Andrew Yang
Founder and CEO of Venture for America, a Fellowship program for recent grads who want to revitalize cities.
Discussion
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Andrew Yang
@andrewyangvfa · CEO of VFA
Hi, I'm Andrew Yang, Founder & CEO of Venture for America, a Fellowship program for recent college graduates who want to build companies and revitalize cities through entrepreneurship. Prior to VFA I was the CEO of Manhattan Prep and in a past life I was a corporate lawyer. I tell the story of Venture for America and the current landscape of entrepreneurship in my book "Smart People Should Build Things". Ask away!
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Ben Center
@benhcenter · Investor Relations Associate, Onevest
@andrewyangvfa thank you for your time! How did you design the interviewing process for VFA Fellows? I went through part of the process and was intrigued with the originality of the different steps, as well as the intensity of the group stage.
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Andrew Yang
@andrewyangvfa · CEO of VFA
@benhcenter Hey Ben. We took some best practices from some other orgs and then put a VFA take on it. Our process has evolved over the years and improved. Our hope is that people feel like they learned something from going through it. That's very much the VFA mantra - always try and spur both introspection and development.
Ben Center
@benhcenter · Investor Relations Associate, Onevest
@andrewyangvfa Thank you for your reply Andrew. I can definitely say I learned from that process. The biggest lesson: always be authentic. The process does a great job of drawing out authenticity, and leaves little room for fluffy interview BS and superficiality. Thanks again!
Melissa Joy Kong
@melissajoykong · Content, Product Hunt
Hi Andrew! You became the CEO of a major test prep company (Manhattan GMAT) at age 31. That kind of thing just doesn't happen for most people. :-)
When you think back on your journey pre-31-years-old, what are the 4-5 critical moments, lessons, mindsets that led you to becoming a CEO at such a young age?
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Andrew Yang
@andrewyangvfa · CEO of VFA
@melissajoykong Thanks Melissa. I agree that I was extremely fortunate to have had that opportunity, and sometimes think about how different things would have been if I hadn't been introduced to Zeke. The main things I'd reflect on as positive moves in that direction were 1. I started and ran a couple things during my twenties (an Internet company that failed, a party network). Win or lose, that stuff makes you more capable of figuring out what you need to do. It's one reason why so many successful entrepreneurs have failures in their past. Trying and failing is much better preparation than not trying. 2. The jobs I did required general management of diverse people that weren't there for money or brand. You get better at relating to and understanding different sorts of people. 3. I worked with Zeke for 5 years and he had confidence in me. You have to do great work so people want to give you opportunities. 4. My friend thought well enough of me to introduce me to Zeke years earlier. Friends matter, and being someone who people would entrust with significant responsibility (from your dog up to a company) matters. Hope this is somewhat helpful!
daniellevine
@daniellevine · Docket.report
@andrewyangvfa Hey Andrew! Thank's for doing this AMA. I'm wondering, what's the best thing you've come across in the last 30 days and why? Could be anything, a product, an article, a tea, a quote. Anything! Thanks for answering.
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Andrew Yang
@andrewyangvfa · CEO of VFA
@daniellevine Two articles in the Atlantic blew my mind in the past two weeks. The first one was 'Silicon Valley Suicides,' about a string of suicides in a Palo Alto high school among high-achieving Asian kids. It got me thinking both about how our economy and the meritocracy is wired and how I want to try and raise my kids. The second was an article about the diverging fates of American cities. http://www.theatlantic.com/busin... Apparently a lot of it was deregulation of airlines, banks, retail, etc.
Lukas Fittl
@lukasfittl · Product Hunt
@andrewyangvfa Thanks for taking the time to chat!
Whats the best way you think founders and employees at a tech startup could contribute to the mission of revitalizing cities?
If one looks at cities like San Francisco, I often feel like there is a parallel world of tech startups that seem to exist without really interacting and caring about the actual city underneath. I really wish it'd be different, but often see myself being too ignorant or simply without enough time to spare.
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Andrew Yang
@andrewyangvfa · CEO of VFA
@lukasfittl It's a great question Lukas. In SF the situation is a bit different. A tech startup in San Antonio or New Orleans is pretty directly impactful just because there aren't that many growth firms or opportunities. In SF I actually think the bar is higher - the rest of the country needs what you guys have. My thought would be to either find an on-the-ground org in SF that could use your help (folks like the Full Circle Fund do great work) OR pick another place like your hometown and put your energies, relationships and resources to work. I'd almost prefer the latter. Your hometown or university would look up to you like you wouldn't believe, and they need you worse than you think!!!
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg · Former Product Hunt
Hey Andrew. Thanks for joining and for creating VFA (some of my best friends are in the first class).
Obviously there's so much great stuff you guys are doing that's highlighted everywhere - but can you tell us a bit about the challenges you've faced? What's the one critique of VFA that you are most sympathetic to?
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Andrew Yang
@andrewyangvfa · CEO of VFA
@eriktorenberg The challenges that people in VFA face tend to be as much personal and professional. It's more "What do I care about?" as much as it is any technical or sales tasks. I know that I would have struggled mightily if I'd moved to a new city as a 22-year old for a host of personal reasons. The best things about VFA are also the hardest - we put people in different environments where they get space (sometimes too much so) and may not have many natural connections. How does someone deal with that and grow? Our expectations of Fellows to help revitalize cities are almost unrealistically sky-high, and in some ways cater to the less circumspect elements of the competitive meritocracy. We're about people, and people have many things going on independent of what we would wish for and of them. I remind myself of what I was like at 22 all of the time - and it wasn't too awesome, to be honest.
Alex Carter
@alexcartaz · Operations @ 60dB. Ex-PH Podcasts 😻
Hi Andrew! VFA has been around for almost 5 years now. What have been the biggest successes of the program to date? What have you changed since its inception to improve the program overall?
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Andrew Yang
@andrewyangvfa · CEO of VFA
@alexcartaz Thanks Alex. The biggest successes have been seeing VFA's Fellows grow into managers and leaders. We've had over a dozen company founders out of our first two years, and many of the companies have really taken off. Others run teams and are huge contributors at their orgs. You can't anticipate that sort of thing. My first company flopped, so I know how tough it is. That we've had so many people take on the challenge of starting a company and do it successfully is amazing to me.
Alex Carter
@alexcartaz · Operations @ 60dB. Ex-PH Podcasts 😻
Do you think higher education is broken? What is the biggest limiting factor to minting more capable founders, entrepreneurs, and early stage employees in the ecosystem?
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Andrew Yang
@andrewyangvfa · CEO of VFA
@alexcartaz The biggest problem with higher education is that it doesn't really allow for failure. If you actually fail a class you get dinged from every competitive process. Meanwhile, entrepreneurship requires failure in ways big and small, day in and day out. An effective salesperson is like a major league hitter, in that if you get on base 30% of the time you're doing phenomenally well. Our schools are doing a terrible job of training that reality and mindset. It starts young and persists through college. The best way to address this is to kick kids out of the classroom for a couple years (i.e. gap years) to give them some context and perspective, put real money and customers on the line in any entrepreneurship class or program, and incorporate work into college whenever possible (e.g. coop programs like Northeastern).
Andrew Ettinger
@andrewett · Product Marketing, Twitter (ex-PH)
What kind of placement do Venture for America alumni seek?
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Andrew Yang
@andrewyangvfa · CEO of VFA
@andrewmettinger Hey Andrew. About a quarter of VFA Alums start their own companies, which is amazing. Another 50% are managers at early-stage companies, startups and orgs in VFA cities. About 20 percent are managers at startups or orgs in a non-VFA city, typically either SF or NY with a few in DC. And the remainder are abroad (Mongolia, Zimbabwe) or in grad school (GSB, LSE). So if the goal is to be a manager at a startup or early-stage company, we're a very good bet!
Andrew Ettinger
@andrewett · Product Marketing, Twitter (ex-PH)
What entrepreneurship tools are higher learning facilities failing to address? Are any of them feasible for large institutions?
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Andrew Yang
@andrewyangvfa · CEO of VFA
@andrewmettinger One of the biggest overlooked elements in school is sales. Any entrepreneur is going to need to do a lot of it. But sales is looked down upon in high learning as unintellectual. It shouldn't be. Good sales is a huge difference-maker for any org and any entrepreneur.
After that, probably building and tech proficiency. But not everyone is going to be a coder, nor should they be.