Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America

by Andrew Yang

Next up was Detroit. A friend of Charlie’s, Liz Hamburg, introduced me to Bernie Sucher, a Detroit native who was living in Moscow as a financier and entrepreneur. Bernie has had a storied career—he’d worked on Wall Street, started a series of successful businesses in Russia, helped rebuild a local hospital there, was named an Aspen Crown Fellow, and later led Merrill Lynch and Bank of America’s offices in Moscow. We met for the first time at the Detroit airport; Bernie agreed to chauffeur and accompany me to meetings as I pitched local startups on Venture for America. Bernie is six foot five, with a shaved head, and was wearing a suit and overcoat when we met. To complicate matters, his only business card was in Russian. We made quite the pair going into offices; he looked like my bodyguard. At least one entrepreneur confided in me later that after we left he’d immediately said, “Who the hell were those guys?” and Googled Bernie to make sure his own life hadn’t been in danger. We met with companies like Benzinga (online financial media), Are You a Human (Captcha replacement), Accio Energy (next-generation wind power generators), and others. After hearing me talk about Venture for America all day, Bernie agreed to join as a board member and has been an enormous champion of VFA ever since. I wouldn’t realize it until months later, but Dan Gilbert funded many of the enterprises we visited on that trip, in part or entirely. Dan is the billionaire entrepreneur founder and chai...