What is the most entrepreneurial country in the Middle East today? It's Lebanon. Which country has no oil or gas? Lebanon. The same was true of Israel, the same was of Bahrain. You could see a real gradation. Turkey, for instance: no oil and gas, very entrepreneurial. You can either dig your future out of the ground or you can unlock the potential of your people.

I'm from Minnesota. I'm optimistic. I mean, that's just who I am.

Never before in the history of the planet have so many people, on their own, had the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people.

The reason that we are becoming less equal is because of the greater requirements, secure requirements, for a good job. This goes back to the '80s basically, this started changing as globalization and the IT revolution merged, and each started to drive the other.

Saudi hijackers first came into contact with al-Qaeda and went through Terrorism 101 when they signed up for the jihad in Afghanistan.

The Arab world had a big problem of frankly venal elites. That is why these revolutions happen, because people didn't think the opportunities were being shared fairly.

The Middle East would always be an important trading partner in just a market sense, like America is a big market for us, Asia is a big market, Europe is a big market. You are going to have hundreds of millions of consumers there, from just a standard market point of view, from a very narrow American point of view.