Building Instead of Waiting: Andrew Yang’s Startup Move

Andrew Yang has recently found a new way to put money back into the hands of the people. As an entrepreneur at heart, he has started a company called Noble Mobile. This startup has gained attention because it pays you to use your phone less. Yang’s goal is to combat what he calls the “attention economy,” where companies try to keep you on your phone as much as possible. He has taken inspiration from Mark Cuban for his budget cell carrier and has even teamed up with the minimalist Light Phone. This new project comes years after his 2020 presidential campaign. At that time, Yang gave a warning that automation and AI would hollow out the labor market. He was worried that wealth would be concentrated in the hands of a few people. Although ideas like Universal Basic Income (UBI) felt fringe back then, several tech leaders have now said similar things. Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and Bernie Sanders have all discussed versions of the same warning. Because the government often won’t move quickly on these issues, Yang has decided to build a solution himself instead of waiting for Washington. On an episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan talked to Yang about his startup and what entrepreneurs can do when politicians are stagnant. Yang believes that he can help people one phone bill at a time. The startup encourages people to stop doomscrolling and focus on their real lives. By providing a financial reward for using phones less, Noble Mobile is trying to solve a modern problem with a startup approach. Yang has shown that if you want to see change, you sometimes have to build it yourself.