group is composed of individuals, and individual human beings need specific conditions to thrive. Applying an understanding of those conditions in a social setting is what we arrive at with constitutionally restrained government and the free exchange of ideas and products (which we call capitalism) and ownership of property. The source of all values is the individual, working for his own life like every other living creature. Every individual I know has a whole host, a universe, a world, of human beings that they support and interact with and value.

~Mark Pellegrino (edited)

When Mark’s housekeeper had pneumonia, he asked for her address and a shopping list so he could shop for her. This shouldn’t surprise anyone who has interacted with Mark, and his kindness is in keeping with objectivist values:

My self is a world that includes my animals, my wife, my kids, their friends, my friends, people who work for me, people who like me, people who don’t. That’s me!

Mark Pellegrino

Mark thinks the misapplication of objectivist ideas is a deliberate attempt to hide the fact that individualism is good.

Source: Mark Pellegrino (November 2020) talking to Spoiler Country