In geopolitics, we often take the wide-lens view, looking at the impersonal, sweeping factors that limit the influence of individuals. Yet the microscopic — genes and their manipulations — and the deeply personal still have the potential to affect the behaviors of nations in the years and decades to come. As gene-editing techniques continue to improve and new gene functions are uncovered, a wide swath of economic sectors will adjust to and incorporate these new discoveries. While health care implications may be the most obvious, they will not be the most immediate. Industrial biotechnology methods are likely to improve, but it is the agricultural industry that is poised to see the largest benefits from new gene-editing techniques. As children, we find that some people can roll their tongues and others cannot. We learn that some pea plants are tall and others short, and that some traits are dominant over others.