I'm thrilled to have Andrew Yang back on the show. He is the author of the new — I think it's about, it's definitely a bestseller — "Hey Yang, Where's My Thousand Bucks?" He's also the founder and CEO of Noble Mobile. We got a lot to talk about. Welcome to the show, sir.
Thanks for having me, Donnie. It's great to be back.
So, I guess the inspiration for the title of the book is basically people stopping you on the street and literally asking that question.
Yes. The alternate title was, "Hey, am I racist or are you Andrew Yang?" which I've also gotten. If I were to do the most common thing I get asked, it's, "Do I know you?"
Well, yeah. You talk about in the book that you have the kind of celebrity that a band that had their biggest hit five years ago has, and it's kind of like, "I know you, but what's going on here?"
Yeah. Certainly, like, I get a lot of stares in public and then people trying to figure out how they know me. And so they'll say, "Do our kids go to school together? Did we go to school together?" And then I just cut them off at some point. I'm like, "I'm on TV sometimes." And then if it goes to the step beyond that, then it's, "I ran for president," and they'll be like, "Oh, yeah."
Oh, yeah. You were the guy that came up with all those really fresh ideas on TV. You were the guy that during the debate said you were going to give $1,000 to 10 families. That kind of — then it kind of kicks in.
Yeah, that's right. I'm the magical Asian man from the future who wants to give everyone money.
The book is, I guess, part political commentary, part memoir, part humorous essayist. It's a lot of things. And what I loved is the people that you got to kind of quote to endorse the book: Mark Cuban, Dave Chappelle. Your Dave Chappelle relationship is an interesting one.
Yeah, Dave and I have become friends over the last number of years. He endorsed my 2020 run. So, we did videos where he's like, "I'm Chris Tucker," and I said, "I'm Jackie Chan. It's Rush Hour in America again, the path to freedom." And we've been friends ever since. Our wives are friends, too. They both grew up in Queens and they're both Asian. So, I, you know, like, I think...
I grew up in Queens. Where'd your wife grow up?
She grew up in Bayside. She worked at Bayside Bagels.
I grew up in Bayside, too.
So, she might have served you a bagel, man.
212th Street, 85th Avenue. It's really kind of Hollis Hills, but I call it Bayside because people don't even know what Hollis Hills is.
No, that was it. Yeah. No, that's where my wife grew up.
That's amazing. So, the other interesting character in the book that you talk about is Shane Gillis. You also have an interesting relationship with him and it kind of started on a little bit of a rough patch. Well, rough patch for him.
So he got fired from SNL just as he was announced to be joining, and he was fired because he called me a Jew on a podcast that nobody heard, among some other things. But that was, you know, it was essentially that and some other Asian epithets. And so at that time I didn't know who Shane was, and Shane was not famous then. He's a lot more famous today.
And then I watched some of his clips and was like, "This guy's not a malignant racist, he's just a comic." And so then I put out a message saying, "Look, didn't love the joke, but he shouldn't lose his job over this." And then he and I connected actually at that time, and then reconnected several times since. So I'm really glad that Shane essentially became a bigger success out there in the world than if he'd been an SNL cast member.
Yeah, that's very, very true. How do you feel about cancel culture? I mean, right now there's so many things on any given day that are out there and people have to be held accountable, yet obviously there's tremendous severe overreactions in so many instances.
I am against cancel culture in most situations and circumstances. I think most of the time people are being judged by some misstatement or their worst moment, and then they're having life-changing professional consequences in some instances. It doesn't seem proportionate or judicious or correct or human or empathetic or any of those things. That said, it's a weird time. I, by the way, Donnie, I actually credit cancel culture with a backlash and Trump's rise in part, where if they hadn't gone so overboard on cancel culture...
...because then it just became mud that was being flung at everyone, and then if you say, "Hey, this guy has problems or is corrupt," they're like, "Yeah, you say that about everyone." And then at some point, people can't separate one from the other.
Speaking of Trump, you talk about in the book, you call him kind of like a three-headed monster. I thought that was interesting, and I thought your analysis bringing in the UFC and WWE was very interesting.
Yeah. So, there's politics, and then there's pro wrestling, and then there's comedy in terms of communication, and Donald Trump can toggle among all three, and the Democrats are stuck with number one, and then they wonder why it's not working. Meanwhile, if you look at the numbers, pro wrestling is among the most popular programming anywhere, and comedy podcasts are, I think, the most popular. No offense to us, Donnie.
To us serious guys, right?
So, you know, two-thirds of America is not college grads. Comedy probably works better with them. It's one reason why I wanted to write a book that was broader and lighter. My wife's favorite book, by the way, of the ones I've written. This is my fourth book, and this is the only one I think she read cover to cover. So, Donald Trump has touched on something very, very powerful, and Democrats still have not figured it out.
Yeah. I like to say that the Democrats don't have any testosterone in it. They don't understand fight. They don't understand that perceived strength — even though a lot of what Donald Trump portrays as strength is actually weakness — but that strength, and obviously by bringing in fighting, understanding that, they're missing teeth.
I literally said to a senior Democrat who asked me how do we understand how to campaign or talk to men or defeat Trump, and I said, just watch UFC and WWE programming for three months. Just watch every program, learn about bragging and things like that, right? And then they just looked at me like I'd sprouted a second head and just thought what I was saying was patently ridiculous. And I was like, "No, I'm serious, you know, like, watch the programming." By the way, was I a wrestling fan growing up? Yes. Do I watch MMA bouts? Yes. And so this isn't some weird anthropological expedition for me.
Speaking of sports, what I learned in the book is that you're a frustrated hoops guy. Me, too.
I'm a medium-sized Jewish guy. You're a medium-sized Asian guy. Not a lot of height. Well, you had Lin. You also talk about Linsanity and how that broke your heart. But that's interesting.
Well, hey man, I feel like it's the heyday for Jewish hoopers.
That's right. The guy from Portland, Deni Avdija.
And then in Brooklyn, you got Danny Wolf.
Who's playing well. He's off to a good start.
So, you know, it's like, it's like Jewish-ness.
So, in the book, if one was going to take something away from the book, it would be that you're definitely not definitely running, but that one would think very strongly that you're going to run in 2028 again.
Well, I'd certainly say I've got much more left in me in the book, which while I was writing it was fun because it's true. And I'm asked to run every day. I ran in 2020 on this crazy idea that AI was going to come and take away the jobs, which I dare say...
Yeah. I read your recent piece. It's pretty sobering. We'll talk about that.
Oh, no. It's tough, man. I was on CNBC this morning talking about AI and jobs. I think in the next few years, 20 to 50% of white-collar jobs are going to be gone. That's pretty staggering.
And you're not alone. You're not alone in that either, by the way.
No, no. I think it's going to be 20 to 50% of the headcount in S&P 500 companies, which are obviously predominantly white-collar. And among small businesses, what I say, Donnie, is that the easiest people to fire are those you didn't hire. So what's happening is a lot of small businesses who might have needed to onboard like three, four or five people are hiring zero or one. And so you've got a lot of college kids who will be back home with their parents wondering where the jobs went.
You also say that basically anybody — I think about because when I used to run my ad agency and we had about a thousand people, you said that anybody who's basically in front of a computer processing information so that they can give it to somebody else, those jobs are gone. And common sense tells you that's absolutely true.
Yeah, there are two and a half million Americans who still pick up a phone and do customer service for a living, and that's going to get automated away. There are millions of people in the bowels of these big companies, including orgs like the agency you used to run or an insurance company or, you know, a bank, where those jobs are going to go away. What happens often is that these companies adopt very, very big administrative systems and software programs, and maybe they buy a new company, and then that new company has its own internal system, and then you need to have a bunch of people around who know how that system works. A lot of this AI is going to get rid of a lot of this stuff because you can write new software in a week or two, and so the hundred people whose jobs literally relied upon the fact that you couldn't get rid of this system or that system are going to disappear.
Let's go back to '28. So where's your head right now on that?
No, I'm trying to figure out what my biggest and highest contribution can be, Donnie. And one of the reasons I ran in 2020 was that I felt tons of conviction that win or lose, the campaign was going to do good and achieve...
...which it did, which it really did. It really did. You should be proud of it.
Oh, thank you, Donnie. And so I'm trying to figure out whether I feel the same way about 2028, that win or lose we would do a ton of good, and if I do feel that way, then I'd almost certainly run.
Do you have — is there anything that's kind of churning inside you now, an issue-oriented thing, or some reason that would give you this reason to run? Is there any area that you're exploring internally right now?
You know, there's the official answer and then there's the internal answer. So the official answer is I'm trying to figure out whether we can share the gains from AI quickly and broadly, and whether a campaign could help. I mean, right now you have trillion-dollar companies. We're certainly going to have our first trillionaire coming up pretty soon. His name is probably going to be Elon. You know, you have different firms that are shooting to the moon with fewer and fewer workers, and more and more Americans going to be on the outside of this. Same time, GDP today is up to $84,000 a head, and AI is going to push that over $100,000. So the irony here, Donnie, is that for the first time in American history, you might have abundance and plenty to go around at the same time that 80% of Americans are looking up wondering what the heck happened to their job, their kids' job, their path to the future. So the big question is, can we spread the gains much more powerfully and directly and broadly, and can I speed that up? On a personal level, it's largely about, you know, my wife, my kids. My kids are older now than they were when I ran last time. Before, they had no clue what daddy was doing. Daddy would just disappear and then reappear. But now they kind of get it. You know, I mean, I have obligations as a CEO of a company as well. Like, you know, I'm the head of Noble Mobile, which I'm very proud of and is growing every day. So there are different things to weigh, but I'm definitely looking at it.
