Andrew Yang launches Noble Mobile: $50/month unlimited data with a cash-back dividend for using your phone less

package. Um I believe we have our next guest in the reream waiting room. Do we believe Andrew Yang is is joining. Oh, thank you so much. Welcome to welcome to the stream. how you doing the show. Good to meet you. Hey guys, thanks for having me. Great to be here. Thanks so much for hopping on early. Uh great to meet you.

Um uh wanted to be on the show to get an update on uh you and and and everything going on, but then also there's so many questions about AI, AGI, UBI, so many acronyms.

I'm sure we'll go through all of them, but uh why don't you just give us a little bit of a reintroduction for those who might not be familiar what you're up to these days? Sure thing. People remember me from my 2020 presidential campaign saying that AI was going to come.

It was going to eat the jobs and that we should shift to putting money into people's hands more quickly and broadly. Imagine making that case in Iowa in 2020 at truck stops before AI had actually arrived on the scene.

But now here we are 5 years later and I dare say a lot of the folks who are watching this are nodding their heads being like, "Oh yeah, you know, we're going to do a number on a lot of rank and file entry-level workers.

" Uh, so over the last number of years, I've been trying to figure out how to get money back into people's hands. I was inspired by my friend Mark Cuban, who started cost plus drugs. You guys had Mark on recently, right? We did a couple weeks ago. He was great. Yeah.

So I thought, can we cost plus anything else in American life? And I realized that we're spending 170 billion or so on our cell phone services and data. I was paying Verizon over a hundred dollars a month. 140 a month to be precise.

Uh and meanwhile, Verizon and AT&T paid out 18 billion in shareholder dividends in the last 12 months. So you can kind of start doing some math and realize that uh Americans are paying twice as much for data as people in other countries.

Uh so today is the kickoff of Noble Mobile where we try and put money back into Americans hands and uh hopefully have people dooms a little bit less, live a little better. We're having a big party uh in New York City on Thursday night. Uh you guys are not in New York, right?

And having you guys come as VIPs and hang out. We would we'll be there spirit we'll be there spiritually. Um, but break down break down uh I I I know kind of kind of the mechanics of Noble Mobile, but break it down for for the audience. How how does uh what's the um how does it actually work?

Um well, before I get into this, I'd actually love to put you guys on the spot and ask who you use for your wireless provider. So, I I said I was I use Verizon. They've been fleecing me for years. Verizon. Yeah, they have the same bad saying. I I actually have a I actually have an iMessage here. Uh, your bill is ready.

This is not a joke. 11:45 this came in. Um, your bill is ready.

I just I just pay it and I and I don't I don't think too much about it, but I'm sure I'm getting fleece because I probably signed up on some like super cheap contract about a decade ago and it's gone up every month and you know uh it's uh ads are like lock in the price in parenthesis because we're just going to keep on raising it.

But the the craziest thing is when you guys travel abroad, when I was on Verizon, I went to Europe with my family this summer and the travel pass cost 10 bucks a day uh to put yourself on the the foreign carriers towers. You know how much Verizon, AT&T are spending to put you on uh the partners' about $2. 50.

So why on earth would you charge us $10 or $12 a day if it's going to cost you $250? like the the entire industry when you start digging in um there's just a lot of profiteering. Yeah. So, so you guys pay you guys pay people to use their phone less.

Does that mean I start out with a like but but break down the actual mechanics of of how that works on a on a month-to-month basis? Sure thing. So, check it out. I'll use myself. Um I I know I use my phone for doom scrolling and social media a little bit too much.

Um, but at the same time, I consider myself an effective intouch individual and kind of need my smartphone and uh, you know, don't want to count how how much data I'm using.

So, the way Noble Mobile works is that you pay a $50 flat fee for unlimited data and if you use it up the wazoo, then you paid 50 and that's the end of it.

Um, but if you use less than 20 gigs per month, then we'll give you cash back, uh, in the form of an end-to-month payment, uh, data dividend we call it, of up to 20 bucks. And then any money we give you will then grow at a 5.

5% interest rate annualized so that your cell phone plan becomes like a mini savings vehicle um, without you having to think about it or do anything. And so this way you get Do you guys hold on do you guys do you guys hold on to those funds as long as somebody's like a a customer?

Is that how that works or or like or you can take the money out anytime you want. It's your money. Uh but if you leave it with us, we'll grow it at a higher rate than you're going to get someplace else risk-f free because we wanted to it to be a set it and forget it savings plan.

Uh one of our first investors was a guy named Scott Galloway Prof who you guys probably know. Has he been on the show? Not yet. Not yet. We got to He's got to come on sometime. Yeah. I'll try. I'm I'm seeing him later this week. So that'd be amazing. Yeah. Please let him know in your direction.

But Scott's very passionate about trying to help young people in particular, young men, save money in a set it forget it way. And so, uh, Noble Mobile, we want to do three things at once, which is a lot, but whatever.

Number one, we want to see you actually pay closer to what you should be paying true value for your data. It's about half what you're currently paying. Number two, we want to incentivize you to doom scroll a little less and look at your family's faces a little more.

And number three, we want to make it easier for you to save money without having to think about it. Um, so those are the the the things that we think we can accomplish. That's a really cool flow. What uh what's the customer acquisition strategy besides you telling as many people as possible about it?

You're starting there. Uh but uh but what's the GTM look like? Sure thing.

So, uh, one of the things we figured out was that, um, I've got a following, Scott Galloway's got a following, Charlmagne's got a following, a lot of people have followings, and so if you want to help them, uh, save money and live a little better, uh, you can tell them about Noble Mobile and for every person uh, you tell, you help them, but then we also will reward you.

So, what you're going to see is that there's going to be something of a collective um that's now helping acquire customers and let people know about this. The model that everyone's familiar with is Ryan Reynolds, Midmobile, Ryan Reynolds shows up on commercials and whatnot.

And so, one of the jokes I tell is like I'm talking to various celebrities or influencers. It's like, look, instead of one Ryan Reynolds, they're going to be like 30 of us or or 50 of us or whatnot.

And then when I tell them Ryan Reynolds made $300 million, uh then they they're, you know, he did enlighten self-interest kicks in and people are like, "Okay, like I'm definitely ready to to um to, you know, uh tell my people.

" Um so we're in conversations right now with some very very fun, fascinating figures with followings. That's a lot of Fs. Um but that this is like a consumer centered humanbased movement to try and make this industry work better for us. That's very cool.

Um what what does it take to actually build a new uh a new telecom company like this? You guys obviously aren't setting up your own uh towers, but are you are you partnered with with some bigger existing players or or what did that look like? Yeah, it was it was a lot of work setting up our own towers.

uh you know I had to like get out the tool belt now. So you're obviously right. Um we did is we we licensed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of data from one of the big carriers. And the point I want to make to your incredibly savvy audience is like look you talk about you chose Verizon 10 years ago.

I chose Verizon 25 years ago and we chose it based on something that we thought was like network quality. Like I'm an important person. There's a map and Verizon map was more red than the other maps. Well, it was like in in little towns where we were cities.

It was like, well, this network's better than that one, this one. And it was just vibes vibes based basically. Yeah. So, over the last 10 to 20 years, what happened is all three carriers bulked up their networks to the point where they're all pretty excellent.

And then now you have um some satellite data that's getting piped through the network. So, what happened is that we made a buying decision x years ago. And then in the time since uh it kind of um got leveled up and became commoditized.

So what we're what we're doing is we licensed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of data from um one of the carriers, T-Mobile. Uh and then now we can make it available to people uh in a way that's really going to uh again accomplish multiple goals.

And the great thing is that it's in this day and age, too, because check this out, guys. Like, you're like me. I bet. And I have approximately zero experience actually switching carriers. Maybe you've done it zero times. Y um I was the same way. I've had I've been on Verizon for 25 years.

Um every device manufactured from 2018 on now has an eSIM where you can direct it to another network. you keep your number, keep your phone, takes five minutes and you can just bingo bango switch to another network. Most consumers do not understand this.

Um, and even I knew it technically, but then when I actually switched from Verizon, even I was like, "Holy [ __ ] I just ended a 25 year relationship in five minutes and now I'm saving myself, you know, $1,200 a year. " Like that. This is like magic. That's great.

Um so so now in many ways the goal is to to spread the magic to as many Americans as possible. Are you guys uh like how does it uh what's where what's T-Mobile or Noble Mobile's integrations with the actual hardware manufacturers? Are you guys working on deals with with uh like uh with companies at the device level?

Yeah. So we we think most people are happy with their device uh and will just bring their own phone. Uh there are some people that are under a contract with their carrier uh and obviously there was like a new iPhone launch just last week. Um so there are some folks who and by the way this is true of you guys too.

I love talking to people like you because we're we're on the same boat. So there was a period when every time a new iPhone came out we're all like oh my god I need that line up. Yeah. Yeah. The remember the lines. Yeah.

And then that stopped being true like a number of months ago where we're like, "What's the difference with this one? " You know, the camera's a little better. Like, I'm not even really seeing it. This one's orange. And you can see that the the device replacement cycle has just gotten longer and longer.

So, I talked before about how the networks have become at par and commoditized. Our devices have kind of converged around a level that we're perfectly happy with. Um, and so most people we think don't want a new phone necessarily. this one like you know to not be getting gouged every month.

If you do want to get a new device and you decide to go through the carriers, by the way, I've done this. So, I get a new iPhone and Verizon and like the device is free, but I'm tied up in a two-year contract where I'm paying Verizon a certain amount over this period.

And I want the folks listening to this just to think about it for a second. the carrier's contracts with us are so profitable that they can zero out and subsidize a $1,200 device or $1,000 device and be like, "Hey, it's free to you because we're making so much money off you. We're going to pay.

" I mean, obviously Apple's not giving them that device for free. Apple's like, you know, getting paid a lot of money. So, it would be more costefficient for someone who really wants the iPhone 17 to buy one unlocked and then sign up with Noble.

If you did the math, you'd actually save money on that versus getting it for free um from a carrier. But most people are perfectly happy with their current device uh and might just want to to try a different network. Cool. Well, congratulations on the launch. Super exciting.

I'm excited to see the different partners that you put together and I feel like you just can hit the campaign trail again, but this time for Noble M. Yeah, you know the playbook. Hanging just go truck stop to truck stop and just like help people switch over. Yeah, you guys has read my mind.

Uh, you know, I'm coming to a truck stop near you in a hot minute. It might not just be me. It might be Scott Galloway. It might be someone else in the Noble Collective. Um, but this is going to be a really fun company to grow.

Um, because Noah, it's it's an industry that's really past due for some modernization and some humanization. Yeah. Uh, last question. Did you did you raise a bunch of money for this already? Yeah. And I think you guys get to do a sound effect, but yeah, we raised we we raised 10.

3 million uh from a sound effect, an authentic. We have a real gong in the studio. I did enjoy that. I want to bang that gong in person. You're welcome. Anytime you're in LA, let us know. Oh, yeah. I I'll let you know. I'll be in LA before you know it. Scott's an investor. A lot of other fun people are investors.

Shout out to Corazone Capital for leading the round. Um, and uh, you know, we're we're going to grow like a weed. It's going to be fun. Fantastic. Well, congratulations. Great to get the update and uh, we'll see you soon hopefully. Yeah, we'll talk to you soon, Andrew. Thanks so much. Thanks, guys. See you in LA.

Appreciate you. Cheers. Bye. And if you're thinking about going to his event in New York, you need a place to stay, book a wonder with inspiring views, hotel, great mannies, dreamy beds, top cleaning, and 24/7 concier service. It's a vacation home, but better, folks. Find your happy place on wander. com.

Um, hey, there's some folks that are traveling, some folks that are going to be in LA, some folks wondering. John says, "What's the Galloway appearing on TBPN would be a milestone for me the very first time I force grabbed my YouTube app.

" So, yeah, I was about literally I'm about to DM John Xley to know like is he that anti-Scott because I feel like we have some we have a wide breadth of guests here. We can have a conversation with all sorts of people. Um but if he's uh but if he's Yeah, I'm I'd be interested.

Uh we gota we gota we got to let John weigh in on on key decisions like this. I think so. I think so. But um but yeah. Uh anyway, uh what else is in the news? Uh someone's hosting a website on disposable vape. Did you see this on hacker news?

Taylor says, "Me stressing about how we're going to build the best backend infrastructure for the future of agentic workflows and quantum MCP hackers. Are they making internet connected vapes now? Is that They are. I've seen these. I've seen these in person.

Uh the LCD screens uh the actual screens have gotten so cheap that you can run an entire computer on them basically. And these are disposable. Can you run an AI factory or a supercomput? I don't think you can mine Bitcoin effectively.

I don't think you can inference the most cutting edge frontier AI models, but you can do a lot more on a disposable B vape. We should uh we should get Tyler to build something. Bobby Cosmic, our the lone soldier in the on the on our TVPN Twitch. What if I want to stream TVPN for 3 hours a day on 5G?

Would Noble Mobile be a good fit? That's the benchmark. You can't have a carrying three hours of live streaming a day. I think um I think I think uh it's interesting. So, Noble Mobile, I think I think the messaging is like a bit, you know, they're trying to do a bunch of things at once.

I think I think just a $50 phone plan that helps you use your phone less is like enough of messaging and I'm I think that they can get a bunch of people to sign up for that. Yep. Um is it going to be a competitive blood bath? Yes. I don't know.

There's something about saving saving money that can create these interesting fly flywheels. Remember Acorns? Didn't that company do very well? It was a I believe it was a consumer credit card that every time you swiped it, it would round up to the nearest dollar and put the cents in a savings account and compound.

And so it was a way to save money and I believe they got to maybe a billion dollar valuation. It felt like it was Yeah, they they almost spacked. It got cancelled. They had 120 million of revenue.

This this was one of those things like early fintech company that was like winning but then didn't I don't think they've ever gotten out. I'd be interested to see what happens with that business. But yeah, the just save money on your mobile plan is like a simple message.

I think Andrew building a coalition of celebrities that are that feel good about promoting this. Use your phone less. Um but again, I mean, it's going to be uh uh like like you said, you you don't think that much. There's we're not the target audience, I think, for Noble Mobile. Yeah.

Um but there's a bunch of people out there that Yeah. I think I like the savings concept. Um, I I'm worried about the revealed preference of people say they don't want to scroll. People like to scroll. No, I think I think his argument would be even at $50 a month, it's still cheaper than Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

Um, well, if you're scrolling X, you're going to be treated to a uh somewhat tweaked algorithm that Nikita's been working on. Peter Yang breaks it down. He says he hasn't seen a quote, "It's so over RIP product or this changes everything cringe tweet on here in days. The algorithm must be working.

" And so, uh, Dylan Field put it to the test. Founder of Figma, of course, he said, "It's so over. RIP cringe tweets. New Xalgo changes everything. " And as funny as that post is, it didn't go viral. And so I think I think that they might have uh nerfed that meta.

We're seeing a new meta emerge already with the be Jeff Bezos, be Sam Alman, be Elon Musk spawn in like the the the 4chan style. One meta dies, another is born. Yes, there is always a new meta. Never lose hope. I've been liking I've been liking the the the new ones.

I think it's a it's a funny way to tell a story and I've actually been learning something. Yes. and it is more indepth like it it has more to unpack. It's typically hard to get a lot of text to go viral.

Uh the the viral posts tend to just be like one or two sentences, but these longer stories when they're told in this format seem to do quite well. Um at the same time, they're uh they're rife with misinformation a lot of times as we've as we've learned from actually reading them.

Um but you got to go to the you got to go to the source sometimes. Well, I think we have Tim Higgins. We