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

Kathy had spent the summer before her senior year interning at the US Small Business Administration in Washington, DC, researching ways to help small companies succeed. While she was there, her boss, Ellen Kim, mentioned a brand-new program called Venture for America. The program was launching in Detroit, New Orleans, and Providence, and its short-term goal was to help create 100,000 new US jobs by 2025. Kathy was intrigued. She wasn’t sure how her parents would react to the idea of setting aside a perfectly reasonable job offer and moving to a city like Detroit. But she felt that the best way to learn about business was to actually be inside of one as opposed to writing reports about them. She submitted her application to Venture for America without talking to her parents about it. A couple of months later, after a multi-stage series of submissions, video and in-person interviews, and participation in selection day, she got a call. She was in.