Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The War on Normal People
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1/13/1975
WEBSITE:
CITY: New York
STATE: NY
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
https://www.yang2020.com/; running for President as a Democrat in 2020.
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2014051214
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/no2014051214
HEADING: Yang, Andrew (Entrepreneur)
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035 __ |a (OCoLC)oca09736999
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100 1_ |a Yang, Andrew |c (Entrepreneur)
370 __ |e New York (N.Y.) |f Providence (R.I.)
372 __ |a Entrepreneurship |a Business |a Law |a Writing
373 __ |a Venture for America (Organization)
374 __ |a Entrepreneur |a Businessman |a Corporate attorney |a Author
375 __ |a male
377 __ |a eng
670 __ |a His Smart people should build things, c2014: |b t.p. (Andrew Yang) jkt. (founder/CEO Venture for America, nonprofit organization; lives in N.Y.C.)
670 __ |a Venture for America website, Apr. 11, 2014 |b (Andrew Yang; graduate, Columbia Law, Brown University)
670 __ |a USA Today website, Apr. 11, 2014 |b (Andrew Yang; corporate attorney-turned-serial entrepreneur)
PERSONAL
Born January 13, 1975; married; wife’s name Evelyn; children: two sons.
EDUCATION:Received degrees from Columbia University and Brown University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Entrepreneur and author. Venture for America, founder and CEO. Worked previously in corporate law.
Appeared in Generation Startup documentary.
AWARDS:Class of 1912 Prize, Columbia University Law School; received James Kent scholarship; recipient of honorary titles from the Entrepreneurship of the Department of Commerce, National Advisory Council for Innovation, and the White House.
WRITINGS
Columbia Law Review, editor.
SIDELIGHTS
Prior to getting involved with his profession, Andrew Yang attended Columbia University and Brown University. He has since made a name for himself through both his business and political ventures. While he devoted a short period of his life to pursuing a law career, Yang soon moved on to realize his own business projects. One of his most profitable businesses lay within the education industry. Yang eventually moved on, however, to create a new organization titled Venture for America. Through this company, Yang seeks to improve the job market throughout several major US cities by empowering modern entrepreneurs. In addition to his business aspirations, Yang also seeks to become president in the year 2020 and enact further change.
Smart People Should Build Things
Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America focuses on one of Yang’s major societal philosophies. More specifically, Yang seeks to pinpoint and explain one of the largest problems young intellectuals face in today’s world: focusing their efforts on meeting societal pressures rather than carving their own path in life. Yang proposes that, rather than seeking out white collar jobs provided by those who are already established, college graduates should instead seek to build their own businesses and bring fruition to new ideas and industries. Yang’s assertion is that by creating one’s own business, graduates can lead much more fulfilling and successful lives and expand their skill sets, rather than toiling at unfulfilling jobs to pay off exorbitant loans.
Part of Yang’s evidence toward his assertion is anecdotal. He devoted part of his life to pursuing a law career, only to realize that the field wasn’t for him. Instead, where his passion and talent truly lay was within managing his own numerous businesses. Yang ultimately presents the idea that building one’s own business from the ground up is a much more effective way of making use of personal potential and stimulating immense personal and financial growth. A Publishers Weekly reviewer remarked: “Yang’s pitch for entrepreneurship as a viable alternative to more structured careers is enticing.” In an issue of Kirkus Reviews, one contributor called the book “a galvanizing amalgam of personal history, acquired business wisdom and mentorship.”
The War on Normal People
The War on Normal People: The Truth About America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future serves as an explanation for one of Yang’s other political ideologies: creating basic income for each and every citizen. This idea is one of the major components of Yang’s political career. Much of the book involves Yang traveling from area to area, some of which are far more privileged than others. While a number of locations Yang travels to are experiencing a boom in the economy and with jobs, others are struggling, with its citizens living in deep poverty. With this exploration, Yang presents the assertion that society needs to change to better accommodate the citizens living within it. Furthermore, Yang also asserts that high amounts of need within a population with little resources to relieve this need can generate widespread discontent. Those who are able to live well are only those who have access to the best forms of education and the best tools—something which can be hard to come by in low-income communities. As a result, Yang posits that the gap between those of different levels of privilege can only continue to expand unless something is done sooner rather than later.
A Publishers Weekly contributor called the book an “eye-opening if depressing analysis.” A writer for Kirkus Reviews felt the book is “longer on description than prescription but a provocative work of social criticism.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2014, review of Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America; February 15, 2018, review of The War on Normal People: The Truth About America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future.
Publishers Weekly, November 25, 2013, review of Smart People Should Build Things, p. 47; February 19, 2018, review of The War on Normal People, p. 68.
ONLINE
Yang2020, https://www.yang2020.com (June 19, 2018), author profile.
NewHampshireYang
Meet Andrew
Andrew Yang Keynotes 2020
I’m Andrew Yang, and I’m running for President as a Democrat in 2020 because I fear for the future of our country. New technologies – robots, software, artificial intelligence – have already destroyed more than 4 million US jobs, and in the next 5-10 years, they will eliminate millions more. A third of all American workers are at risk of permanent unemployment. And this time, the jobs will not come back.
I’m not a career politician—I’m an entrepreneur who understands the economy. It’s clear to me, and to many of the nation’s best job creators, that we need to make an unprecedented change, and we need to make it now. But the establishment isn’t willing to take the necessary bold steps. As president, my first priority will be to implement Universal Basic Income for every American adult between the ages of 18 and 64: $1,000 a month, no strings attached, paid for by a new tax on the companies benefiting most from automation. UBI is just the beginning. A crisis is underway—we have to work together to stop it, or risk losing the heart of our country. The stakes have never been higher.
I was born in upstate New York in 1975. My parents immigrated from Taiwan in the 1960s and met in grad school. My Dad was a researcher at IBM—he generated 69 patents over his career—and my Mom was the systems administrator at a local university. My brother and I grew up pretty nerdy. We also grew up believing in the American Dream—it’s why my parents came here.
Andrew-Yang-Family
I studied economics and political science at Brown and went to law school at Columbia. After a brief stint as a corporate lawyer, I realized it wasn’t for me. I launched a small company in the early days of the internet that didn’t work out, and then worked for a healthcare startup, where I learned how to build a business from more experienced entrepreneurs. In my thirties, I ran a national education company that grew to become #1 in the country. I also met my wife, Evelyn, and got married. My education company was acquired, and with Evelyn’s support, I decided to take my earnings and committed myself to creating jobs in cities hit hard by the financial crisis. By that time I understood the power of entrepreneurship to generate economic growth, so I founded Venture for America, an organization that helps entrepreneurs create jobs in cities like Baltimore, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland.
VFA resonates with so many people because it’s clear there’s a growing problem in the U.S.: automation is destroying jobs and entire regions are being left behind. For years I believed new business formation was the answer—if we could train a new generation of entrepreneurs and create the right jobs in the right places, we could stop the downward spiral of growing income inequality, poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness. VFA created jobs by the thousands and continues to do amazing work across the country. But along the way, it became clear to me that job creation will not outpace the massive impending job loss due to automation. Those days are simply over.
Once I understood the magnitude of this problem, and that even our most forward-thinking politicians were not going to take the steps necessary to stem the tide, I had no choice but to act. I’m the father of two young boys. I know the country my sons will grow up in is going to be very different than the one I grew up in, and I want to look back at my life knowing I did everything in my power to create the kind of future our children deserve—an America of opportunity, freedom, equality, and abundance.
I urge you to join me. No one else is going to build a better world for us. We’re going to have to do it ourselves. Together.
— Andrew
AndrewYang Signature 2018
Learn About Andrew's Story
Intro
Early Life
Early Career
Exec Years
VFA
Yang2020
Intro
Andrew Yang is an entrepreneur and author running for President as a Democrat in 2020. In 2011 he founded Venture for America, a national entrepreneurship fellowship, and spent the last 6 years creating jobs in cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. When Andrew realized that new technology like artificial intelligence threatened to eliminate one-third of all American jobs, he knew he had to do something. In The War on Normal People (2018), he explains the mounting crisis and makes the case for implementing a universal basic income: $1,000 a month for every American adult, no strings attached.
Andrew Yang is the founder of Venture for America, a major non-profit that places top college graduates in start-ups for two years in emerging U.S. cities to generate job growth and train the next generation of entrepreneurs. Yang has been the CEO, co-founder or executive at a number of technology and education companies. Yang was named a Presidential Ambassador of Global Entrepreneurship and a Champion of Change by the White House and one of Fast Company's "100 Most Creative People in Business." He was also named to the National Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the Department of Commerce. A major documentary with an Oscar-winning director, Generation Startup, featuring Yang and Venture for America, was released in Fall 2016 and is available on Netflix and other streaming platforms. He is a graduate of Columbia Law, where he was an Editor of the Law Review, James Kent Scholar and winner of the Class of 1912 Prize, and Brown University where he graduated with degrees in Economics and Political Science.
The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's
Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is
Our Future
Publishers Weekly.
265.8 (Feb. 19, 2018): p68.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future
Andrew Yang. Hachette, $28 (304p) ISBN 9780-316-41424-1
This eye-opening if depressing analysis from Yang, founder of the nonprofit Venture for America, proves far more effective at outlining an
impending employment crisis in America than in offering practical solutions. Ascribing the crisis to increasing automation driven by artificial
intelligence, Yang provides a sober rebuttal to more optimistic thinkers, such as Thomas Friedman, who believe that Americans can be
transformed into lifelong learners, and thus keep pace with changes in the workplace that would eliminate millions of current jobs, including
white-collar ones, such as attorneys specializing in document review, and even medical positions (computers have proven to be quite adept at
reading and diagnosing radiology scans). Yang predicts, all too plausibly, that growing unemployment can lead to violent protests. But his efforts
at offering hope fall short, since ambitious measures like providing a universal basic income for every American stand little chance in an
ultrapolarized political environment. Utopian ideas like this undercut the seriousness with which his warnings about a dystopian near-future, with
even greater income inequality, deserve to be received. A
Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A529357565
Yang, Andrew: THE WAR ON NORMAL PEOPLE
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 15, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Yang, Andrew THE WAR ON NORMAL PEOPLE Hachette (Adult Nonfiction) $28.00 4, 3 ISBN: 978-0-316-41424-1
"In places where jobs disappear, society falls apart": a sobering portrait of a crumbling polity.
Yang is the founder of Venture for America, a nonprofit that, like the Peace Corps, places young college graduates in urban startup companies in
order to boost local economies. One place in dire need of such attention serves as a kind of canary in the American coal mine: Camden, New
Jersey, a definitively contracting environment where hope is at a premium and all the negative social indicators high--all because the local
economy has declined and disappeared. This is all part of what the author terms the "Great Displacement," which is the product of
financialization, globalization, and technologization--i.e., processes that make jobs at the lower rungs of the social ladder very hard to come by, if
not extinct. This world of "normal people" may be besieged, but that of the well-heeled, well-schooled, and technological is very bright indeed.
As Yang notes, the average starting salary in Silicon Valley for engineers is nearing $200,000, a draw that has led to a decline in humanities
enrollments and boost in technical degrees, so much so that Stanford University might just as well be renamed the Stanford Institute of
Technology. In a rather depressing tour of have and have-not places (and all too many have-not places have "a casino smack dab in the middle of
their downtown"), Yang projects that the latter are likely to grow while the former will become smaller, more isolated enclaves, a vision out of
H.G. Wells in which "automation and the lack of opportunity" yield a legacy of social ruin. The author's support of a guaranteed basic income is
just one aspect of a platform to fend off that bleak future. He also looks at such things as the "social credit" system of bartering goods and
services and reforming the higher education system to "teach and demonstrate some values."
Longer on description than prescription but a provocative work of social criticism.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Yang, Andrew: THE WAR ON NORMAL PEOPLE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527248216/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5011f5b6. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A527248216
Yang, Andrew: SMART PEOPLE SHOULD BUILD
THINGS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Jan. 15, 2014):
COPYRIGHT 2014 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Yang, Andrew SMART PEOPLE SHOULD BUILD THINGS Harper Business (Adult Nonfiction) $26.99 2, 24 ISBN: 978-0-06-229204-9
A small-business guidebook promoting entrepreneurialism over a corporate career. Yang, the founder of Venture for America, a program steering
new college graduates toward startup businesses, believes in the power of innovation and venture development. In his first book, which could be
perceived as a thinly veiled promotional vehicle for his nonprofit organization, the author clearly advances the idea of new business-building
rather than universities' robotically funneling top grads toward traditional high-profile arenas like financial institutions, law firms or management
consultancies. "I meet seniors in college all the time," writes Yang, "and they have a very vague idea of what roles are available to them beyond
the obvious ones and little sense of how the economy functions." On the other hand, he writes, there are unlimited possibilities in startup
businesses once candidates gain training and on-site experience. Yang generously shares his own personal journey: being raised "conscious of
money," spending uninspiring years in law school, then creating a succession of influential companies that made him a millionaire at age 34. His
success story of finding fulfillment in the nonprofit sector after overcoming the harsh realities of student loan debt and fleeting job satisfaction
forms the foundation of the book's principles of entrepreneurial team building, dedication and earnest product development. Yang firmly believes
initiatives like Venture for America stimulate new graduates to build startup businesses rather than becoming individual contributors in what is
often a creativity-stifling corporate world environment. This enterprising outlook expands employment options and opportunities in nontraditional
job sectors, as well. The author's use of business statistics and bullet-pointed lists of his own lessons learned are enlightening and frequently
surprising and moves much of his pro-entrepreneurship slant from conventional wisdom into fact-based guidance for the "young, hungry talent"
he hopes will help rebuild the American economy. A galvanizing amalgam of personal history, acquired business wisdom and mentorship.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Yang, Andrew: SMART PEOPLE SHOULD BUILD THINGS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Jan. 2014. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A355395722/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d3a43a0f. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A355395722
Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our
Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs,
and Create New Jobs in America
Publishers Weekly.
260.48 (Nov. 25, 2013): p47.
COPYRIGHT 2013 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in
America Andrew Yang. Harper Business, $26.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-06-229204-9
Entrepreneur and "recovering lawyer" Yang is the founder and CEO of Venture for America, a nonprofit that seeks to match top graduates with
startups and other high-growth companies. Yang suggests that many young people graduate from college and seek jobs in finance, law, and
medicine because it's expected of them. The downside is that many of these promising young people hit their mid-20s with tons of student debt,
and realize they've been trained very narrowly, in addition to not enjoying their jobs. How much could the world be changed if these young and
energetic people went to startups, rather than going corporate? Yang's pitch for entrepreneurship as a viable alternative to more structured careers
is enticing, but readers will get the book's points after the first 10 pages. Overall the book, which contains far too much of Yang's own story, reads
like an advertisement for Venture for America. A few halfhearted tips only serve to throw the overall weak presentation into stark relief. Agent:
Byrd Leavell, Waxman Leavell Literary. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in
America." Publishers Weekly, 25 Nov. 2013, p. 47. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A351612057/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=4c44dd7d. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A351612057