“Our modern lifestyle is not a political creation. Before 1700, everybody was po

—“Our modern lifestyle is not a political creation. Before 1700, everybody was poor as hell. Life was short and brutish. It wasn’t because we didn’t have good politicians; we had some really good politicians. But then we started inventing — electricity, steam engines, microprocessors, understanding genetics and medicine and things like that. Yes, stability and education are important — I’m not taking anything away from that — but innovation is the real driver of progress.”

— Bill Gates, Rolling Stone, March 13, 2014