Entrepreneur and former presidential

candidate, Andrew Yang, is here with me

at Yahoo Finance H2. It's good to see

you. I follow you on X. It's good to see

you in person, finally.

>> Yes, I'm real. I'm still

>> Yeah, like he's real. Like he's like a

real guy.

>> Yes.

>> Um look, I remember it feels like

yesterday when you warned about AI. At

the time, it was 2020. Nobody even knew

what the hell AI was. Um

what we're seeing right now in terms of

job loss, are we still at the tip of the

iceberg or like we are in the middle of

the iceberg?

>> Oh, yeah. We're We're just in the first

or second inning. And a public company

CEO reached out to me, bought me

breakfast, and said, "I'm going to fire

30% of my workforce, and my revenue's

going to go up 200%, and I'm going to

get a raise.

What do we do?" And so, these are the

very early days. Look, was there some

muddying of the water in terms of the

tech layoffs? Like did they over hire,

and then are you they using AI as

something of a justification or

rationale? Yes, but the AI

buzzsaw is real.

>> What if a company replaces or releases

or fires, however you want to say it,

10,000 plus workers, which is what we

have been seeing, what do they owe

society?

>> So, this is the harsh truth, is that the

purpose of a corporation is not to

employ lots of people. And it used to be

a generation ago, if I was a CEO and

said, "Hey, I employ a lot of people,"

that's a badge of honor.

>> Yeah.

>> Now it means you're schmuck.

You're the curve, and like what are you

doing wrong?

>> Yes.

>> Um and so, the purpose of the

corporation is to deliver its product or

service as cost-efficiently as possible.

I'm not like a, you know, cult of

shareholder value maximization guy, but

it is certainly not the CEO's

responsibility to hire and employ a lot

of people.

And so, this is why I ran for president.

It's the government's responsibility to

help manage this transition, but our

government, in my opinion, is asleep at

the switch.

>> Where does this all leave this concept

of universal basic income?

>> It's becoming increasingly mainstream

and common. When I ran for president in

2020,

you know, shame I didn't

I didn't prevail, but

the days are real.

so universal basic income's approval

rating at that time was in the 30s. Now

it's in the mid to high 60s

because people get it and they saw that

government can actually send out

stimulus checks quickly and broadly

and it works. It helps.

>> What should the American worker do at

this point with this AI tidal wave

coming at them?

>> They should try and become conversant

and expert in these tools. Mark Cuban

makes the case that a bunch of small and

medium-sized businesses are going to

need folks to help implement and deploy.

I agree with that.

But it's to know that your job's days

might be numbered if there are a bunch

of you in an office or cubicle

and a lot of folks I know who are in the

industry say, "I can tell they're

training the AI to replace me. I'm

training my own replacement."

>> Is it the I mean the incentive look CEOs

of public companies they have to

maximize shareholder value. Isn't that

Isn't there just more incentive for them

to now

fire as many people as possible?

>> Yeah, and they're going to lose their

own job if they don't do so and they all

know it. I mean you see multiple CEOs

stepping aside and then on the way out

they're like, "Hey, one of the reasons

I'm doing this is because of AI and I'm

not sure I fully understand it and

parentheses I didn't want to

>> They don't want to be the face of this

crap.

>> I didn't want to chop chop chop you know

30% of my workforce. It's miserable. So

I'm going to step aside and let the next

person do it. And the public markets

reward you as soon as you make the

announcements like we we cut 10,000

workers and then our stock pops.

>> Are you Are you running again in 2028?

>> I get asked every day Brian and I will

say my case has aged very well.

>> [laughter]

>> You got a lot I mean you have you have a

lot of Ws on the board man.

>> Oh well, thank you.

You know, I'm still very much here and

willing to serve and so we'll have to

see what 2028 holds.

>> What would a president Andrew Yang do

Um, you know 2028 AI is even more

powerful. Would you tax AI?

>> Yes, and that's not just me saying it.

That's Daniel Ammann saying token tax.

It's Sam Altman saying national wealth

fund. Uh, it makes zero sense that you'd

have AI which compares itself to

electricity and then not [clears throat]

tax it and not regulate it. Can you

imagine if all the power grid was

>> [laughter]

>> unregulated and un That'd be insane. So,

uh, that that's just again an example of

our government not um, being on the

curve.

>> So,

don't tax employees per se. We got to

tax AI companies.

>> Yes. Uh, I run a company Noble Mobile

and we are discouraged from hiring

because we have to pay for your health

care, we have to pay for your social

security tax. Then you're going to pay

like a ton of income tax. Uh, there are

a number of people like Vinod Khosla and

others who are saying we should stop

trying to disadvantage hiring in human

labor and I totally agree with that.

Right now, we're if you if I use the

bots, I'd pay zero in taxes and the AI

company pays zero in taxes. [laughter]

And then if I hire you, then I pay a

bunch of tax and so do you.

>> Same block. Um, it was 2019. You

actually got an endorsement from Elon

Musk.

Uh, I think we showed we got the tweets.

I I went and found them. So, I'm I'm

glad they they still exist out there.

What do you think about There it is. Um,

what do you think about

the increase in his wealth since then? I

think at the time he was worth 20

billion. Now he's our first

trillionaire.

>> Yeah, uh, you know, he's creating a lot

of value and uh, he's for universal high

income because he thinks that AI and

robots are going to create so much

growth and do a lot of the work. Um, so,

uh, Elon's not just been ahead of the

curve, he's been making the curve

happen.

>> Would you still an accept an endorsement

from him if you did run it?

>> Yeah, I would. I mean, shoot. Uh, like

he's for trying uh, to advance society

in different ways. Don't agree with him

on every single thing, but like who the

heck agrees with some some someone on

everything? Uh, would gladly accept

Elon's support.

>> One and I suspect you have a you take on

this and this news crossed

yesterday late yesterday proposal to tax

the wealth of billionaires in California

it's got enough signatures to appear in

November ballot what do you think about

that?

>> I think wealth taxes on the state level

are a mistake people are portable the

capital is portable and imagining that

they can move to Austin is dumb mean

billionaires have things called planes

they also have accounts and

>> [laughter]

>> other things

so it you know to to me the goal should

be to try and get the value from AI from

the bots

but a state level wealth tax isn't the

way to go.

>> I was really it got me thinking like

what what would happen to California

like look at all the I mean you're you

are in tech you want you understand the

space like what would happen to

California if like some of the most

innovative CEOs and companies move out

of that state?

>> You're already seeing that happen in

Seattle some people

departed and California because they see

the writing on the wall

with some of this legislation so

unfortunately California might like be

able to illustrate what you're

describing not in the hypothetical but

in real life.

>> Lastly I know you're a big crypto guy

crypto has really had its moment

where do you see the future for crypto?

>> I'm for a localized currencies that can

keep value

in a community

to me I will say one of my issues with

crypto has been that the primary use

case has been financial speculation and

that's not what attracted me to the

space it was around

poverty alleviation and innovation in

the way that we use currencies I'm still

a big believer in localized currencies

and even currencies that reward things

like health and wellness arts and

creativity nurturing and caretaking like

that that's the vision that I think

crypto should to behind.

>> Lastly I mean tell us about this new

book. You read this. What uh what do I

need to know from it?

>> Yang, where is my thousand bucks, which

I've gotten on the streets of New York.

Uh, the the alternate title was, hey, am

I racist or are you Andrew Yang? Um, but

>> That'll get your attention.

>> Yeah, maybe I should use that one. But,

it it's fun stories uh from the trail uh

and like hopefully uh path forward.

>> Good to see you. It's been a while. I

appreciate you doing this.

>> I'll be back for sure, buddy.

>> Yeah, thank you.