Andrew Yang On Ai Power Money Techish

TITLE: Andrew Yang is Back! AI, Power, Money — and Who the Hell Is Actually in Charge? CHANNEL: Techish DATE: 2026-02-08 ---TRANSCRIPT--- People see me as like the magical Asian man who wants to make folks less broke. I think the easiest problem we have to solve right now is poverty and financial scarcity. The magical Asian man from the future wants to give everyone money is like the shorthand. It was uh 2020 it was the left plus tech versus the right. 2024 it was the right plus tech versus the left. And then 2028’s going to be the left plus the right against tech. And so I said, “Fuck this. I’m gonna run for president.”

Andrew Yang, you are our first repeat guest. What? Yeah. First person we’ve had on. This is your second time on the Techly Gen podcast. And the reason is everyone loved the first one. Yay. Everyone loved it. The the questions that people have asked me to ask you are number one, when is he running for president again? Oh, that’s very sweet. So that’s a real question. [laughter] The answer is um I’m always trying to figure that out. Uh you know, I mean the odds of my running again are very very high. I am so glad to hear that. I’m pretty sure I haven’t heard you say it like definitively like that. So Andrew Young is running for president again. Yeah, at some point. Sure. What does that take and what’s that process like? Imagine a primary where anyone could vote for their candidate on their smartphone. um which could then be it could be vetted five ways through through Sunday. Honestly, I mean the the tech is very buttoned up now. For example, is that safe? I mean, isn’t that kind of easy? So, here’s here’s an example. You could vote on on your smartphone and then have it be verified via personalized QR code that gets sent to your mailing address. It’s very hard to defraud both both ways. I mean, that’s actually pretty buttoned up really. And and that cost per vote would be, you know, dimes. So, if you wanted to, you you could run an independent primary that would enable everyone to be able to vote fairly quickly. You could have multi-stages um and then have it so that you have a very very interesting set of candidates because my thesis in my last book was that the two-party system is going to continue to get uh more creaky and less representative and more polarized and and extreme. And I think that’s exactly what we’re feeling. Yeah. Yeah. We’re all we all can sense that. And and by the way, that that’s set up by design. Some very poor design choices. I don’t know if I said this what we were last time. It’s like I don’t wake up with like a burning desire to be president. My joke is I’m Asian. You know, it’s like I you know, my parents never suggested that even running for office would be like a good idea at all. It was really you just you were a doctor or what were your choices? Do doctor or lawyer? They didn’t even know what a banker was. If they knew, I’m sure they would have tried me tried to get me to do that. like I I just want things to work better and I’m convinced that in order for things to work better like the structures need to evolve and change and so if I saw um a way to help the structures get more become more modern and representative and responsive the fear that and a lot of people listening to this I get it like if you’re a Democrat like I was a Democrat for you know many many years um but then a lot of Democrats I know are getting like kind of like um disappointed and look like I’m friends with a lot of people who are in politics and like I still donate regularly and I think this is going to surprise virtually no one, but like most of the people I run I’m donating to are Democrats. Like I I I actually now feel like they’re stuck within these institutions that are going to um become more and more problematic. Um and that like the institutions themselves like I have a vision for how that can change and so the work that we’re doing at Forward is actually trying to change at the local level. um the presidential stuff I described is um higher variance and so you need to you know like uh one reason like for example I didn’t touch a run in 24 was that I I thought I’d be more likely to do harm than good. Um so you you have to kind of sus out like you know whether you’re going to be more likely to make something good happen um or not. Um, but at at a local level, you can do it all over the country and you’re doing good because frankly, you know, like 85% of races are uncontested or uncompetitive. Your characters, I read this in your last newsletter, your characters tend to take one of three forms. The characters that you grew up playing in that’s what we’re talking about. But now, as you go into politics, are you the suicidal warrior, the scarred magic user, or the happy golucky thief? That’s a good question. I mean, I I don’t know which of them I seem like to you nowadays. [laughter] I think there’s a little bit of magic in every one of those. I do want to lean into like this humor element. So, I think if if I were to to run, I would be leaning into humor. So, I guess it’d be more like the happy golucky, not thief. Thief has like a negative element. The happy golucky wizard, magic user, something like that. The magical Asian man from the future wants to give everyone money is like the shorthand. That’s a win-win. Sorry. Right. And and by the way, like GDP in America, $87,000 ahead, AI is going to spike it to probably uh significantly more. So at some point it becomes vast enough where giving everyone a certain amount of money to set a foundation makes perfect sense. I mean, why not? So when I look at Sam Alman and Elon Musk and oh now Sam Alman might build the next rocket, whatever, whatever. It’s such a colossal waste of like who’s is biggest to me? Why are they doing that? Will you make that make sense to me? Why doesn’t just a teeny tiny trickle of that money go to actually making America a better place? Uh is that I mean no I mean like that the culture has shifted dramatically even from when I ran in 2020 and it makes me very sad. um where like I was with techies in Silicon Valley where I used to live and was like, “Hey guys, AI is going to automate the jobs. We should give everyone money via UBI.” I could get most techies on board with that uh five, six years ago. Did they all just drink the evil Kool-Aid? What the was happened to them? What what happened was that the sense of and I I do think it’s institutions um where the sense of integrity as in like wholeness to the country is fractured in that period. And so now instead of thinking, okay, we’re part of this larger hole and if the larger hole goes sour and turns on us, it’s very bad for us. Let’s try and take care of the larger hole. I think that’s where it was in 2020. And now it’s more like we’re here. We’re doing our own thing. You’re over there. You’re doing your thing. We’re getting these resources. Bully for us. If you guys don’t have resources, tough luck. Figure it out. Oh, DC, that could pose an issue for us. Let’s make sure and get in good with the crew that’s in control. and and then and so that that’s been the move. Who runs the country? Is it the politician or is it the bajillionaire who’s running this country right now? I I saw and I I don’t recommend um these social media platforms, but I saw a a post that I that made me nod my head. Um it was uh 2020 it was the left plus tech versus the right. 2024 it was the right plus tech versus the left. And then 2028’s going to be the left plus the right against tech is that you’re going to have this increased populism that is going to realize that the tech gajillionaires uh don’t have their best interests at heart. And the the the clearest emblem of that is going to be when AI is decimating the jobs and people are going to be like wait a minute how does this help me? Um and then it’s like well it helps you theoretically if you own Nvidia stock and you they’ll be like what are you talking about? And then to add insult to injury, they’re going to maybe be told that they have subsidized the construction of these AI data centers through higher energy bills and maybe like a higher water uh supply. Yeah. So, who’s paying for this? Who’s paying to who’s paying to lose jobs, to struggle more, to pay more for groceries, to I mean, it seems really bleak for somebody who is an eternal optimist and very happy and tries to see the positive in everything. That scares the out of me. It scares me too, Jen. Uh, it makes me sad. It breaks my heart. And I want you to put yourself in my shoes, too, as the the magical Asian man from from the future making that case in Iowa in 2019 at the truck stop being like, “Guys, the robot trucks are going to come. Like, you guys have to turn this tide.” And I was with my team last night and recounting that um Bernie Sanders won Iowa with 26,000 Ians caucusing for him. We got 8,914 Ians to caucus for us. So, we got like 24% of what we needed to win the state. Um, which I’m going to suggest to people is like that’s actually a pretty credible showing, but then because of very strange caucus rules like, you know, if you can get 15% in a place, blah blah blah. I also won the Iowa um youth straw poll, which generally was actually a pretty good predictor of who wins. [laughter] But I I guess that the the point I’m making is like I I worked my heart out along with a bunch of other people to make this case in 2019 2020 and the case is now coming true and I you know I’m on news programs just about every day asking me like what are we going to do about AI and jobs and I was like you know like I wrote a book like projecting um that this sort of scenario was going to unfold and so like the logical thing to do now is to distribute the wealth and gains from AI quickly and broadly throughout the population so that people actually have a leg to stand on. And if you don’t make that kind of move, and by the way, I’m also not for like I’m not against um trying to slow this stuff down in some some places. There’s no rule that says like you have to, you know, like kick people to the curb. I want to quickly check in with you about Noble Mobile because that was what h how we met finally in real life. We’d been in a lot of similar space but had never really spoken and met each other and talked face to face. I use Noble Mobile. I have earned $18.70 and you’re giving me an incredible um like bank interest rate on that for in month one. Yeah. So, look at this. $18.70. If I keep doing that over one year, I will earn $251. I will earn that money from my cell phone plan. You guys, I mean, come on. Yes. Yeah. Well, we pay 5 and a half% interest on any savings that you uh acrewue. And my dream is that your cell phone plan becomes your angel on your wing um whispering, “Don’t use your screen as much.” And then putting money in your account and then having it grow. Because I I am convinced that if you feel like you have a little cash stash that’s growing, it makes you more optimistic and more positive and think, okay, like cool. Well, I’m competitive. Like I said earlier, I’m noting around. You can you’re going to I’m going to save money. We’re we’ll happily pay you like the $251 over the course of the year and then some and then the interest or what like whatever it is. Um because you would have earned it when and you’re still making money. You’re not losing money. That’s still a good business proposition, right? Yes, it’s still a good business proposition because this industry is so extortionate. And some of the numbers I just want I think we threw out last time, but um the average American spending 83 a month on their wireless, the average European spending 35, sorry, 83 a month versus 35 a month um in Europe. Yeah. So that $48 a month difference multiplied times 12 is $600 a year times the let’s say 50 years uh you know you’re you’re going to be using a cell phone plan um is $30,000 and then you put any interest rate on that at all and you’re probably overpaying the big wireless companies between 50 and $60,000 over your lifetime. like that the the whole thing is maddening when you realize and and so like the the extra 50 bucks a month we’re paying to um Verizon and AT&T in particular and T-Mobile um it amounts to a hundred billion dollars extra a year. I’ve just thrown a lot of big numbers at you but just like the the shorthand is that we’re getting screwed. You’re making rich people richer. Stop it. Like put a little bit of that money back into your own pocket. And and that is our goal with Noble. And so the trippy thing is that we can give you such a good value and still actually make a smidgen of money per customer. And that just shows you how jacked this industry is. So I’m one of the founding members. Have you reached that first 10,000 yet? We are getting closer all the time, but we’re not there yet. So if you join now, you can still get in on the 10,000 founding. And the 10,000 founding members, we have some special perks in store. I can’t wait. Like what? Uh well, one thing is that if if the company ever becomes super valuable, we’re actually going to like come back and give you some money. Like that that’s one thing that I know we’re going to do. [laughter] So get in on it. I mean, so many people after they heard the first podcast that we did called me. One of my best friends in the whole wide world, Kelly, she she texted me and she said, “Okay, I’ve got to replace four phones. They’re all old. Two of them are cracked. you know, I’ve got the two daughters and and you you know, older teenage daughters. She and her husband Verizon saying, “We’ll give you a free phone in exchange for you pay this much every month.” And we did the math and I had to whip out my calculator and my brain was super confused because that’s again part of that game play. But I think we figured out that if she switched to Noble, she would save about $600 just because of all the extra costs. Now, that doesn’t include the taxes, the fees, the surprise costs, all those other things they You leave the country, they’ll charge you 10 bucks a day. Yeah. Well, it it’s funny. I live very near the Canadian border, and I did get a message from Noble early on like, “Hey, our rate in Canada.” And I was like, “Oh crap. Oh crap. I’m not out of the country. I’m just I live really close to Canada, but it didn’t. It knew that I was still in America. So, I was nervous about that. Like, oh, because it does seem to be a little too good to be true. We’re just an honest business. And it turns out if you adopt honest business practices, you can feel [clears throat] too good to be true because this industry is so muddy. And you’re and all of the free phones are incredibly expensive when you sit down and do the math. I mean, how the heck is Apple like uh I think it might be a near trillion dollar company if like their phones are free. Um you know, their phones are not free. Like it’s all super expensive. [laughter] And so anyone who’s in that boat with um you know, Verizon, um please just give us a call at Noble Mobile. We have like real life humans who want to talk to you and um we can help walk you through it. We can help you switch over because sometimes the carriers don’t make it that easy. No, I mean I switched in 8 minutes um from Verizon. I didn’t even need to talk to anyone. But there are sometimes I switched over from T-Mobile and I gave up after an hour and my husband did it and I heard smashing and cursing going on. Well, one of the things that happens with Mint on that is number one, you have to enter a contract. Number two, it’s a promo rate and then there are also a bunch of fees that they don’t like like there’s a lot of very frankly shifty advertising around the pricing of a lot of these plans. I I was looking at it. So, you know, on your second line with us, like you might you might be paying like 32 bucks a month with us or something along those lines. And so, I was looking around being like, “Hey guys, like, can we get it down lower, lower, lower?” And then um we looked into it and the ones that are priced at 25, when you look at uh the fees and everything else, they often wind up um above $30 a month. And then if you use a lot of data on those plans, they will throttle you. And um we don’t throttle you. By the way, not throttling you costs money, but we just shrug and are like whatever. Like it’ll it’ll And then there’s a third part that you don’t sell my phone number to everybody else, too. Yes. We also don’t sell or resell your data and contractually. Um, you know, where we like we can’t Is that why we all get so many spam calls? Is that where it comes from? People always say that must be I I get on the do not call list. The government must be selling my number. But it’s really is. All right. So, here’s my understanding. So, number one, we actually pay a little bit extra per line for a spam blocker. Noble does. Yeah, because it’s like as soon as I saw the choice, I was like, we can do that. Like, yeah, let’s try and pay to to block spam because I hate spam. Some carriers probably don’t do that because hey, you know, why am I spend money? It’s your problem, not mine. Many carriers take your data and then we’ll sell and resell it to advertisers in various ways. And we don’t do any of that. So that that’s a second business practice that we actually do know of. And we’re probably, you know, it’s fun talking to you about this, Jen, because like there are some things we’re doing that aren’t awesome for our short-term profitability, but I’m confident will pay off in the long run because people will sense that we’re actually trying to walk the walk and live the values. Is it possible in 2026 to be a good human, to do things that are good for the people that you need to buy your stuff and be profitable? I mean, is that possible? And I have a feeling you’re going to say yes. If it’s possible, why aren’t more people doing it? I’m going to tell a bit of a story, and this is this is be a little personal. You know, I started Noble Mobile because I had preconditions for any business I started. And the main condition was like, I want to be able to save the average American money because like people why people see me as like the magical Asian man who wanted to make folks less broke and like plan A was just let’s give everyone and you’re going to stick to that. You really truly believe in that. Yeah. The easiest problem we have to solve right now is poverty and financial scarcity. the way you called that the easiest problem to solve. I love that. It is. It’s so solvable. It’s ridiculous. And I’m gonna give exhibit A. It’s like when I was running for president, people are like, “We can just send everyone money like that.” And then I don’t know if you all remember but like we we did send everyone money like you know like a few months [laughter] later. There’s so many folks and I can go into like the the way CO relief went down and like the goods and bads of it but everyone now knows it’s a well within our ability to like by the way another major thing we did we cut child poverty in half in 2021 through something called the enhanced child tax credit. No one knew we could do that, but then we did that and then we undid that in 2022 because of dysfunctional politics and and um that s like broke my heart because uh like I was some part of the having of child poverty. I’d like lobbyed a lot for that and so I was like yay like I did something like you know I can be incredibly proud of there like fewer poor kids in America and then watching the poverty rate double again and go back to what it was like you know infuriated me broke my heart again but then I went back and lobbied some more anyway so I’m trying to make everyone less broke and then this business um presented a way to do so where it’s like oh 83 bucks a month versus 35 bucks a month is actually very meaningful over time but here’s the the lesson the what I wanted convey. So I then go to investors and say, “Hey, I’ve got this great idea. We’re going to No Mobile. It’s going to like lighten everyone’s cell phone plans, get people off their screen. It’s going to be great.” And a lot of professional investors and venture venture clubs. So, as you can imagine, if you’re me, you can get meetings with a lot of people because I’m like, you know, experienced, credible, well-known. I I did sell a company. Um, so, you know, like I’m like commercially experienced. And some of the things I heard from VCs were things like if you start an AI company, I’ll cut you a check right now. I’ve heard that from a hundred out of a hundred VCs. If you do anything with AI, if it’s not AI, I don’t care. And so much of it is not a good idea there. [laughter] How much money is the AI industry losing? The biggest players, what was that? My husband pointed me to an Atlantic article that that’s all it’s about is is they’re setting a lot of money on fire at present like that. This is why you and I are having this discussion when you’re like, “Hey, why don’t people do more of this?” So for me, someone who’s capable of making phone calls and like raising money at a high level. And by the way, because of the way I’m wired, I got more excited. I was like, “Ooh, like what I’m going to be doing with Noble Mobile’s even better because the professional VCs don’t want to throw money at it unless it’s like AI AI AI.” So good. Like we’ll have the the field more to ourselves. But that’s what I realized is that it took someone like me coaxing some folks who uh you know are values aligned yes and mission aligned but also like believe in me to be like okay like let’s do this thing like if it had been another figure trying to pitch the same idea I do not think uh it gets even you know off the ground. So when you ask like why more of this isn’t happening, I think that the marketplace is not necessarily equipping positive ventures with the same level of resources that they are more of like the follow the herd mentality. Let’s try and get this company acquired by one of the big AI giants. Well, and that goes back to like who’s running everything? Is it five guys with all the money and the power? Like who’s in charge of this whole ship? What’s in charge right now is this dark sense of commercial incentives. And we talked, I think, before about the fact that you’re not seeing a lot of genuine leadership out of this crew. That a lot of these people, even the ones who are like running these companies, um, are just following the tide because the tide is growing their company by like hundreds of billions of dollars in valuation. Jim Cook was a good guy for a long time. Reed Hastings was a better like who who like I like Reed. Yeah. Yeah. I mean Reed now is like essentially um you know executive chaired Netflix and Netflix is still as far as I can tell fairly neutral in the scheme of things. Um um but yeah like they’re different figures paying attention to because they’re sticking to their morals and values and what’s good for humanity. In my opinion, Mark Hubman is one of the best. Yeah. Um because he’s putting his energies to cost plus drugs. And and you told me early on this is you want to do Noble Mobile’s kind of the cost plus drugs model. Yes. We we I want us to be the cost plus drugs of wireless data. And you know, it’s like essentially we’re getting it at cost and we’re trying to give it to you at as thin a margin that will allow us to survive. [laughter] Okay. So support like Mark Cuban, support what he’s doing. Who else? Yeah, Mark Cuban. Um there are better ways there are easier ways for Mark to make money than to try and screw up the um big pharma industry. Um but he’s doing it because he loves it and believes in saving lives. I think he’s an American hero and he’s not getting enough credit for it. Is there a business to be made of solving really painful problems? So I think that Mark’s an example. I think I’m an example. But even when I went through this cost structure, Jen, so check it out. What do Americans spend money on? What’s making us miserable? Number one, housing. Number two, healthcare. Number three, education. Number four, food. Number five, fuel. Number six, transportation. Number seven, media. Number eight, uh, wireless data. So, I’m I’m working on number eight. Um, Mark Hubman’s working on drugs, which is part of number two, but most of this list is government, you know, like like I’m a talented entrepreneur. Can I figure out a way that’s going to like bring everyone’s housing costs down? Like, uh, and the answer is like yes, if I had control of government, which is why I ran for president in 2020. You know, there are pieces of this I can tackle, but there are a lot of pieces that you need government to get its together. Uh, and that that’s why Americans are are frustrated. I felt like we watched Obama struggle for eight years of thinking he could do so much good and yet dealing with that that old those old institutions, the the Republicans fighting the Democrats and not really caring about everybody else. So, if you become president of the United States, can you actually make a difference? Well, what one of the the jokes I I tell is that if I become president, everyone will be like, “Okay, things must have gotten really bad for us to to to [laughter] pick the Asian guy.” So, I I think all things will be on the the table at that point. And by the way, that’s like a a business joke, too, where it’s like, “When does the Asian guy get the job when no one else wants it?” So, things are going to be rock bottom. [laughter] I mean, is it okay for me to laugh? I don’t know. I don’t know. So, it’s it [laughter] should be fine. Um You know, it’s like like if you bring me in, but this is one of the the the glorious things. If you bring me in, everyone knows what my jam is. Like everyone knows that I ran on just putting money into people’s hands. And so if I get in there, they’ll be like, “Hey guys, we kind of know what we’re going to do now.” Who are you scared of in politics? If you’re president, who scares you? You know, so the the the major thing that scares me is is the loss of integrity, the loss of wholeness, where like if you can imagine appealing to people’s better selves, like a lot of that stuff’s not going to work so well anymore. Like people are just going to become like I, you know, like um like shrunken uh internal um mistrustful. Yeah. Like you’re going to need to like accept that. I you know people come to me all the time when they’re considering running for office and then then they they say it’s like hey if I do this are like half people going to hate me and then I look up and like in this environment yeah probably and that’s enough to scare a lot of people off. So like that that’s the thing that you know you have to be comfort I not no one’s comfortable with that but you have to acknowledge it and know that that’s what the environment is going to be like. Are you safe? Can you run around New York? Do you have to run around with security guards? I have found that security actually draws more attention because people be like, “Oh, who needs security?” And then they’ll be like, “Oh, [laughter] like I know who needs security.” Whereas, if I just walk around alone, by the time someone realizes it’s me, I’m generally like a few steps past them. But in New York, when I do get recognized, which is very, very often, nine times out of 10, it’s like very, very positive or excitement. Yeah. Everybody I talked to about you when I told people at the hotel and we were coming to talk to you, everybody’s like, “Oh, that guy’s great.” And I think our cold open our last podcast is if you don’t like Andrew Yang, you might be kind of an [ __ ] Oh, it’s nice of nice of you to say. Well, it just that is except for that one guy. No, I’m kidding. [laughter] One guy. What What do you think is the smartest criticism of you? Wow. Uh, so one criticism I’ve got which I I’m just like is that smart? Is like is is that like you know you like don’t take yourself seriously enough. Um and I was like huh I think I take myself seriously. I mean you got really high up there in a presidential race. How much more serious do you have to be? I thought I was pretty serious but some some like folks I respect like you know did level that to me and and it made me grapple with it. I was like, do I not? I think that’s one. Another in this environment that might be legit is that like I don’t have this craving for power in the same way that some other figures do. that might be a very helpful requisite for success in a political context because you know like maybe there’s just like this you know need to be a like a a lunatic [ __ ] to like you know overcome your opponent or whoever it is. The thing is like I know I’ve got like a a competitive like you when you you’re talking about your savings like I I’ve got like a very very competitive um aspect and um like I I’ve you know and like I’ve channeled it but some other people have been like hey man like I just don’t think you’re like you know power hungry enough. [laughter] I don’t know. It’s refreshing to be around a potential politician who isn’t so power hungry that they’re willing to I just want to work better. Like and I I could genuinely care less whether it’s me or someone else. And one of the things too I say is like look I have a vision that like they’re going to be a bunch of us trying to turn things around and like I’m going to be part of that crew. Yeah. But it it doesn’t matter to me that much whether like I’m at this seat of the table or another seat of the table. But then someone might look at that and be like, “Yo, man, like no, you got to like be like grabbing the head of the table with both hands and like be like blah blah blah.” Who’s your cabinet? Who do you want around your table when you are leading? You know, I will say that like the fix stuff crew kind of knows each other. Yeah, I’m getting that sense. So Mark Cuban’s there. Mark Cuban’s there. Scott Galloway is there. Jonathan Height is there. Uh bunch of Is there a woman? Yeah. No, there you’re there. Yes, I’m in. I’m in. So, Mark Cuban’s there. Um, you mentioned Scott Galloway. Anybody else? What about Pete Buddhajes? Pete’s h like super talented and is going to be there in this Democratic primary. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I mean, if there was like a a rebuild the country crew like uh you know, I think Pete would definitely play a role. You’re in the room with all these powerful people. What’s one thing that you’ve seen or heard or felt that would just shock us to our core? The room I’m imag I’m recollecting right now. So I was a presidential ambassador of global entrepreneurship in 2015 and I was I think the token Asian um because I was like what the hell am I doing here? Like you know um also there Elizabeth Holmes which is its own story. Not great. Wow. [laughter] Does she blink? Um, not that I saw. And so I showed up and was like, “Okay, you know, like I I’ll just be like like fly in the wall, like hang out.” And then um and and then like the conversation started going in a direction that I was like, “Look, like I don’t think that’s going to lead us any place soon.” And so like I I would kind of slide over to Penny Pritsker who was the CEO of the commerce secretary at the time and some other people and be like hey I think we should like you know start heading this direction or that direction. And I came away think it’s like oh wow I actually did add a lot of value like uh and and by the way this is before I was a public figure in the same way I was running an entrepreneurship organization at the time venture for America. So I felt and I was like thrilled to be there and be like I’m not the you know primary person in this drama. I’m just like the guy in the photo. Um uh but the thing that struck me about a lot of the rooms that I I’m in at that level is like there’s a lot of form and appearance and there’s not like a whole lot of substance. And the the thing that made me want to run for president was actually hanging out in a number of those rooms being like, “Yo, we’re we’re screwed if like this just keeps on rolling on the way it’s going to roll on because you come together and then everyone just like plays their role and then goes home. And nine times out of 10, you could script it. You could say what everyone was going to say and do. You could even predict what kind of like actions people are going to take. And I I was at an event in San Francisco where a woman said like, “Does anyone feel like we’re all heading toward a cliff, but no one can do anything about it?” And I think there are a lot of people with that feeling. And like I was just in enough rooms to be like, “Oh my god, like there there is no cavalry coming.” like the the folks that we think are in charge are just going to play their part in like the you know the careening off the cliff. And so I said this, I’m gonna run for president. Yeah. And so I I you know got fired up and decided to run and um I decided to run in 2017 after Trump won. So yeah, that’s one of the things that got me into it. Right now because of AI, I’m thinking about Sam Alman. So it’s you and I’m Sam Alman. Going back to this idea of you can be a successful, you know, the most successful guy in tech right now and still be a good guy. What do you want me to do? What should I do? What can I do as Sam Alman? So Sam, and this is something I I commend Sam for. Sam invested $50 million in a giant universal basic income pilot. And so I’d be like, “Hey, Sam, like let’s do it again, but bigger.” Yeah. I mean, 50 million that’s like here. I mean at the at the at the time it might have been because he wasn’t a like gajillionaire. I mean he was already riched. Who could do who could do something that they’re not who could pivot and just say I am going to and and Sam’s actually sympathetic enough where he might put in 500 million or five billion at this point. So that would be my my ask of him universal basic income for America. Five billion. I mean like as I mean five billion doesn’t do it. It would be a pilot. Um, but the CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amade, recently raised his hand and said, “You guys should tax us and then use the money on people.” And so that that would be the drive is that you have like And by the way, to me, it’s absolute insanity that one of the major AI CEOs said that and then policy makers didn’t just take him up on it immediately. Why do did they not hear it? Do they not understand it? I mean, he said it on freaking, you know, CBS in 60 Minutes, so it’s like, you probably heard it. Um it it’s just that our political class doesn’t think or act in those terms and until it does then like what is there to be done? What terms do they think and act in? They think in terms of power and influence and money and right now the AI companies have incredible amounts of all three of those things. Yeah. And then all the people that are going to be facing the repercussions are like muted in the background, you know, but obviously the folks in this latter category outnumber like the AI tech lords like you know. Yeah. So is this 50 million to one the new.com boom and bust? I mean, is this the AI slop? Boom. Where all the VCs will fund anything that has AI attached to it and then does all that go bust and we it tanks the economy like what’s what’s up? What’s going to happen here? I believe that there is a bubble in AI and that it will burst and there will be a stock market correction and a recession. So, I think all those things will happen when I mean that’s always like like the get out your crystal ball, rub on it a little bit. Yeah, I would be unsurprised if it happened sooner rather than later. Um because generally speaking, when major news outlets are running stories on all the bubblelike warning signs, Yeah. then the air tends to come out and the stories are already there. Like I wrote one. It’s a little bit like those animated characters that run off the cliff and their legs are pumping and like the gravity hasn’t kicked in. Yeah. you know, like they can do it, but then eventually Yeah. Yeah. The road like wy coyote. Yeah. I think that is the dynamic at play. Andrew Yang, the magical wizard genius, st heartbreaking work of staggering genius, all the things. Thank you so much for being Oh, thank you. such a pleasure. We’re going to do more and more together. Can you sense it? Can you sense a good superhero team up? Yeah, I see it. I feel it. Thank you so much. Thank you. What’ you think about today’s episode of Techishly Genen? Be sure to let me know. Follow our newsletter. Reach out on the socials. Can’t wait to [music] see you right back here on the next installment of Techishly Jen.