Andrew Yang is trying to solve our tech addiction

Technically yes, S.E. is sitting down with a politician this week, and keen listeners know that Off the Cupp is S.E.'s break from all that. But Andrew Yang is an exception to the rule. He's also a dad, ice cream addict, entrepreneur, and consistent risk taker who ran for president in 2020 despite having no previous political experience. Today, Andrew is once again trying to shake up the political system with his centrist political party, Forward Party. Andrew's also thinking a lot about our tech additions and, through his new company Noble Mobil, is trying to improve our mental health when it comes to our screens. Stay tuned for a very surprising lightning round — you'll never guess which reality shows Andrew has been asked to join!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The risk is not going broke because I left this
cushy job. Yeah, the risk is looking in the mirror
years from now and wondering why I did not do anything.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to off the cup my personal anti anxiety antidote.
As you know, we don't generally do politics here. This
is kind of an escape from all of that, but
you know that I will make an exception when we
have a great guest, and we do. We are in
the midst of a very tumultuous political time and a

(00:32):
lot of Americans are in pain.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
The economy isn't good.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
There's a lot of anxiety from all directions about immigration
and crime and civil liberties and social issues and war
and our future as a democracy. And one of the
reasons I think we feel so anxious and uncertain about
our future is because our political system is so utterly broken.

(00:56):
It's literally broken in that the government it can't even function,
it's so does functional, it closed for the longest time
in history.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
But it's also like psychically broken. We don't believe in it.
We don't feel.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Represented by two parties, we don't feel seen or heard
like me. I'm gonna guess you're probably in the majority
you probably are somewhere near the middle on most issues,
whether it's on guns or abortion, or climate or immigration.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
You're probably not on the far extremes. You're probably not
no guns or guns for everyone. You're probably not no
abortions or abortions without restrictions. You're probably right in the middle.
That's the majority, and yet we feel orphaned. Who's representing us?
Who is speaking for moderates or normies?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
The loudest voices in the room are on the crazy
far right or crazy far left, And you end up
feeling alone in the middle, and it could drive you insane.
It can make you think, am I the only one
who sees it this way? Are we really at war
with each other? Are things as bad as they feel
and seem? What is happening? I know because I'm right

(02:10):
there with you. I'm watching what both parties are doing,
and I'm wondering, how is any of this making America great?
How is this helping people who need it? How is
this system good for democracy? How are we helping our
kids and their kids live happy or safe for more
inspired lives. A lot of people feel this way, and

(02:31):
they're looking to alternatives, to new paths forward to a
different vision of government and politics, and my guest today
has really put in the work on that.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
He's a successful entrepreneur.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
He's a former attorney, a former lobbyist, and author of
public Speaker, a political commentator. He ran for president in
twenty twenty in New York City mayor in twenty twenty one.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
He's founder of the Forward Party. Andrew Yang, welcome to
off the cup.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Hey, it's great to be here. I'm off the cup
with you with.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yes, well, we're always off the cup and I'm really
glad here. Full disclosure for everyone. My husband works for
a Forward Party. I want that to be known from
the outset. It's not going to matter, but I just
you know, I want to be upfront and Andrew, I
want to talk to you about your life. But let's

(03:21):
just start with where we are right now. Has there
ever been a bigger need for a third party than
right now?

Speaker 1 (03:28):
No, it's now, and most Americans feel it. The approval
rating for both parties is lower than it's ever been,
perhaps I think twenty nine percent for Dems, thirty two
percent or thirty three percent for Republicans. Self identified independence
are now fifty percent, which I'm sure is familiar to

(03:50):
just about everyone watching or listen or listening, and so
now's the time, and we're seeing it at forward. We're
growing every day. We have sixty four elected officials, and
we're about to make a couple of major announcements that
I can't make here, but I'm really excited about.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
I think you and I agree on what's wrong with
the right broadly and the danger that Donald Trump is
to our democracy. But the debate I'm hearing in democratic
circles is whether or not Dems should just go as
low as Republicans, whether that's like rhetorically embracing some of
the rights rhetoric, or bullying tactics, or on redistricting and jerrymandering,

(04:34):
or what we saw with the shutdown. If the argument
is over how low we should go instead of how
can we inspire real change? I'm not sure I trust
the Democrats to get us out of this mess?

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Do you? I don't. And most people probably remember when
I ran for president it was as a Democrat. Yeah,
And after I came off the trail, I sat down
and tried to figure out why I still felt so
despondent about the direction that the country was taking. And
I sat down and after I dug through the numbers,

(05:07):
and so some of the numbers I like to joke about,
but they're grim. The approval rating for Congress right now
hovers around seventeen percent, and that's something that a lot
of people can, you know, like get on board with.
The reelection rate for incumbent members is ninety four percent. Yeah,

(05:29):
and so I joke that. Imagine a business where four
out of five customers were unhappy and then nothing changed.
And that's the way most Americans interact with our political
system nowadays. So in that environment, look like I might
prefer one party to another, But the fundamental problem is
that nothing has to change for the status quota persist

(05:49):
in Washington.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, how far?

Speaker 2 (05:54):
How far do you go back and diagnose In the
beginning of this deep mistrust distrust in government? Trust in government,
we know from polling, was at its highest in the
Kennedy and Johnson administrations. It hit about seventy seven percent.
It takes a nose dive after that, presumably due to
the Vietnam War. It continues declining through Nixon and Carter

(06:15):
for somewhat obvious reasons. It picks back up again with
Reagan and hw Bush dives again during Clinton, spikes back
up to about sixty percent with w actually, and from
there precipitously falls to the teens and twenties, where it's been.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
Hovering ever since.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
But where do you Andrew logate like the modern break
in trust in government?

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, so I think it has something to do with
the primary system and jerrymandering. But if you rewind back
to the era you're talking about, there was not as
much of a fissure between the Democratic and Republican party.
If you were from one party or another and you
brought like a boyfriend or girlfriend home, who was the

(06:59):
other party cared? You know, I joke that it used
to be vanilla versus French vanilla, where where Democrats and
Republicans were kind of this overlapping set and like, you know,
distinction that no one really got too animated about. And
then a bunch of things started happening. By the way

(07:20):
you work in one of these fields is that you
had the invention of cable news in the nineties. I mean,
you and I are probably old enough to remember when
it was just three networks, and you know, like you
kind of had a very similar style of reporting. But
then Fox and MSNBC come on the scene. CNN was

(07:43):
really pretty straight up news for a lot of the
early days. We'd tune in when there was a natural disaster.
So you had a media landscape that changed, and then
the two parties started to head off in different directions,
augmented by the primary systems and gerry mannering and the
fact that I just need to keep my base playcated

(08:05):
in order to win reelection and what happens, yeah, you
know with fifty one percent of my constituents not really
relevant to me now. So that started happening around the
ninth eighties, nineties in my opinion, like the fisher started
to widen, and you can still bridge it periodically, and

(08:25):
there were still these cross partisan bipartisan figures. You still
split tickets sometimes. By the way, another underrated factor in
this is the demise of local journalism, because local journalism
used to be very depolarizing. You would read the paper,
you know, everyone's still on along, and now you decimate
those publications and it gets replaced by social media.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, I mean I talk about that all the time.
Both it has that effect that you're talking about, but
also our reliance on national news cable news and the
demise of local news has a bunch of impacts on us.
I think we care too much about politics, and it
started to like we orient our lives around politics. I

(09:08):
think if we are more invested in local news and
what was happening in our communities and our backyards, with
our school boards and sanitation boards, we'd be less polarized
because we wouldn't you be looking at left versus right.
We'd be looking at community versus corruption, those sorts of things.
And you know, your local reporters are the people keeping
your your town safe. And when you don't have them

(09:31):
doing that job, you look to talking heads on cable
news to soothe you, and they just make you angrier.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
That's what we do. That's our business is making you
angry and afraid. And I hate that. I absolutely hate that.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
One thing someone said to me that was really tough
to hear, but I heard it. I was like, what
we're talking about the decline and organized religion in America.
And then someone it was like a really deep thinker,
might have been Arthur Brooks, but he said to me
that cable TV is a new religion, or politics is

(10:04):
the new religion. And I heard that, and I was like,
that is very, very disturbing. But then I thought about
and I was like, you know, they tune in every day,
they get the message, they get their narrative question versus evil,
They've got the idols and like that. And I was like,
oh my gosh, I think he's right. And so that
that like obviously stuck with me.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
Andrew.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
It's become fat ish today to blame boomers for where
we are, do.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
You I blame structures that don't actually have to solve
a problem in order to keep on keeping on. And
you could say like boomers are on top of those structures,
or boomers made those structures, but like, there are a
lot of pieces of the puzzle.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
And you know, if you were to identify like an
individual boomer and be like, hey, do you want to
screw things up for your kids or grandkids, they'd be like, no,
I love my kids.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
You know, I don't like I don't love First.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Of all, I don't like identity politics at all, But
I really don't love blaming entire generations for, you know,
or casting aspersions on an entire generation for things. It's
probably more complicated and nuanced than that, but that is
that has become like sort of a storyline. I don't
get the sense, Andrew, that Republicans actually care whether people

(11:42):
like them or trust them. And I think we kind
of saw that in the shutdown. Democrats really underestimated Republicans'
ability to withstand like terrible optics and realities because I
think they're fine with being villains.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
And I know.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Democrats do care about whether people like them and trust them,
but they're too busy like knowing more than voters and
condescending to voters and telling voters what they should care
about to really reach them. Do you think we'll ever
get a faith in government back?

Speaker 1 (12:13):
I think if it happened. So one of the things
I said yesterday at a conference I was speaking at
in North Carolina was that it's not left versus right,
it's institutional versus ex institutional or like I'm on the
outside looking in, and so it's I think it's going
to be very very difficult for insiders to say, hey,
trust us again, yeah, because the trust has been lost

(12:37):
in those figures. And I experienced this when I ran
for president. For forty two percent of my supporters weren't Democrats,
and I started to realize that a lot of folks
who voted for Trump were open to voting for me
because they just one of the jokes was like they know,
the establishment would never send the magical Asian man who

(12:59):
wanted to give everyone money, like as you know, like
as long as I wasn't a tool of the machine,
like they were cool, and I obviously wasn't. I was
just like a guy. Yeah, And so a lot of
folks were open to that. I think that one of
the ways back from this brink is going to be
that like someone from outside the establishment comes in where

(13:24):
the pissed off, angry, frustrated magotypes are like okay, you know,
like like I'll actually hear this person out because they're
not some person who's been rattling around DC or government
for years and years and years.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
I worry.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
So I totally agree with you and I with that diagnosis,
and I think people are sick of institutionalists or establishment politicians,
whatever you want to call them.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
But I do worry.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
That with that sort of populist anti establishment impulse, we
throw out like expertise on experience and like knowing stuff.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, I mean, like there are, in my view, like
positive outsiders and negative outsiders or somewhere in between. So
one person I like, as an example, as Mark Cuban,
who's spending a lot of his personal time trying to
make drug prices lower and like fix the solve problems. Yeah, yeah,
solve problems. Yeah. And he's like, in some ways just

(14:24):
like a private individual, but he happens to be a
billionaire who smart and cares and is resourceful and is famous,
and so he's trying to solve those problems. I mean
his company Cross Plus Drugs inspired Noble Mobile, which you
now know all about. Yes, I'm trying to lower people's
wireless bills because the average Americans spending eighty three a

(14:47):
month on our wireless I was spending a lot more
than that. I was spending one hundred and fifty on
Verizon just for myself, so no judgment. But the average
European is spending thirty five that fifty bucks a month
if you multiply times twelve and then multiply that times
you know, the thirty.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Years, Yeah, a couple of people in your family.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah, like you know, and then add an interest rate,
and I was like, oh my gosh, I've overpaid Verizon
by like fifteen grand. But by the way, Verizon is
paying an eleven billion dollar dividend every twelve months to shareholders.
So Noble Mobile is trying to lower people's wireless bills
and get us the log off our phones because it
pays you more money if you, you know, look up

(15:32):
and don't doom scroll as much. So if you have
outsiders like Mark Cuban, I'm going to throw Scott Galloway
in this category. It's like, you know, they're trying to
do good things, and then I think a lot of
the like exstitutional last trusting government. But like I'd give
Cuban a chance, I'd give Galloway a chance. They might
give me a chance because like, there are folks who

(15:55):
are actually you know some of it too. See is
that I talk to a lot of folks who are
in this camp. They just respect business people more. They
just think, like you, if you're in government, you didn't
have to do anything like you see, it's like you
don't have a real job, Like yeah, if you've worked
an industry, then like, okay, this person actually had to

(16:16):
you know, meet payroll obligations and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, And I think people also just especially younger generations
have more faith in the private sector solving problems because
they've always grown up with an app for that right,
and they look at where government has not solved endemic
and systemic problems, and they look at like their friends
from college who literally solved like a ride share problem

(16:39):
or whatever it was.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
So I think there's also just some of that.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
It's it's faith in business, but also just faith in
the private sector.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, at least in a certain camp, a certain type
of voter I'm thinking of, like kind of male conservative
is voters, but like, oh, like, because I encountered a
lot of these. I'll tell you a story. I was
in Alabama last year and this definitely conservative gentlemen came
up to me and said, mister Yang, I don't agree
with all whole heck of a lot with you, but
you've got to set the balls on you, sir, and

(17:06):
I respect that a great deal. And it's like, you know,
second his hand to shake my hand, and I was like, oh, like,
you know, that's pleasant. So and like I think that
that there is like that sort of energy that can
bridge some of the gap. Yeah, I mean another possibilities
you have like a whole coalition and I've I've studied

(17:29):
this a little bit where polarization has happened before, the
last time we've been this polarized, though, was ahead of
the Civil War, So that's not good. And you do
have societies disintegrate into conflict and strife, but then they
generally bounce back. It takes a while, and the post

(17:50):
violence period is called exhaustion, where everyone's just so tired
and like all right, like you know at this point
and this is very, very dark, but this is real.
It's like people have died on both sides and then
you're looking at it saying, like, what are we really
going to do? And so I think that's another path
back from the brink that you have, unfortunately, like a

(18:14):
period of darkness, and then eventually people emerge because they
feel like they have like no choice.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
They're too tired to keep fighting.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, they're too tired. It's like, I'm tired of the
fighting and the conflict and the hate and the killing.
And then now like there's a coming together.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
Well, I'd love for that not to I'd love to
avoid that.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean I've spent a considerable amount of
time and energy trying to keep that from happening saying
but see, like you know, one thing that really did
push me to think like wow, like are we going
to be able to come back from this? Is like
I was standing next to a guy named Dean Phillips
in New Hampshire in twenty twenty four being like, hey,
guys should really consider a primary for our eighty one

(18:56):
year old unpopular incumbent and a grateful to you that
you were one of the people like gave d in
the time of day. And then watching the Democrats close
ranks against one of their own, I was like, what
the heck is going on? He's like a member of
Congress from your party, right, but you're you're like hearing
this guy out, like you know, And so that made
me think like, wow, the tribalism is so high, so strong.

(19:21):
By the way I saw it too, with the shutdown,
it's like the base freaking pillorying Schumer because like, oh,
we didn't fight hard enough even though we had a
historic long shutdown and people were missing food stamps and
flights were getting canceled. And then like when the you know,
when when the government reopened, they were like super mad,
and it's like, yeah, you're like super mad, like, what's
the expectation here? Mean, like, did Trump seem was on

(19:44):
a verge of collapse?

Speaker 3 (19:45):
Right? Right? Right?

Speaker 2 (19:47):
Okay, On that note, let's talk about you. I always
like to ask what were you like as a kid.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
I was a nerdy, bookish, uh, introverted kid. I won
most pensive in pre school because I never talked, so
they were like, he must be worth thought. Yeah. Yeah,
I literally had to be like, what the hell is pensive?
Even me and I had to look it up. But
it was because I don't think I uttered a word.
Was very shy. I remember crying when I was forced

(20:17):
to talk to the class like I was like that
kind of kid. But I loved my books and then
got into comic books. Was a geek, played Dungeons and
Dragons with my brother and another kid down the street,
Joe Passo. So yeah, I guess you can kind of
get a bit of a picture.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
Did you feel a lot of pressure to be a
successful adult?

Speaker 1 (20:46):
No, I mean I very much wanted to fit in,
and fitting in in my town meant not getting bullied
by the guidos and trying to be some sort of
you know, like the athlete, which was difficult for me.
Given then I'd skipped a grade and was small and scrawny,
and so I was always like a year behind my
classmates and did get a fair amount of I guess

(21:12):
you'd call it bullying in today's parlance, like it's just
like ribbing or a lot of it around being Asian, honestly.
And so I felt like, you know, like alienated and
like angry and sad, confused and didn't want to go

(21:32):
to school sometimes that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
How did you get through that?

Speaker 1 (21:36):
So I became like a mopi emo kid and listened
to the cure and the smiths and grew my hair out.
And I think in part because I grew my hair
out to the point where it was covering part of
my face, they referred me to a school counselor. And
I want to say ninth grade Sue Denby was delightful.

(21:57):
I think she was a grad student. So the way
I dealt with it was by that kind of manifestation.
I also because of the anger I'm thinking about it,
like how did I how do I? I mean, I
did get into a bunch of fights, but because I
was smaller than the other kids, I was most often
on the losing end. Of those fights.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
But you know, like there was like the sense it's like,
all right, I guess like when my choice, I'd rather
take it or fight this guy, and so like I
would choose to fight, and but the administrators generally blamed
it on the other kids, so like I wouldn't really
get any trouble.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I when you're bullied as a kid,
and I was as well, and then you have kids,
you're hyper vigilant about about that. And it's really hard
because you know, our kids are not us and they're
not going through exactly what we went through. But how
did that sort of inform your parenting or what kinds
of things do you do when your kids come home

(22:54):
and like have a story about what happened at school.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Well, interestingly, I see, and I'm attuned to my kids.
So I grew up in a like a town that
was essentially like like ninety eight percent white. There's something
along along those lines. Yeah, And so like the stuff
I would take would be like you know, ching chong,
ching chong, like anti Asian epithets like that. That's uh.

(23:19):
And but my kids don't have that. I don't think, like,
certainly my older does not. My younger doesn't either, And
part of it's, you know, we grew up in New
York City or they're growing up in New York City,
and so there are lots more Asian kids in their school.
Part of the culture has changed. I mean, every kid
deals with different types of struggles, but that type, that

(23:41):
particular struggle I don't think they're facing. I sometimes, you know,
try and examine whether they're self conscious on that level
that like race a racial part of their identity, and
it doesn't seem like it. Whereas my brother and I
grew up in the same all white you know, got

(24:01):
reminded of ours like all the time, thought about it
a lot, and so it's fascinating. I mean to me, like,
our kid's biggest struggle is addiction to screens. Yeah, you know,
like I mean, like and I really liked video games
as a kid, but in our case, video games was
like Nintendo or Sega Genesis, right, you know, you played

(24:23):
it on. But now it's like, you know, so deep
into kids' lives where they could do it eighteen hours
a day if if you know, left to their own devices,
their own devices, see that, Yeah, it's yea, and it's
one reason why I admire Jonathan Heights work so much

(24:44):
with the anxious generation. I'm privileged to call John a friend.
It's one reason I've started Noble Mobile is to try
and combat the screen addiction, because it's not just kids.
I mean, it's you and me. Yeah, and I do.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
I want to talk to you about that, and I
want to talk to you about mental health and and
all of that. But sticking with you, so you you
go to college, you go to a big law firm
after college, but I know you're well, I.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
Do want to share this arc too. See, I have
a book coming out in February. On February that's like
brand new in terms of announcem. It's called Hey Yang,
Where's My thousand Bucks? It's sort of like humorous account
of the journey of the last number of years. But
I realized, like, oh, I should share a little bit
of my upbringing. So you know, scrawny Asian guy picked

(25:31):
on and so I wasn't like, oh, how am I
going to be a successful adult. It's like, how am
I going to get a date? How am I going
to not like singled out in some way and so
very angry? Uh? And then when I get to the
summer before college, I hit the gym, and then the
gym becomes like this lifelong companion. And then I take

(25:54):
up martial arts when I get to college, and that's
where the anger goes. Like I just, you know, and
I think there's a stereotype of like the angry Asian
guy in the gym, is there? I think, so, yeah, okay, yeah,
and so I was that guy, and I guess that's
a relatively healthy way to channel it. But I was

(26:15):
ticked off for a long time.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, I think. I don't know what drives different people
to run for president in my case, but I like
the anger was with me for most of my adult life.
And a young person asked me the other day and
was like, hey, do you think your anger helped make
you successful and like your twenties and thirties? And I

(26:41):
thought about it. I was like, yeah, I probably did, because,
like i mean, at times it made me miserable and
at times I'm sure it like fueled insecurities and hurt
relationships and a bunch of other things, but it also,
you know, pushed me.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
Have you gone to therapy?

Speaker 1 (27:10):
So I saw that counselor Sue Denby when I was
in ninth or tenth grade, and then I've tried therapy
once or twice since then because I believe in therapy. Okay,
you know, my brother's a clinical psychologist. I benefited from
it when I was young. I've seen countless other people
benefit from it. But I haven't had like a relationship

(27:31):
with a therapist since then.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
Really, Okay, so after college you go to a big
law firm.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
I think I saw you were deeply disillusioned pretty quickly and.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
Decided to get out of there. Why what was so
bad about it?

Speaker 1 (27:47):
You know? I mean I shouldn't knock it. And at
this point, anyone who you know, like doing anything that's
gainful employment, we should all just embrace an applaud But
these days, yeah, yeah, but I I joke to my
brother when I got home for Thanksgiving that fall, I
was like, you know, I didn't dream about like when

(28:07):
we were kids, I dreamt about going in the woods
and killing a dragon. I didn't dream about being the
fucking scribe, which is what the right like it felt
like being a corporate lawyer was because I was just
like documenting deals for someone else's achievement, and I was like,
this is terrible, like I should really try and achieve

(28:28):
something myself, Like I can't believe i'm you know, the
document specialist for someone who did something of significance and
said that to my parents, said a version of that
to my parents, like you didn't come to this country
with me to do this job. Now, like that that's
a little bit you know, harsh and out. You know,
part of it too, s He was that I felt

(28:49):
my brain rewiring itself, because we're very adaptable, and so
I remember thinking two things. Number one, I'm getting better
at this job, and number two, I hate this job.
And so then it's like, well, shoot it. What if
you get really good at something you hate, like that'd
be terrible. And then I was like, well, if I
do this longer, it's just going to get harder to leave,
you know, the like they were paying me six figures

(29:12):
as like a punk kid who was, you know, twenty
four years old and didn't know shit, And so I
was like, I got to get out of here, like
this place is bizarre and the people around me are
very very unhappy, like the you know, I mean, corporate
attorneys are famously unhappy. So I was like, yeah, if
I don't leave now, it's just going to get harder.
So then I hit the eject button at five months,

(29:34):
which was quite rash. They had me repay my signing bonus.
I was like, oh shit, I have to give that
back to you. And and became like a you know,
struggling entrepreneur had like a mini rise in maximum fall
from a not great height. So that that's the way

(29:54):
I spent my you know, mid twenties, was trying to
learn how to be like a bad as entrepreneur and failing.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
But that must have been leaving you know, you go
to law school, right, you leaving the the law firm
that you get into must have been a little scary.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
And then going into a field, like, you know, being
an entrepreneur is also scary.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
I mean none of this was like stable.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
How did you get the courage to make all those
big decisions?

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah? My My Asian parents were not pleased. They told
their friends I was a lawyer for quite some time.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
Sure you're still a lawyer to them?

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah really yeah, probably right. They tried to talk me
out of running for president too, you know they are
Asian after all.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
Jeez.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
So, uh, when I left the law firm and this
is in some ways is very deep. I give Young
Meek credits. He I said, like, look, the risk is
not going broke because I left this cushy job. Yeah.
The risk is looking in the mirror years from now
and wondering why I did not do anything.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
But that's so wise and introspective for a twenty something
like that's really, I think, very a mature way to
see it.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
No, and the other thing I thought, and this is
some cockiness, is like, I'm not going to die. I'm
not going to starve to death.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
I'll figure it out.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah. I also don't have mortgage, kids, even a girlfriend.
It's like, what am I doing? Right?

Speaker 3 (31:32):
It's just you.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah. So it's like if I'm not going to take
a risk now, like when am I going to do it? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (31:36):
I mean I get it, but so many people don't.
And they look back, they're forty and they've been in
something for twenty years and like how did I How
did I get here?

Speaker 3 (31:46):
And how do I get out of it?

Speaker 1 (31:47):
Now?

Speaker 2 (31:48):
You have a number of successes in business, do you
feel like, at some point, oh, this is what I'm
good at, this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Well, it took a while like my dot com flopped,
and then I joined a healthcare software company that did
not achieve its goals. Also in they're a wireless company
that ran out of money. So it's not like I
was some like whiz kid business guy. I mean, my
first dot com raised maybe two hundred and fifty thousand,
which felt like a lot of money when you're twenty
four years old. And so I became a tutor part time,

(32:22):
and I became a nightclub promoter in my mid late twenties.
And then I hit my stride when I got this
job at an education company that I really enjoyed running,
and we had a great time and team. And so
at that point, you know what's funny is even while
I was trying and failing in my mid to late twenties,
I still thought, like, you know, like I can be

(32:44):
good at this hu I can be good, But your
insecurity start to grow. Your friends are all still making
a lot of money at law firms and you are not,
and so that then you start also becoming like a
little bit down on yourself. And so by the time
I became the CEO and waiting and then CEO of

(33:06):
this little education company, I was like I have got
to make this work. Hell or high water, this thing
is gonna work. Yeah, and I did. To my credit.
I showed up every day and just like you know,
ground like you know, just like grow, grow, grow, try
and do a good job. And then that company gets
sold a number of years later, and then I end

(33:26):
up becoming a millionaire at the age of thirty four.
So at that point then it's like, okay, like you know,
like I guess I am good at this right. But
it was a journey.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
How do you meet your wife?

Speaker 1 (33:43):
I met her on campus at Columbia at an alumni
event when I was there talking about my education company,
and then she was on campus.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Was it a long courtship or were you guys kind
of immediately into it.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Some funny stories. So when we first met, she was
dating someone else. I was dating someone else. Uh, and
I was dead and I was like, wow, she's beautiful,
but you know, obviously dating someone else, and like I
am too, So I was very I was very you know,
like professional and yeah, arms length. And then she emailed

(34:20):
me a few months later asking about our courses for
a friend, and I was like, uh huh. And then
I wrote her back saying like, hey, hope you and
your boyfriend are doing well, and then she was like,
oh yeah, we split up and I was like, you
want to go do so then like so then when
we went out to dinner, it was pretty much on,

(34:41):
though she did break up with me at one point
in there. Early on She's like, oh, this is too
intense to cut my relationship that sort of thing, and
then I this was actually the biggest sign of growth
for me, I see, because like I'd had a lot
of things wrong and trying to court women. I wasn't
very good at it. But when she broke things off
of me, I took it like a champ. I was like,

(35:02):
oh yeah, like you really should have some time for
yourself and like da dadan, like it was something very sincere.
I was like, oh, well, you know, like that's too
bad and it hurt, but I was able to take
it in a way that I was not able to
take it when I was a bit younger. Keep in mind,
by this time, I was thirty one. And so then
she and it was ended up coming back around and
calling me pretty quickly, and we've been together now for

(35:25):
nineteen years, so it was it was not quite love
at first, sight, it was like definitely, you know, like
what we came together pretty quickly.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah, tell me about being a dad. What kind of
dad are you?

Speaker 1 (35:42):
I'm a dad that's trying to lean into what I'm
good at and then accepting that there are a lot
of things I'm like not excellent at. I would say
that one of the main things I can do better
is getting off screens when I'm around my kids, because
they love their screens and I'm very very concerned, like
don't they don't have smartphones, but they do have like

(36:04):
iPad laptop type stuff, and so I'm around them sometimes
and I like sign like, oh, they're just like hypnotized
by their screens, and I'm like, I guess I'll just
like check my email or whatever, and then we'll like
just sit there like zombies and it's like, oh, this
is terrible. I gotta do better than this.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
So three of the responsibilities I have around the house
are to get the boys into sports, music, and movies.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
So, and I'm having some success. This gives you a
sense of what kind of dad I am, where it's
like take them to games, push them to get out
and run around, even though it's funny is in this
day and age. When you and I were growing up,
going to a movie was like this like awesome escape
and treat total Right now as a parent where like

(36:53):
I'm just glad my kids can sit through a ninety
minute long form narrative. This is like an improvement, Yeah
you know what I mean. Like instead of being the treat,
it's like the nourishment, which is right, you know, kind
of a dark sign of where we are. But you
know I am. I'm more in touch with pop culture
and what's going on out there than Evelyn by a mile.

(37:15):
Or I'll be like, ooh, you know, Bad Guys two
is coming out. Kids say bad Guys whatever, like, So
that's one of my jobs. Gives it, that gives you
a sense of it.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
Well.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
And Jonathan Haye, who you know, has talked about how
movies are an antidote for the social media and screen
time and devices that have captured our kids because they
do force a longer you know, they force a longer
attention span. They're an escape into something narrative and not

(37:48):
just like a five minute YouTube video of a kid
unboxing a toy or playing another video game and so
where it's such a funny switch where you know, maybe
our parents or our parents' parents would have.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
Said, oh, get off that that TV.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Is gonna wratch your brain, or those movies are going
to you know, that's all you do is just watch movies. Now,
you know, I think we should encourage our kids to
escape into movies that actually feels like the more safe experience,
and that's kind of backed up by science.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
Now, yeah, there's characters as a narrative. Maybe there's even
a moral or two, so you know, like I see
that as.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
A mild wind at this point, exactly exactly, like, yes, exactly,
it's so wild.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
But I think we both have children on the spectrum,
is that right?

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yes, yes, my older son, Yes, I do as well.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
Talk about how that's informed your parenting worldview, Well, I.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
See, it's funny there's like a notion of like an
Asian tiger parent or whatnot, and I personally like let
all that go. When our son was diagnosed with autism,
where it then just becomes about like are they going
to be happy like all stable independent, you know, like
whether it become an ass kicker in certain dimensions, like

(39:10):
it's irrelevant, right, And so in a way that's been
very healthy in a way, maybe I've let it, like,
you know, slide too much where it's like, ah, you know,
as long as they're they're happy and fine. So I
think that that's been an adaptation.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
Yeah, the accomplishments shift.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Yeah, I'm not really that much of a tiger parent
that way at all. You know, Like I talked to
my brother and other relatives and they sort of imagine
that their kids are going to achieve some of the
same things that they achieved or whatnot, and I don't,
I mean again necessarily like better or for worse. I'm
just like.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
Shrug, same Sam.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
And in fact, there are parts of what I do
that I really hope my son never gets curious about, honestly,
like with boys and conspiracy theories and the way that
some of politics is capturing our boys. Like I hope
he never gets into it, which is really sad. But
I just see it as a path to destruction.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
I know. I mean it's much more noxious than when
you and I were touring on I mean, every once
in a while someone says like, do you think your
kids are going to find your footsteps? And I was like,
I really don't think so, and help, Yeah, yeah, that's
how you want they do. I hope you run for president,
like the you know Yang.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Dyna, Well, I want to talk about that.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
What kind of conversations were you having with your family
when you're thinking about running for president?

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Well, back then, my kids were oblivious and like, I'm
going to do some chronology. Hang on. So at that
point there were six and three, and the six year
old was autistic, so you know, he might as well
have been.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
Three kind of care less. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
So I joke that back then they were potatoes. Yeah,
you know, you throw the potatoes on the bus. It's fine.
It's different now. I like that they have much more awareness.

Speaker 3 (41:08):
Sure, but what about with your wife, Like that's a
conversation to have with your wife.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Oh yeah, So when I talk to my wife about it,
The funny thing is, I don't think she took it
that seriously. At first. She treated it as like, I
think I like her anarial lark or something along those lines.
One joke in our household was like, call me when
you get to three percent. But you did, but you did,

(41:36):
but I did, And then that point she came out
on the track.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
I would have been sad if it had not happened but
you did.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
Yeah, fair is fair. But it was funny I hit
three percent that she started coming out. I was like, oh,
you know, like deal's a deal. But there was like
a long period of time when like I would disappear
and be on the road for you know, like most
of the week and then just reappear, and she put
up with a lot. But that was not that unfamiliar,

(42:04):
and that prior to running for president, I was an
entrepreneur that ran an organization called Venture for America, which
required me to travel a lot. So like instead of
going to Detroit and Birmingham, I was going to New
Hampshire and Iowa. Right in a way, it was like
a familiar lifestyle.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
Don't take this the wrong way.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
Where do you get the confidence to think, with no
experience in elected politics, I think I'll run for president
of the United States? And I would ask this of
anyone who ran for president. I just where do you
get the thought that, like I could run this country?

Speaker 1 (42:43):
Sure? Part of it was meeting Barack Obama, George W. Bush,
Bill Clinton and thinking these guys are not otherworldly in
any way. These guys are just dudes. I mean, you've
met a lot of these folks too, and so that
there's like no any mystery.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
There's guys.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah, they're just guys. Like I met dozens of senators, governors, entrepreneurs,
ex presidents or whatnot, and I thought I could do
as good a better job than them. And so then
it's like and I feel that right now. It's like
you asked me, like, hey, Andrew, do you think you'd

(43:22):
be a better president Donald Trump? Hell? Yeah, you know,
like yes, do I think I would have done a
better job than Joe Biden? Like I certainly would have
gone the f out of the way if my polling
was in the toilet like it was, you know, and
I was like, you know at eighty one, Like I'm like,
it's not about me, it's about the country. So yeah,

(43:43):
I still have that confidence, see in the sense like
I would do better job these guys. But in a way,
I mean I could say that about dozens of people
that you and I both know. It's like like that
I would also do like she would do a better job. Right,
In many ways, what you're asking is like who the
heck would have the confidence to raise their hand and

(44:04):
try and push themselves forward into this crucible of modern politics.
And like the rest of them expect people to actually
take an interest or get behind one.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
Yes, yeah, it sounds crazy to me, and.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
That part, I'll admit, you know, like that part somewhat rash.
I have some funny stories in my book about how
we'd go to a school event and I would try
and avoid questions about what I did, because if I
were to say, like, I'm a presidential candidate, they like
it started this whole long, bizarre conversation and then you know,

(44:37):
and I'd seem like the crazy person. And at the
end of the conversation they were never like, oh, let
me support you. It was like, oh, that's that's nice,
like and then go on. I'd be like, oh, I
just got to like pretend I do something else for
a living.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
That is wild.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Andrew, I've never thought of that because usually typically typically
if you're running for presidents, because you're like a senator,
a congressator, a governor, right, so you don't have to
explain I'm a polic titian. But from where you started,
you're just at a school function.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
And so it's like, what do you do.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
You know Ben's dad or whatever, and you're like, well,
running for president, I have never thought about how weird
that must have been.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah, I was like the random Asian dad at the
school event being like I'm a presidential candidate like that,
Like so what do you do? Yeah? I know, so
like that that was like very very odd and awkward.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
So like that's like a year of that.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah, yeah, that in and of itself would will be
great book book material.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
Will you run again? Do you think I know you
ran for may or? Will you run again?

Speaker 1 (45:42):
I'm too young not to run again at some point,
you know what I mean. I used to have a
joke where it's like, you know, I'll just wait for
thirty years until I become age appropriate. But maybe that
joke isn't right, you know, as on point now that
we don't have the Battle of the octogenarians, but we
might who knows. So uh, I'm sure I'll run again.

(46:05):
I mean, the problems are getting harrier and and I'll
tell you like another startup SA, it's like when do
you when do they make the Asian guy the CEO
when no one else wants the job?

Speaker 4 (46:21):
So we're only like you know, X years away.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Okay, before we go to the lightning round, I want
to talk about something you mentioned I know it's important
to you, and that's and that's mental health and social media,
and that's why you started Noble Mobile. It's super important
to me too, as our listeners know. I've been really
open about my mental health and the role that the
news and social media and my phone plays in contributing

(46:55):
to my anxiety. So tell us more about Noble Mobile
and how it works.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
So Hasan Minhaj called our smartphones our rectangles of sadness.
And if you think about it, a lot of the
negative emotions you feel throughout the day are from your phone.
It's unlikely that your neighbor actually ran up to you
and screened in your face, but you think that someone
did you feel like that because you saw someone at

(47:20):
somebody or maybe you know saying something mean to you.
So there are two reasons why Americans are sad. There
may be more, I mean we identified some, but two
big ones. Number one, we're not saving enough money, because
you feel better when the money is like growing, and
you feel worse when the walls are closing in. And
number two, we spend too much time staring at our phone,

(47:44):
being manipulated by the algorithm and profited off of by
the tech companies. So Noble Mobile tries to address both
of these because we will lower your cell phone bill
by fifty percent in most and we will cut your
screen time by being your friend that wants to pay

(48:05):
you money to log off and early Noble Mobile users
And we're only in month two, so like you know,
it's early days, but early adopters are using their smartphone
seventeen percent less in month two than month one. Wow,
So that's you know, like hasn't been through like academic

(48:26):
rigor or whatever, but it's just like the numbers we have. Yeah,
And so Noble Mobile is like the good guy, values
driven wireless carrier that's going to try and make you
mentally healthier in two ways. Log off, touch grass, look up,
look at your family's spaces, and two will become a
set it and forget it savings plan that pays you
five and a half percent interest on any of the

(48:48):
cash back and savings, so you feel like you've got
a little cash stash that's growing instead of extracting. And
it's good fun, Like it's awesome building this business because
it's a thing we use every day.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
Yeah, and you can't put the tech toothpaste back in
the tube, right, it's here, and you know, maybe you
can delay your kids from getting a smartphone, and but
the technologies here, it's creeping in. It's it's school, right.
I mean they're on chromebooks and stuff at school. And
and you know, my kid plays a math game on

(49:22):
his chromebook at home that school gave him.

Speaker 3 (49:24):
You know, it's a video game.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
Yeah, you can't even get rid of the device because
it's like, I got to use this for my homework,
and you know you can't.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
So I love that you're you're using existing technology that
is just sort of an inevitable extension of our lives,
but making it friendlier, safer for everyone to use.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
I love that.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
Yeah, like better value, better values, and build your retirement savings.
And I was with a woman named Lauren Benton who
runs like a partner company, and she said, like, this
is a down payment on American's retirement. I was like,
what do you mean? And then we ran the numbers
and I was like, oh my gosh, he's right. Like

(50:07):
if you look at yeah, if you look at fifty
bucks a month times twelve times, you know, like whatever
the number of years is like, and then stick a
reasonable interest rate on it like you're looking at like,
you know, tens of.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
Thousands of dollars real money.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
Yeah, and you know it because again, these big telcos
are paying twenty billion in dividends every year, so you
imagine like twenty billion heading to our retirement account. I
mean it's real money.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
Very cool.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Okay, well this was fun. I want to end with
a lightning round. Have you ever been asked to be
a shark on Shark Tank?

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Oh my gosh, I just had that producer talked to
me last week.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
No way, Yeah, well you should do it. Are you
going to do it?

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Maybe? Yeah? Like that, you know, I'm supposed to visit
the set and whatnot.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
What would your shark style be?

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Like? I might be too nice? I might. I might
always be like, who's like, like, Barbara Corkran's the nice one.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
I would be like, yeah, Barbara and Laurie are really nice.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
Yeah, I'd be the nice one. I'd want to help everyone.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
Yeah right, yes, Kevin, we know who. Kevin will be
the mean one. Mark can be a little direct as well.
I love Mark too, But I love Shark Tank and
it's really good.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
I don't know if you watch it with your kids,
but it's gonna be really good, family friendly television.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
Yeah, yeah, it's excellent. I'd be proud to be a
part of it. I also was asked to be on
The Masked Singer a long time ago, like four years
ago now, and I have no idea why, because like,
I'm not like an awesome singer or anything, but so
it would have been so random.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
Amazing, amazing. What are you watching on TV right now?

Speaker 1 (51:55):
Evelyn and I like to watch these drama shows. So
we we finished Task on HBO Max, which we enjoyed,
and then we went back and watched Mayor of Eastown
because it was the same same guy. Okay, we and
then we watched like this salacious one on Prime. It
was like The Girlfriend, which he loved. On Netflix it

(52:18):
was Sirens. It's like, if you have these upscale dramas
on like nice Beaches or whatnot. Yes, White Lotus obviously
watched White Lotus sort of like White Lotus adjacent stuff.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
Got it? I suppose pretty places, pretty people.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
Yeah, yeah, we're simple, we're simple adults. We're simple consumers.
I think I should shout out to Warner Brothers since
you know, I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
Who knows anymore.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
In twenty twenty, I did a round up of the
presidential candidate's favorite snacks on the campaign trail, based on
a package that The New York Times did, and I
made one of yours, Andrew, because you said that your
comfort food on the trail was kind bars.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
Are kind bars really comfort food or did you just
say that.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
They were my comfort food on the trail because you
gain weight on the trail. You're always in a rental vehicle,
and you know, and the kind bars, by the way,
like some of them were like chocolate covered and the
rest of it. I'm friends with Daniel Lubaskie who's now
on Shark.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
Tank, so oh I've seen, yeah, yeah, I've seen.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
So that was one. Also thing that's like, yeah, I
might as well like, you know, shout out to my
friends company, though I did consume them all the time.
Another comfort food that might have made it into the
package was skinny pop. Like I like skinny pop is
also you know, like not as bad for you.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
We've got to work on your comfort foods, Andrew. If
you're gonna run again, we need to work on these
comfort foods.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
If you're looking at this stuff that's just like out
and out, like you know, comfort comfort food be like
Dorito's and lace potato chips. There you go and there
we go. And the thing is the Doritos and laced
potato chips. I like them together. So sometimes I'll like
buy guys of each and them like put them together
into like a little like like layer a bite.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
I do the same thing. I call it a chip salad.
Yeah it's a chip salad.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Yum.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
I do the same thing.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
But yeah, we need just okay, if you're gonna run again,
we need comfort food to be like burger pizza, chicken wings,
not health food. I'm just telling you, if I'm your
campaign manager, it's the first thing we're changing done.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
Yeah. I mean when I was in Iowa, I went
to a pizza ranch all the time. It's just pizza
and fried chicken all the livelong day.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
What's been the most important innovation of the twenty first century.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Now, you'd say AI, and that's important. I'm not going
to say whether you know, like it's net net positive negative, neutral,
but it's the most important.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
My next question.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Is how will the benefits of AI net out against
the dangers of AI will be like fifty to fifty
or seventy four.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
You just like went right there.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
Wow, like yangstra damis. I saw the question coming.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
No, so what do you think, like, how do you
think that's going to net out? Because I'm not an
AI hater, but I'm also not like an apologist who
thinks that everything is going to be fine.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
There's going to be some problems with this. But how
do you think it'll net out?

Speaker 1 (55:21):
I think it would depend upon our government's response and approach.
I think in the lack of any meaningful government response approach,
there are going to be a lot of negative effects
that are felt and we're seeing some.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
So you think government regulation is going to be key
to this?

Speaker 1 (55:35):
I think government response. I mean one of the things
I ran on was universal based income, which is look,
these companies are now multi trillion dollar companies and unless
you bought Nvidia stock, like you know years ago, you know,
you don't feel like you're benefiting necessarily, but you might
feel like your job's going to get eliminated, which is

(55:57):
totally true. So you know, if the government was more proactive,
it'd be like, hey, here's a compute tax, here's like
like an AI tax essentially, and we're going to take
that we're going to like spread it to, you spread
it to, you give it to. You know who's getting
really kicked to the curb right now? Recent college graduates.
You know, like there should be like a giant tax

(56:20):
subsidy to employ twenty two to twenty four.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
They cannot get jobs.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
Yeah, they can't get jobs. And so like absent any
government activity, I think it's gonna make us very very sad.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
Okay, what's your guilty pleasure?

Speaker 1 (56:38):
Some of the TV we just you know, ice cream, definitely.
I love me some ice cream.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Okad, what's your favorite?

Speaker 1 (56:47):
I like min chocolate Chip a lot. If you want
to talk variety. This is funny. And I'm friends with
this entrepreneur to Jenny's ice Cream right now. Yeah, like
right now, I've got a friend. For my birth they
got me like an ice cream of the Month club
where it's just getting mailed to me every month. I
gotta say, I'm like a kid where I'm like what
flavors are going to because you don't know what flavors it's

(57:09):
going to be. Yeah, and so you open and it's
not even just one flavor, it's four. I mean, this
is like, in some ways the best and worst gift
anyone has gotten me, because you know, I don't need
that much extra ice cream in my life, but but
I'm like loving it in the sense that it goes
up and it's super delightful. So if you want to
give someone the best worst gift ever, you can look
into Jenny's. That's j e ni Apostrophe as ice cream

(57:32):
of the month.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
Yep, Jenny's is great. I've had Jenny's. What was your
worst vacation?

Speaker 1 (57:39):
We went to the Philippines, like Evelyn and I did
not love. There were soldiers with automatic rifles everywhere. And
then we did something that I regret to this day.
We ordered turtle soup because it was on the menu
and we're like, wow, Philippines do it, and it was
it was like a dead upside down turtle in like
a bowl of water and we're like what, like I

(58:01):
don't even know what to do. And that was little.
I was like, turtle soup. It's like, well, you know,
once in a little like you know once in a
lifetime when in Rome zero in a lifetime. It was
so stupid. So did not love that vacation. Sorry Philippines.
I maybe I went to the wrong place.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
Whatever I'm an adventurous eater. I don't know that I
could do that.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
You would not have loved. Like, I consider myself pretty
open minded too. But then like if I just had
like a dead turtle upside down in a hot water,
I mean, that's really what I was looking at.

Speaker 3 (58:35):
It doesn't sound great. Okay, this is the last question
we ask it at.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
The end of every pot. It's very important to me.
It's important to me culturally and spiritually. When is it
iced coffee season all the time?

Speaker 3 (58:49):
Card answer? It's a great answer.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
Yeah, trick question we about, yes, but you wouldn't.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
You wouldn't believe how many people get it wrong.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
Andrew, Well, they definitely get it wrong. They get it wrong,
but not you.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
This is how I know you're going to be president
one day. We got to get you off the cone bars.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
But the coffee, ice coffee year round, that's a winner.
That's a winning platform.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
Yeah, let's go thousand bucks a month, ice coffee aire,
some other good stuff, Jenny's ice cream for all. You know.
I actually actually said that to Dean when we was running.
I was like, Dean, you's just become the gelato guy,
because you know, he was like a yeah, I just
give everyone like universal basic gelato. But it was winter

(59:34):
in New Hampshire. It might have been a dumb idea,
but right at least.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
It's a hook something. Well, Andrew Yang, thank you so much.
This was a great conversation.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
And uh, I think you're doing great things and I
love hearing you talk about politics.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
Well, thank you. If anyone wants to, I have a substack.
I send out a newsletter every week and I cover politics, AI,
business some other stuff, so please do check it out.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Absolutely. Thanks Andrew. I'll see you around. Uh, I'll see
you around CNN.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
And don't let a big wireless take it to you.
Check out Noble Mobile as well, and log off and
touch your grass.

Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
There you go. You heard it here. Off the Cup
is a production of iHeart Podcasts as part of the
Reason Choice Network. If you want more, check out the.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Other Reason Choice podcasts Spolitics with Jamel Hill and Native
Land Pod.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
For Off the Cup, I am your host, Se Cup.
Editing and sound design by Derek Clements. Our executive producers
are me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Se Cup, Lauren Hanson, and Lindsay Hoffman. Rate and review
wherever you get your podcasts, Follow or subscribe for new
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