Nothing captures this more than our founding itself. In 1776, representative democracy was a radical, new, untested idea. But our founders laid out a vision of shared aspirational values – that all people are made equal, that we all have right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And that we all have a shared responsibility to secure these rights – to work together to make the founding vision real.

Now, 250 years later, we still strive to achieve the ideals laid out so forcefully in the Declaration. And while that work is not done, generations of innovation have made our lives immeasurably freer, healthier, richer, and happier. Two and a half centuries of one tech revolution after another – industrialization, transportation, communication, medicine, energy, and now the digital age.

Our Founders would barely recognize the lives Americans lead today. Technology has transformed every aspect of our world in ways that would have been unimaginable. But I do think they would recognize the spirit of innovation that still features so strongly in the American identity. Just imagine what the next 250 years will bring.