On Feb. 18, 2026, Andrew Yang, the entrepreneur, who ran for President, and Mayor of NYC, in 2020 and 2021 both under the Democratic party, and the founder of the Forward Party (after leaving the Democrats) came to the Bookends store in Ridgewood NJ, where he was promoting his new book, “Hey Yang, Where’s my thousand bucks?”. 

Who is Andrew Yang?

Andrew Yang, is  a  businessman, entrepreneur, lobbyist, and political commentator, who ran for President of the United States in 2020, trying to seek the Democratic  presidential nominee, and the mayor of New York City in 2021, respectively.

Although he was unsuccessful in gaining either the nominee nor winning those races, he became quite well known because of his unique ideas and style 

In late 2021, he left the Democratic Party, and along with former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (who had also left the Republican Party) to form the Forward Party, a third party, aiming towards the center.

Before politics Andrew Yang, was a corporate attorney for Davis Polk & Wardwell for 5 months, which he described as a “pie eating contest”  and the prize was “more pie”. He called it “the worst 5 months of his life”. In February 2000, he joined his office mate Jonathan Phillips in launching Stargiving, a website for celebrity affiliated philanthropic fundraising; it saw modest success, but folded in 2002, when the dot com bubble burst. His biggest business successes came with Manhattan prep, when after joining in 2006, he quickly became the CEO, and quickly expanded the firm, from 5 locations to 69, the revenue increased from 2 million to 17 million dollars. The company surged during the 2008 financial crisis as many unemployed professionals sought MBAs, leading to year-over-year enrollment growth of 50%. Following the sale of Manhattan prep to Kaplan tech in 2009, he founded “Venture for America”, a non profit venture program that placed top college graduates in economically struggling cities, to spur job growth. By 2017, it had grown into a million dollar charity, and had trained hundreds of fellows who helped create thousands of jobs. This success led the Obama administration to name Yang a “Champion of Change” in 2012 and a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship in 2015.

On November 6th 2017, Yang declared his run for President of the United States in the Democratic primary. Yang was initially seen as a long shot candidate by media outlets, due to him being a businessman with no political insider experience. However Yang’s book the “war on normal people”, which discussed job displacement, and Universal Basic Income, helped build his profile. He started to become more popular after going on the Joe Rogan show in 2019. Despite being a Democrat, he gained a reputation for his willingness to go on conservative news outlets, like going on the Daily Wire and Fox News. Some of the key campaign ideas he ran on was the Freedom Dividend, a version of Universal Basic income(UBI) in which any American Adult over 18, would receive $1000, and it was universal, meaning everyone would get it. His main reasoning for it, was that “In the next 12 years, 1 out of 3 American workers are at risk of losing their jobs to new technologies”, and that to avoid an unprecedented crisis, UBI, would be needed to modernize the economy when more new technologies such as AI emerge, reduce poverty and sustain capitalism. Despite growing popularity with UBI, a spotlight boost from Joe Rogan, and the Yang Gang (Yang’s supporters, which included some celebrities like Ken Jeong, Dave Chappelle and Elon Musk), Yang wasn’t able to secure enough delegates, and dropped out on February 11th 2020, on the night of the New Hampshire caucus. Yang later endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for the nomination, who eventually won the Democratic nomination, and later won the general election.

In January 2021, Yang declared his run for Mayor of New York City. Due to his name recognition, from his presidential run, Yang had high momentum, and led early on in the Democratic primary polls. His campaign focused on cash relief/basic income style (similar to his UBI plans), economic recovery after COVID-19, support for small businesses, and addressing anti Asian hate and public safety. However, he soon faded in the polls, as the COVID recovery message became irrelevant as the city reopened, and some voters in the city felt like he didn’t understand City politics that well. He eventually lost the primary to Eric Adams, who would later become the mayor from 2022 to 2026.  

After losing the NYC primary, Yang left the Democratic party and founded a political action committee called the Forward Party, which in 2022 became an independent third party, with Yang serving as the co-chair.

Book launch and interview

At the Bookends store in Ridgewood NJ, Yang discussed AI and shared his experience running for President and Mayor, and trying to stay optimistic while you’re still young. Yang also spoke about having an alternate presidential electoral system, such as one, where in an election, the one who gets the second most votes, in the popular vote, becomes the Vice President, or another version, where there’s a separate White House, and that person signs executive orders and meets important people, but not be an actual President. 

I met Mr. Yang and had an opportunity ask him some follow up questions:

​​[VS]: What led you to the creation of the forward party? What made you realize that we were in need of a third party?  

[AY]: I realized that the two-party system had bad incentives that were not going to lead to solving problems.  And the best way to change it was a new political movement.   

[VS]: What are your thoughts on political polarization, especially in regards to some of the major events last year? 

[AY]: The most ideological voters tend to vote in our party primaries, which only draw 11% of the vote.  If you changed the primaries, you’d transform our politics for the better.   

[VS]: In what ways do you think UBI (Universal Basic Income) could be useful, especially in regards to the affordability crisis?

[AY]: Putting money into people’s hands would be the best way to help families live a better life, and AI is going to affect our workforce dramatically.   

[VS]: You’ve talked about AI taking away jobs. What more of an impact do you think AI will have on the economy, foreign policy and the rest of the twenty-first century? Do you think that makes UBI more relevant?

[AY]: AI is going to eliminate millions of jobs – and this process has already begun. It will transform our economy and make it ever more extreme, as well as distort our politics. Universal Basic Income is more vital than ever.