Knicks in the (Mail)Bag

All right, here's the situation. You are at home, you are tired, you are hungry. There's something healthy you could cook for yourself, but you don't have it in you, so you eat crap. You eat something you know you should not be putting in your body, but you're just too tired to deal with it. Does that sound like you? That sounds like me, at least part of the time. Until I found Factor. Factor will deliver healthy, chef-crafted meals right to your door, and then you can prepare them in 2 minutes. It's the best of all worlds. My favorites, honey mustard chicken with rosemary potato and beans, loaded mashed potatoes and shredded chicken with mushroom gravy, bacon, and broccoli. That's there too. Try Factor today. It's gonna be a game changer for you. It has definitely changed my health and habits. Head to factor meals.com/yang50off and use code YANG50OFF to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until 9/27/26. See website for more details. I sold my car on Carvana last night.

Well, that's cool.

No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong.

So what's the problem?

That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes as smoothly. I'm waiting for the catch.

Maybe there's no catch.

That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow.

You need to relax.

I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this table wood?

I think it's laminate. Okay. Yeah, that's good.

That's close enough.

Car selling without a catch.

Sell your car today on Carvana.

Pickup fees may apply.

This week on the Andrew Yang podcast, Dolan has screwed things up, in my opinion, by inviting Donald Trump to sit there. And then as a result, security for hours and a canceled watch party outside. Like, just— he's just putting his ability to host this one asshole above the entire fan base's experience, and it's screwing with the vibe. And this, by the way, is exactly why I couldn't keep rooting for the team. And we are back. It's me, it's Zack, it's summer 2026. As a dad, I've seen Mandalorian and Grogu and Masters of the Universe. Wow. I heartily recommend Masters of the Universe. I very, very weakly recommend Mandalorian and Grogu.

What does weakly mean? Like, only see it if you're a Star Wars fan?

Yeah, there have to be a few things in place. Um, also, Do I recommend this SpaceX IPO, which is being put together as we speak? This thing is going to air after— oh my gosh, like one business day after this IPO. Holy cow. The big— you know, what is this, biggest IPO in history?

It's up there. I think it is.

Yeah. You know, I get asked, it's like, hey, would you look? I will say that I'm getting a ton of signals that there's not enough demand for these shares. And so they're doing some stuff to find stuff.

I've seen like the, the indexes are getting more allocation, are required to have more allocation into SpaceX. And then it's usually like a 90-day or 6-month delay until the indexes get them. That's happening like immediately. I've seen Fidelity, like IRAs, and some of these big asset managers are getting like lower minimums to invest. Those are things I've seen, which is depends.

Yeah, and then some of— so I believe 21 banks are involved in this thing. And so then, um, and a couple of the major firms are getting allocation where at least one person I know got a call from their broker being like, hey, we've got these, uh, SpaceX shares for you. And then the person's like, I'm not ordinarily someone who gets this sort of call.

How far down the list am I to get this call?

Yeah, this call, right? And so there's like a— so they're trying to sell $75 billion worth of shares. And let's just say that like at this point it seems like they're out there marketing to investors and not beating them off with a stick. Like, that's, that's my suggestion. And so the pros I've spoken to Look, they're trying to go public at something like a $1.77 trillion valuation. And the pros I talked to say if you are to try and actually place a rational objective value on this business, it's around half that. It's like, yeah, you know, $800 billion, maybe, maybe, yeah, $900 billion-ish or so was like a number I got a couple of times. So that's not a great sign for an IPO at $1.77 trillion. And in an ordinary situation, banks don't like to overextend in this way. And so they would have ratcheted the price down. But in this case, I think because there are 21 of them and the stakes are so high, they're just like, the price, the price. So we're going to do this thing. And as people can tell listening to this, I think the value is going to settle at something lower than its IPO price after some period of time. And I don't think that period of time is that long.

You have a lot of people trying to exit too, which usually happens in IPOs. Like there's, there's history. Like even great companies have had a tough post-IPO window.

Well, part of it is that there's a traditional 6-month lockup for— Yeah, that sucks. And they're agitating very, very hard to shorten the lockup period. I mean, there's, there's like a real— and for some people, like, like, you know, if you've been investing in this thing for years, been working on it for years, you want to exit. Cool. But there seems like a lot of eagerness, like a lot of eagerness. So, so I've been trying to parse out if this IPO does not succeed, and I'm going to say as a measurement for success that it trades within 5% of its IPO price for like, you know, a month or two, something like that.

I don't think— That's not— it doesn't pop.

Oh, it might pop, and then even if it does pop, I think it's gonna settle lower. Yeah. I don't think this thing is going to hold anywhere close to that value for really any meaningful period of time. And so I was trying to figure out whether that's going to signal like a bad thing for the market generally, because the appetite for this stuff has been really propping up, the market. Yeah. And, and some would say even the economy. Uh, and I also think that the, the fact that there are 3 of them is going to be a big deal because there's just a lot of demand you have to have to soak up not just the $75 billion in SpaceX shares, but then some similar amount for Anthropic, and then some similar amount for others.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, you know, it's like, I, I do not imagine that all 3 of these companies are going to be able to to sell their shares at this level. So I do think there's like this massive, like, race to try and get out the gates. And even though I've heard that there are some problems with this IPO, they're just like, we're freaking doing this, guys.

Yeah. And part of it again is that there are 21 banks and they need money, right? So he needs capital. I'm assuming he needs capital to build his data centers and rockets.

Yeah. I mean, there is that too. Like the entire enterprise. Go get the money right now. Not printing money that way. Yeah. So they need it. They need the $75 billion for multiple reasons.

I mean, I'll tell you my, my thought, who's not— I'm not an expert in this, guys. Like, this is not financial advice, right? But my thought on this was like, Elon Musk, we've met him. You met him. I think we met him pre-Twitter brain rot a bit. I've always been one on like IPO schmipo, like, you know, like the Facebook got roasted because, I mean, if you read Mark's investment investor letter, which I did, he was— he basically said, I don't care about making money. I own this thing now. He turned out— and what happened to him? He's like a mercenary in terms of making money for the damn thing. So there's sort of this like, you know, there's the hype, there's the hoopla, there's this, there's that. And then, and then there's fundamentals on the IPO and then fundamentals on the business and the future of the business. And so the IPO, your call, if you want to, you want to wait until it hits the bottom, you want to— you may miss it because it may just go up forever.

Who knows?

But I will say You say a lot of things about Elon, but I think he's a pretty good operator and he's got a pretty good track record of turning things into valuable companies, um, and prioritizing solving the right problems.

Even if you were to say, look, this thing's worth $900 billion, I mean, that, that's still one of the greatest companies of all time.

And for sure, and yeah, and that would make him less, you know, half, what, 50?

Yeah, but that would mean that you'd shave half of the, um, the IPO price off, you know. I mean, so that, that's like Like, but both things I think could be true in this instance. So anyway, keep an eye out for this. But as you can tell, like, I'm not exactly pumped for someone to try and like make money by buying in at the IPO price. I don't necessarily think that's a very good idea. Yeah. And I'm not, as people know, like, I'm not someone who, you know, like gives market advice very often, but on this one Yeah, like I think both things can be true. I mean, this is true about AI generally. Like, will AI change the world? Yes. Are these valuations out of whack? Yes. Like, you know, for sure. Is SpaceX going to be a world-changing, impactful company?

Probably. Mostly it already is.

Yeah, already is. Kind of like, is it also possible that it's overvalued at what they're selling it at?

Yes. But like, you know, if space is— my thought on this is if space is like the new frontier and we can start building data centers up there and XYZ colonization or even like, you know, new satellite deployment on the moon and things like that. Like, who's going to win that race? Who's going to like these types of companies? You know, it's probably—

yeah, no, a lot of ground. Like, you know, the upside is crazy.

The upside is crazy.

I'm not— I'm not negative on this firm or Elon's ability to execute, break new ground, execute well, prove a lot of people wrong. Like, you know, he's may be quite likely by the time people are listening to this, the world's first trillionaire.

Yeah. And if it's a game-changing company like this sort of stuff where the retail investors can get in cheaper, like, you know, I'm just going to say, I do not think that this—

this is not getting cheaper, folks. Time to get in cheaper was like, you know, a few years ago.

No, that's the big thing. A lot of people, they raise a ton of money. So there's a lot of people that have been in this thing for years. Yes. And they know the fundamentals. These are the smartest— frankly, it's the smartest money on the planet. Going into Elon, you know what I mean? He went to anyone he wanted, the biggest, smartest investors in the world, the whole world. And they're— they know what these numbers are. What are they going to do?

They invested years ago, is the problem, you know? Yeah.

So that's what I'm saying. They're probably going to sell as soon as they can, you know? That doesn't mean— that's just going to affect the year one, you know, the six months, the month one. That's what's going to affect. Over time, who knows? I'm bullish over time.

On the IPO, This podcast is sponsored by Helix Sleep. I've been a mattress guy since my 20s because I've always thought if you're going to spend a third of your life doing something, might as well do it right. The Helix Ultra Dawn Firm mattress has been a game changer for me. I took the sleep quiz. I needed a mattress with more support.. And this mattress delivers. I wake up revved up, ready to face the day. And the weirdest thing is that even though they did not take the sleep quiz, my kids seek this mattress out and think it's the best mattress in the house. You can tell because that's where they keep competing for space. If you won't take my word for it, Helix Sleep has a 120-day guarantee. You can return the mattress within 4 months and get it back. Yeah, I know, that's pretty crazy. It's a Real, real warranty that they have because they believe in the product for a good reason. Go to helixsleep.com/yang for 20% off site-wide. That's helixsleep.com/yang for 20% off site-wide. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you. helixsleep.com/yang. So we are going to take some listener questions. Thank you, as always, for being with us. And we've got some good ones this time.

We got good ones. Let's tee it up. We got sports, we got billionaires, we've got congressional expansion, and we've got data centers.

I think that order sounds fine. Sports it is.

Sports it is, guys. My mayor is Muslim. My bagels are Jewish. My Christian Dior and Knicks in 4. Now, by the time you're listening to this, Knicks may have won.

That's true.

Which is okay. I like when we do them earlier. I'm like, you know, maybe we're sorry. But I will say, Andrew, I'm very curious your thoughts. We got a question for you here. The question is from Joseph. He says, with the Knicks' recent success, let's go.

Mm-hmm.

Would you consider changing your fandom back to them instead of the Nets? What would it take for you to be a Knicks fan again? James Dolan giving you a formal apology or a formal apology to Jeremy Lin? Question mark. But I will say this, I'm curious also the fact that anyone who's been in New York City right now, this is the best time to ever be in New York City. The city is electric. It's everywhere. It's like being in Buffalo, but at 10x, 100x the scale.

Um, it's super fun.

It's awesome.

You know exactly what everyone's doing. You know what everyone's, uh, excited about. It's like unity. Unity. It is. Uh, it's unity except for this guy down here.

Um, but you're not a hater. Well, If anyone read his book, Andrew's book, his most recent book, thought the best explanation of your fandom journey. I think it's okay to have a fandom journey, you know what I mean? I don't think you have to be what everybody says. You be your own man, you know?

Well, you know, part of the fandom journey, to your point, it's like it is emotional. Of course. And I loved the Knicks really, you know, to the nth degree for most of my adolescence and 20s, was in the Garden for LJ's 4-point play, saw the team's performance as a metaphor for my own life and how I was doing, like made life decisions based upon my ability to watch games.

You're me in Buffalo.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, like, you know, I was a hardcore fan. But then when your emotions shift, your heart gets broken or you feel abused, like, you know, and it was interesting because, like, just I couldn't cheer for them the same way. And I had friends who, uh, and it's interesting because when I talk to various people about the Knicks, and some people I'm close to that used to be fans, a lot of them have had a journey, uh, and it's all because of the owner James Dolan. And even in this series, which should be just unadulterated joy, Dolan has screwed things up, in my opinion, by inviting Donald Trump to sit there. And then as a result, security for hours and a canceled watch party outside. Like, he's just putting his ability to host this one asshole above the entire fan base's experience, and it's screwing with the vibe. It's screwing with the mojo. Um, and this, by the way, is exactly why I couldn't keep rooting for the team. It's like, I know that the guy at the top is just not a good person.

I'm sorry, man. Yeah, I ignored Dolan, you know, but look, there are other people. Dolan's like attacked you personally. Shit, man, you can't ignore him at this point.

Yeah, it's like, I just know he's not a good dude. By the way, like, I talked to other folks in the NBA, and if you look at the Governors votes. There are a lot of votes. It's 29 to 1. And you know who the one is? James Dolan. They don't like that.

No way.

Yeah. No, the other governors are like, oh, this guy again. This guy again. He's like that guy. Yeah. And so knowing that it's him at the top of this org pains me. And so to the question, it was Joseph's question. Yeah. Dolan wasn't the owner. You know, like I could open myself, open my heart. But the other part of it too is that, so I was jilted or self-jilted or whatever. And so I became an NBA vagabond and that was very hard time. And then I tried to become a Nets fan and it didn't really click initially. But then I became friendly with the new owners at that time, like Joe and Clara Wusai. Did you really? No, and then they invited me and my family to attend a game.. And I saw their hospitality and then I thought, okay. And by the way, they're super philanthropic. They paid everyone in Barclays during COVID as if Barclays was still open, even though it wasn't open.

James seems like a good guy.

He's just like, you know, just, and they did it without any fanfare. Oh, you know what the best example of the contrast between Dolan and the Sai is? Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. James Dolan owned the New York Liberty. And then he hated the New York Liberty so much that he wouldn't even let them play in the Garden. And so they were playing in the Westchester County Center up in White Plains, losing money. And it just— please, please look this up. You will see that James Dolan sold the New York Liberty to the Scies for a song. Like, uh, uh, we'll edit this. Just go ahead and look up how much he bought it for because it's important.

Approximately $10 million.

All right, if you look at the tape, James Dolan has the New York Liberty playing the Westchester County Center hemorrhaging money in front of empty seats. Then he sells the New York Liberty to Joe and Clara Tsai for $10 million, which is a pittance. I mean, people listening to this being like, what, you could buy a pro franchise for that much? Dolan was so eager to be rid of them. And how much are the Liberty worth today?

$450 million.

$450 million, in part because you know what the Tsais did? They brought them to Barclays, had them play obviously in the pro arena and then invested in the players, invested in the amenities, invested in the travel. And it goes up from $10 million to $450 million. Dolan is the asshole who has his WNBA players playing in the Westchester County Center because he's like, screw this, like, I don't want anything to do with it. And the, the size of the, the people that buy it for $10 million and then build it up to build something real, to something real. So As you can tell, like, if James Dolan stopped, you know, owning the Knicks, then I could look at— the other thing is, you know, I mean, Dolan insulted me, but he also banned Charles Oakley, like, has his surveillance technology where he's like banned various lawyers because they belong to firms that were in lawsuits against him.

I didn't know the surveillance stuff. I didn't know he was booting out lawyers.

Yeah, some lawyer was like, I'm banned for what? And they're looking around like, what? You know, and then he's throwing a very, very significant portion of his fan base under the bus so he can like court Trump and just like look like like a, you know, a big deal. So anyway, as long as Dolan owns the Knicks, I'm out on them. But it's not a rational thing, it's genuinely emotional. Like the organ playing and everything else, I used to live and die by what was happening with the Knicks home court and everything else. And then, like, you know, that during all, like, the bad years, I just, like, you know, just felt differently. And it's been interesting trying to click in and be a true fan of another franchise. Like the Nets, and initially I gotta admit, I was there and I was like, oh, I don't feel the magic. But then over time, like I've started to feel the glimmers of like true fandom and whatnot. I've started to pay attention to like drafts and things where, you know, like the things and like rookies, painful rookies. And I did all of that with the Knicks. Like, you know, I was a huge fan of Michael Sweetney and Frank Williams and— Just two guys. Ronaldo Balkman, like all these rando Knicks that— no one can remember. Like, I, I was like there, like, you know, defending them and whatever. Anyway, so Dolan sells the Knicks, uh, I would at least like feel something. But like right now, you know, it's like I'm literally hanging out at Barclays, uh, and I will say too, Barclays is a much better deal economically because these tickets are insane at the Garden, um, not just for the Finals but all the time, all the time, you know. And it's like, it's corporates because it's like right there in the center of Manhattan. You can go see a visiting team like the Lakers or whomever at Barclays for, you know, like less than half of what it would cost in the Garden if you're into that sort of thing. But I was talking to Paul Rykoff, who's a Knicks fan, and he said even he just like probably goes to more Nets games because it's just a lot more affordable for like a normal family. So, huh? Yeah, it's a reasonable case.

Well, I think we're tonight, tonight we're recording this Tonight's Game 3, and it is a rare moment when politics and sports overlap, which is fun. So you sort of alluded to this. So what's happened is Donald Trump was now saying— and I do believe this, he's a version of a lifelong Knicks fan, the New Yorker, fine— is insisting on coming, I guess, or Dole insisting on having him. Don't know, don't care. Yeah, but Trump is going. So what's happening for us regular New Yorkers, who by the way, we cannot go to this game because it is 9 grand $50,000 plus fees for one ticket in the nosebleed upper bowl of the Garden. So you can't go to this. I mean, I have a buddy, my buddies are diehard Knicks fans. They're like, funny how they're like, you know, avert, you know, $50,000 to go to the game. Jesus. So what's happening is they are— the problem is the Garden is like this. The whole vibe is like the Garden is just electric around this area and it bleeds into the whole city. It's so cool because Garden's right in the middle of Manhattan. Yeah, but because the president's in town, The 5-block radius around the Garden is walled off and Penn Station is like airport security. So tonight's going to be a mess. Yeah, which sucks. That's the whole vibe. Now, I'll give Mondame credit. Like, this is one of the reasons I was excited for him being mayor is like, ignore politics. He believes in like New Yorkers having a good time and thinks of the people. So he's doing his own— he opened a watch party in, I think, Bryant Park was on the other side of the city, which credit him, smart move. But this sort of sucks. And I think, God, the Knicks are going to win in 4. But if they, in a weird alternate universe, they did lose tonight because of this bullshit, pardon me.

Yeah, yeah, it could be because of like the Dolan-Trump axis of douchery.

Terrible vibes.

Oh yeah, yeah, really, it is. I mean, by, by the time this airs, like, you know, the championship could be resolved.

But if it, if it turns Game 3, I mean, he's gonna get booed out. He's gonna get booed as soon as he goes down there.

Crazy thing.

I mean, Timothée Chalamet and Spike Lee out there, Ben Stiller, like, really only rallying the fans to scream at him.

If I were president and I knew my coming to a game was going to screw up the experience for blocks around and the cause of this, I'd be like, ah, like, I'll watch on TV. I'm just gonna make it all about him. Like, uh, you know, it's the usual, and Dolan's gonna make it all about him. Um, you know, I mean, it's interesting. It's like, can like a bad owner succeed? And on this one, um, you know, he might succeed still.

Yeah, let's just read the room, man. It's not the Super Bowl. Like, I think President Field go whatever games they want the vast majority of time. This is a rare, rare exception where, like, yes, this is like a unifying thing for the city, man.

He doesn't— yeah, it's messing with— makes me, you know, I mean, like, and it is like, yeah, yeah, we should change the topic. But just like, you know, I mean, I'm happy for, um, uh, New York. I'm happy for, like, fans. I'm happy for the success. I'm happy for all of it.

It's awesome, man.

Yeah, I was saying, it is a lovely feeling.

I had a friend went to dinner. She went to dinner with like 15 girlfriends in a fancy restaurant. No TVs at this restaurant. This is during game 1, and she said like towards the end of the game, people are cheering. They're like standing up and cheering because everybody's streaming the game at the fancy restaurant. That's New York right now. It's the best.

Yeah, it's fun. Thank you, listeners. Please make sure to like and subscribe. And if you have any questions, send them to mailbag@andreyang.com and we'll do our best to answer them. Thank you. Hello listeners, you like money, I like money, let's help everyone save some money. So I started Noble Mobile, the first cell phone plan that pays you to use it less, a data dividend. That's right, it's for real. Go to noblemobile.com/yang and find out how you can get bonus cash just for signing up, get months for free, the whole shebang, it's awesome. Go to noblemobile.com/yang to find out more. All right, here's the situation. You are at home, you are tired, you are hungry. There's something healthy you could cook for yourself, but you don't have it in you, so you eat crap. You eat something you know you should not be putting in your body, but you're just too tired to deal with it. Does that sound like you? That sounds like me, at least part of the time, until I found Factor. Factor will deliver healthy chef-crafted meals right to your door, and then you can prepare them in 2 minutes. It's the best of all worlds. My favorites: honey mustard chicken with rosemary potato and beans, loaded mashed potatoes and shredded chicken with mushroom gravy, bacon, and broccoli. That's there too. Try Factor today, it's gonna be a game changer for you. It has definitely changed my health and habits, head to factor meals.com/yang50off and use code YANG50OFF to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until 9/27/26. See website for more details.

Moving on from Alan. Andrew, the California quote billionaire tax proposed is destined to be a calamity, right? Do you think an AI tax to support UBI will fare any better? And do you see a scenario where the AI giants initiate the framework? Ooh, good question. If they wait for politicians to react to universal abundance, how do you think the former will like it? I'm curious about the billionaire tax and this sort of like, AI giant play. It's probably what we should talk about.

I, I think that billionaire taxes— and I know they have like a bunch of things where they're like, oh no, we'll make retroactive, you can't escape it, blah blah blah— I think billionaire tax at the state level are a mistake. I, I do think that billionaires be like, look, like there are other states, uh, like we're gonna leave. And it's just not great to target individuals like, uh, you know, to, to the point where it seems really Extractive and like, you know, like, like if you're gonna be here, then we want all this stuff from you. I think the billionaire tax in California is a mistake, and I think that is proving itself in various ways. I mean, that there— I think Sergey Brin, one of the other guys, just left, you know, decamped to Austin. And then some people would be like, oh, good riddance. It's like, you know, you understand these guys create tons of jobs, like, just by camping out somewhere. Like, you know, like, if he lives there, then there'll be, like, obviously all the people that work for him directly, but if he's invested in local companies, he does this, he does that. So I think that stuff's a mistake. I think what's going on the AI front is much more promising in the sense that it's not confined to a state. Like, it'd be, you would think, society-wide or nationwide. And it's much, much harder to renounce one's citizenship and just like peace out entirely than it is to move from the Bay Area to Austin.

Yeah, I'm actually curious. Thoughts? I think the sort of tax the rich stuff usually gets misplaced. And even though I think the spirit of it makes sense, you have people like, we're struggling, these guys have infinity money, like what the hell is going on? And our schools suck and this sucks, right? The reason it's misplaced, in my opinion, one is like most of the problems in our government and the programs are not actually related to to revenue. They usually have enough money to do it. It's just more corruption and ineptitude, blah, blah, blah. But the bigger one to me is like, so Bezos, for example, he probably has a very— like what he's most likely doing, I'm pretty confident he's doing, he's getting paid in stock by stock only. And then he gets a securities-backed loan off that stock every year that he basically just lives off as like a credit card tab, you know? And he probably has a little bit of cash that he's able to be liquid if he needs to. But that's generally how he lives his life. So he's not— which is tough because his income is somewhat zero, right? Now he's getting taxed on the growth of that company with capital gains taxes, which depending on the president, depending on what you're doing, you'd be less than your income tax. So I get that. But at the same time, his company's getting taxed usually out the ass, depending on—

You know, Bezos, in an interview the other day, said something that I thought was relatively amusing. He was like, you could double my taxes tomorrow and I guarantee you will do nothing for that poor family in Queens. And then people were like, let's try it, let's do it, la da da da da. And then, I mean, the guy is correct in the sense that his money right now, if it were to flow up to the feds, it would end up just going toward reducing the deficit by a smidgen or some other place. I mean, the family in Queens probably would not. Fuel anything. And so this is one of the major challenges of this time is that you have this AI bonanza, you have even AI CEOs being like, look, like we should pay something. And then you have a government that no one believes in with no vision or leadership. And then the people who are there just either scared of AI or like, you know, and or cheerleading for it. And you want to get the resources from the AI barons into the hands of the average family, and that would be government's role. Yeah. And so this is, you know, this is the rubber hitting the road. I do think there's an answer here. I do. And one version of it, and some people are going to hate me by saying this, but whatever, is what they did with the Trump accounts, which is You know, take the Trump name off it.

It's, it's cash to people. Yeah, it's cash to people.

And it's skipping a lot of the traditional government machinations. So Michael Dell and his wife's funding put $6 billion into these accounts for poor kids in Texas. Yeah. And so that's like billionaire to kids. You could do AI to kids and do something similar. And this is Sam Altman's National Wealth Fund for AI. And then you start distributing it to people. So like there is a path here. But I don't think it happens by like targeting folks in an individual state.

Yeah, well, that video that you're talking about with Bezos, he said that that poor family in Queens should pay no taxes.

Yeah, he's right there too.

He's probably right. I think I do like some version of like we're all sharing in the resources, you know, like, you know, yeah, we have the rich paying for the fire department, etc. But you could navigate that.

No, that's the thing that bugs me is that right now, like the there's a lot of like soak the rich, like get the billionaires. And like, look, I get it. Like, you know, I do get it. But, you know, we're here where we are. And then saying to that person, it's all your fault for being— it's like, you know, they tend to react like, yo, wait, what? Now, Michael Dell did give $6 billion to poor kids. Like, he's not totally against— and Michael Dell actually is like, you know, like a good one, in my opinion.

It's just sort of— it's sort of distraction, you know, it's misplaced. What's the real problem? Like government ineptitude, like corruption, most likely. They're— I would say the problem is more their influence on government than their actual tax rate. It's probably a lot of, you know, I don't know. Um, so, you know, I don't love being on the side like defending rich assholes either, but, uh, I just want to solve the problems, at least for me, you know.

Totally, totally.

All right, man. Uh, thank you for that question, Alan. Uh, from Jeff in Kansas City. Screw the Chiefs. Uh, what do you think, Jeff? What do you think about expanding the number of members in the US House of Representatives?

All right, good arguments on both sides. Uh, and the issue with increasing it would be like, oh, this place is unmanageable anyway, so like get more representatives, you know, might it be even worse? The counter is back when the Constitution was written up and you allocated representatives, US had many fewer people. The average member of Congress was meant to represent a certain number, and I think that number was like— Like manageable. It was like, you know, you actually could imagine them understanding what's going on. And then the districts exploded in size, but the number of members did not. So I am pro-expanding the House of Representatives. I think that the move should be, in an ideal world, the Proportional Representation Act, where you take instead of this single-member district, which leads very, very often to a two-party system, by the way, you have multi-member districts and then proportional, so you could have multiple parties and then you could expand the number.

Multi-member districts? So a district could get 3 reps, but some will be Dems, some will be Republicans, and some would be the third thing?

Yes. Be forwardists. Yeah, and that, by the way, would actually reflect the popular will.

Even in the deep blue parts.

Yeah, I mean, you look at a place like Massachusetts. Massachusetts might be 40% Republican and have zero Republican Congress members. So I'm for expansion, I'm for multi-member districts, I'm for proportional representation.

That's interesting.

The thinker, right?

There's a thinker. Well, I was more— I thought you were going a bit of a different direction too, but more, I don't know if you have more of them, there's a world where they have to talk to a lot of people in their district, which you have people right now that don't have to talk to most people in their district.

Right now the way this process is designed is that members are more and more insulated.

Yeah.

From the voters. Cause it's like, look, this is a blue zone and this is a red zone. I don't really have to listen to you. All I gotta do is make sure I get party nomination, I don't get primaried, it's like, and I got enough money to like talk to people, so I'll flank to the left or the right.

Yeah, that's crazy. No, yeah, that's my— like, that's actually— you have, you know, 10,000 people in your district, you might be able to meet 2,000, 3,000 of them.

Yeah, then you might— it might actually be like it's supposed to be, where like I actually represent you.

All right, uh, I don't want to say you've I was sort of like, we don't need more government bloat, geez, but maybe we do. The one time bloat might actually help.

I mean, this vision is a lovely one, but proportional representation, multi-member districts, freeing us of the two-party system, which is increasingly ridiculous and dumb. I mean, we have, by the way, this is literal, we have a 10% approval rating for Congress right now and a 94% reelect rate. I mean, there's like, there are very few ways out of this stuff.

Yeah, I agree.

All right, here's the situation. You are at home, you are tired, you are hungry. There's something healthy you could cook for yourself, but you don't have it in you, so you eat crap. You eat something you know you should not be putting in your body, but you're just too tired to deal with it. Does that sound like you? That sounds like me, at least part of the time, until I found Factor. Factor will deliver healthy chef-crafted meals right to your door, and then you can prepare them in 2 minutes. It's the best of all worlds. My favorites: honey mustard chicken with rosemary potato and beans, loaded mashed potatoes and shredded chicken with mushroom gravy, bacon, and broccoli. That's there too. Try Factor today, it's gonna be a game changer for you. It is definitely changed my health and habits. Head to factor meals.com/yang50off and use code yang50off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until 9/27/26. See website for more details.

All right, from Josh in Utah. Box Elder County recently approved the Stratos Project, a 9-gigawatt AI data center next to the Great Salt Lake, backed by Kevin O'Leary. Great. Projected build cost over $100 billion. Projected annual revenue north of $100 billion at full buildout. Question is, do you think a data center dividend could flip support for this data center in Utah? Should Forward take on this issue in a state like Utah. Good question.

Very interesting. Yeah, so I, I had a very meaty conversation about data centers, uh, with folks in Michigan when I was at this policy conference a week or two ago, and they had a similar situation. What was interesting is that people didn't want the data center, but the utilities literally did the math and were like, yo, we could give you zero energy bills for like the year if you approve this thing, because the thing just spits off enough money. Interesting. And so what I said to the utilities was like, look, if you prepay that or front load that, like, you could actually flip a lot of people on this. And this is why Americans— I mean, there are a bunch— some of it's misinformation, but like Americans legitimately are like, okay, wait a minute, you're going to open this data center, it's going to soak up my power, it's going to soak up my water, maybe Um, have higher bills or like problems as a result. And I'm gonna get what out of this? Like some jobs maybe that I like, certainly I don't think I'm working at the data center and like who's gonna work at the data center. Um, and so then they, they're hostile and pissed off. And so what you have to do is you have to try and, uh, introduce a dividend or a rebate on your utilities or, uh, really just like say, look, this is great. For not just some mega corp somewhere. This is great for you. And we're gonna show you by like distributing the goodies. And this goes back to a government thing is that no one believes the government actually is going to share the value with you. The government would be like, oh, don't worry, we're gonna save money. It's like, no, screw you. I don't care about you guys making money or mega corp making money. Uh, and then if, but if you were to say to them, you will make money, then they'll be like, oh, I'm listening. They wouldn't believe it at first. But then if you were like, this data center throws off so much money that we're going to send you $100, we're going to send you this and that, then like that would actually make them feel differently.

Do you think that's a federal challenge or like, can, can this be done at a local level like today and people don't— either aren't doing it?

It can and has to be done at a local level. And what happened— what's happening in Michigan is that people are protesting and failing to approve the data centers. And then the people in Michigan are like, what the heck do we do? Like, you know, no one wants to let us build these things, but these things are massive tax revenue drivers. Uh, and the folks in Michigan, I was like, look, you know, they had this, this, uh, comparison to where Ohio had 100 data centers and Michigan had like 8. And, uh, they were like, we're losing this competition. And, um, and by the way, the folks in Michigan had a very interesting, um, theory about this too, where they were like, part part of the problem is that Michigan is purple, so the leadership goes back and forth, and then, you know, there's like this clash on it. Interesting. Whereas Ohio's just flat out ran, they were like, data center, just do it. And everyone's like, and, and so there was like a holy crap, that like being a purple state might actually be a real problem. Interesting. Like in this dimension. But I think the local benefit has to be introduced, um, from the get-go to get people to be happy about it.

Have you looked at— I don't know anything about it, like Is the climate negative impact as real or is it more hyped? How bad are these things? You're like, they're gonna use my water. Is that real or is that somewhat overblown?

You know, I get the sense there's a lot of misinformation out there. And at least one of the folks I talked to in Michigan were talking about how the water is like a closed loop where they introduce a certain amount of water for cooling, but then it circulates. And so it's not like they're actually sourcing water that otherwise would would go to homes. There's also talk about how these data centers can become more and more efficient over time because they're going to have newer chipsets and less power. So yeah, yeah. So like I became— I think they make sense for a locality. I do. It's like if you were to say, look, you know, these data centers stink, like I wish they didn't exist. It's like, okay, let's put that aside for a second. Let's say I'm going to build a data center somewhere in this country. And there's going to be significant revenue associated with it that you can use for schools and bridges and roads and orphanages, like whatever you want. Right. Like, do you want it to be here? And then people will be like, oh, I don't want like these negative externalities. Like, you know, like the noise. I mean, noise isn't really a thing, but there's heat and there's— yeah, heat. Like the— but the negative externalities, when you really get down to them, it's like, you know, like a lot of it's overblown. And so if a locality is like, look, we want this data center, like, I think that they're going to benefit.

Yeah. Well, you're in your theory that money is being used effectively for schools and roads and bridges. And I think a lot of people will be like, you're going to spend $100 billion in this data center, but my public school sucks. And you know what I mean? That's probably what you're like, you know, if I'm a homeowner in that area, my You know, you're gonna hurt the value of my home and I'm not gonna see this money to your point. Like it's gotta come back to me or come back to the community in a way that that's real, you know, which is, you know, sort of your ethos. Like, you know, give, give, do the cool shit and then give people the benefits.

You know, it's good. We're like keying in on what, like some of the main issues is that people don't feel it in their lives. People don't trust. People don't believe it's gonna come through. Like the government should be, more of a pass-through and less of this like giant thing that like when something comes in, it never comes out. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like this is going to be the new vision. It's like government as like, hey, we're conduit. The problem right now is that Americans feel like it's a conduit that goes one direction, that it goes in here. And you know, a lot of governments have given, people reason to feel that way.

Why we weren't like the best liberals was like, general liberals believe the government can solve major problems.

Yeah, UBI is very much like, hey, money in, like give it to the people. And then traditional liberals were like, no, not to the people. Let's make some new programs. Let's give it to the, like the schools and the, I was like, well, I'm not against some of that stuff, but I mean, New York City is the most glaring example where we're spending $40,000 per student per year in the schools. Institutional effectiveness, and one of the most effective things institutions could do in this realm is get out of the way and pass the—

Yeah, for sure.

—resources forward. All right.

Here's the situation.

You are at home. You are tired. You are hungry. There's something healthy you could cook for yourself, but you don't have it in you, so you eat crap. You eat something you know you should not be putting in your body, but you're just too tired to deal with it. Does that sound like you? That sounds like me, at least part of the time. Until I found Factor. Factor will deliver healthy, chef-crafted meals right to your door, and then you can prepare them in 2 minutes. It's the best of all worlds. My favorites: honey mustard chicken with rosemary potato and beans, loaded mashed potatoes and shredded chicken with mushroom gravy, bacon, and broccoli. That's there too. Try Factor today, it's gonna be a game changer for you. It has definitely changed my health and habits. Head to factor meals.com/yang50off and use code yang50off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until 9/27/26. See website for more details.

I think I got one more question, a little back to billionaires but a different framing. This is from someone named Y. Thanks, Y. I believe the more billionaires we have, the more abundance we have. What are your thoughts on this idea?

Oh, well, that's interesting. Um, so the first things that came to mind for me, it's like if you want to create more billionaires, you could just just like inflate money and make us all billionaires, but then that has massive problems. Okay, so let's imagine that's not what Wang is saying. Uh, why is saying you need some more outlier successes? Yeah, so in order to become a billionaire, you generally need to be plugged into, uh, an opportunity, an industry that's going to grow much, much bigger than most things that we're exposed to. So if you think about billionaires like, or even a category billionaire, tech, there are a bunch of tech billionaires because each person who founded one of the major tech companies, like, you know, managed to ride the opportunity very, very high. You know what you don't have? You don't have a lot of, you know, like, pick something kind of close to the ground, you know, like a trucking company billionaire. Yeah, there's probably like a trucking company.

There's a few, but it's hard to run. It's hard to scale up logistics like that. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, an example, I mean, maybe, maybe like a plumber. It's like you might have 1 or 2 billionaire basketball players. In the form of Michael Jordan, LeBron James, but no billionaire ping pong players because it's just not like something that pays them much. So if you imagine, it's like, look, if you have more billionaires and, um, it would mean that you'd have more people succeeding at the highest level of something that's like super duper lucrative. Yeah, it's an interesting one. I mean, I think Logically, if you had many more very, very enormous opportunities and you had people, you know, becoming billionaires off of them, then that would be a win. The question is like, how would you create that? There's another class of billionaires I'm going to throw out there, crypto billionaires. So, you know, cryptocurrencies came up and, you know, that they're worth hundreds of billions. And so you have like these various crypto billionaires walking around. Um, one of the things I would say is like, I would love it if every billionaire took on like a really, really meaty problem and then just threw themselves at it in earnest for a long time. It was like, it, like, it was like billionaire be like, all right guys, I got education. And then someone else was like, I got, um, renewable energy. Like, I got poverty. And like, they were all just like, like, that would make me happy. Um, that's not really You know, the norm though, like to me it's like, look, we have this very dramatic, very unequal winner-take-all economic system. And then out of that system, there'll be some folks who emerge as like your huge winners. And so if you're like billionaires shouldn't exist, it's like, okay, so then what you wanted to do is go back in time and design a different economic system, which I might not even disagree with you. Like if you had an economic system that was you know, optimized, it's like maybe you don't have these folks, but like then you look at these outliers and then you blame them essentially for a system that predated them more or less in an economic system that like, that they managed to become the super winner of, uh, you know what I mean? It's like, like, you know, it's like, I can't blame LeBron for being awesome.

It's like, well, maybe the argument is like, don't hate the player, hate the game. Maybe. I think it's okay to dislike billionaires. I just don't think for me, my friends say, got tax the rich and fuck the billionaires. It's not that I even disagree with the spirit. Just think like, I think our anger is a little misplaced, you know? Let's ask, let's wrap with this, man. Anything you're excited about coming up this summer?

Summer 2026. I hope people enjoy it. I'm like, I'm, you know, I'm going to get a little bit of Sun time, a little bit of beach time. And I suppose I'm going to let everyone know on this podcast that I'm starring in a reality TV show that starts airing July 15th on Fox entitled Nation's Dumbest. And so if you Google Nation's Dumbest and Andrew Yang, you will see the list of celebrities that I'm on with. It's Ice-T, Carmen Electra, uh, JoJo, JoJo Siwa, Matt, Steve-O from Jackass, Matt Leinart. Hell yeah. And, uh, so, you know, when you ask what's going on this summer, it's like, I, I am going to be watching this with Evelyn and, uh, and, and others. It's on Fox. And, uh, I will— and you and I will unpack this a little bit, um, in the podcast that comes out that week. But the first episode of the show airs July 15th on Fox.

So it's going to be— we're going to talk about it, but it's, it's going to be fun, man.

So I hope everyone has a great summer. Uh, you know, obviously we'll be here all summer doing stuff, but like try and enjoy yourself this summer, Summer '26, get in the mix, make it best one yet. And certainly it's going to be the The reality TV summer for me that I did not expect. Love you guys.

I've been seeing blue tansy everywhere in skincare lately, but I actually discovered it through one of my favorite clean brands. Primalie Pure. I didn't believe in natural deodorant until I tried their best-selling Blue Tansy deodorant. This one is actually clean and it actually works. Blue Tansy is this really calming antioxidant that helps soothe irritation and inflammation, especially if your skin tends to react easily in areas like underarms. And what I love is that the same ingredient runs through their entire soothing collection, from facial mists when you need a little pick-me-up pick-me-up to their soothing spirulina face mask packed with raw honey, kaolin clay, and wild-crafted botanicals. I've honestly never experienced anything like it. So if your skin has been feeling a little overwhelmed lately, return to calm with Primally Pure. Their Blue Tansy line is a beautiful place to start.

A burst pipe, a dead water heater, the AC calling it quits. Who do you call? HomeServe is an easy way to handle unexpected home repairs with plans covering stuff basic homeowner's insurance usually won't. Instead of scrambling for a contractor, you make one call to get the repair process started. Join the millions of customers who trust HomeServe right now. Go to homeserve.com/podcast for 50% less your first year. That's homeserve.com/podcast. Savings compared to renewal price void in Florida.