While much of the startup world is racing to build the next AI company, Andrew Yang believes the bigger opportunity may be helping people afford everyday life.

In a recent TechCrunch interview, Yang argued that as AI boosts productivity and potentially displaces jobs, consumers will increasingly seek ways to reduce essential expenses. Instead of extracting more value from customers, startups could win by giving value back through lower prices, transparent pricing, and shared savings.

Examples include Cost Plus Drugs, which sells medications at near-cost, and Yang's own Noble Mobile, a wireless provider that rewards customers for using less data.

Key Lessons for Founders:

1. Affordability can be a competitive advantage.

Lower prices, transparent pricing, and profit-sharing models can build customer trust and loyalty in ways traditional growth strategies often cannot.

2. Think beyond industry groupthink.

Yang encourages founders to look for overlooked opportunities instead of following the crowd. In a market obsessed with AI infrastructure and tools, businesses that help consumers keep more of their money may represent an underserved category.

3. AI can be used to reduce costs, not just increase revenue.

The most impactful AI businesses of the next decade may be those that make housing, healthcare, education, and other essentials more accessible.

As Yang puts it, the next generation of successful companies may not be those that help people consume more, but those that help them keep more of what they earn.

One of the more interesting shifts I've noticed recently isn't the funding itself. It's how companies are choosing to announce it.

This week, Ergo took a different approach. Instead of publishing a funding announcement and hoping people would share it, they turned it into an event and invited their community to be part of the moment.

It's a subtle but important change.

For years, funding announcements have largely been one-way broadcasts: a press release, a LinkedIn post, a few congratulatory comments, and then everyone moves on. Today, audiences want to feel connected to the companies they follow, not just informed by them.

Ergo leaned into that reality by making the announcement participatory. Supporters weren't simply reading the news. They were invited to celebrate it alongside the team.

What made it even more interesting was the level of intentionality around engagement. The company gamified participation with prizes such as a Michelin-starred dinner, Ray-Ban Meta glasses, and Amazon gift cards, giving people a reason to actively join, share, and amplify the announcement.

As community-led growth continues to evolve, I expect we'll see more companies rethink major announcements this way. The most effective launches won't just distribute information. They'll create moments people want to be part of.

I’ve been thinking about something I read from Alison Steinlauf Anziska (Edmunds), grounded in the 2026 Deloitte & Duke CMO Survey: most marketing breakdowns aren’t really strategy problems — they’re structural ones.

It’s easy to assume underperformance comes from the wrong campaign or a missing skill. But more often, it’s capable teams working inside fragmented systems. Product, brand, performance, PR, each function is optimized locally, but no one is truly accountable for the system-wide outcome.

That gap used to be easier to hide when the funnel was linear. Now, with discovery happening across AI answers, social, communities, and media all at once, inconsistency becomes visible immediately.

The biggest takeaway for me is that marketing coherence doesn’t come from more alignment meetings. It comes from intentional design. When teams share outcomes instead of just handoffs, the organization starts to produce a single, consistent signal. And that signal is often more powerful than any individual campaign.

Yep, you heard it right. The team is heading west! 

We’re bringing Fintech Week to San Francisco on September 29-October 1, 2026. As we get closer, we're excited to continue bringing together the people and ideas that make this community special.

Early bird tickets are now live!

If you're interested in speaking, sponsoring, partnering, or contributing in any way, I'd love to connect. Just reply to this email or send me a message.

Check out the photos from yesterday’s dinner!

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us at The Executive Table at the Santa Monica Proper Hotel.

It was a pleasure to co-host this gathering with Avnita Gulati to bring together such an inspiring group of founders, investors, and operators.

What made the evening truly memorable wasn't just the people in the room — it was the openness and curiosity everyone brought to the conversation. The discussions were thoughtful, candid, and a great reminder of how much we can learn from one another when we create space for meaningful dialogue.

Nights like these remind me how valuable it is to step away from our busy schedules and make space for real connection. I'm excited to see the conversations, connections, and opportunities that continue to emerge from this gathering.

As companies expand beyond borders, the infrastructure supporting global talent is under pressure to evolve.

In this upcoming episode of Ascend: Stories of Scale, Julian Torres Gomez, CEO of Ontop, shares what it takes to operate across 150+ countries—where compliance, trust, and execution are critical.

Stay tuned as they unpack how borderless work is reshaping hiring, payments, and the future of work. Get notified here.

At the end of the day, growth should be measurable.

Not more meetings. Not more reports. Not more activity for the sake of activity.

Real outcomes.

The work we do has helped teams achieve:

• 2x ARR growth year over year
• $3M+ in revenue from a single campaign
• Up to 85% of pipeline generated by strategic initiatives

Those numbers matter because they change what's possible for a business. More market share. More predictable revenue. More room to scale.

If you're looking for growth that shows up in your metrics, let's start a conversation. 😊

- Angelique