Andrew M. Yang (born January 13, 1975) is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, author, and lawyer who is currently running for President of the United States in the 2020 election. Initially a corporate lawyer, Yang began working in various 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.
The son of immigrants from Taiwan, Yang grew up in New York. He attended Brown University and then Columbia Law School. Dissatisfied with his work as an attorney, Yang began working for various startups during the dot-com bubble before spending a decade as an executive at test preparation company Manhattan Prep, which was acquired in 2009. 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.