I can't dismiss my roots as a kid growing up during the Great Depression in the ordinary midwestern town of Grand Rapids, Michigan. From the standpoint of money and material possessions, we were barely scraping by.

Jay and I used to talk about this: we never had a goal of making a lot of money. We had a goal of having a business of our own. And there were many times we could have sold out and had a lot of money. Billions. We just put it in our pocket and go home, OK? But that was never our goal.

The easiest thing to find on God's green earth is someone to tell you all the things you cannot do.

It is fun to be Rich DeVos. It's great fun.

I wanted to dismantle the bollocks that there's a military structure to a gang, with a leader, second leader, the good looking one, first babe, second babe. It's far more arbitrary than that and their values shouldn't be romanticised. They aren't something you want to sign up to.

The biggest novelty of 2013 will be new leadership in China. Very little is known about the views of the new leaders - who will rule the country for ten years. But we do know they're the first generation of Chinese leaders who have spent the majority of their lives in a China 'opening up' to the rest of the world.

Do well what you do. And do it conscious that you ought to be leaders among men.

The world needs thinkers, leaders, and doers more than ever, so neglecting the minds of half the population means a lost opportunity to benefit from their ideas, contributions, and actions.