Hi everyone. Kai, Andrew, thank you so much for being with me. So I want to start with the paradox. So you both have built businesses where you want to convince customers to actually use your product less, but I'm sure you also have investors and boards to answer to. How do you square both trying to build a business while also trying to advance social causes? And Andrew, let's start with you.
Sure. Hello everyone. You might remember me as the magical Asian man from the future who wanted to give everyone money.
And that's how I describe him. That's a great way to start. Yeah.
Yes. And so I cast about figuring out how can I give you money right now without controlling policy or government. And my friend Mark Cuban started a company called Cost Plus Drugs that you all are probably familiar with. I called Mark and he's like, "Man, this is freaking genius. Could we cost plus something else in American life?" So I went through the cost structure of the average American's household, and it goes—this will be fun for you all: housing, health care, education, food, fuel, transportation, media, and then wireless. And so I was like, "Wireless, can you do something there?" The average American is spending $83 a month on their wireless bill. How many of you are spending more than that in this crowd? It's probably everyone. I'm going to out myself: I was spending 150 a month just for myself on Verizon.
What? So I'm a chump. Yes.
Average American, 83. Average European, 35. And so I thought that delta between 35 and 83 comes to a hundred billion dollars a year in extra spend by Americans on our wireless data. And of that 100 billion, 11 billion's going to Verizon shareholders as a dividend, 7 billion's going to AT&T shareholders as a dividend. Some of you are investors who own those stocks just for the dividend, right? I mean, it's the only reason anyone owns those stocks now. And so they've become cash transfer vehicles between consumers and shareholders. And so the question for me, Kristen, was like, could I get Americans a better deal on their data? So I went to the three carriers. T-Mobile said we're into it, and so Noble Mobile was born.
But here's to your question. So Noble Mobile cuts the average American cell phone bill in half, about $42. But the kicker is that if you use less data, we can spend less money on you because we're essentially wholesaling it from T-Mobile. So we take that money and give it back to you.
We split the profits with the user, which has the added behavioral element of paying you more if you doomscroll less, if you look up, touch grass, actually try and be present for your friends over dinner. And so the average Noble Mobile user now is spending again only $42 a month, but they're also reducing their screen time by 15 to 20%, because it turns out people like money and they like having a friendly angel on their shoulder saying to do what we all know we should do. Because how many of you all feel like you might be going overboard in terms of your time on what Hasan Minhaj calls our rectangle of sadness?
Yeah. You know, so—
But I note that you have an iPhone there, too.
I do. I do. And I'm a heavy phone user, heavy data user. But the plan is to get more money in your pocket, which will make you happier, but then also to get you off of the doomscrolling, which will make you happier again.
Yeah. Kai, what about you?
Yeah, I mean, I think using the phone less is actually the point, because when we started the company back in 2015, the idea is to design a phone that's designed to be used as little as possible, so you could do the things that are important for you and make you happier. And it's less about the phone, but more about lifestyle change. We want to give people the useful tools that you have on your phone, but without social media, without attention economy. It's not about the phone or the app. It's the attention economy's need to maximize people's engagement. That's the problem, not the app.
Okay, well, the form factor on the Light Phone is awesome. Do you have a Light Phone on you? Probably do.
Yeah, you can be sure of what it looks like. Yeah. This is the Light Phone 3 that we have. It's a 5G phone with all the tools that you need. You can call, text, listen to music, see your calendar events, or listen to podcasts or notes.
It's so good for your mood and your brain. I'm going to do something—you know, we haven't talked about this, but I think you should pass it around so everyone can hold it.
That's a bold move. How comfortable do you feel with that, Kai?
It's my personal conversation—I thought maybe not.
See him after. See him after.
We have to find another one.
You should be the moderator of this, Andrew. I love these moves.
Oh, because everyone here wants to fondle this thing right now. I'm going to let you fondle it. I'm going to let you fondle it.
Does anyone here have one in the audience? Okay. All right, we got one here in the audience.
Yeah, I was trying to say, like, maybe, maybe—
He has less concerns about his privacy.
Come on, Kaiwei. What kind of CEO and ambassador are you that you will not divulge your personal… strangers.
Okay, that's—Andrew, this means I have to put you on the hot spot next, which is we're going to talk about, you know, a component of your 2020 presidential run was that the biggest forces—
Successful run. That's why we're all doing this from the White House right now.
Exactly.
The biggest forces reshaping people's lives, automation and AI, needed policy. Why did you decide to shift then from policy regulation into what you're doing now at Noble Mobile?
So, I'm just a productive, generative, impatient fellow, you know? It's like, I will be your president at some point, and then we'll start pulling levers. But in the meantime—
You going to run? I have to ask. Are you going to run?
I'm too young not to run again. I mean, one of the things people say to me is like, apparently you've got 30 more years. And then they say, "But I don't think we do." You know what I mean? Like, doesn't seem like we necessarily have that much time. I'm for solving problems, whether it's through the marketplace, whether it's philanthropically, whether it's politically and through policy. But our public infrastructure is not that awesome at solving problems right now. And I can go into a very long diatribe about why that is. I gave a TED Talk, "How to Fix American Politics in 11 Minutes," that obviously changed everything. It did not. But I'm still taking shots at the biggest problems I can find and getting billions into Americans' hands and improving our mental health and our relationships. Right now it is an extraordinarily compelling mission.
Yeah. Kai, I want to ask you because I think you get this a lot. I remember my first phone was like a 2005 Nokia dumb phone. Why couldn't I just use that instead of, you know, paying 700-ish dollars for the Light Phone?
Yeah, I mean, I think the concept is that, you know, similar to how we have different shoes, different jackets, different cars designed for different purposes, right? You have a smartphone that has all the functions you need. But Light Phone, we're trying to give people a different option that only has the utility tools. You could obviously get a flip phone from 20 years ago, or delete your apps, or turn your screen black, right? But my point, my opinion was that you're still in the ecosystem, right? So if you see the smartphone behavior as addiction and you try to get off addiction—like, say you try to quit smoking, you put the pouch, tape it over, carry it with you, and say you're going to quit smoking? You never quit smoking. But we're trying to give people a different option now, one that doesn't have those components to try to draw your attention.
At the same time, like my investors—you know, some investors I talk to don't understand it, too. And the question I always ask is, when is the last time anyone spent 2 hours, 3 hours on TikTok, Instagram, swiping, and then you snap out of it and you're like, "Oh, I feel so good about myself. I feel proud. I feel good. I'm going to do it again right away." We never do that. We all hate it, and we keep doing it. You know, and it's just not about a phone anymore.
Yeah, so some people on the Light Phone, what they do is they switch to the Light Phone on Friday, and then they're distraction-free and happy and able to appreciate life until Sunday, and then they switch back on Monday. And that form factor—what Kaiwei has done is he's actually optimized the device for the tools that you enjoy using and would need, but not all of the other stuff that bombards you and drives you. Like one of the jokes I have is, it's an unusual occurrence for your neighbor to come and scream in your face, but you feel like you're witnessing that or experiencing that every day on social media because of your smartphone and the social media apps. So the Light Phone—literally, it's such a perfect name because it lightens your burdens. It lightens your mind. It's this extraordinary form factor.
When our customers start using it, you always feel this fear of missing out. You walk around, you tap your pocket, you queue up to pay for your groceries, you don't know what to do. You look around, "Oh, but I don't have anything to, like, you know, swipe."
You get anxious. You get shaky.
The magic moment is after 15, 20 minutes—you forget about social media, you forget about your smartphone. What are you doing? You start paying attention to, like, talking to the guy behind you. And we have that story from our customers saying the best learning that she had is she's waiting in line to pay for groceries, and she doesn't have the phone, so she starts talking to the guy behind her, and she realized, "Oh, it's okay." It's almost giving yourself the permission. It's okay.
I met my wife because of Light Phone. No, I didn't. I'm sorry. But, um—
How much did he pay you for this interview? Yeah. How much did he slip you in the back?
I didn't do that, but—um, but Pete Davidson, Tyler, the Creator, Aaron Paul all swore by Light Phone, where it's good for creativity and artists. And some of you actually imagine yourselves to be creative individuals. Like, the iPhone is sapping your creativity. Oh, shoot. Look at that. That's fine. Um, you know, it's actually sucking you dry. Whereas the Light Phone allows you to refuel and replenish yourself.
But the Light Phone didn't initially have a camera, the original version. You added a camera. You've added other features. Is there ever a moment where, you know, it starts becoming too much like the iPhone and something that you're just trying to avoid? Yeah. What's your breaking point there?
Yeah, we get asked that question a lot, but I think our principles are really clear. I'm not anti-technology. We've been saying this for 10 years. I love technology. I just don't want attention economy built in. So to your point, we have three principles, right? Number one, you will never see advertisement in the phone. Number two, every action a user takes has a clear ending, which means if you want to get directions from A to B, I'll navigate you to B, but I'm not going to show you a coffee shop. That's not your intention. Number three, I'll never show you infinite feeds. Right? So as long as the tool fits into those criteria, we're happy to offer them so that everyone has peace of mind knowing that, hey, I have one, two, three, four, five. I'm good to go.
It doesn't mean you give up technology. Again, you have your iPad, your tablet. You can use that. You know, you can use that as a more enjoyable experience to use emails on your laptop anyway. You just don't need to bring a mini computer with you 24/7. Go to bed with it, sleep with it, wake up with it, hang out with your friends with it. It is, you know, fascinating to me that we think this is normal. It shouldn't be normal. Our tools shouldn't be—the tool should empower us to make us happier. But our tool right now doesn't make us happy.
You know, there's that saying that I'm sure most of you all have heard, which is we have stone age brains, medieval institutions, and then god-like supercomputers in our pockets. And we're just not wired for that. You know, imagine that you can discipline yourself when you have this—the Star Trek, you know, transporter—I don't know, the transporter. It's like a—
I wish. That would be cool. Yeah.
