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Before I decided to run for president, I was running an organization I founded called Venture for America (VFA). This non-profit mentored hundreds of young entrepreneurs and helped them start businesses in Detroit, St. Louis, Columbus, Baltimore, and many other struggling cities. While running VFA, I met thousands of Americans all across the nation.
Over those years, what I saw shocked me and taught me two things:
- The American economy no longer works for most Americans, leaving millions of families and communities behind.
- Opportunities for Americans have been getting wiped out by the millions because of artificial intelligence and automation, a problem that will get much worse in the next decade.
Walking through abandoned neighborhoods and boarded up businesses served as an eye-opener for me. I decided to put my thoughts into a book and wrote The War on Normal People.
In my book, I tell the story of most Americans. Automation, not immigrants, has wiped out four million manufacturing jobs since 2000, and it’s about to do the same thing to people who work in retail, food service/prep, customer service, and transportation, but it's not going to stop there. Industries such as insurance, accounting, medicine, and law will also see the impact of AI and automation. Many reports have shown that 15-47% of current jobs will be automated by 2030.
We are going through the greatest technological and economic shift in human history, and our American communities and values are crumbling. We're leaving behind a poorer world for our children.
As I came to terms with the state of labor in America, I traveled around speaking to Congressional leaders, governors, and even tech leaders presenting my findings. I asked a simple question: What is our plan to deal with the greatest technological shift in human history?
Not a single one had a real answer. The most common answer was, “We should retrain Americans for the jobs of the future,” despite our government being terrible at retraining (direct link to PDF). Sadly, our political establishment is out to lunch while automation is quietly reshaping our economy in a way that doesn't work for most of us.
After hearing our leaders present no reasonable solutions, I decided to run for President.
This is not a decision I made lightly. My brother and I were raised in upstate New York, the children of Taiwanese immigrants. We spent our time reading sci-fi and comic books, not dreaming of the White House. Our parents pushed us to do well in school—I ended up studying economics at Brown, and Law at Columbia. That is what I was ‘supposed’ to do—be good at school, get a good job. While we never thought of running for office, my brother and I did grow up believing in the American dream because we were evidence of it.
Sadly, that dream is now dying. The chances that an American born in 1990 will earn more than their parents are down to 50%; in 1940, that same figure was 92%. Right now, in the richest nation in the history of the world, in year 10 of an economic expansion, 40% of Americans cannot afford an unexpected $400 bill.
Today, I’m the husband to an amazing woman and 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. An America in which you can be anything you want to be if you work hard enough.
I am not a politician—I’m a problem solver, and I’m running to solve the biggest problems of our time. My ask to you today is simple—will you join me? Will you stand up against our broken system, and build a new economy—one that puts humanity first?
If you believe in what we are doing, please contribute just $10 to our campaign today. If we can get 200,000 people to donate, we will be the story of the Democratic debates in June.
Onward,
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