60 Andrew Yang Quotes From Former 2020 Democratic Candidate

After co-signs from celebrities such as Joe Rogan and Donald Glover, American entrepreneur and lawyer Andrew Yang’s 2020 presidential campaign blew up practically overnight.

Below are Andrew Yang quotes that illustrate the former presidential candidate’s upbringing, societal views, and business know-how. 

Would you have voted for Andrew Yang? 

Andrew Yang is a first-generation American born of Taiwanese immigrants.

Yang’s most popular nonprofit is Venture for America, which supports the next generation of entrepreneurs by connecting them to startups. 

Yang’s presidential candidacy gained momentum in 2019 after an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience and a string of high-profile endorsements.

After a less-than-stellar showing at the New Hampshire primary, Andrew Yang dropped out of the race in February 2020. 

Interested in learning more about Andrew Yang?

Check out the quotes below!

Powerful Andrew Yang quotes

1. “Overnight successes are generally years in the making. And most progress is made in isolation, far from the public eye.” – Andrew Yang

2. “Mistakes are acceptable if they’re the result of moving forward.” – Andrew Yang

3. “It might be a lot easier to take risks if you’re part of a group who will look out for one another.” – Andrew Yang

4. “Income taxes are very poor at generating income from automation because the gains are realized by technology companies that are experts at not paying taxes.” – Andrew Yang

5. “Time only flows in one direction, and progress is a good thing as long as its benefits are shared.” – Andrew Yang

6. “Scarcity will not save us. Abundance will.” – Andrew Yang

7. “The challenge we must overcome is that humans need work more than work needs us.” – Andrew Yang

8. “Intelligence and character aren’t the same things at all. Pretending that they are will lead us to ruin.” – Andrew Yang

9. “I can’t sit by and do nothing as our country disintegrates.” – Andrew Yang

Andrew Yang quotes about entrepreneurship and business

10. “In my experience, entrepreneurship tends to be kind of cumulative, like a layer cake. Taking some time away can make it hard to rev up.” – Andrew Yang

11. “Capital doesn’t care about us.” – Andrew Yang

12. “The market rewards business leaders for making things more efficient. Efficiency doesn’t love normal people.” – Andrew Yang

13. “Building a successful business requires a combination of human capital, financial resources, market opportunity, persistence, community support, and even luck.” – Andrew Yang

14. “I have started or run several companies and spent time with dozens of entrepreneurs over the years. Virtually none of them, in my experience, made meaningful personnel or resource-allocation decisions based on incentives or policies.” – Andrew Yang

15. “After a couple of years in a professional setting, you’ll get used to dressing presentably, preparing for meetings, speaking appropriately, showing up on time, writing professional correspondence, etc.” – Andrew Yang

16. “There is limited or no market reward at present for keeping families together, upgrading infrastructure, lifelong education, preventative care, or improving democracy.” – Andrew Yang

17. “People love Twinkies, and everyone knows about them, yet Hostess went bankrupt. Attention and commercial success have an uncertain relationship in business.” – Andrew Yang

18. “You will almost always leave a professional services environment with a few noteworthy friends and relationships. These contacts can prove to be extremely valuable both personally and professionally.” – Andrew Yang

19. “People generally think of technology simply as a spur to start new businesses. But the Internet has also made it possible for more businesses to compete for any given opportunity.” – Andrew Yang

20. “Every entrepreneur doesn’t need to be technical – there are plenty of opportunities out there for people who aren’t coders.” – Andrew Yang

21. “Intellectual capital drives financial capital and growth.” – Andrew Yang

22. “Starting a successful company is one of the hardest things anyone does.” – Andrew Yang

23. “Tell young girls they can be anything, including entrepreneurs and self-made billionaires. Encourage your friends/daughters/female students/yourself to take a shot.” – Andrew Yang

24. “The vast majority of small business owners want nothing to do with figuring out a website. They are neck-deep in their business trying to keep it going.” – Andrew Yang

Andrew Yang quotes about society

25. “I’m a capitalist, and I believe that universal basic income is necessary for capitalism to continue.” – Andrew Yang

26. “As a society, we can’t hide from the future; we have to build and own it.” – Andrew Yang

27. “All you need is self-driving cars to destabilize society.” – Andrew Yang

28. “Most Americans agree that technology is going to eliminate many more jobs than it is going to create.” – Andrew Yang

29. “College is being dramatically overprescribed and oversold as the answer to all of our job-related economic problems.” – Andrew Yang

30. “The United States should provide an annual income of $12,000 for each American aged 18–64, with the amount indexed to increase with inflation.” – Andrew Yang

31. “If we create enough new companies, there will be additional opportunities for people at every rung of the educational ladder.” – Andrew Yang

32. “The idea that poor people will be irresponsible with their money and squander it seems to be a product of deep-seated biases rather than emblematic of the truth.” – Andrew Yang

33. “The future without jobs will come to resemble either the cultivated benevolence of Star Trek or the desperate scramble for resources of Mad Max.” – Andrew Yang

34. “If a company is growing, then people’s roles often grow and change, and opportunities abound.” – Andrew Yang

35. “Asking the government to fix our economy is like asking an editor to fix a movie, but in this case, the editor’s not even of one mind.” – Andrew Yang

36. “Knowing what’s truly normal or average in a big country like America requires some work.” – Andrew Yang

37. “Our fixation on college readiness leads our high school curricula toward purely academic subjects and away from life skills.” – Andrew Yang

38. “In places where jobs disappear, society falls apart.” – Andrew Yang

39. “Our lack of family leave for new parents is barbaric, antifamily, sexist, regressive, economically irrational, and just plain stupid.” – Andrew Yang

40. “One could argue that it is essential for any democracy to do all it can to keep its population free of a mindset of scarcity in order to make better decisions.” – Andrew Yang

41. “Many of the scrappy young people I meet who are the first in their family to go to college feel that they have to bring home a steady paycheck to make their family’s sacrifices worthwhile.” – Andrew Yang

Andrew Yang quotes about everyday life

42. “The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is push my dog off of me. He likes to sleep on top of me. I think it’s because I’m warm and breathing.” – Andrew Yang

43. “I try not to bring my phone to the gym – it’s too tempting to play with it.” – Andrew Yang

44. “If I need a pick-me-up, I pull up a memo file on my phone and type in three things I’m grateful for. The things I’ve typed on other days are still there. It’s a long list. Always helps.” – Andrew Yang

45. “I wear a suit most days, in part because it’s suitable for any type of meeting and in part because it takes the thought out of it.” – Andrew Yang

46. “Before Starbucks, there wasn’t as much of a coffeehouse routine; we generally drank really cruddy diner coffee.” – Andrew Yang

Andrew Yang quotes about upbringing

47. “When I graduated from Brown, I had a very limited conception of jobs, careers, and what I wanted to do. Basically, I figured I should do some kind of thought work that paid well, but I wasn’t sure what.” – Andrew Yang

48. “Back in 2001, my first start-up was mentioned in the ‘New York Times’ and ‘USA Today.’ I figured that would drive thousands of visitors to the site and tons of new business. Instead, only a handful of people visited our site, and not much business came of it at all.” – Andrew Yang

49. “When I was growing up, I’d study for days trying to get good grades. When I’d get an ‘A,’ I’d feel elation for about 30 seconds, and then a feeling of emptiness.” – Andrew Yang

50. “I probably looked pretty conventionally successful as a 24-year-old getting paid $125,000 a year, plus bonus, wearing suits, and living in a Manhattan apartment. But I hated my job, I didn’t admire the people I was working with, and I felt that I was becoming a smaller, less imaginative, less risk-taking, less likable version of myself.” – Andrew Yang

More Andrew Yang quotes and sayings

51. “The market doesn’t care what’s best for us.” – Andrew Yang

52. “Are we not, as the citizens of the United States, the owners of this country?” – Andrew Yang

53. “Our job-based health insurance system does the very thing we most want to avoid it discourages businesses from hiring.” – Andrew Yang

54. “The system rewards activity and output over health improvements and outcomes.” – Andrew Yang

55. “The subsistence and scarcity model is grinding more and more people up. Preserving it is the thing we must give up first.” – Andrew Yang

56. “Increasing automation accompanied by social ruin. We must make the market serve humanity rather than have humanity continue to serve the market.” – Andrew Yang

57. “So the average American worker has less than an associate’s degree and makes about $17 per hour.” – Andrew Yang

58. “The best approach is what they do at the Cleveland Clinic doctors simply get paid flat salaries.” – Andrew Yang

59. “Some of the winners in the current system would make less money in the new world even as patient care improves.” – Andrew Yang

60. “There’s a big distinction between humans as humans and humans as workers. The former are indispensable. The latter may not be.” – Andrew Yang

What background does your ideal president have? 

If there is one thing that Andrew Yang knew, it was entrepreneurship.

Like President Donald Trump, Yang had no previous political experience when he began his presidential campaign in 2017.

Even within his website, Yang wanted his viewers to know that he was “not a politician.” 

Like Trump, his outsider persona is one of the many reasons that the “Yang Gang” was so drawn to him as a Democratic nominee.

And unlike Trump, Yang was an advocate for change and strived to spread knowledge and opportunity throughout the younger generation, through his nonprofit Venture for America.

Although Yang won’t be stepping into the Oval Office in 2020, he says that his campaign is “just getting started.” 

Which of these insightful Andrew Yang quotes is your favorite?

Share your thoughts below!