Referring to people who follow PG's writing and the discussions on this site as a cult is not correct, and frankly I'm getting tired of the moniker. If Paul were to write something bogus, the people here would be the first to pick it apart.
As with any reasonably well-known person, there are followers that adhere to PG too religiously. I can't speak for these people except to say that they are the minority on HN.
Paul's writings are inspiring in the same way as Rand. But they are different because they span the gap between fantasy and reality. His main message of "Make something users want" couldn't be more pragmatic.
Certainly some essays are more speculative and philosophical than others, but most tend to be focused on one idea: How to do something that is exciting and meaningful to you and fit that into how the actual world works; spanning the gap between your personal fantasy job and the reality of making that into a business.