00:21:07 · Andrew Yang, Aditya Agarwal, Mark Jacobstein, Mark Jacobstein
[00:21:07] S0: governor And in [00:21:08] S1: Tom spoke at SPC a few years ago and I'm like, listen, don't know how far you're going to get, but it's a lot of respect for the fact that you're out there doing something, You're actually doing something. And I wish more people did it. Frankly, I'm looking at myself, I'm like, why I can't run for president because I'm a naturalized citizen, but why can't I think about being a senator or a congressman or something? And the fact that I don't makes me think [00:21:35] S3: that You have I'm about firm to run with this. [00:21:37] S2: We're not ready [00:21:38] S3: to give you... Have a firm to run with this. [00:21:40] S2: Could already give you up to it. [00:21:42] S1: Sorry, Mark. What we have done is that two people in the San Francisco Board of Supervisors are actually from SPC. So we are helping, I would say the political change. But Andrew, you're going to say something.
00:21:56 · Andrew Yang
[00:21:56] S0: Oh yeah. So I gave a TED Talk last year. It was the number seven TED Talk of 2024. One of the things I want to put out there is that the highest level of value that can be produced, the highest leverage now, is not even running for office oneself. It's trying to fix the system and the incentives. And there are ways that you can contribute to that without running for US senator or whatnot. So I just want to put that out there because here's the trap. And this is something like I've heard any number of times where people think, okay, I should vote, I should give money, and then I should run for office. And that should be like the hierarchy. But then people are turned off because like, wait a minute, if I run for office, some people are going to hate me and yell at me. It's going to be a lifestyle downgrade. I'm not sure if I'm going be able to do as much good as I want to anyway. And by the way, like rational, totally rational. I even had in my list of life schools when I was first dating Evelyn elevate a national political figure. It was not be one. It was like find one, find another schmuck, and then help them. And so that's totally, again, smart. It's rational stuff. And then a lot of excellent people are turned off by politics of today and reasonable. So there are things you can do though. Like the highest level thing you can do right now is try and cure the system. And the way to cure the system is not to play on one team or another, but to create a new team and fix the incentives. And if that's totally mystifying to anyone listening to this, please just do look up Andrew Yang TED Talk. And then I go through it in like ten, eleven minutes and say like, this is why things are so fucked and here's a real life concrete way we could fix it. And, you know, there are some awesome people that are are working toward that. So there there are things you can do that don't involve running for office.
00:23:48 · Mark Jacobstein, Andrew Yang
[00:23:48] S2: And these are structural things like ranked choice voting and getting rid of gerrymandering and all the things that would having a third party or a fourth party or a fifth party, etcetera. [00:23:56] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Like, non nonpartisan primaries is the single biggest step. The the problem is that everyone's held captive by the 11% that are voting in the base of each party, and then they just run scared of them. And then they rubber stamp everything from that corner. And then the rest of us are like, what the hell is going on? So any techie in particular who digs into these incentive structures would be like, oh, I would expect really weird polarizing bad policy results from this system. And so the only logical thing to do is try and fix the system. It's very much a Silicon Valley approach. The problem is that people are tribal and, like, get dragged into this or that. I will say, I think a lot of people ended up siding with Trump in a way that, in my opinion, just saying, probably not shocking to people, was misplaced because I think Trump's an accelerant to the disintegration of various institutions. And I think it's not great. But I think it's a result of the fact that they didn't like what was going on in the previous administration and that you have this two sided system where you're like, oh, if I don't like these guys, then I guess I like these guys. And then the pendulum keeps swinging. I think most Silicon Valley people are actually somewhere in this in between zone naturally where you want
00:23:56 · Andrew Yang, Mark Jacobstein
[00:23:56] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Like, non nonpartisan primaries is the single biggest step. The the problem is that everyone's held captive by the 11% that are voting in the base of each party, and then they just run scared of them. And then they rubber stamp everything from that corner. And then the rest of us are like, what the hell is going on? So any techie in particular who digs into these incentive structures would be like, oh, I would expect really weird polarizing bad policy results from this system. And so the only logical thing to do is try and fix the system. It's very much a Silicon Valley approach. The problem is that people are tribal and, like, get dragged into this or that. I will say, I think a lot of people ended up siding with Trump in a way that, in my opinion, just saying, probably not shocking to people, was misplaced because I think Trump's an accelerant to the disintegration of various institutions. And I think it's not great. But I think it's a result of the fact that they didn't like what was going on in the previous administration and that you have this two sided system where you're like, oh, if I don't like these guys, then I guess I like these guys. And then the pendulum keeps swinging. I think most Silicon Valley people are actually somewhere in this in between zone naturally where you want [00:25:13] S2: Like, maybe abundance democrats is kind of their...
00:25:13 · Mark Jacobstein, Andrew Yang
[00:25:13] S2: Like, maybe abundance democrats is kind of their... [00:25:16] S0: Oh, yeah. You want good policy. You want results. You want your kids to be able to walk on the street without stepping over a homeless person or human feces or any of that jazz. You're pro data. You'd like to see good results and people make those decisions. You're not super ideological. By the way, this is an appeal I make to Asian Americans, too. I'm just like, guys, we're the pragmatic results crew. We're not the tribal warfare crew. Star Trek instead of Mad Max is the shorthand. But that crew, in my opinion, should be looking at this political system and be like, okay. Like, this is what needs to change.
00:26:00 · Mark Jacobstein, Andrew Yang
[00:26:00] S2: But this makes me think that, like, your hat should say systems, not math. I mean, math is shorthand for it, but, like... And and I get it that it's sort of data driven, but actually even more important than the math and the ability to extrapolate, etcetera, I feel like is the thinking from first principles. And I go back to like, how is it that Andrew Yang has done all of these extraordinary things? I feel like there was a lot of good first principle thinking. Like, I need... I'm going build venture for America because we need more good jobs in places like Detroit. So here's the thing I can do that will impact that or I'm going to reform the American political system because that's actually even more impactful than me being an individual politician. You could probably go run for congress. You could find a district right now. You have enough name recognition and they love you over at CNN, etcetera. You could you could find a place to go run for congress, etcetera, but you can probably do more... Have more impact as a systems thinker. And I think that's probably... If I think about, like, your superpower, that that... It's it's that plus the ability to actually, hang out with the regular guys, which, I think is a very rare thing for people who've actually chosen to run for office. [00:27:06] S0: There are definitely people who wanted me to run for this office or that office, and I wasn't as drawn to it in part because of what you're describing. Mark, I'm going to be a good entrepreneur and CEO right now and pitch why what I'm doing now is more beneficial.