Economist Walter Williams, On why people are rich 

For the most part, in a free society, people who are wealthy have become so through effectively serving their fellow man. Cyrus McCormick and his reaping machine, Thomas Watson Sr. the founder of IBM, and Lloyd Conover, who created the antibiotic tetracycline are just a few of the exceptional contributors. And while these people and their companies became extremely wealthy, society benefited far more than they did in terms of healthier lives and the millions and possibly billions of lives saved.