Andrew M. Yang (born January 13, 1975) is an American entrepreneur, politician, philanthropist and Democratic candidate for New York City mayor. Orig...
Andrew M. Yang (born January 13, 1975) is an American entrepreneur, politician, philanthropist and Democratic candidate for New York City mayor. Originally a lawyer, Yang began working in startups and early stage growth companies as a founder or executive from 2000 to 2009. In 2011, he founded Venture for America (VFA), a nonprofit organization focused on creating jobs in cities struggling to recover from the Great Recession. He ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, and is running in the 2021 New York City mayoral election.
The son of immigrants from Taiwan, Yang was born and raised in New York. He attended Brown University and then Columbia Law School. Dissatisfied with his work as an attorney, Yang began working for startups during the dot-com bubble before spending a decade as an executive at test preparation company Manhattan Prep. In 2011, Yang founded VFA, which recruits top college graduates into a two-year fellowship program at startups in developing cities across the United States. The Obama administration selected him in 2011 as a "Champion of Change" and in 2015 as a "Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship." Yang left VFA in 2017 to focus on his presidential campaign. In 2018, he authored The War on Normal People, which outlines several of his campaign's central ideas.
On November 6, 2017, Yang filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to run for President of the United States in the 2020 election. Yang's campaign largely focused on responding to the rapid development of automation, which is increasingly leading to workforce challenges and economic instability in the United States. His signature policy was the "Freedom Dividend," a universal basic income (UBI) of $1,000 a month to every American adult as a response to job displacement by automation, one of the primary factors that he claims led to Donald Trump's election in 2016. Considered a dark horse candidate throughout much of the primary, Yang received significant popularity online, with The New York Times calling him "The Internet's Favorite Candidate". News outlets described Yang as the most surprising candidate of the 2020 election cycle, going from a relative unknown to a major competitor in the race. Yang qualified for and participated in seven of the first eight Democratic debates, and has been credited with elevating discussions on UBI, automation, and autism to the national level, as well as for engaging Asian Americans in presidential politics.Yang's campaign was noted for its happy-go-lucky and "tech-friendly" nature. His supporters, informally known as the "Yang Gang", included several high-profile celebrity endorsements and were noted for their ideological and political diversity. Yang suspended his campaign on February 11, 2020, shortly after the New Hampshire primary, pledging that he and his movement are "just getting started." Following his campaign's end, Yang joined CNN as a political commentator, announced the creation of the political nonprofit organization Humanity Forward, and is running for the Democratic nomination in the 2021 New York City mayoral election.
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Rick Scott
Richard Lynn Scott (né Myers, December 1, 1952) is an American politician and businessman serving as the junior United States senator from Florida, se...
Richard Lynn Scott (né Myers, December 1, 1952) is an American politician and businessman serving as the junior United States senator from Florida, serving in that office since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was the 45th governor of Florida from 2011 to 2019.
Scott is a graduate of the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University. In 1987, after serving in the United States Navy and becoming a law firm partner, he co-founded Columbia Hospital Corporation. Columbia later merged with another corporation to form Columbia/HCA, which eventually became the largest private for-profit health care company in the United States. Scott was pressured to resign as chief executive of Columbia/HCA in 1997. During his tenure as chief executive, the company defrauded Medicare, Medicaid and other federal programs. The Department of Justice ultimately fined the company $1.7 billion in what was at the time the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history. Scott was not charged with a crime. Following his departure from Columbia/HCA, Scott became a venture capitalist and pursued other business interests.
Scott ran for governor of Florida in 2010. He defeated Bill McCollum in a vigorously contested Republican primary election, and then narrowly defeated Democratic nominee Alex Sink in the general election. Scott was re-elected in 2014, defeating former governor Charlie Crist. He was barred by term limits from running for re-election in 2018, and instead ran for the United States Senate that year.
Scott won the 2018 Florida Senate election, defeating Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson. The initial election results were so close that they triggered a mandatory recount. The recount showed that Scott had won by 10,033 votes; Nelson then conceded the race. Scott took office following the expiration of his term as governor of Florida on January 8, 2019.
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