Andrew Yang Explains Why 94% of Congress Never Loses Reelection

Originally, I wanted to call the campaign UBI 2020, and then my team was like, "That sounds like a urinary tract infection." Donald Trump combined three communication modes, politics, comedy, he's an insult comic, and pro wrestling. I think it's gotten categorically much, much harder for young people to do what you and I did. I had a chip on my shoulder for a number of years, they said, "Look, anything anyone else can do you can do." You are as talented as anybody else, and so you should not think that someone else can do it, but you're not capable of it. And so I applied that to entrepreneurship. Are they actually right to send all the money to AI or are they making a mistake? The message in Washington was crystal clear. You lose your job if you do the right thing. Imagine if you walked into a restaurant and you didn't like 90% of the food, but then they just refused to change the menu, and that's America politics. Welcome to Build or Break. My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to say that the state of the podcast is strong, maybe a little too strong. Today, we're joined by someone who believes in the American Dream so much, he left a prestigious law firm to build his own version of it. From Wall Street to Main Street, from Joe Rogan to Chapel Trap House, he'll speak to anyone. And I mean anyone, he ran for president as a Democrat in 2020 and then quit the party in 2021. He sings things well ahead of others for over a decade. He was right about AI and automation, he was right about math, he was right about the two party system. He's been relentlessly, consistently, annoyingly right. And today, he's here to say, I told you so. Ladies and gentlemen, Andrew Yang. Yes, thank you, Daniel, Yang Yang, Shark Tank, Lubesky Gang, all coming together. For this show, one of the things we want to do is not just learn how we can make this a better world, but how we can learn tips from some of the most extraordinary people. For me, it was fascinating, all the things you've already accomplished, like you've done so many different things. And so we're going to ask for you to give us some tips on so many different areas. But before we do, I just want to start with something that I found interesting when I was reading about UX as a formative influence. I read that as a kid, you were bullied a lot. Is that true? And can you tell me why you never had, we've known each other for years, men in the White House, very fancy. Yeah, I was the only Asian kid in my grade, one of the only Asian kids in school, and I'd also skipped a grade. So I was a gronnier and smaller than the other kids. So I got pushed around and bullied a lot and called various, you know, Ching Chong sort of racial epithets, a lot of the time. And so I sometimes I would take it, sometimes I would decide to get in a fight. And so that was a very consistent experience in my childhood. How did that shape you into who you are? I had a chip on my shoulder for a number of years. And one of the questions I got all the time was, "Do you know Cranny?" which I did not. I was like the, you know, 80s, you know, that anger manifested in various ways. My dad worked for IBM when I was a kid growing up. And he came home cursing one day and I asked him what was wrong. And he said, "When you can't invent anything, any more at IBM, they make you a manager. So it's all white managers, bossing around Asian engineers in the lab, which was him." And so you hear this as a teenager, you're like, "Huh, like is that true?" And then you're like, "Don't know, maybe." And so when I got older, it's one reason I wanted to try and become an entrepreneur because I wanted to succeed or fail based upon something I did rather than whether someone liked me or not. Like the prospect of working for years and years trying to climb a corporate ladder and then being denied a promotion at the end was something I never wanted to experience. But is the, was your dad's description accurate or is it also just the fascinating reality that Steve Wozniak was less essential than Steve Jobs? Like the guy that's the techie is less important in practice than the storyteller that created the brand and the story. You know, my dad, objectively as his son, love you dad, would have been a terrible manager. He's just not wired like that at all. He's a great inventor. Yeah, he has 69 US patents for GE and IBM, but he grew up on a peanut farm with no floor in Taiwan. So he's very uncouth and blunt and brosk and like pisses people off a lot. I was reading that. I want to, in a minute, we'll talk about how you and I met because it was fun, but I was reading also in your upbringing. You went to law school. You got an offer instead of working at Davis and Paul, which I also, Davis Paul Davis, I also interviewed. I thought it was a good firm. I got an offer too. But then you quit. Like, were you friendly? What the fuck are you doing, dude? Like, yeah, yeah. Well, they didn't say, and in those words, they were not, well, they just lied to their friends that are still alive. They didn't say to their friends that are still lawyer, honestly, like that was the move. So people would ask, how was Andrew doing it? They'd be like, oh, great. He's like, you know, still practicing. They just didn't want to tell their friends that I quit Davis poke the corporate law from that they'd frankly bright to their friends about while I was there for those five months. And so then when I left to try and start a business, it was much easier for them just to pretend that I was still there. They let they spoke for venture for America or something. I left to start a dot com that had a mini rise and maximum fall called startgiving.com. It was a bit ahead of its time. So my parents were probably right. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's a good idea. It ended up playing out years later. So startgiving.com was a website where you could click to donate to support a celebrity affiliated nonprofit. And then one person who clicked would meet the celebrity. So if you can think about the mechanics there, charity. It's like, yeah, it becomes, it became later charity buzzer, omaze or these sites. No relationship to yours. No, no relationship because. Oh, yeah, because I was starting this in 2000 before the internet was really mature. That failure did not teach you fuck. Let me not try these things. I'm sorry, I keep saying fuck to you. No, it's fine, man. I'm very profane. That failure did not stop you from trying to be an entrepreneur. Would you have told yourself earlier? Walk us through that because the vast majority of entrepreneurs, 90 plus percent of venture entrepreneurs in their first venture fail. But it starts going down. Then it's 80 percent and 70 percent. So by third time venture, you you have three times more likely of success. Even though you still have 70 percent chance of failure. But the more you try getting back on the horse, the better you get at it. But a lot of people say, oh, this is not for me and they give up. What happened? They must start giving that you kept going. You still have an entrepreneurial mind and everything you do. Oh, yeah. So I met several entrepreneurs during that time and thought I need to be like these guys. And I need to learn from them. But I was 25. It just failed. And so I worked at another startup and followed a CEO around for several years trying to pick up what he was doing. And then simultaneously, who was this? His name was Manu Kapoor. He's a physician. He'd started a healthcare software company that I worked at. But following how this is amazing, I love that. How did he let you? So I became his legal guy, which, you know, I mean, I was the only person with a lot of green on the team. And my work that he's company? Yeah, yeah. I was like hire number four or whatnot. And my thinking was I'm going to learn from him. And then his thinking was I can get talent cheap because I was willing to work for less than I was making at the law firm previously. And so at the same time, I started tutoring on the side because seeing my own company go bust, I'd been burnt. And so I thought I need multiple income streams. And then the third thing I did was I started promoting nightclub parties because I'd read this book about West Point leadership. Where every year they have a cadet report to an upperclassman, but then also have someone in the year below them report to them. So they end up with leadership experiences both up and down every year. And so I thought, okay, I'm going to learn from Manu. So that's going to be me absorbing. But then I need something to run simultaneously so that I can be the ball. It's just like a restaurant. I'm going to start parties. I also had a birthday party and a lot of people showed up and had a good time. So I was like, Oh, you know, I mean, as an entrepreneur, it's like, shoot, I should try and make this a thing. Were you entrepreneurial as a kid? Like, what did that come from that energy to start things? Because now you're old or you're this time? 26, 27. And you're already starting parties and monetizing them. You're done start giving and not giving up. You're learning from the guy. You have a very clear vision of that you want to become a entrepreneur. Anything in your childhood that is it just the conversation that you had with your father and the other formative thing that made you so entrepreneurial? No, it's a good question, Daniel, because I was not anyone's idea of an entrepreneur when I was that young. I was a little bit surly and brooding and angsty whenever, for example, like run for student office, like that would not have been a thing for me at all. And so I think the entrepreneurial zeal came from meeting other entrepreneurs and having heard from my parents and I thank you mom and dad for this message. But they said, look, anything anyone else can do you can do. Like, you are as talented as anybody else. And so you should not think that someone else can do it, but you're not capable of it. I was like, okay, I met it was an entrepreneur and he knows this Mark Jacobstein who's a little bit older. You might know him. He's in the Bay Area now. know, he'd started an internet firm called Small World. And, you know, I just met him. I was, you know, 24 or 25. He was maybe like 30. And he ran this little company and had this office of employees. And I was like, I want to be that guy. I want to be like the captain of a ship like this. And so I thought, well, shoot, you know, like let me try and get there. And I just, you know, decided to keep grinding partially to Daniel because I'd had five months at the law firm and thought this work is for the birds. This work is documenting someone else's exploit. Like I used to joke that it's not like when I was growing up. I dreamt about writing down someone else's adventures. I mean, like I dreamt about, yes, I dreamt about being an adventure, not not not like documenting someone else's achievement. I also think that to be Dr. Freud, you're earlier bullying or whatever else set of factors, you channeled that frustration to prove something positive. And a lot of us entrepreneurs and a lot of dreamers that they want to change the world also have something to prove. For me, it's predominantly just trying to build something I like solving problems. But I've realized that I, and she won't press one spoke to all of us and a group of hundreds of people, the former president and prime minister of Israel. And he said, you know, but we all have in common. We all deeply insecure. And he's talking to the 500, some of the most successful CEOs and founders in the world. And it was like, what do you think? I'm going to say it. But, but that if you channel that towards something constructive, he can make something good. Is that, is that part of you or no? Oh, yeah, 1000%. I mean, I had this anger and desire to prove myself for years and years. And then even after I had a setback, I would say, okay, you know, like I need to demonstrate I can do this to myself. And in my 20s, it was hard because my law school classmates were making more money than me and they were having fancy birthday parties. I felt like I couldn't afford to go to because I was the scrappy startup guy living with roommate in order to save money. Where were you? I was here in New York. I was in Hell's Kitchen. But one thing I was reflecting on Daniels that my rent during this time is $1,080. But the places we lived now, if you go back and look at them, they're going to be like three or four times more. And you're like, holy cow. So now I'm grateful to have come up in this era where I think you could be a scrappy, wannabe aspiring entrepreneur a little bit more straight forwardly. So you think it's gotten harder to be a scrappy entrepreneur in this? Unfortunately, I really do. And it breaks my heart. It's one reason I love what you're doing with builders so much. And obviously you and I connected on venture for America. I love entrepreneurship. It's one reason why I love the message of builders and this podcast and you as a human being. But I think it's gotten categorically much, much harder for young people to do what you and I did. And I think all the time about a younger version of me showing up. Let's say they did what I did. They went to law school. They're like, oh, I don't want to do this. And they want to start a company. I think right now, if you were not trying to start a company that has AI in the front or AI in the title or AI, it's harder. Don't you think that when people say you should zag and I do think AI is going to be revolutionary and we'll get to it. And you saw this ahead of most people. But sometimes there will be opportunities to do things that are different because everybody's running over there then you'll do something different. Oh, I'm very much a contrarian, Daniel, but I'll give you the most direct experience I've had. So I started a company recently, noble, mobile. We raised about $11 million. Multiple investors said to me, hey, Andrew, love you, want to invest in whatever you're doing. But if you start AI company, like we'll cut you a check right now. And it doesn't matter like what the AI is doing. And I was like, well, it's not really what I'm about. I'm trying to save Americans money on their wireless bills because their wireless bills are way too high and also pay people to use their phone less. It's a very wholesome message and mission that I know you enjoy. And these investors were like, yeah, you know, good luck with that. And so there was, and because I'm me, like we still raised money and, you know, are doing quite well. But it's very hard to go against that stream. Yes. And so if you were like some, again, 25, 26 year old, trying to start a non AI company, the investors would have been like, look, like we've got a new thesis. And these were investors that were not AI investors, you know, like 18 months earlier. Side question from your vantage point from what you know and notice because I'm moved now into being an investor. And I was always as an entrepreneur. I'm the entrepreneur. And I looked at investors skeptically. I still question. It's funny. Is the investor class? Do they know what they're doing? They're just sheep. And are they actually right to send all the money to AI? Or are they making a mistake? Daniel, one another reason I like you is that you're investing based upon your values and things you know and things you want to see in the world. If you were, if you made me put on a venture capital hat and said, you're going to take other people's money and your job is to try and return multiples of that in five years. The smart thing to do is to invest in AI companies because the valuations keep going like this. And if all you need is like one hit and it'll wash away all the failures. Whereas if you invest in like a series of food companies and the rest of it, which again, the world needs and I love. But you know, so it depends upon whether you're investing on your own account on your own values or whether your job is truly to try and return money you do investors in like a certain time period. So it's rational. Like, but it's, you know, to me, it is now at this point that leverage buyouts are rational, but they destroy some jobs. Yeah. You know, I wish there were more investors that were able to break from the pack on this one. But I get it. It's put it that way. Like if you were just looking narrowly at their financial incentives, you can't necessarily say they're doing the wrong thing. But as now that someone that sold kind and have a lot of assets to invest, I find myself very often at odds with the way private equity peoples incentive is because they're not just for the altruist degrees. And like they make money regardless, right? Because they're taking your money, making money. Yeah. And so for entrepreneurs, if you have a family office invest in you, there's a much more direct alignment with your interest because they don't need to create liquidity for them to then put money in their pockets. If you're growing, you can continue growing. So when you were building kind and you were dubious of these investors, you got money from customers. I mean, you know, and you were just like grew, grew, grew and then I'm sure people were trying to throw checks at you at certain times. So they're more, more dubious of me. Nobody wanted to invest in me. So I was lucky that I, by the, when I sold kind, I had 80 plus percent of the company. I was very lucky. I even bought back an investor, but it was not because I was smart. It was because nobody wanted to invest in me when I first started pieceworks, which then became kind. I don't know if you remember. I do remember. One thing that we have a lot in common, pieceworks has a company that used business to bring neighbors together. Yeah, of course. Market forces to try to help people discover your humanity. And one thing that I keep noticing about you is like me, you really love using market forces to solve problems. Yeah. Sometimes you have no alternative but to create a nonprofit business model. Yeah. But wherever you can use market-based mechanisms, you choose it. Yeah, yeah. You've seen that time again. Can you talk to that for a second? Oh, yeah. So I ended up the CEO of an education company that grew to become number one of the US and was bought by a public company in 2009. And so I love the way businesses reinforce success and delivering where you do a good job for your customers, they tell their friends, you get more business. And my joke is having run a nonprofit that I started. It's like running a bakery where your funders aren't allowed to eat the cookies. And so all you can do is show them pictures of people enjoying the cookies being like, look at the people eating them. They look great to give me more money so I get bigger cookies. It's much better when your customers can just pay you with the cookies and tell their friends. So businesses have much better reinforcement mechanisms and incentives and growth mechanics. You can grow, grow, grow. I started a nonprofit venture for America that on its own terms was quite successful. But what that meant was that you had to go ask people for more money every year, every year. And then that reaches a limit. The biggest nonprofits, you know, they're a handful of nonprofits in the United States that might have revenues of over 100 million a year. And then you can find, you know, like thousands of companies that reach that level. So business, if you can find a revenue mechanism and market rewards, you should definitely pursue them if you're trying to have a big impact. One thing I just noticed that you did beautifully is that you made something really accessible and you do the time again. Like, for example, I've been talking about these for decades about how pieceworks works better and other models work better because you are scalably, sustainably growing, right? Like you get paid for the product so you can sell more products and explain it in very theoretical terms. You explained the bakery analogy was so beautiful because it's so much easier to understand. How do you do that? Does that just come to you? What is your secret to do that well? You know, I think growing up as the child of immigrants in this country, I watched a lot of TV, a lot of movies, a lot of comedy, pro wrestling. I was kind of a sponge. I used to watch WWE with my dad who seemed to think it was real, it was sort of funny. And so I think my natural frame of reference is what a TV viewer might think or like someone who's showing up to a comedy club might think. And it is funny, Daniel, because some of the things I do naturally appeal to kind of wonky or like people who like math more or whatnot. And I am always trying to translate it in a particular way, particularly as a result of having run for president, because there you have all of these cycles and iterations where you start with PowerPoint deck going through AI and automation and no one gives a shit. When you translate it to the opposite of Donald Trump as an Asian guy who likes math and then people enjoy that and then math becomes an acronym for Make Americans Think Harder. People enjoy that. And that bubbled up from the grassroots. >> That is so organically that you were going to talk. This one will work and it's like a comedian is doing stand up, stand up, stand up. You try, you try and then you grab this one or you're working at the math one for example. Did you work on it on your own or you work on it with people somebody give it to you? How did that one come about? >> Check it out. I'm running for president. And this is before the Yang gang became a thing and we raised 10 million and I made seven to eight stages and all that good stuff. So I was with a friend of mine who was a donor and trying to help. And then he was a film major. And so he said, Andrew, I think you're going to do really well because the pendulum always swings the other direction. And the opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian guy who likes math. And I was like, oh, that's actually kind of funny. By the way, this friend is Asian. >> You were listening. >> Yeah. >> That you were listening. That was really important. So a friend says that in passing, and oftentimes some of the most genius things and people don't realize that they're saying something fascinating and you capture that. >> Yeah. So then I started going to it as like an applause line. And then someone on my team started making math banners and people just grabbed them. And then he said, we should make a math baseball cap, which we ended up selling $3 million worth. >> And so make America think harder. >> Yes. Make America think harder. But it wasn't originally that. >> Well, that came later also. >> What happened was someone in the yang gang online said, you know, math stands for make America think harder. And then we just grabbed that. >> So you crowdsourcing best ideas and yes. And then trying them out on live audiences because we'd have an event by multiple events a day. So by the way, this is one of Donald Trump's superpowers and people know I really detest Trump and his impact on the country. But he does try things out on audiences and then as soon as something clicks like meatball run or crooked Hillary or whatever, he's like, oh, they like that. And then he goes to it. And so one of the points I make in my most recent book, Hey Yang, Where's My Thousand Bucks, which Daniel appears in, is that Donald Trump combined three communication modes, politics, comedy. He's an insult comic and pro wrestling because he's a WWE villain, Hall of Famer. And the problem for Democrats, they're stuck in lane one. And then meanwhile, Trump is toggling among all three and two and three appeal to a very broad audience, including a lot of men. And so when you ask me about what I'm doing, I'm not necessarily trying to emulate Trump, but I'm trying to communicate across these different wave lengths. John Mackie, the founder of Whole Foods once told me there are progressives. There are conservatives and their integrationists and UNR and integrations. We can actually grab from this one for one, but we are a minority. When I did the research with builders, there's so much that actually we have in common. America's agree that an economic freedom that the people should be able to be free to pursue their potential. Americans agree on a level playing field that rules matter, that things should be fair, whatever that means, but that should be a level pulling field that nobody should be above the law. America's agree on helping the most vulnerable. Can we create a language that unites us as builders to transcend this hyper partisanship and puts nation and principle over power or party or realistically that's not going to happen, Daniel, because those other things are more primordial. And we will only build that 5 percent. So people who know me know I've actually been trying to crack this knot for the last several years. And there is hope. The issue is, is you have a polarized two party system and the energy is heading to the wings in each party and then you have media organizations that are actually getting paid based upon blue versus red and then you have social media that's amplifying everything sensationalist and nasty and aggressive and the rest of it. So most reasonable Americans who are not fans of either of these wings, some of them have checked out. Some of them are trying to avoid politics, some of them are trying to avoid the headlines. So what you're doing is so important with builders and this podcast is that the plan has to be to try and build a middle constellation at every level. So this would be like changing the primaries and political leadership and then its media organizations that actually can call it in a principled way and then social media figures who are trying to appeal to kindness and reason and boldness and pragmatism. But you don't need 51% to tune in to this movement. You probably only need 5 or 10% because the wings are so polarizing. And so that is what forward is building, forward party. That is what builders is building, and you and I, I think are friends with a lot of other folks who are trying to coalesce this movement. First of all, you need to have electoral reform because Jerry Mandering, the open primaries, the two party system really, really help the extremes win, right, because if that please explain to the audience why that ends up helping the extremes. Oh, sure. So as we're sitting together, the approval rating of Congress right now is literally 10% down from 16% a few months ago. So that's ridiculously low. Meanwhile, the re-election rate for incumbent members of Congress is 94%. It's sky high. So my joke is imagine if you walked into a restaurant and you didn't like 90% of the food but then they just refused to change the menu and that's American politics for most Americans. Because the two parties have sliced us into blue zones and red zones and said, look, there's anything we can agree on, it's let's not compete for voters. And so you have a very, very small handful of genuinely competitive races. It's literally, it's not, you're not speaking if I categorically figuratively, they've carved out in every state districts in such a way that almost all of them are not competitive. Just explain that a little bit more. Yeah. So 90% of our congressional districts are predetermined that it's going to be a democratic Republican representing you. Only at the general election, there is no competition. Whoever got the primary is going to become the Democratic or the Republican candidate that's going to win. You already in the primary know who's going to win. Consequently, they're just trying to speak to their extremes. 11% of Americans vote in the party primary, which means that they're disproportionately ideologically extreme. And so the biggest threat that you can level against anyone in Washington is we're going to primary you. And then you're like, oh my gosh, like then I'm going to lose my seat, my 94% job security is going to plummet to 10%, which they're like trying to be more extreme than the extremes of the challenge them and stay in the good graces of whoever the party bosses at that time. So 90% of members of Congress are the rubber stamps for party leadership. Half the time, they don't even see the legislation there co-signing on so the solution is to change the primary system so that everyone's vote matters, everyone's voices heard. And the best way to do that is via statewide ballot initiatives that make it so that everyone in the state can participate Alaska is the most long-standing example of this now where it is actually changed the electoral dynamics so that someone like Lisa Murkowski could vote to impeach Donald Trump and then still come back because she didn't have to go through a public in primary. It essentially went to all Alaskans and so she was able to come back and say, look, I'm my own person, you might not agree with me on everything, but you know, and then she got 53% of the vote. So you're talking about the ranchers voting type of bucket to change the primary system. The other two individuals that I've heard of, but all of them are hard and I want to get to it wine a second, is increasing participation rates in the primaries and changing, reducing gerrymandering so that the Democrats and Republicans are not just dividing the polls, but actually encouraging competition. We like competition in business, we should like competition in politics. Definitely. Force there to not be all this gerrymandering, but to actually have districts that actually look more like America looks, which is a little bit more diverse, so the potions have to actually compete for everybody's votes. But are those things just really, really hard to do? I'm struggling. to increase primary rates, I'm strong to see if you can get to germandering reform. Yeah, so there's an organization called Unite America that brought together philanthropist and donors to try and run these ballot initiatives in six states in 2024. They spent about $90 million, and this was the subject of my TED Talk that year in 2024 being like, "Hey, guys, if we can change the primaries, we can turn off the extremes, and then you can have some principled leaders representing us." And those ballot initiatives did not do well because 2024 was just a bad cycle. Americans were pissed off, and if you said, "Hey, we'd like to change this, so this works with like, "I don't want to hear it," so even though things were polling 50, 50 or 51, 49, most of these measures lost by four or five. So this was heartbreaking for our movement because we had like 90 million, I mean, that's no joke, to your point. But there are still real opportunities, and I'm going to call a couple of them out. So Montana, Red State, people would think, "Okay, like that's, you know, non-competitive." There's a guy named Seth Bodnar who's running for US Senate as an independent. He just raised more money than all the Republicans and Democrats combined. And Daniel, you would love this guy. Justin is class from West Point, Green Beret, jumped out, like, commanded an airborne squadron, comes back, goes to GE and becomes a successful executive, then becomes president of the University of Montana. And now he's running for US Senate in Montana, and he's been endorsed by John Tester, who was the Democratic Senator for a long time. And John Tester just came out and said the Democratic brand is poison in Montana. So Seth, you should run as an independent. So Seth's running as an independent, he's poised to compete at the highest level. And he's just going to Montana and he's been like, "Look, I'm just going to represent Montana. And if I get to the Senate, I'm not going to caucus without a party, I'm going to be my own man." Now, he's set going to win. He has a very, very good chance to win. But that's the kind of approach that tens of millions of Americans are desperate for, because the proportion of us that say we're independence just goes up and up where it's now 50% of the country. It's even higher in a place like Montana. It's even higher in lots of states around the country. So the opportunities are still there because the two parties are degrading and deteriorating before our eyes. They both, Democrats have a 29% approval rating in this country, 50% disapprove. Republicans, 32% approve, 50% disapprove. So there's a massive opportunity for independent candidates and a new party movement. It's just not going to be reflected in some of the ways the districts are drawn and the rest of it. So we have a lot of work to do, but a ton of opportunity. People need to understand that the quantum court establishment, it's not Democratic Republic and it's Democratic Republic, meaning they want the two parties system to stay. And they really, the media, all these different forces array against third parties. Someone calls it the UNA party. Yeah, it's crazy, it's crazy. And the way they behave for me is truly fascinatingly amoral. They don't care about principle, they care about power. So there are cycle after cycle after cycle. Like for example, when some Republicans had the courage to stand up against Trump and impeach him, you know what the Democrats did, how they rewarded them? They funded their opponents because they wanted the more extreme because they wanted to just fight against the most extreme demonstrators, so tactically made sense, but it's amoral. And that's why you have dwindling moderates because the extremists, the people from the other side support those extremists, it just happened in the cycle again, where the Republicans found that extremists Democrats, the Democrats and Republicans, it's disgusting. And they a lot of times, these parties, and you and I saw when we were trying to get voting rights, pass and stuff. Like the party didn't really care about actually voting rights reform. They wanted to score political points to rally their people and to use that as a wedgie issue. It's very dark. I mean, if you look at the, let's call it 11, where Republicans who voted to impeach Trump nine, didn't make it back to the primaries sometimes because Democrats were like happy to see them lose. And these were people like Anthony Gonzalez and Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, like these like principle. Yeah. Peter Meyer. And so the message in Washington was crystal clear, you lose your job if you do the right thing. And so these, and like both, both parties have been party to that. So I totally agree with you on the darkness and the incentives there. What's the difference between running as an independent versus running on the forward party? Well, sometimes they're the same thing, but in a place like Michigan, forward party doesn't have a ballot line, doesn't have ballot access. So cause the political to party, but it makes it hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's some states. It's very, very difficult. So our predecessor organization, Sam, spent seven fingers trying to get ballot access here in New York. And they did it. They cleared the threshold. And then then governor Cuomo doubled the threshold like in real time so that they couldn't get it. He just raised the water off. Possibly the mafia of the political party system, which George Washington urged against, which Albert Einstein really is because of this. They're basically just preserving their power. They're literally trying to prevent competition. A thousand percent. And Cuomo, do you run the threshold and then you have to start all over? Oh, yeah. No, it was even worse where like he raised the threshold like in the middle of this process. So there was too late for them to actually do anything about it. And so that that seven figures was squandered. You know, like let's, let's say the threshold was 15,000 signatures. And then they got 25,000. And then he just like raised it to 30,000 with like zero time left. That's a person that's very driven by a sense of fairness. Like, I really, one of the things that drives me is his justice. It's very, I really, it drives me not to see that this two party system is fucking with people so bad. And ultimately what one of the things that I noticed I read is that citizens who are all of us end up being owned by the special interests, leading with the political parties, but also everything has its own special interests. Whether it's an industry group like the agricultural health care, whatever, and they wake up in the morning, go to sleep at night, only thinking about their agenda. And then the vast majority of citizens that the 100% of us are living our lives and then we get screwed over again and again, again, again. But the problem that I see is so hard to get people to be passionate about this. Brothers, you don't make so much sense. So how can you use your young magic to make it sexy because structural reform is not sexy. It's not salient. People ultimately go and they vote for this party or that party because they find that most salient issue that they convince people to rather than thinking big as citizens and then creating solutions for better governance for other country. How do we communicate that better? Yes. So this is one of my great learnings of the last number of years, Daniel. People follow other people. I thought when I was running for president, hey, I got this idea, the freedom dividend, universal basic income, people like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the only way I could get someone to pay attention is to make Andrew Yang a thing. And I wrote my book originally I wanted to call the campaign UBI 2020. And then my team was like, that sounds like a urinary tract infection. Like no one's going to care. It has to be Yang 2020. And maybe it's partially my cultural background. At first, I was very self-conscious about calling something Yang 2020 because keep in mind like who the heck was I like, you know, like, you know, anonymous entrepreneur. And then I had to grow into Yang 2020 and Andrew Yang, the magnetic TV personality or whatever the heck. So people respond to other people. Here's what I think it's going to take. And this is a vision that you and I have bandied around. Just imagine that there's a presidential primary in this independent lane. And it's me, Mark Cuban, Matthew McConaughey, America's going to be all right, all right. So we go to the American people and say, hey, you've been left out of this nomination process for your entire life. You can vote in this nomination process on your smartphone. It gets verified via personalized QR code that gets into your mailing address, very hard to defraud multiple rounds and see who emerges, will have forums and debates, will travel to the country, tens of millions of Americans could then participate in this. And the legacy parties would be left saying, no, that's not real. What is real is waiting to hear what 6% of Iowans think in February or like here with the folks in New Hampshire think. The reason why the legacy parties have this anachronistic, unrepresented process is just so they can control it. Like, just so they can say it's like, okay, we're going to filter these candidates through like, you know, like our process and then put our thumb on the scale. And by the way, like I lived that, like I saw that up close in personal. So if you throw it actually American people, all of the fed up independence, and by the way, a lot of fed up Democrats and Republicans would say, okay, I see what this crew is doing. I'm on board and I will vote for Cuban, I will vote for whomever. And then you can actually achieve escape velocity by including the American people. And I've lived this. I think that's what it's going to take Daniel because people who want leadership, people want a person. I love the idea. I know every one of the people you mentioned that I admire them. I think that would be fantastic, better leaders for our country. they care about our country, but convincing them to do this would be very, very hard. How do you get them to come on board? I think a lot of them, and I've spoken in some of them, some of them know that they would make great presidents. And the thing that's keeping them from running is the process of running. It's having to go through some weird partisan gauntlet. They saw what happened to Mike Bloomberg, like the Democratic primary, you'd kind of get put through this like fun house mirror version of a campaign, whereas here in the independent primary, you could make your case directly to the American people. You know, we're not going to fun house mirror you. It's genuinely like an effort to save the country. And I think that if some of these folks saw that they could actually make that case without the party, you know, the rest of it, and like, and going through the art. Art of fists of like, you know, heading to the, like, you know, South Carolina fish fry hosted by Jim Clyburn again, no offense, love you, South Carolina. What like, then I think they'd actually find it appealing. You know, you talked about Bloomberg. I saw this happen. Howard Schultz destroyed by the media because he there challenged the Democratic establishment. Bloomberg, many of these other people that are incredible public servants that really want to do good for the country and for the world. Just destroyed by the political apparatus. Do you think that won't happen in your system where the media might still be manipulated by the establishment? Well, I think the media is weaker than this ever been. I mean, some of these organizations, holy cow, like, you know, like their ratings are down, their economics are bad, their audience is old and fading. Can we get people like Michael Bloomberg? Would you bring in an Elon Musk or he's not too much associated with it, right? What do you need for your vision to come alive? I think we've got most of what we need, to be honest with you, you know, like, yeah, we need to activate the American people. We need to show people that it's actually how do you avoid becoming them? How do you avoid? Because politics is politics, I've had political leaders also here and it's tricky, right? Because you need to also advance the ball and sometimes you need that consensus. Why do you make sure that you're always going to be beholden to the people, not to politicians, not to political parties, not to special interests? What rules can you create in your system to make sure that you're here for the people and not for our special interests? I think that's the appeal of an independent candidacy to a lot of Americans, like if you have a president, Mark Cuban, who the heck does Mark Cuban have to owe or answer to? We all know he's passionate about reform the healthcare system. He's grinding away at it right now as a private citizen. So he gets in there and the insurance company is like, Hey, Mark, we've got some money for you. He's like, what are you talking about? I'm here to, I think in his terms, like, fuck you guys. So, like, and that to me is one of the answers and I'd work with just about anyone under the sun who wants to help turn the tables on the political parties because that's what I'm just going to take, but it's more doable than it's ever been in our lifetimes. I mean, the pieces are all in place. Right. I'm going to go back to what I'm most excited about, which is just learning from you and tips on how we can all grow. And I'm actually going to start with you giving us advice on running for president because every one of us is thinking about more because like, it's crazy what you're accomplished. And I'm going to give you a confession. You're not become being friends for maybe one and a half decades. When you run for president, I thought you were fucking crazy. And I honestly told Michelle, oh my god, what is this guy doing? He's got no chance to have an impact. It's going to be embarrassing. I'll support him. I support you because you were a friend. I like your idea. See? You see what kind of person Daniel is? No idea. And then holy shit would you accomplish, right? And the media was purposefully ignoring you as you were gaining more and more and more traction. You had lasted of almost everybody. You were there in like seven out of eight democratic debates. You raised $16 million of which most of was like donations of 17 to $30. You went on all sorts of shows from Joe Rogan to Ben Shapiro to. Chopper Chophouse. Chopper Chophouse. And you became a national theater and popular terms that holy shit. You saw things way before all of a sudden with your concepts of the VI and the trends of automation and whatever. So I just want to delve in. Let's start with a little bit of like, if anybody wants to run for office, what are some of the things you learned that work? Just give us a couple of tips. Yes. And I talked to people who are looking at running for office all the time. I'd say there are two main things I press on. Number one, you have to have a very, very clear why and reason you're doing it. That is independent of how you do. And so I said to myself, if I end this campaign just walking around Iowa and the winter with the sandwich board saying the robots are coming and ringing a bell, I am fine with that. And then the second thing, and this was a learning that I kind of learned the hard way. I learned to be more human throughout the months of running. And that's how I ended up clicking with more people. You're authentic. You were yourself. Well, I was at a gun violence event and I was talking to a mom who had lost their 10 year old child in a shooting just random. It's like walking around their kids and kid got shot. And I had young kids at the time and I imagined me and Evelyn losing one of them in that fashion. So I teared up and I was a little embarrassed by it because I teared up. Couldn't talk for like 10 seconds or something like that. And then that clip ended up being circulated nationally, millions of views. And a lot of people ended up coming to the campaign. And my campaign manager said no one expects the Asian tech bro to cry. I don't have emotions. Now was that deliberate? Of course not. Like I was literally embarrassed coming off the stage. I was like, oh my god. You felt that you over you that because in my tradition, my dad taught us to be comfortable with your emotions. But in the Asian tradition, you're supposed to be stoic and not show that. Yeah. I mean, I'm like a full grown man on TV, like, you know, crying over this, but I mean, even now you can tell, like I get a little emotional thing about the image because she was literally just walking down the street with her 10 year old and the 10 year old just gets cut down and killed in front of her. And so there were periods like that that now I will say because I have a team around me and they're trying to compete. So then they come to me and they're not like, hey, can we make it cry again? But it's like, is there anything else that you can do? So I was like, I don't know. So then we visit South Carolina and we visit a senior center and they're doing this dance called the cupid shuffle. And then I do the cupid shuffle and then leave not really thinking much about it. And then that ends up going viral and getting to see my millions of people. Why is it a cupid shuffle? It's like a kind of macarena type dance for our generation. And it'd be like, you know, and then you stand in line and like do these moves. And it was literally these old people were doing this and it was either a stand there like an idiot or like, join in. And so that went viral and ended up and then, you know, like, chance the wrapper. Just like having fun. But for me, what I thought was powerful, if I reflect about is that you owned your nerdiness and you turned it into super power and, you know, a lot of us perceive some of these things that are weaknesses as our greatest strengths and you made it cool to care about, you called math, make America think again, you had the courage to treat your audience as adults and to, you know, have real conversations and to just say things that needed to be said. And I think it was very refreshing. Oh, thank you. So this is my advice for candidates is to try and dig into your own humanity and express yourself, whatever that means. And you seem like more of a human being. I love it. I'm going to go, because I have so much more to ask you to another area of direct, which you built so many amazing things. So can you think of a failure, a setback, very frustrating thing that hurt you, that really hurt you. But then what you learned from it, I mean, the first thing, you probably have the same. It's personal. It's like, you just screwed up on a higher, like held on to someone too long. So for me, when I became CEO of Manhattan, prep, I inherited marketing executive. And I wasn't sure if it was right fit, and I worked with her for a year. And then I decided to move on from her when I found out that she was kind of oppressing like some of her junior hires, what we say. But then I realized it's like, I should have made this move months earlier, you know, like that this person was spoiling the culture. I was creating the culture that, again, I really detest. And I think in the service of being what I thought was like a good guy or whatnot, it's like, oh, I'll give the person a chance. One of the biggest mistakes you make, I think, is conflating those two things. Like the right thing to do is like get rid of the person because you'll be doing everyone a favor. You'll be doing your other workers a favor. You'll be doing that person a favor because they need to get to an organization that's a better fit for them. So, you know, I've learned that the hard way. [BLANK_AUDIO] Unfortunately, as many times as you learn it, you kind of keep relearning that one. - Venture for America. Tells something you learned about it for people that want to have an impact through the NGO world. - Venture for America is a fellowship program to connect enterprising recent college graduates to startups and startup leaders in cities around the country. And it was awesome. It was the best thing I did to that point. It's one reason you and I know each other, Daniels, that I was at the White House with you as an ambassador of entrepreneurship. And it's awesome even now when I meet people who venture for America, Lums or leaders and entrepreneurs are everywhere. And it gives me hope. We said earlier in this conversation, I think it's much, much harder for a young person to start a business today than it was, which I believe to be true, but it's also possible. And I see people who are living that. - The concept of venture America was genius, but it closed. - Yeah, it did not sustain. And would you start at two point or it's time to move on? Like, why did it not? - So there is a 2.0 that my founding team actually has started aptly called the Ember Fellowship because it's sort of the Embers from the fire. So I left venture for America to run for president in 2017 and then seven years later, it closed in 2024, which broke my heart. They called me down the stretch and I was like, what is going on? I wanted to be helpful because this is my pride and joy for so long. And now looking at it, I think COVID really heard it because it was location-based. It was like sending people to various cities. I think the nature of entrepreneurship shifted a little bit during those years, but I think it comes down to fundamentally leadership where I left it in the hands of my colleague who was the CEO when I left. And then it was fine for a period of years and then she left and the board brought in a new CEO who just frankly couldn't run it effectively. And it made me think, it's like, wow, the person, I mean, shocker everyone, leadership matters, but like the person at the top. - But the leadership matters point is fascinating to me because the more and more seats hard to find a killer CEO, a killer champion and it makes all the difference. In starting a venture, in investing a venture, you don't have the right leader. You don't have anything more important than the product. - I couldn't agree more in that. One of the things, Dana, I'm trying to figure out and I want you to help me. Where have the leaders gone? Where are they? You know, it's like, so when I was coming up, I felt like I had the potential to be a leader, but like, you know, I wanted to prove myself, it wasn't sure. And then eventually wound up with an opportunity and became CEO and then like did a number of things. But using, you know, our experiences and example, you look around and be like, okay, who are the leaders that are going to help organizations or political movements and whatnot succeed? And I meet a lot of great people, but this country does not have as much leadership as it needs or as it should. I mean, it's one of the things that like, and it's one reason why I looked at the West Point model, so closely because West Point trains leaders. And so I thought it's like, well, shoot, like how are they doing it? What are they doing? The military is our most respected institution now, like as all the other institutions, people have really called into question. - I mean, my fear to you, what you said is, I think we've failed our young people with our educational system, which there ain't people who think rigidly and teaches the wrong things. And what we're doing the show for is to help everybody to be a builder that has four C's, curiosity, creativity, compassion and courage. And curiosity, to be able to not some that you have all the answers, to try to learn from others, to try to have the humility to think that you don't have answers to everything, which so-so media makes you think that, 'cause they're just fitting you what you already believe rather than what you might need to know. Compassion to be able to put yourself in other people's shoes and negotiate from a better perspective, 'cause you understand the other side, creativity, the most important thing to think outside the box. And not to mention, you know, not to be looking at your screen, but looking at people's eyes. - Amen. - So I do think that we, as a society, do a better job in our educational system to not do, and also to be proud of the American enterprise system. I'm very worried that for the last 20, 30 decades with more and more and more away from understanding what makes this country so exceptional. - Yeah, on the screen time point, I think the screens are making our kids sad and insecure. It's one reason why I love noble mobile so much, and I think you love it. So, noble mobile will cut the average Americans phone bill in half from $83 a month to 42, but we also pay you back if you don't use as much data in a given month. So every time you're doom scrolling and making yourself agitated, you're actually costing yourself money, and then you're like, "Oh, I'm a chump." Like I should stop doing this. So the average noble mobile user is using 17% less screen time, and we think that's the double whammy you need. If you're saving money and you're using less screen time, you're probably gonna be happier and healthier. And then maybe you'll get out there and meet someone, have a good time, build something, and lead in the real world. - It goes back to what we're just talking about earlier, about how you use creative models to solve a problem with market-based systems. It's beautiful how you're actually creating the incentive to save when you're built by doing less doom scrolling. I love it. I want to ask you one last question that we're moving to our crazy segments. How the hell have you written already five books? Like everything you've done, I've managed to write one book. It took so much from me, it took a lot of time. Do you have any advice for people that want to write? - I actually put it in my latest book. Like the secret to writing is to write. I started writing a blog a number of years ago, and at the time I started writing the blog, I said, this is dumb. No one's gonna read my blog, no one cares. And I got prompted to do so by a young whipper snapper at Manhattan Prep, who's like, no, no. The search engine's gonna find stuff. It's gonna be good for our website results. It's gonna be good for the brand, just like write a blog. And so I was like, okay, if you say so. So then I wrote a blog post and then another blog post. And then one blog post ended up becoming a book chapter. I then got approached by a book agent. It was like, hey, you should write a book. And at first I blew him off. But then later I was like, you know, what does that actually mean? And so writing's a muscle, Daniel. Like the reason why for you writing one book was like, you know, a bit more work is because you're not writing regularly. And for me, now writing is like a bit of therapy. I have a couple hundred thousand subscribers on my substag. So there's some utility to it, like getting the word out. It's a bit like this, this podcast, like it's a communication medium. You're a brilliant man with very deep thoughts and like people would love to hear what you're thinking. And so that's to me, that genuinely the secret, the secret to writing is to write. - When you now that you know that that works, you purposefully think, all right, my next book should be Papalanda de la Bamba, and it should have A, B, C, D, E, and F. And then you just write A as a blockbook. - No, no, no, no, no. I mean, there are times Daniel, I'm like, oh snap. Like I know I'm going to be writing a book about like this topic. So one chapter's going to be this. So I might as well write that blog post because then I'll be killing two birds. I totally do do that. The book I'm working on now is called The End of Normal, a Survival Guide to the AI job apocalypse. And so that's like practical guidance for people like, are your kids going to go to college? Like, you know, what is AI going to change? And so for that, I'm totally writing blog posts that I know are going to wind up in that book. And it's good, Daniel. It's like, you know, we're goal oriented people. So as soon as you have like a goal, and you're like, all right, like, you know, what do I need to do for it? - So now we're moving into what my favorite thing because we can make maybe I'm a part of me saddest through. (laughing) I never realized how weird my Mexican culture is that I started teaching Americans about the Tokas machine in Mexico, in Plaza Garibaldi. You pay people to be shocked. - You pay people for this? - Yeah, you pay guys for around, you pay them like five pesos and pesos. So you're going to hold these, paying them to demonstrate your masculinity. - Exactly. - So I turn it on, it's at zero, but I'm going to progressively increase the dial. - I like zero. - And let's see if you're. (laughing) - You can like, zero manhood. - It's kind of our version of hot ones. - It's shock ones. - Shock ones, exactly. - Shock ones. - All right, are you ready? - Right now it's at zero. - Okay, okay. - But I'm going to increase it steadily. - Oh my gosh. - Name an unsung hero who helped you get here. - My mom. - I think it's everyone's mom. If not for my mom, I literally would not talk to other people 'cause my dad was a bit of a rough neck. Love you dad, but not very social. - What is a question I should have asked you? - Andrew, when is universal basic income going to arrive? Do you still believe it's going to be necessary? - Yeah, I forgot to talk about UVA. How the hell did you figure that shit out? A head of all of us. - I read a book or two, and I nodded my head being like, oh yeah, this is definitely going to be necessary. Plus, I knew that AI was going to be able to do my old job at Davis Poke. and so if it could do that job, then it could do a ton of other jobs because that was a job that required. a lot of education in schooling. - I interviewed Senator Ben Sassan. He stood very strongly at UBI because he thinks work gives you self-worth and meaning. What's your thoughts? - He's right. The big misconception is that UBI somehow would keep you from working. The reality is it would help you start businesses, it would help you participate in a market economy. It would give you the means to go out there and maybe ask someone on the date. And so it actually gets you out there. - Right, and increasing the thing to one. - All right. - Feel it, I do. - Yeah, what do you feel? - I feel, yeah, like a sensation. - Who would you love to invite to a dinner party? - My friend Dean Phillips, who ran for president in 2024. He stood up for actual democracy and the Democratic Party maligned him for it. I'm friends with Dean, so I guess I could have dinner with him any time I wanted. - But he saw again what people didn't want to see till he was too late. That Biden was a good human being but he was already kind of not really ready. - Yeah, the entire party, I said that they should make him the head of the party 'cause he was the only person with a courage and principle to stand up. - Okay, on behalf of the Democratic Party, I'm increasing the shocks. - Oh my gosh. - You're a two. - Holy cow, man. There's a very big difference between two and one. - Oh, he's gonna get more. - I'm like gripping in a line like this. - A historical figure you wish you could have lunch with. - A historical figure, Abraham Lincoln. - I hear he's actually very funny. - Yeah, yeah. - Increase it? - No, I don't. Please don't. Two is actually a little bit of an experience. - All right, that's it. - I stand for, after four, you clench and you can't even let go of it, but if you go before, - Oh, please do not do go to four then. - You get a greater man. You can get five, so people have gone to five. - I'm very happy not to get five. - Once one thing that broke you and eventually helped build you. - Becoming a father, I was very, very stressful in my house and I had a difficult first child. He turned out to be on the autism spectrum, which I think actually manifest itself in his behavior when he was very young. - And you didn't know it at the time? - Of course, you don't know 'cause he's like a two-month-old or whatever, but when he woke up in the morning, he would look around and then he'd start screaming his head off, and so it was very, very stress-inducing. That was my hardest year as an adult, but it was one of the main reasons I ran for president was because I saw how hard that was for our family. And my family, I thought we have unusually high levels of resources there, two parents. So if it was this much of a trial for us, like I could see how families broke apart during that time, and then it made me think like I got to do more to try and help families, try and alleviate poverty. - Sometimes I hate myself as a father when I lose my patience, and obviously people say, oh, this is the kind guy, I'm a human being, I scrub just as much as everybody else. - I try and take hate myself when I lose my temper with my kids, and then I think about people who have kids with autism or other ailments, and I just admire the strength you have. Do sometimes also, as a human being, lose your patience or you develop more space. - You're a human being, you lose your patience for sure. And I try and warn new fathers in particular, before they're excited to become a dad, but they should be, obviously, it's great. But I try and take them aside and be like, hey, FYI, you're gonna go through some things that you probably don't expect and whatever you go through, it's normal. And we love our children dearly, but we have a special spot in our hearts for kids, for families with kids who have autism or some other neurodivergence or disability. - I should decrease it because I love this answer, but I'm going to increase it just because I'm a motherfucker. - You're at over two right now. - Ooh, I don't know, no, oh my gosh. Ah, you feel it? - I really do. - I really do. - What's something you've changed your mind on over the last year? - I thought the meds were gonna be really good this year. Like, I was a believer. We went to opening day and the rest of it. And they have been terrible. And it has made me really upset like most every day because, you know, they play most every day and then I tune in and I'm so bad. - I do not like an answer. So I'm increasing it to, ah, ah, ah, ah. - You're at three. (laughing) Woo. What was your first job? - I was a bus boy at the Imperial Walk Chinese restaurant in my town. And the reason I was a bus boy, not a waiter, is that my Chinese was too weak to translate orders and writing to the kitchen. - Did that jobs, so they? - To this day impact your now. - Oh yeah. I mean, I tip people well in part as a result. - What about what you learned besides tipping people well? Is there something that you did to develop a workout? - Oh yeah, no. It's like respect for hard work. So one thing that gave me a hard time for her, which they probably should, was when the plates and cups come out of the warmer, that's quite hot. And like, I couldn't handle it. Like my hands were too soft. And so I would take those napkins and handle them. And like the kitchen staff just like gave me so much shit for it. They were like, and then they would right in front of me, just like do it bare handed out of the steamer. - And people's jobs that we take for granted. - I had read that you sold knives door to door as well. - Was that cut co? - Yeah, it was cut co. - I did that too. - Yeah, how did you do? - I think I sold one knife. - I still remember, I still talk to the lady that was kind enough to buy. - To buy the one knife. - Miskelling stain. Last question, so I'm gonna amp your, can you handle four? You're at three and a half. - I die. - You want to stay at three and a five and four after, just so you know what it feels like. - What drives you? - I am so fortunate to actually be able to build things that might impact people's lives positively. And I look back when I was young and ticked off and just wondering what my place in the world was. Going to be, so what drives me is trying to max it out, Daniel. I mean, you and I have known each other a while. Not everyone gets to do what we do. So we just got to do as much as we can in the time we have. And I want to be able to look back on my life and career and say, I left it out in the field. I did all I could. And it's like, not everything I do is gonna be a home run. I mean, I'm not president. We're not doing this from the White House. (laughing) But we will though, we will. I wanted to give you a docus in the White House. - I sure, man, I'm in the White House. It might look like I was under torture, like duress. Like, save the president. Now, so, and I want to be a good role model for my boys too, where they see it's like, okay, dad worked hard on behalf of other people. Like even when, you know, it wasn't like a monetary thing. - You want to be proud of you? - Show them that you can get to four. - Ready? I'm going to give you four. Oh my gosh. That's not no joke. Can I physically open my hands? You can, but it's hard, right? No, no. It's not easy. No, no, no. No, no. No, no, no. Oh my gosh. No, no, no. No, no. I just shifted my grip and it actually got like-- You want to try four and a half and be a record breaker here. It would be a record breaker? I think you might be. I'm sure then do it. Four and a half. Okay, I broke a record. All right. You want to go to five? No. Keep the record longer. No, I'll make a record that someone else can break. You want to stay at four and a half? Yeah. I'll stay at four and a half. It's good though. All right. You sure? Yeah, yeah. All right. Record four and a half. Record for now. Thank you. Build a break. Okay. Last segment. Build a break. This is super rapid fire. Yep. I'm just going to tell you something. You're going to say build or break. Okay. It just thumbs up. Build or break. Rank choice voiding. Oh, yeah. Build. Thank you. Build or break. Nerdcamp. Build. That was like a thing you did words. And my kids are in it now. Oh, really? Yeah. Build or break. Data centers. Oh, God. Like, build with many, many more approvals and concessions and hopefully share the value with the community around it. Build or break. Build a break. Build or break. Dungeon and Dragon podcast. Yes. Do you watch him? I mean, I wish I watched more of them. Love them. But you used to be a big Dungeons and Dragons. A gamer. Yeah. You got to go and play the dragon. Build or break. Ivy League. Oh, no. So I went to two of them. I think they should grow a lot. I think they should all be trying to, like, triple in size. So build with a lot of growth. But with some changes to how they're I'm not loving the like simple thinking, not just the magic thing. The indoctrination bad too. Crypto. Jeez. It's like these other things where it's like I wish it was being used differently for like humanizing the economy and localizing the economy. I wish it wasn't financial speculation, which right now is the primary use. If you think he should run for pressing again, please drop a comment. Andrew, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you, Daniel Lubetsky. Live to tell. Shock ones. We want you to become a builder with us. So subscribe to Build or Break Now. And leave us a comment through our review. We're trying to build a movement and you can be part of it by hitting the notification bell and telling us what you think about this episode and by telling all your friends to watch you. Thank you.