UBI Origins and Rationale

Yang recounts Stockton conversations, his book influence, and how UBI addresses job loss and social instability.

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Episode notes

We’re closing out the year with a candid conversation about where America is headed.

For our final episode of 2025, Halle and Steve sit down with entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang to talk plainly about the forces reshaping American life, from rising healthcare costs and gaps in coverage to AI-driven job disruption and the strain on the social safety net.

We cover:

🏛️ Andew’s idea of “Medicare for all who want it”

🤖 How AI is already wiping out entry-level jobs, and why he thinks America is heading toward a “bad men problem”

💸 Why he ran on Universal Basic Income which he calls “capitalism where income doesn’t start at zero”

🏥 How entrenched players restrict physician supply, shape regulation, and protect revenue even when it hurts patients

📵 His new effort to cut phone addiction and why he says parents, schools, and policymakers are waking up to the damage caused by screen-first childhoods

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About our guest:

Andrew Yang is an entrepreneur, author, philanthropist, attorney, nonprofit leader, and former U.S. presidential and New York City mayoral candidate. After a brief stint as a corporate lawyer, he worked in startups and founded an education company that became #1 in the country. He later launched Venture for America, a national nonprofit that empowered thousands of young entrepreneurs to build careers in cities such as Detroit, Cleveland, and Baltimore. Under his leadership, the organization became a multi-million-dollar charity, and Yang was named a Presidential Ambassador of Entrepreneurship and a Champion of Change during the Obama administration.

Motivated by the impact of automation on the American workforce, Yang ran for President in 2017. Centered on a proposed $1,000-per-month “Freedom Dividend,” his campaign raised nearly $40 million and helped mainstream conversations around Universal Basic Income. He later founded Humanity Forward, a nonprofit that has successfully advocated for billions of dollars in federal cash relief.

Yang is also an author, CNN commentator, and podcast host. He is the son of Taiwanese immigrants, and holds degrees from Brown University and Columbia Law School.

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Chapters:

00:2:22 Andrew’s Vision for American Healthcare

00:7:27 Healthcare and the 2026 Election

00:9:59 AI’s Impact on Employment and Society

00:22:35 Universal Basic Income

00:29:14 Regulatory Capture in Healthcare

00:31:37 Noble Mobile

00:33:57 Children and Phone Addictions

00:43:19 Closing Advice for Healthcare Innovators

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Pre-order Halle's new book, Massively Better Healthcare.