Her answer to this question can be analyzed in two parts. First, Rand said that values ought to be objective facts about reality. She noted that life is conditional, and that it requires a specific course of action to maintain. Second, Rand noted that humans, unlike other animals, need to discover their values. Not very exciting.
Animals just repeat a built-in cycle of action over and over.
The drama of human life is that people have to decide what action to take, and their decisions have real, long-range consequences. Values are objective facts about reality, and your means for knowing reality is reason. Reason is the fundamental value because it's your means of discovering your other values. In large part, produce the goods needed to survive. Unlike animals that simply take what they need from the environment, humans produce what they need.