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Andrew Yang Interview - Businessman, Lobbyist, 2020 Presidential Candidate
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Threadguy's FULL Interview/Conversation with Andrew Yang, 2020 Presidential Candidate and Businessman.
(recorded 3/30/2026)
Yo, Mr. Andrew Yang. Welcome to the stream, man. How are you?
SPEAKER_00Hey, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02I uh I appreciate you you coming on, man. It's a pleasure. Absolute pleasure to have you. I dude, I just read in one of your articles that I wanted to start with this that your wife bought you some personal training sessions. And I wanted to say I watched you in a Graham Steph interview and then coming on here, you're looking good, man. I don't know exactly what it is, but you're looking good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that did happen. Um my wife did get me a package of uh workouts, and I was like, oh crap, she's trying to tell me something. So then you gotta get in there, gotta stay uh vital for your partner.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're looking good, man. I appreciate you uh you coming on. I look, I don't know how familiar you are with me, and so I wanted to just start with a little intro and like give you a little bit of background on myself and then sort of who you're speaking to in the audience today. And so my like quick lore is I'm like I'm an internet hustler kid, right? Like I started flipping sneakers, trading Supreme when I was like 16, right? And then the next game in town was sports cards. And so we started trading sports cards. We found NFTs do sports cards. I dropped out of college and was basically said to myself, I'm going to pursue this outside of the means, get it by any means necessary on the internet. You end up in crypto, crypto sort of, you know, fizzles off a little bit, gets in a weird spot. And then, you know, recently we've really transitioned to a lot of geopolitics and really trading everything. Most recently, we've been talking about Iran, we've been talking about the oil trade. And I think this stream has really evolved into trying to just learn more about the world and trying to sort of figure out these opportunities of how to make it. And so the chat really, like if I had to pin down the average viewer of like the threat guy stream, my name is Michael in real life. It's you know, this 20s, 24-year-old kid who realized the traditional American dreams, a social contract, or the first generation where that is broken, right? Like go to college, get a degree, get married, get a corporate job, buy a nice house, have a white picket fence, have two kids, and feel comfortable financially, socially, culturally. And sort of been broken for the first time. And so we really just have this community that I think with the upcoming generation will just be a larger and larger percentage this represents of like hustlers trying to get it outside of the system because they feel like that is the only way to survive in 2026. And so I wanted to just set the stage that that is kind of the energy that we are coming from. And I'm pretty honored uh to have you on the stream today.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Michael. Um, that's super helpful. I can relate to many aspects of that.
SPEAKER_02And so I guess to follow up on that, I know you're uh a numbers guy. Can you sort of paint the picture of what the average 24-year-old man in America, what their life looks like in 2026?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Uh first I'm gonna rewind to when I was 24. Um, I made the, I was gonna say mistake. I mean, I I can't really classify it as a mistake, but I went to law school after college and then became an unhappy lawyer for five months and then quit that job. Uh, so my Asian parents freaked out. I I owed six figures in law school loans. I used to call them my mistress because I was sending a check to a phantom family to, you know, support their lifestyle. And so in my case, I started a company that flopped and then um became a nightclub promoter and a test prep tutor, and then joined a healthcare software company as my day job, but I had three jobs for um a number of years, my mid to late 20s. Um, and I dare say when I was going through this in the early 2000s um now, uh, things were a lot better and easier than they are for the 20 to 24 year old today. Um, my old apartment in Manhattan, um, I so I moved in with a friend when I left the firm. Um, but I was paying after discounts, like a thousand a month for a bedroom. And it was in Manhattan too. Wow. Uh and then now I tried to figure out how much that same situation would cost, and it might be three times as much. Um at least, at least, maybe. I mean, it was two bedroom, two bath. So, you know, you could probably get that done for like three thousand, probably. Um, but you know, I was in a studio that was 1,500 for a while, and then now that's probably like you know, 4,000. So the um, so the situation got a lot worse for a young man. Um, the costs have gone up, the opportunities have gone down, uh, and so a lot of young guys are trying to figure it out. Um, so I appreciate the community you built and the fact you're trying to help, Michael. Um, but yeah, as a numbers guy, it's much, much shittier now for like uh you know let's say a 20-something year old man than it was when when I was in the same uh situation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a tough spot. And you know, I have uh I mean look, I'm I'm fortunate to have have done well over the last couple of years and and find like a niche that I can just fit in and do well in. But a lot of my friends are in tough spots, right? It's like you go to university, you're 23, you come from a good family, you're smart, you're talented, you have a degree, but you sort of end up in this what the fuck do I do next spot? And so I I think you you know you articulate it well. Uh just like a follow-up on this is like where is all the money going per se? Like who is winning in 2026? And if the money isn't coming to like the younger, you know, new grad generation, like where is all of the capital flowing to?
SPEAKER_00The the easiest way to visualize it is the K-shaped economy beautiful, where uh the top 20% are hoovering up most of the value, and the top 20% tend to be kind of old. Uh, that that's one of the issues that you'd face as a young person. Uh, you know, and um I considered myself a young person for most of my life until relatively recently, which makes it a little bit sad. I'm not gonna lie, Michael.
SPEAKER_02Um but uh I told you you look good though, man. I wasn't lying.
SPEAKER_00No, no, thank you. I appreciate that. I'm still young at heart. Um, and when I talked to young people and I was running for president, I said, look, you should either be really pissed off or really sad because uh our generation has fucked you all over. Um, and now you know it wasn't really my generation, I'm Gen X. Um, it was really the boomers, but you know, I kind of included myself in uh and I was like, I personally was not responsible at all. I'm I'm trying to unfuck you all. Um, like I'm trying to get it all back. Um, but the winners are the top 20%, and that maps to people who are, let's say, at least like 50, 55 and older.
SPEAKER_02So I you know, I did this interview with uh a friend of mine, his name is his thickey on the internet. He's a really talented trader, and we were talking about this K-shape phenomenon, and he gave this a take, which was basically that capitalism in all societies, the end state is just a K-shape. And this idea of a middle class is a one-off phenomenon that was only made possible because of how the cards played out post-World War II in America, and that this idea of like the prosperous middle class is not a sustainable outcome that can exist historically ever. Like, what what do you think about that?
SPEAKER_00Uh I I disagree in terms of the sustainability because when it originated after World War II, uh it was a result of a set of policy choices. Uh, there was the GI bill, and you said, hey, you come back from the front, now we'll pay for college. And you did have a bunch of tailwinds going on where uh you know the economy grew very nicely for several decades, and so you didn't have to be a hero to do well. Um, but you could have a middle class uh indefinitely if you just chose to do so as a country, you know. Like I mean, it's like I think about other societies that have taken certain costs off the table. Um, like let's say you're you know a Nordic country and you said everyone was going to get healthcare. I mean, uh, like I'm I would make an argument that just about everyone in that society is functionally middle class because they get subsidized or free or nearly free healthcare education, it maybe even housing in some instances. And you go over there and like everyone's pretty chill. Um, so that and and the US has a singular advantage, has multiple advantages where we have the global reserve currency, our GDP is 84,000 ahead, we're the richest, most advanced economy in the history of the world. If we wanted uh, let's say, you know, millions more Americans to be middle class, like we could make it happen like this.
SPEAKER_02And what is the bottleneck there? It's just incentives, the structure of existing government. Like, what is the bottleneck to stopping that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the the bottleneck is that what most of us think and want um is totally irrelevant. Facts. Fair, fair, fair, fair. This in the system, and so uh so this is where the math has led me. It's kind of funny. Um, where uh one of the comparisons I make for people, Michael, is I ask uh, what percentage of Americans approve of Congress? Um, which is anchoring you low. Um, and this was in my iced coffee hour convo, but um, so it's like 15 approval rating, 94 incumbent re-election rate. And so you look at that and you're like, how the heck does that math out? Um, but the way it works out is that 90% of the districts in the US are drawn to be either quite blue or quite red. So you have no choice. You know, it's like you know it's gonna be a dem. Where are you physically based, Michael?
SPEAKER_02I am in New York, I'm from Virginia, and I just moved from LA.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow, okay. So if you're in New York, you know a Dem's representing you, so there's zero suspense in the matter. And that that's the way it shakes out in 90% of these districts. So we have something of a faux democracy right now where what most of us want uh doesn't matter. And then that that's how you wind up with uh shrinking middle class and diminishing prospects for the young. And by the way, like that this really plays out in terms of age very, very clearly, where uh old people vote, old people control the purse strings, old people are like, yo, you mess with our stuff and you're gonna get it. The young people are coming up, being like, What's going on? What's going on?
SPEAKER_02What the fuck's happening?
SPEAKER_00So there's been Scott Galloway calls it a wealth pump where there's just been a wealth pump to older generations.
SPEAKER_02The wealth pump, I like that framing. Um, you know, on the topic of this K-shape, there's like two sides of it, right?
SPEAKER_00Which is like by the way, I also don't want to be negative too, in the sense that because like I it it concerns me that a young person would be like, oh I'm fucked. There's like no use trying. Like uh, you know, and I'm and and so one of the things I want to suggest is um this West Point model of uh development that I took to heart when I was in my 20s trying to figure stuff out. Um, and so what they do at West Point is they make every cadet um report to an upperclassman above them. And then as soon as they become a sophomore, they give them a freshman they're responsible for. So every cadet ends up with three people at least that they've reported to, and then three people that they've led. And so there's like a lead and be led uh framing to your development. Um, and so I tried to adopt that in my 20s, where I went to work at a startup for a more experienced entrepreneur trying to download stuff from him, but then I also became a nightclub promoter, which is something that I ran. Um, and uh I I think these things are really powerful where if you have something that you're responsible for and it does not need to be anything that dope, it can be a running club, like uh, you know, uh a carpool, like fantasy football, like whatever the heck, but just something that you lead and run, I think that's important. And then having someone, and it could be you know, I mean, you so I'm gonna say this like Michael, I'm sure you're extraordinarily uh helpful and useful to people that follow you, but like it's even better if it's like in an organization where they work for the person. Like I worked for a more experienced entrepreneur, and so I was like downloading stuff, and sometimes you're downloading stuff you don't want to do. Sometimes it's or sometimes it's like, yo, this is actually a cautionary tale. Um, because I had multiple companies that failed, honestly. Like my first one failed, and next one I joined failed, and I saw the way CEOs were doing things, and sometimes it's like I'm not gonna do it like that. Um, but it's really useful to have those experiences. You want to try and get yourself into someone's orbit that you can learn from, and you want something that you're responsible for. It does not need to be enormous.
SPEAKER_02This is off topic of what I was about to follow up with, but how soon after starting your first company, like did you realize it was going to fail before you actually stopped working on it?
SPEAKER_00What a great question! I love it so much. So I I leave my corporate job again, much to my um parents' chagrin. Uh let's call it February. Um, you know, I would I'd been in the job for five months. I started September, I leave February. And then um after a little more than a year, I was like, it is not gonna work, it's gonna go bust. Um, and so and I was probably on it in full for 18 months. So I'd say the last six months, the writing was on the wall where I was like, yo, we're doomed. Um, you know, but I mean it's it's sort of negative to to be like that. Um, I mean, I was right that we were doomed, but uh, you know, it's like uh uh it was a tough realization for sure.
SPEAKER_02I bet in a relationship like that, I think it's similar, right?
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, sometimes, sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sometimes.
SPEAKER_00Um you know, one of the jokes I tell too, because like if you're a successful entrepreneur, people are like, oh, stick with it, perseverance, grit, determination. And then I had this joke was like quitting is an underrated skill.
SPEAKER_02You gotta know when they call it quits. Yeah, it's a good take. I like that take. Um, going back to you know, you said like you don't want to come on here and just be a doomer and you know, talk negative. I you know, there's two ways to look at this K-shaped thing, which is number one is how do we fix it politically and structurally? Yeah, and the second side, which is what I'm particularly interested in, is especially for young people, how do you get into the upper bound?
SPEAKER_00Brian DeKay, yeah.
SPEAKER_02How do you get to the top of the K? That's what I look, I would love to fix it structurally, but before you know, they always tell you in the airport, right? Put the mask on before you you put somebody else's. How do you get to the upper bound of the K?
SPEAKER_00I I a thousand percent agree with you, man, on both both sides. I mean, that's what young people should be thinking. It's like, how do I get on the good side of the K? And also how do we fix it structurally? So I'm I'm gonna spend just like just a very brief period of time on how to fix it structurally because uh, you know, I'm all about it. So um I think that, and I I as I went through the the the gerrymandering the um polarization, the two-party system is designed to make it so we can all be ignored. Uh, and so what you need to do is you need to get beyond the two-party system. So I started the biggest third party by resources, uh, the forward party. Um, and uh, you know, I joke, it's like it's not that hard to start the biggest third party by resources because the other ones are so shitty. Um but so I I did do that. And uh what I'd suggest to people is like, look, if you want to fix things structurally, the two-party system has to go. There's no way that this system is going to uh like fix what's been broken. Um so that so now let's leave that there. Um, and if anyone wants to check out some of the stuff I'm doing, you can go to my um TED Talk from 2024, which is around structural reform and uh forwardparty.com. You can also go to my Substack. I write a newsletter uh every week about how we can try and fix things now to the stuff you really care about, which is how you can get yours. Uh uh in terms of how you can get yours, uh again, I I do think this uh lead and be led model is helpful. Try and find someone you can learn from and then also being put in a position where you actually have to live with your decisions. Because I think and again, like the the thing you run does not need to be spectacular. When I became a nightclub promoter, which sounds super cool, one of the reasons I did it was I could do it with no money because what you needed was an email list uh and a venue that would let you uh occupy it. By the way, right now there's actually an opportunity because these venues desperately need people. Uh, people aren't partying as much, people aren't going out as much, people aren't drinking as much. So if you go to a venue and you could actually deliver a couple hundred people, some of whom might actually drink and spend money, like you can actually get really good value. And when I say really good value, the deal that I tended to strike at the time was um you get 20% of the bar past a certain guarantee. And every venue, plus you get, let's call it 20 free drinks. And um, and so you can have your friends drink for free, you can get a table, maybe a bottle, um, that sort of thing, and be a baller, spending zero money. And then if you can actually beat the minimum, you can go home with a thousand bucks or something, which is like what I ended up doing in my 20s. And you can do this with zero capital. Well, all you need is social capital and a good mailing list. And I wasn't heady enough to think that I could solo uh be the list guy. So I recruited. I recruited this indie rocker named Mike Skinner and this beautiful woman named Amy Englehart. And I just I was like, we're gonna call ourselves Ignition NYC. This is before R. Kelly kind of made Ignition uh like, you know, less cool. No offense, R. Kelly, whatever. Um, so uh so then uh we had this list, and this was born out of the fact that one of my birthday parties in my 20s, a lot of people I didn't know showed up and drank. And I was like, maybe there's a business here. But so you can try and find a business that does not require money. Um, and and so I would make these decisions uh and you know, like good or bad, um, and learn. Um, and so if you can find a hustle that doesn't require money um but requires other kinds of capital, you know, you should try and take advantage of it. I find party promoting to be great training for entrepreneurship.
SPEAKER_02I just prepare, I listened to like, I don't know, I listened to Ice Coffee, obviously listen to Rogan, I listened to a couple the three, four interviews you did. I didn't hear you really talk about the the promoting arc. How how good of a nightlife promoter were you? Like, where did you rank on the skill level of like New York City promoters?
SPEAKER_00I mean, like in terms of New York City promoters, probably not that high because I wasn't doing it for a living, you know, it was a side hustle. Uh, but I remember vividly the high point of my promoting career was New Year's Eve uh 2004, uh, and hundreds of people came out and they all spent, you know, to get in the door was like a hundred bucks. So we we had we had like a we made a lot of money. It was what was funny was that you were like doing things, doing things, and you know, maybe we don't weren't we didn't make that much money in September, we didn't make that much money in October, but then that freaking December 31st event, it all just made up for it because everyone needed a place to go and they were willing to pay through the nose for it. So that that was a real high point. I mean, obviously you can tell my excitement and pride relating it even now years later. Um, so awesome times, awesome memories, awesome relationships.
SPEAKER_02How much did you make on uh New Year's Eve 2004?
SPEAKER_00You know, I think as as a group, we made it, might have made like 10 grand, and then there were um you know three or four of us. So by the way, I felt like the king of the world because like I, you know, I end up that night, but I invited all my friends, had a great time, great party, drank for free, got to treat everyone great. And then I had 10 bands at the end of the night, and then I gave them to like my partners, being like, here is like you know, 2500 or whatever, and then there were their eyes bugged out too. And I just felt you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_02Like that was the greatest thing ever. It's the the the closest way, the easiest way to build a friendship is to to make money with somebody. I I really believe that to be true.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so you know, January, whatever it took them a minute to figure out some of the expenses, but like January 5th of that year when I was giving this money to people, it just not you know it just felt like such a baller.
SPEAKER_02I think I was two at the time, but maybe in another life, um, I I make it to out that night. But you know, I I'm pretty terminally online, and I do recognize that I live in a bubble, right? And I'm gonna ask you about some, you'll talk about some AI stuff a little bit, but Twitter is sort of this bubble within itself, and you are kind of susceptible to like a singular narrative that gets spun and repeated from the same people, and you know what what their incentives are, why they're doing it. You can kind of like lose yourself in this wash cycle, if you will, but amongst especially the the you know, the trading communities, there's this framing that gets thrown around a lot of you know, the permanent underclass. And everybody loves to say that you have access amount of years to reach access amount of money to escape the permanent underclass, or you know, you're you one shot it by AGI or like uh inflation currency crisis to zero, whatever it is. Like do you believe that it Is just forever going to be harder to make it as time goes on, and that there is some finite time period or overarching pressure to do it right now.
SPEAKER_00As the numbers guy, I can say with a high level of confidence that uh it has gotten harder, uh, and it will get harder still. Um, the that said, though, for the individual, uh, you should take this as like uh okay, you know, maybe I have to work a little harder, hustle a little more. Um, and one of the things I think I said in other context, let's say I told you, and by the way, if you were born in the 1960s in America, you had something like a 93% chance of doing better than your parents. Wow. That was the American dream, that level. You're born in the 90s, you're down to 50. Um, and then you're you're born later than that, you're you know, you're sub 50 and declining. So, like maybe now it's like 40, 39. And if I were to tell you absent something awesome happening, like me becoming president and trying to spread the gains everywhere, which is totally what I would do. Um, because that that is in my mind the only sensible move in the AI age. Um, but in the absence of that, the probability is going to keep dropping. And and but even if I were to take someone by the uh arm and say, hey, let's say you're in a class, um, say 32% of the people in this class are gonna succeed, then you just think, okay, I need to be in the top 32%, you know. And then if I were to say, hey, bad news, next year it's 29%, be like, well, shoot, that's worse than 32%, but you know, like that's the job. And so individually, you should always be approaching things like you're gonna make it through whatever gate. Um, uh, but will the gate get narrower? Yeah, it will.
SPEAKER_02That number being sub 50% and dropping is alarming.
SPEAKER_00That's because it's how oh, yeah, it's trash, man. Like we should all be pissed off. I mean, the American dream was you do better than your parents, and by the way, the economy's done fine, you know, it's like the top line's growing. If you hold risk assets, right, you're great.
SPEAKER_02Um, everything else is we could talk about the I like your well.
SPEAKER_00I I do want to break down my my perspective on this too, because check it out. I I had a six-figure corporate job that I left, and then um company did not work out, and then another company didn't work out, and I still owed these law school loans. And so I I felt very insecure and like a failure for years, and my parents would lie about what I did professionally. Uh, and uh I ended up getting um this uh CEO job, or really, I mean, and even that, like the fact that I got named CEO of this very, very small education company um when I was 30. And then as CEO, it it did well and it was bought when I was 34. Um, but between the ages of 25 and 34, I felt like things were always very, very shaky. And when I met my now wife, um, she made more money than I did, as an example, um, which we didn't realize until a little bit later. Um, and her parents did not like me because they thought I was a loser, you know, it's like stuff like that, um, that I I remember pretty pretty pretty vividly because you don't forget. So um, so one of the things I'd say is like, I you know, I didn't I didn't become quote unquote a success until I was like 34 and did not hit my stride until I was 30 or so. So if someone's in your 20s and think, like, oh, like this is the thing I want to disabuse people of, it's like, oh, if you haven't made it by the time you're 30, like it's done. Like, I think that's bullshit. Because, you know, if you found me at age 29, you're like, I don't know where this is gonna go, you know, and then you find me at age 34 and you're like, oh, it's fine. Um, but I I was fueled by that for years and years. I was fueled by the uncertainty and um difficulty and insecurity uh throughout my 20s for you know decades afterward afterwards.
SPEAKER_02Also, like piggyback on this topic, it's like I'm 24. I at some point I would like to have kids, and I would like to imagine like my child can like get to 18 plus and succeed in whatever the current environment looks like. And so it's mapping that out, it's like, all right, we got to be good here for at least another 25 plus. And so if I only have two years to make it, I don't necessarily love how that plays out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I guess that's my point is you have much more than two years to make it, particularly as I'm just gonna talk about this like you know, as a guy. Um, so you know, like again, if you found me age 29, you'd be like, I don't know what's going on. And then 34, it's like, oh, cool. Not coincidentally, I get married when I'm 36. Um, my brother doesn't get married until he's not not to make this, you know, sorry as you know, my brother probably doesn't want that. Yeah, um, whatever. I mean, you could just look look this up, but he might not get married until he's 45 or something along those lines. Like, you know, as a guy, uh if if it clicks for you at any point, um, you could probably start a family like around that time, uh, because you know, like we we actually have much longer windows um for that sort of thing. So you have a ton of time, is what I'm saying. And I'm not saying this to any of the guys that's out there, it and even for myself, again, I I felt like a failure throughout my 20s, clicks for me later. And then I get married like after that, you know, getting married at 36, fine. Um, so you you should not feel this pressure that you have to figure it all out in you know, one or two years or whatever.
SPEAKER_02I like that take. Uh, you know, and honestly, thank you for sharing it. And I think it's it's like good to set the stage. Go into some of the AI stuff. There is this article from very popular finance Twitter account, Citrini, titled 2008 Global Intelligence Crisis. And I reference it by name because I know you quote tweeted it. And the basic premise is that you know, AI is gonna be so good, it's gonna be better than advertised that it's gonna lead to this, you know, mass firing, lack of demand for a lot of existing the ability to create software as a commodity out of thin air, and it's so good that we go into this deflationary recession. And the you know, the success of AI basically creates the downfall of the American economy. And you quote tweeted this and talked about it a little bit. This was a big, you know, I read it on stream. This is then in our circle, this was a you know, cinema for a week straight. What is your take on this thesis that Citrini laid out in his article?
SPEAKER_00I thought it was really uh well done, uh, and um elements of it were very realistic. Uh, and if you look at mainstream media as an example, everything they talk about um has a bias towards like, yeah, it's gonna be all right, like gradual distance. The Citrini was like, no, it's fucked, you're fucked, we're fucked. And like I loved that energy and clarity. Uh, and there are gonna be a lot of people who are fucked. So I I think I quotated being like, hey, people should really look at this and take it seriously, because um, the comparisons I make to folks, uh we used to have millions more manufacturing workers than we do now, and they got blasted uh, you know, by automation and globalization throughout the 80s and 90s, and those communities have never recovered. Um, and did if someone came to them and be like, hey, guess what? Look around this plant, look around this town, look around uh this community, it's all gonna be gone in 10, 15 years, they'd be like, That's madness. Um, but then that is what happened. Um, and and so you know, the what I try and compare this to is like, look, guys, AI is to knowledge workers what the machines were to the factory workers. Um, and I'm sure if I found a factory worker in 1985 and was like, hey, like, can a machine replace you? It'd be like, Of course a machine cannot replace me because like what I do is like so singular, like no one can do what I do. And then you come back and that dude's like long gone. So so like that there are there are entire companies that are going to be driven into obsolescence uh by AI. Now I know then the Citrini, there were people unpacking various aspects of the scenario, being like, okay, this may be this no, this, like dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. But I thought directionally uh it was very strong.
SPEAKER_02Well, the thing that was alarming in the rebuttals to Citrini was that the most common one was, hey, you idiot, this timeline is too fast. Yeah, like, no, it's not gonna be two years, it's gonna be four. It doesn't do that, you know, it doesn't solve your premise here, right? The timeline is too fast as the strongest rebuttal. And maybe like, hey, you idiot, you said DoorDash was gonna be vamped.
SPEAKER_00DoorDash is and and that's one of the things I can't stand about it. It's like, you know, I mean, I wrote a book saying hey, I was gonna take the jobs, and it came out back in 2018. I ran for president in 2020. Then people will find some detail and be like, hey, this detail is not right. So thus, like, I was like, look, like that detail is totally irrelevant to the thrust of uh, you know, this this projection. Um, anyway, I'll stop there. But like it people tend to get very nitpicky.
SPEAKER_02So so so so something you referenced and piggybacking off of that is um, you know, the day after this we read the Citrini article on stream, the next thing we covered was Luddites. And this whole so I'm from Virginia, Northern Virginia, which is like the data center capital of of America. And I go back to my hometown, I drive around, and it's it does uh it looks like a completely different place. There's data centers everywhere you look. It's just these massive, giant buildings everywhere. And you know, we learned about the Luddites, and there's this growing tension, right? Where you know, Jack Dorsey and the block lay off you know 4,000 employees, 25% of their staff. They cite AI, and then these you know, I don't know, hundred billion dollar data center build-outs are being stopped or halted or put on pause by like 10 protesters. And so I have been playing with this thesis that you know the most profitable job in 2027, 2028 is gonna be a data center protester, right? Because Amazon's gonna say, fuck you, we'll just here's a million dollars to shut up and go away to come work for us. Um do you think this Luddite concept is gonna evolve itself in 2026, 2027 into like a class war?
SPEAKER_00Um, yeah, I'm sure there'll be episodes, and the most obvious targets to me are gonna be robot taxis, um, where you've already seen a couple of people trashing uh Waymo's or whatnot, um, because because they're really um sort of uh obvious targets, honestly. Uh, you know, they can't defend themselves, like you can kind of sense like you're like, you know, I can stand in your way, you can't run me over, like you stupid thing, like you know. Um, so um will will there be uh folks who decide to quasi-organize and trash some machines and robots, Luddite style? Totally. Uh, you know, like that anger is gonna be there for sure. I don't know if it's going to become uh like a full-fledged uh social or political movement, um, but they're gonna they're gonna be flashes of anger and reprisal.
SPEAKER_02So the thing we learned or I learned about the Luddites is what happened to them. And I mean they got killed, they killed states, yeah, yeah, that yeah, they just killed them.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that that's uh you know, because the Luddites made the mistake of being too organized. It's like if if you all get together and like again become like uh an organization, like in a group, then they'll they'll kill you. But if you're asymmetric, it's sort of one Waymo here, one like if you're just randos like you know, sort of coalescing and trashing stuff and then disappearing, then you know, like a little bit less uh of a um you know, an urgency to hunt you down and kill you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's yeah, they're too organized, it's crazy. I you know, I don't want to reference a ton of I feel like you you you get bombarded with questions from the Joe Rogan interview, which by the way, pretty funny. Uh I I was listening to it the other day just to like get full context here. If you played that interview on the TV today, you could be when when was this from? You could ask when was this from 2019? No, no, but like you could question like was this a month old? Other than a couple nuances, it you could it could pass for being done in 2025, which is wild. But you make a comment, I think verbatim, you say that we are in the third, I don't want to misquote you, the third inning of the AI revolution 2019. What inning are we in now?
SPEAKER_00Uh we are in nearing like the fifth inning or so. Uh I mean, uh, I I'm actually shocked at how quickly innings four and five have gone. Um, and I I can't believe the total one-sided capitulation on the part of our political leadership um behind the AI wave. Like all the Silicon Valley crew in DC were like, we're doing this, it's data center, and let's like, you know, uh make a trillion or two or whatever the heck the number is. Um yeah, fifth inning.
SPEAKER_02What does the sixth inning look like?
SPEAKER_00Uh I I'd say the the Luddite types uh start arriving um around inning uh six or seven. It's yeah, I mean I I I I um I'm not excited about go going too much further down this progression in the sense of uh and I'm sure you saw you know in one of the my Substack posts, like I I think it just gets really ornery and gnarly uh and angry. Um, and and that's uh ahead.
SPEAKER_02You know, uh so on this top, like you know, you mentioned you're sort of surprised at how fast Silicon Valley sort of capitulated here, and then you have this concept of you know, like taxing the AI lab tokens. What is your take on the United States of America is at a global arms race against China and other nations, but China specifically to win and achieve super intelligence, whatever that looks like. And any attempt at like AI safety or alignment or anything that would halt the progression of AI is just yeah, national security risk. And even though there are risks that come with moving this fast, we have no choice but to just push until you drive off the cliff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's super dumb. Um, and I I think it's dumb for uh a number of reasons, but I joke about it. It's like the the arms race with China is not gonna be win or lost based on the last$10 spent. You know what I mean? Like if I say, hey, we're gonna like tax you$10, like does that mean it's like, no, we're gonna lose? Okay, so you you'd agree$10 doesn't matter. I'd make an argument that you could make that number very, very large and it would not materially affect the competition because the competition is going to be one based upon the model's ability to self-improve. And so as as long as you have that uh like at the core, then like I can tax you over here and it's not gonna matter for the competition. The other major thing is that you're already seeing the world essentially split into different AI ecosystems, uh, and that's going to be the case also, uh, no matter like you know, whether there's a tax or not. Um, so you'd have certain parts of the world, let's call it Europe, the West, they're gonna use American AI. Uh, and then China's gonna have its by the way, let's say we had you know, like much, much better better AI models, would China be like, oh, your models are better than ours? We should start using yours, of course not. That'll be like, fuck that, you know, like that. There's gonna be the Chinese AI ecosystem and the Western slash American AI ecosystem. Um, and so after you already accept that that's the way it's gonna shake out, um, then you should become more comfortable putting guardrails in.
SPEAKER_02Do you believe in the existence of the arms race as a concept, though?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I I think it's vital for American interest that we um become as advanced as possible in AI.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's a fair take. And I you know, like one follow-up on this AI led I discussion is like how responsible are Sam Altman and Dario and these the leaders, the public figures of these labs for the narrative being pushed and the animosity towards AI. You know, like it feels like every day Dario goes on this podcast from Anthropic and he's you know 75, 50, 100 of Americans are gonna white-collar Americans are gonna lose their job to AI. Like, are they pushing this narrative to raise venture capital or are they pushing this narrative and this, you know, you could I think you could call it fear-mongering to genuinely help and try to warn people for what's coming? Like, how responsible are they for the the the anger towards this?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my read on it is that uh Dario is actually saying what he thinks is gonna happen. And by the way, he was saying it, and people were like, really? Uh, and then uh, you know, uh some of the new Claude agents came out, and people like, oh wow, like he might actually have been onto something there. Uh, I think Dario in particular is sincere. And then he said, You should tax us, which obviously no one picked up because our our leaders are too out to lunch uh to do the obvious thing. And if I were in charge, it'd be like, Well, fuck yeah, we're gonna tax you, we're gonna tax all these, like uh the the uh compute um inputs. Uh and so then the average person out there, instead of thinking the average person out there right now thinks AI is gonna eat my job, AI might lead us into nuclear war, AI is gonna make my kids anxious and depressed faster. Uh, you know, my kids are gonna want an AI boyfriend, girlfriend instead of a real one. I mean, like that, like, and so the average American's like, why am I supposed to be happy about this? Uh, if if you can actually send them a check and say, hey, AI got you this money, they'd be like, Oh, okay, that's cool. I can use this money on something that I'm actually kind of excited about. Um, and there are some tech leaders that actually are realizing that this massive backlash is coming in sentiment um because the pendulum has been way, way over on this side. So I have just a different read on the way these guys are handling it than you do. I think Dario's sincere. I think that uh some of the other uh AI companies totally think that they're gonna decimate millions of jobs, but they you know they're not they don't care. It's like they don't they've already and have I been in some conversations with these people in private where they're like, Oh yeah, that's happening. Um, yeah, I have.
SPEAKER_02It is a good point about Dart. He he does he has been doing this for a while too. He's been saying this for a while, and he did make the tax comment. You know, one more thing on the AI job displacement is I learned about this concept, Jevin's paradox, which is kind of a fun one.
SPEAKER_00It's not oh yeah, no, they're gonna. I'm I I people in Jevin's paradox are.
SPEAKER_02So let me go back for a second. Let me go back for a second. Is Joe, I I hear you complain that and very valid that people will refute your you know predictions for AI displacement of of workers with ah, but it's always played out this way in history, so it will play out again. And they basically they don't have a rationale or reason as to why it will happen. Just it's happened before in other examples. And it's a pretty just like low IQ rebuttal, it has no substance. And so there's this concept of judgments paradox, which you're obviously familiar with. It's like as as you know, technology advances and becomes more efficient, demand for it goes up only. And when the industrial revolution happened, we create new jobs. When the internet revolution happens, we create more jobs. You know, I couldn't have imagined I'd be running a media company based around a finance stream where I'm you know I'm interviewing interviewing a presidential candidate in you know 15 years ago, right? So, like new job created, I could have never concepted that this would be a thing, and then people apply it to AI, which is like every other technological revolution, this has happened. Why would it not happen again this time?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Um, so uh two statements I'm going to say, and I I believe both these statements. AI is going to create many new jobs that we cannot predict. Millions of Americans are going to lose their jobs to AI. Both those statements 100% true. Uh AI is totally going to create some new jobs that we don't see coming. Um, the issue in my mind is that many of those jobs that are going to be created are going to be for different people in different places with different skills uh than the jobs that it got eliminated. And the jobs that got eliminated are going to be many, many times higher. And and the the comparison I make for white-collar folks is when the internet came and did a number on local newspapers, and some people would say, Oh, well, you know, there'll be some new media jobs, which there were. Um, but for every 10 local uh reporters that lost their jobs, maybe you had like one or two or three that worked at BuzzFeed or wherever. And then now BuzzFeed's like disappearing too. Um, and so like the numbers just don't match up. Um, and people are just really, like you said, lazy where they're like, oh, uh, you know, industrial revolution has happened before. Like when I was in a debate the other day, I said, Why do we have Labor Day today? Uh, and the reason we have Labor Day is because there were violent strikes that killed dozens of people. And then DC Keanu said, You guys need a holiday. Like, here's a freaking holiday for for labor as like part of the peace offering. Um, so if you imagine violence. Violent riots occurring and people dying at like a high scale. And by the way, this was also the comparison people make as a favorable one. It's like, hey, we went through this before and it was okay. It's like, was it okay? You had anarchy, you had communism, you had uh, you know, like uh violent deaths, you had like all of this um tumult. And that was in a simpler time um where um I'd argue that you had a much uh less complex economy of like with fewer people and like a bunch of other things. So uh the other thing that's madness to me is like people will say this who are business people and be like, wait a minute, are you actually making an argument for how society is going to unfold in 2026 based on something that happened 125 years ago? Wow. Like like if if if I were to pitch you an investment and be like, hey, 125 years ago, you know, like people did this, you'd be like, why do I give a flying fuck what people did 125 years ago? I'd be I'd be trying to like sell you buggy whips.
SPEAKER_02I that's actually yeah, valid take. Um, you know, I guess going a step further, I want to talk about talk markets a little bit. And I uh, you know, a friend of mine, prominent Twitter figure, his name is based 16Z, he wrote this article called Loot and Rob. And the basic premise of this article is that America has reached this late stage empire capitalism where the only response left from the elite is to take as much as humanly possible, as quick as possible, and run. And I think some examples of this are like, you know, one, every company staying private until as long as humanly possible, extract every venture dollar, go public, SpaceX at 1.5 trillion, retail gets rinsed. Or, you know, how much money was made, how many billionaires were created from just pure grift extraction events where retail gets rinsed, stocks are trading at zero, or you know, Donald Trump Jr. buys a drone company two weeks before we strike Iran, or you know, the president launches a meme coin and then launches a second meme. It's just like basic this premise that we're speedrunning the Soviet oligarch playbook, and nobody really has a reason to try and play correctly. Steal, take, and run for the hills. Is this uh I don't know, is this happening? Like, how do you feel about this?
SPEAKER_00Wow, I you know, I I think this is uh uh like a very savvy observation. Uh and I made the argument in my book, The War on Normal People. It's like we either come together and start spreading the wealth and the bounty. And this is as someone who's you know, serial entrepreneur, like founder, capitalist. Um, and I what I say is that AI plus capitalism is gonna be no one's idea of a good time unless we start doing things differently. Um, and I said if we don't do this, then it's gonna become every man for himself. Um, and that's what your uh your friend is describing. It's like, okay, at this point, like all bets are off, let's just all get ours. Um, and and that is where you wind up if um you know, if if you don't have any kind of coherence or cohesiveness.
SPEAKER_02Yes, it feels like the prisoner's dilemma a little bit, right? Where somebody in power goes for it, goes for the cornucopia, and then everybody else is like, fuck, I have to get mine right now. And we're sort of seeing it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, one of the things I want to say too, like, I, you know, I'm a dude. Uh I'm a wholesome dude. I try and do positive things. Um, but I also make sure that you know, my my family's gonna have a roof over their head and like my kids are gonna be able to go to school, etc. etc. Like that there are uh even some of the best people I know who donate millions of dollars to good things, to wholesome things, like are doing it at a level where it's not going to threaten the roof over their head. Um, you know, and it's cool. Like I think Teddy Roosevelt said something to this effect, uh, or what what you said with like the air airplane crashing, it's like everyone get their own mask. Um, if you're coming up in the world, you get your own mask. Like uh Teddy Roosevelt was like, your first job is to take care of yourself and your family and make sure that you're good. And then after you are in a position where you can do a little bit extra. And by the way, there are different forms of value in currency. Like you might be broke, but you're like, look, I've got some hours to spend, so I'm gonna use those hours on this or that. Uh, and that's one of the main things if you're young. Like one of the traps is to think about everything as financial currency. It's like you you have time, energy, like um attention, network, like uh passion. Uh, you know, I mean, I remember being a broke 20-something year old, um, and then being saying, okay, what can I bring to the table? Um, you you bring a lot of stuff to the table um that's not money. Um, you would trade it for money if you could. Yeah. And and and there are instances when you can trade it for money, uh, you know, like it and but sometimes you do something because you believe in it and it's wholesome, then maybe it leads to good opportunities. Um, there are three legs to the tripod. Um, there's the commercial, which again, totally cool if that's the main focus. Then there's the philanthropic, which for a lot of folks is like a sideline. And then the third is political. Um, now I have rotated among all three of these, and at any moment in time, I'm doing all three, honestly, like even now. Um, so you should see yourselves in that way as having like different forms of value you bring to the table.
SPEAKER_02I like the tripod framing. And you know what? Another follow-up on this, you know, where late-stage capitalism is headed is you know, we we're trading all the time. And so we've I think pretty definitively entered a period where the market is the core metric for success in America. Now, do ever does everybody agree with that? Not necessarily, but the president, people leading the country are saying the market is success in America. And there is this moment that I, you know, as a young person, young trader, is just scarred in my brain forever. And it's Pam Bondi at uh hearing about Jeffrey Epstein, and she gets asked a question, I don't know verbatim what it was about Epstein. And her response is something along the lines of, why are you attacking me? You should be thanking President Trump. The Dow is over 50,000, SPX is over 7K, they said it would never be possible, he could never do it, he did it, why are you asking me about Jeffrey Epstein at the Jeffrey Epstein hearing? And I think that maybe this has been the case in you know prior administrations where the market is the proxy, but it's so in your face, a curtain pulled back in 4K for the entire world to see. And I just, yeah, what are the implications of the market equaling success or being viewed as the metric to equal success one-to-one?
SPEAKER_00Uh I I think that's uh um messed up uh in the sense that if you look at who holds market wealth, I mean, it is the top of the K. Uh, you know, maybe the top 20% might hold 90% of the market wealth. Uh, it used to be that fewer than 50% of Americans even were in the market at all. Uh, and so the median level of stock market investment for an American family was zero. Now that number has crept over 50% now. Now it's like maybe 54% are in the market. Um, but if you're in the bottom 40% of Americans, uh, you don't have a single share of stock. And and I think there are people watching this who can't imagine that. It's like, what the fuck? Like, you know, you got to be in the market, et cetera, et cetera. But uh, you know, I I think it's messed up to equate how a country's doing to like how the top 20 or even 54% are doing. Um, you know, like you have um 340 million people in this country, and like they all matter, like at least in, you know, like and so um using the market as a proxy to me is is is not where you want to be. Sends a bad message too, to your point. Um, so uh, you know, like when I when I was running for president, I would say, look, let's put some slides up as to like how people and families are doing, and then like take it from there. Uh, you know, by the way, people and families not doing so well, you know, like the average American is broke or can't afford various things, and so you know, like you use that as your measuring stick, um, then you'd uh have a clearer picture.
SPEAKER_02Is this new? Like I wasn't, you know, really paying attention in 2012, 2008, like how prior admins were run before Trump won, probably. Is this like a new idea?
SPEAKER_00As usual, Trump has taken it to a whole new level. Like, you know, uh past administrations would sometimes reference the stock market, but it was considered bad form to point at the stock market and say that's how we're doing.
SPEAKER_02You know, the joke in amongst like crypto communities and even you know, public company founders is like whenever the dev, the founder, is referencing price or the chart, run for the fucking hills. It's like dev talking about price, get the fuck out. It's never good.
SPEAKER_00That is a very good principle. I agree with it. Uh, you know, I think there were some companies, I've never run a public company, but there are some companies where they banned everyone from looking at the stock price because if you're like looking at the stock price, then like what the fuck are you doing? Like, you know, you gotta be um just trying to build and make something better.
SPEAKER_02I I want to ask one more follow-up on this, you know, the market being the only thing that matters. And I wanna I want to talk about the Iran situation. And I wanna I wanna preface by saying, like, there is a I don't want to misconstrue what I'm about to say. There is a literal war being fought, lives are being lost, Americans are dying, cities are being destroyed, and like you know, deepest uh condolences. I I totally recognize the severity of the situation. I also think that there is like a figurative war being fought in the order books and in the market, and particularly on oil and the way that that's trading. And you know, the way like we've identified this is very clearly Trump and the US admin is planning good announcements right before market open, futures open. They're planning escalations after a market close, right? February twenty eighth, the first strike into Iran was like a couple hours after Friday market close. And then on the contrary, Iran and you know, the the Speaker of Parliament is very frequently he made two references. One was along the lines of you can't print atoms. Basically, like you know, you can manipulate oil price in the market, but eventually there's a shortage, there's a fucking shortage, you can't print atoms. And then the second is before futures opened yesterday, he made this comment basically saying it's it's gonna open green, they're manipulating it, it's gonna, you know, Monday market open will be red. And so basically both sides are fighting like a double-sided war, which is what is the price of oil, right? The higher uh the price of oil goes, the the more validity towards Iran is winning. The lower it is, the longer Trump has to carry out whatever you know uh sort of ambiguous our goals are in Iran. Like, is this something that you are also witnessing? And what do you make of that?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. I mean, you're witnessing it just because you can see Trump trying to uh placate uh or shift the market sentiment. Um, was I mean, what was it today? It's like, hey, we're in negotiations for an end of the conflict, and then everything goes up. Um, and so he's just trying to buy time. The more economic pain there is, particularly if it manifests in higher gas prices, uh, the worse it is for him politically. So, you know, anything he can do to forestall it. And then you're right, Iran's on the other side of that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's like I I don't even really know what my question is on it, but I've you know, I'm I'm pretty new to geopolitics and navigating these headlines, which by the way is almost impossible, right? Because both sides are posturing. You know, there's no uh like uh civilian like camera footage is banned in the GCC countries, you have no idea what's real, AI video, like yeah.
SPEAKER_00I will say this is also, I mean, I I've been around a little longer. This is some weird shit. It's like very, very unusual. Uh, you know, I mean, we we haven't um I mean, uh Iran's been uh essentially an adversary and developing nuclear weapons for us since as long as I can remember, and like no one's taking these steps, you know, you know. Oh, it's it's so I mean yeah, it's it's uh um unprecedented times.
SPEAKER_02We don't have to go too deep on on Iran, but uh just as a follow-up, like do you think there's a scenario in which the United States leaves Iran better positioned than we were on February 27th?
SPEAKER_00I certainly hope so. Uh I'm someone who despised uh the um the regime, the Khomeini regime. Uh I have Iranian friends whose uh families desperately wanted to be um not oppressed and brutalized uh by that regime. And we're talking about a country of 90 million or so, and and so anything we could do to get rid of that regime, including uh uh decapitating the leadership, I was for uh, you know, like I I see their regime as uh evil. Um, and I believe that there is a chance that the reality on the ground is better in Iran. Now, is that clear right now? No, it's not. Like, is there a probability? It's like, you know, again, totally unknown and unknowable. Um, but I have Iranian friends who still hold out hope.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thanks. Yeah, thanks for your perspective on it. And you know, one more markets question we could we we move over is like, what do you just generally, what do you think the implications are of an entire generation? Like pretty much everybody after me. I think my you know, when I was in high school flipping sneakers, it was like a little bit weird. But if you're a 15-year-old kid now and you're running, you know, Shopify bots to to to sell Supreme, you're it's just normal. What are the like cultural effects of an entire generation like programmed to speculate on everything?
unknownTrade.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, plus calcium polymarket, which I see uh on the screen behind you. Um that do you know you know this uh analyst Nate Silver?
SPEAKER_02I I heard you uh reference him in a couple interviews. I have the book written down, yeah, yeah, on the edge.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, so it's it's funny because you, by the way, Michael, fit this to the T. Um, and that you're you're this um arbitrage finder and like optimizer, and you're trying to find inefficiencies, and when you find mispricing, and you're like, ooh, I can like make some money on this, like you're a hustler. Um, and there are a lot of guys uh who want to learn from you and want to be like you. Um, I'm friends with Nate Silver, and so I was commenting to him, I was like, dude, like reading your book, like it actually felt so familiar because like I'm also uh one of these guys. Uh the the um so he calls them Rivarians for like the river, you know, like the river in the village. So villagers just chilling, and you know, like uh they're like life doesn't change that much, and then Rivarians are financiers, investors, entrepreneurs, developers, and we're like kind of on that border, on that edge. Um and uh I commented it's like you know what? I like I'm a Rivarian who actually cares about the village too, because like I, in my opinion, the village is gonna get swept away, um, a lot of them by AI. Um, and then some Rivarians aren't gonna do that well either, because you know, this is like a like AI is gonna do a number on a lot of people. Um, and even now, and I I am going to wrap this into uh you know what I'm doing with now with Noble Mobile, just to kind of um like help help people understand it. So um some people watching this remember my 2020 campaign. Maybe you liked me. And what I realized is that people like me because they sensed I was trying to make them less broke, um, which I am. Like I just think giving like putting money in your pocket and all of the people who who follow you's um their pockets uh would be the win. And I was trying to do that through uh running for president and our political system, and I still might do that again. Um, but then being an entrepreneur, it's like I don't want to wait. Like, what can I do right now? Yeah, um, and I don't know if this is true for a guy like you. So please educate me, Michael, because most 24-year-olds I meet are on their parents' uh wireless plans or on a family plan. Is that true for you?
SPEAKER_02I actually shouldn't be, but I am. But I shouldn't be, but I shouldn't be, I shouldn't be. I I pay my mom like every month my phone bill, but I I should I shouldn't.
SPEAKER_00No, no, it's it's all the good. I mean, you're allowed to don't worry, it's totally normal. Um, and now so I'm just going to imagine for a second that someone um is uh like me, where you know you you were on your own. I was paying Verizon 150 a month just for my own. Now that's that's atrocious, um, though I do know people who do worse. Um, the average American spending 83 a month on their wireless. Um, do you happen to know how much you you're you're spending?
SPEAKER_02I think it's that ballpark, 85 to 100, I would say.
SPEAKER_0085 to 100 would be normal, average. Um, the average European spending only 35 a month. Uh, and so that delta of uh 48 a month um comes to about$600 a year times the 50 years you're gonna be a customer is like$30,000. So, so so I yeah, and then you put an interest rate on it and compound it, it's probably more like um you know$80,000. Um, and uh and so I thought if I can get you the best possible value on your wireless, it's the equivalent of me helping save for your retirement, tens of thousands of dollars. Um, and it this is based on Mark Cuban's company, Cost Plus Drugs. Now, cost plus data didn't have a great ring, um, but we called it Noble Mobile. And anyone who's watching this, if you go to Noblemobile.com uh slash yang, uh it's like the best deal around. I think we're we're giving people three free months if you're a fan of mine. Um and uh, you know, that would save the average consumer$250. Um, the way Noble Mobile works is it's$50 for unlimited wireless. And then any data you don't use, we give you the money back. Um, so you have an incentive to bank it, and then we pay five and a half percent interest on uh your savings, um, which is a very aggressive interest rate, I might add. Um, so the goal is to try and make it so that you're paying close to what the Europeans are paying at 35. The average Noble Mobile user is paying 42 bucks a month, um, and then uh getting a five and a half percent interest rate. Um, so do check out noblemobile.com. But this is Yang's attempt to make your phone plan uh a way to make money and not spend it.
SPEAKER_02Why is everyone not using it? Like, what is the blocker?
SPEAKER_00Um, the blocker is uh in in this demo's um case, is that you're on your family's plan and you're like, Oh, am I gonna like talk to my mom about switching? No, which you by the way totally should. We have family plans too, Noblemobile.com. Um, but for the average person in your demo, um, they're not paying the bill.
SPEAKER_02Interesting. And what is the blocker in the like 30, like millennial demo?
SPEAKER_0030 in the millennial demo, it's a lot of people, I'll use myself as an example, have literally zero experience switching carriers.
SPEAKER_02It's kind of like a bank, you know, you get like locked in, and then you're just that's your your Bank of America, they you know, they fucking block my card and do dumb shit, but I just I'm a boa guy, you know.
SPEAKER_00No, yes, so it's inertia, but um the average person doesn't love Verizon or ATT. By the way, since you guys are are finance types, um, Verizon uh is paying uh five and a half percent dividend, it's like 11 billion to its shareholders a year, ATT is paying 7 billion in dividends. So that's where everyone's money is going. It's going to shareholder dividends.
SPEAKER_02That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00Um, it's crazy. If you do the math on the 48 bucks a month times everybody, Americans are spending an extra 100 billion dollars a year on our wireless service relative to Europeans. Like this is the biggest consumer gouging that no one has noticed. The whole thing is bananas. And now that I've said this out loud, you're gonna realize you cannot turn on any TV programming or anything without being bombarded by wireless ads um because there's just so much money.
SPEAKER_02You know, this is uh not an ad, but my mom has been telling me to get off her fucking plan for like the last year. This but dude, this might be it, Mr. This might be it, Michael. You did be a solid. I'm gonna do you want back.
SPEAKER_00Uh dude, you change and you'll realize you'll be like, oh my god, it's it's the same shit. We've all been overpaying for a commodity. Um, so please do join noble and then uh you know, like I'll come back on and we can talk about your experience. But draw me a line.
SPEAKER_02Deal, deal. Um, if I switch is to come with your phone number, maybe we'll figure it out.
SPEAKER_00We'll figure it out.
SPEAKER_02Um, going back to some political stuff, I have uh I have this take about I call it meme politics, meme politics. And I I basically think that the boomers, for whatever reason, hyper over-indexed to appeal to the terminally online Twitter Zoomer crowd. And you skip a couple cutscenes and then you end up where the White House official Twitter account is posting Call of Duty montage edits while we are in the middle of a war in Iran. And I think I think you actually did a very good job of this. I think this speaks to Zoran winning the race in New York as. Well, which is that the young generation, I think pretty desperately just wants somebody that at least pretends to know what they're doing and is serious in charge. Like I think you look around and everybody is like, I just wish somebody could be serious and could not talk about the market. Everybody wants an adult in the room, but the adults in the room seem to think that everybody wants like a friend. And I have this take that I did this presentation on stream that I think we have reached the depth of meme politics. And I also think this speaks to Zoran. I also think this speaks to the rise of Nick Fuentes, who I know is a controversial figure, but Nick Fuentes, uh young, I think he's sub 30, gets on stream every day with a suit, with a mic. He's an incredible orator, and he takes this thing very seriously, like your life is on the line because it matters. And I don't know, do you have a take on meme politics and how we got to this outcome here?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Uh so people respond to energy and measurements. Uh, and the social media stuff is extraordinarily easy to measure. It's become the currency, the coin of the realm. Um, and so uh political figures are really attracted to it. Politicians really want to be cool, is like the shorthand. Um, and can I be cool if I'm not on cable news and I don't have a social media following? Like in that domain, maybe not. At least that's what they think. There is a generation of folks who are like, look, I don't need it, I don't need the visibility. They say like I'm a workhorse, not a show horse. Love those people, love them. Um, but that's more and more an endangered species uh in Washington today.
SPEAKER_02What do you okay, like what do you make of someone like a Nick Fuentes and more broadly the rise of influencers in politics and the role that they will play sort of appealing to like a completely you know, like I look around at a lot of the Zoomers and I'm like, you know, these people don't give a fuck about politics. Most of them, most of my friends couldn't care less, nobody cares. But if you can sort of a younger person meets them where they are at with some level of entertainment as well, you sort of see the rise of like a Fuentes like figure who who you know captures this audience, and all of a sudden we do politics now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, I I confess to not knowing much about uh Fuentes, um, but to to the bigger picture, uh people want to be entertained, people want to be stimulated, people want to feel like there's someone of their generation speaking to them. Uh, and if you feel like your relationship, you know a person, you're like, oh, okay. Uh, and then you start kind of lining up with their point of view. And I think this is particularly true for men. Um, Democrats and the legacy media have done a terrible job of talking to men. Um, they even hired consultants to tell them how to talk to men, which is by the way, the first sign of what you shouldn't do.
SPEAKER_02And this is how you do it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, it's like you you just actually engage as a human being, and um, you know, ideally you have uh someone who understands men somewhat, maybe because they are one uh or whatnot. Uh like a consultant came to me and said, Hey, what do we do? And I was like, just watch fucking UFC and WWE programming for three months. Um, and they looked at me like I was kidding. I was like, no, no, I'm dead serious. Like that stuff will actually uh like you know, it's much more what men are watching than whatever bullshit you're putting out. So uh by the way, I I I am a UFC fan. I was a big WWE fan when I was growing up. So I get it. Um, you know, uh, and by the way, you're like an example in a in my opinion, a positive way, and like maybe even me too, where like you you put yourself out there, and then some people see, like, okay, I I like what this guy's about, and like I'll tune in and see what they're doing. Um, so there there are benign versions of it, there are not so benign versions of it, um, but uh it's the way we experience reality today.
SPEAKER_02It's a good yeah, turn on some fucking college basketball, you know. Watch watch Yukon and instantly you're you're in. I I think it's a good take. And you know, following up on on some of this political stuff, um, I just moved from California, and which I I mean, I love California. Hopefully I get to come back at some point, but it's it's a little bit of a mess. And there's this David Friedberg clip that went super viral, and he's basically saying, you know, he's like it's a warning to California pensioners they should be concerned about getting paid out because the California government is an absolute mess, mismanage their funds, they're essentially bankrupt. And it's such a shame that you know LA looks the way that it does, California looks the way that it does, because in my opinion, I know you're from New York, California is like that's it. That is like the state. I'm you know, I'm in entertainment, pseudo-entertainment. It's like Hollywood is like what you dream about. How would you how do you save California? Like, how would you save California?
SPEAKER_00Dude, it makes me so sad. Um, there there's some stat going on about how Los Angeles County lost more people and jobs than any other county in the United States. Uh, it's madness. Uh, you know, I think that number is something like uh 45,000 Hollywood jobs gone, uh, and a lot of those people left the state. Uh you have to make Hollywood competitive, and the simplest way to do that is whatever the heck tax breaks are being ladled out in Vancouver or London or Atlanta, be like, we're gonna beat them. We're gonna beat them, you know, like uh this is uh essentially uh an industry town, and you've emptied out the lots, the filming lots, the studio lots. Um, the number of shoot days has gone down 50%. And that's not just actors, that's grips, uh, makeup artists, caterers, like all the folks who had to feed the crew, you name it. Um, so yeah, I'd see it as an element of national competitiveness.
SPEAKER_02It was fun, not funny, but on the job loss thing. Uh what, three months ago, Ben Affleck does this clip on uh was it Rogan? I don't know, talking about how AI will never replace the film writers and they'll never film is too precious, and then three months later sells an AI film company to Amazon for or for to Netflix for like$100 million or something. Do you see that?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, I did see that. And uh, you know, like um good for him-ish. Uh, you know, it's like the the the the major problem for us all, Michael, is it's like it's just like again, this is a good way to go full circle. It's just like that factory worker in the Midwest in the 80s and 90s being like, no machine can do my job, but it's like, uh, you know, let's see about that. Uh unfortunately, like every crafts person should take pride in their work and their craft and say, like, you know, you can't replace every nuance of what I do. Um, but this is like a cold, cruel economic reality. And one of the reasons why I know this is because I was an unhappy corporate attorney for five months, and and I could 100% do that job much better than I could. And I was, you know, like all this, like, you know, education and debt. And in that case, I was like, Yeah, I should do that job. You know, it's like that.
SPEAKER_02Um, I got a couple more for you, and I'll sign off with a story in a minute. Is um okay, I want to ask you one cultural question. Is like speaking of you know, California politics in California, the I'm not sure if you're familiar with clavicular, but he's this you know who that is, clavicular?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's um an influencer of some kind.
SPEAKER_02Well, he's just like looks maxing guy, and his whole the only bit is to like ascend. So he's getting the jaw surgery and they're shooting peptides, and it's like to look as good as humanly possible. And so he's sort of ris, he's ascended amongst you know the younger demographic. They love this guy, and there's sort of this cultural shift towards like, ah, fuck it. If I can't get rich, I'll separate myself by looking as good as possible, right? And so clavicular has this take.
SPEAKER_00I I want to stop there and say, by the way, in my 20s, the gym was one of my best friends, and what he just said about it's like, look, if I can't make it, I'm gonna look good. Like, did I do that? I did do that um because it was you know a way to get out my sexual like uh frustration or or whatnot. Um, and you don't need to go to a nice gym. I went to a shitty one.
SPEAKER_01It's better that way, actually.
SPEAKER_00You don't even need necessarily like you don't maybe don't join a gym, just go for like jogs or runs or you know, do pull-ups or push-ups.
SPEAKER_02But I did a ton of that anyway, like a 24-hour fitness is the is is optimal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's all good.
SPEAKER_02So he has this take, Clavicular's his take, that um if the 2028 race is Newsome, JD Vance, Gavin Newsom is going to win because he looks better. And you know, JD Vance has like, at least in my little mentally ill Twitter bubble, everyone's been joning on JD Vance that like he's a little bit heavy. And I don't know if he's listened or what it was, but he won an interview recently and he looked better. He was slim, his face looked good, maybe deep loaded, like he just looked better in the interview. And so that's a serious question. Do you have any plans or do you think about like how much do you think about look like this looks maxing and physical appearance, the and the impact it has on anyone, your anyone's ability to be like a successful political candidate? Like, are you conscious of this?
SPEAKER_00Dude, just about everyone I know who's who runs for office does something in terms of getting into shape. Uh, you know, I I know I think Chris Christie got a stomach stapled. Like, um, yeah, I mean, be you can kind of tell when someone's gearing up for a campaign based upon whether there's some change in their appearance uh to the positive. Um, you know, and then the reverse is true too, where people joke that like when Allegore went out of the woods, he started like you know, graying and getting like the giant beard and like you know becoming like the man in the woods. So it's a very clear tell.
SPEAKER_02Wow. So this is like a I mean, do you have like a team? Do you have like do you have like a uh physical appearance advisor or something of these like this?
SPEAKER_00So I I some jokes in uh one of my books about how my campaign manager took me aside and was like, yo, dude, you you you need a makeover, and I was like, what the fuck? Like, you know, I was like an adult man. Um, and so then they they took me to like uh the mall and like uh hairstylist and all this like bullshit, and I was ticked off at the time. Um, but yeah, it's just one of the things that happens.
SPEAKER_02If it makes you feel better, I had also was pulled aside for this conversation uh as it relates to stream, and they said you cannot get on the Andrew Yang interview with a fucking polo on. Go get a suit. And so here.
SPEAKER_00Well, you did look very sharp, Michael. And and may the suit serve you well in uh you know other environments too.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Andrew. Um, okay, I know you have to go soon. I want to tell you a quick story, true story that happened this weekend, and then I'll let you do like a sign-off, you know, advice kind of thing. I'll try to get through it quick. So I posted uh Friday night. By the way, you guys answered super quick to agree to come on. I really appreciate it. We had like a shout out to Elliot on the design team, spit up a little poster, the thread guy stream, thread guy Andrew Gang. I tweeted it, painted to my profile, and I got invited out on Saturday. Okay, one of my friends was like, Look, I have this date. It's this girl's birthday party. She has like seven friends, all girls, and I can't find a guy. You have to come. And I'm like, I, you know, love it. My life sucks. I'll do it fine.
SPEAKER_00And so sucks, nothing, man. Nothing.
SPEAKER_02Fine. If you want to force me, I'll go. And so I go to this event and I walk into this apartment, and it's me, friend, seven girls, none of them know me. And I walk in and very attractive girls, and Andrew, the vibe is just horrific. Okay. I walk in and these people don't know me, I don't know them, and they don't want to know me. Don't eat no eye contact. Hi, I'm Michael. Just like complete and utter uninterest across the board, right? Except this one girl looks at me and she says, I kind of like think I know you. Yeah, maybe whatever. So it's time we're there for 30 minutes. I'm kind of on Twitter, I'm like reading Andrew Yangs' upstack articles in this apartment, having a beer. And so we go to this first club or whatever, we're at the club for 20 minutes. Same thing, okay? Just I'm talking to different people, different group. But this one girl, again, she's like, like, I know you from somewhere. Yeah, maybe whatever. And so we're there for two hours and I'm ready to go. It's one o'clock in the morning. I'm ready to go home. And so they're like, just come with us, like one more club, one more club. I'm like, all right, fine. And so we go to this restaurant, bar, sort of thing, and we're waiting to get a table, and we're all standing in a circle. And I'm like on the outskirt. I'm not talking to them, but I'm like with them. It's a little weird. One girl looks at me and she's like, How do I know you? And I'm like, all right, you know, uh, I have this like Twitter thing, I run a stream. She says, What's your name on Twitter? I said, I'm threat guy on Twitter. And she goes, You're a threat guy on Twitter? And I said, Yeah. And so she opens her phone. Girls that wouldn't talk to me the whole night, by the way. She opens her phone, she goes on Twitter, she searches the red guy, she clicks on the profile, and the pinned tweet is the thread guy stream interview with Andrew Yang. She looks at her phone, she looks at me, she looks at it again and goes, Holy fuck, you're talking to Andrew Yang, turns to the group, shows the other girls, and every Andrew, I'm not, I can't make this up. Every girl in this circle looks at me and goes, Holy fuck, how do you know Andrew Yang? And individually, they all are going on their phone. You have to see this in their memories. A picture from them at a rally, a picture they took of you, a yang gang tweet they made in like 2019. Every single girl is like, oh my God, how did you get Andrew Yang on the stream? And so I stayed for 30 minutes, have the best time. And so when we're leaving, Andrew, I'm telling you, I couldn't even get a handshake when I walked into this apartment. When I walked out and it was time to go, I'm getting like five seconds. I'm getting like bear hugs with a little like hand, some pressure on the hand, like phone numbers, Instagram, whatever you got it. Yang gang, hot girls for yang gang. Andrew, I could not make the story up. You actually saved my Saturday night at a way that I could not make up if I tried.
SPEAKER_00This makes me so happy, Michael. Oh my gosh. And thank you to all of the uh ladies who helped make Michael's night uh spectacular. And thank you for the warmth and support. Uh, really, really appreciate it. You know what I need to get you, Michael? I need to get you a copy of this book, uh, Hey Yang, where's my thousand bucks? Uh, I don't know if you have a copy, but I'll uh we'll DM, just DM me your address and I'll send it your way. Uh and it's about my misspent 20s uh and earlier and later, uh, in in large part. Dude, I love that so much. You were meant to, we were meant to have this conversation and connect. You were meant to be in that apartment with them. And I I hope you end up staying in touch with somebody.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And it will go right back there in the back. I'll I'll reach out and uh get the address. Thank you. And so, okay, as a as a as a wrap here, I know you have to go. Um, we talked about a lot, a lot of it relatively doomer, but I like uh, you know, I I always say to expect the worst case scenario is a bad way to live life, but to pretend it doesn't exist is is even worse. And so I think it's really important that we recognize it, we discuss it, we're open about it, you know, we adjust the elephant in the room, if you will. Can you give uh concluding advice to the 24, 30, 21 year old who's watching this dream, is a fan of our community, what we're doing, and is really on this young hustler, want to be part of the river and like make it by any means necessary, but you yeah, you just hear outside noise, citrini this, deflation, this, recession, this, white-collar job, this, Dario, this. Like, what do you tell people to do practically to get to that upper bound of the K shape before you can go back and fix the system as a whole?
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll I'll tell you what I did, um, because maybe it'll be the most relevant. So um I um started a company that did not work out, and then I joined another company. Uh, and that company had some sexiness to it. It was a healthcare software company, it had some fancy investors and the rest of it. And then I had this friend who'd started this uh tutoring company, and he came to me and said, Hey, um, do you want to take over the tutoring business? And at first I turned him down because I was like, No, I've got part of this healthcare software company. Um, and then I turned to him later and was like, wait a minute, like let's let's discuss. And it took a real adjustment in my head because when I became the CEO in waiting and then the CEO of that tutoring business, all of a sudden, everything you just described about let's say what the market was doing or like macro trends just went out the window and it was all like, okay, can I help my students achieve their goals? And can I get more students tomorrow? And I just did that for like four or five years. By the way, not a coincidentally, again, during the time I met Evelyn, who uh I would later get later marry. Wow. It's like so that I guess the point I want to make is that you have to focus on yourself, your immediate surroundings, your immediate opportunities, your family, your friends. Um, I just put my head down and just like grinded, and and I did hit the gym very regularly during that time, um, for five, six years, and then you build brick by brick, and then a little while later you have a structure of some kind. Um, and that building process can be going to the lab and like, you know, like frankly working off some of your um negative emotion, or it can be trying to build a business or build a following or build whatever. Um, but you got to tune out the noise, you know. Like when I looked at it at that time, I actively avoided my friends from law school because they were all fancy lawyers making all this money. And I thought I was like this loser because I'd like, you know, started this company that flopped and like and like worked for some company that no one had ever heard of. Um, but you know, like that, like that that's the stuff that will help you get somewhere. And it's what's enabled me to do anything I've done since. Like, oh by the way, I'm in Noble Mobile's offices. Uh so you can see the Noble behind me. Sick. And and so it's it's the same. It's like, you know, you show up every day and you just try and uh like make customers happy, um, make your reports happy and like bring on good people and that that sort of thing. Do not let what's going on in the world uh infect the way you feel about yourself and your own prospects. The truth is it doesn't fucking matter. Like, well, you know, I mean, you want to be educated and the rest of it and like be uh uh plugged in. Uh by the way, it's funny for me because now I'm like this, you know, like public figure and I've got lots of following. And even for me, I participate on social media every day, but then I tune it out and I'm like, okay, you know, like what do I have to do to help uh reach my goals? Just focus on your own goals, write them down too. Write down your own goals and focus on them and tune out the noise, and you'll you'll be fine.
SPEAKER_02I love it. Andrew Yang, honestly, absolute pleasure. I'm extremely grateful you came on. I think it was a particularly exciting one because a lot of stuff you talk about, we also talk about and harp on day in and day out. And yeah, dude, you you got a fan here, and I think you got a uh quite a few more in the chat. So thank you for today. Thank you for Saturday. And good luck.
SPEAKER_00Dude, I just have an idea. I don't know how many of your people are in New York, but we should like run this back live or some shit.
SPEAKER_02Dude, you should come to the fucking my apartment and do it here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, maybe we'll do that. Uh we'll we'll we'll talk after.
SPEAKER_02Okay, we'll talk after. Absolutely, bro. It sounds like a fucking plan. Andrew Yang, uh, this was a pleasure, man. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00I'll see you again, Michael. And really, everyone, keep your heads up, focus on your own business, not anyone else's business. Fuck everyone else.
SPEAKER_02Fuck everyone else. You're the goat, Andrew Yang. I'll see you soon, brother. Have a good one.