The entrepreneur and former presidential candidate has been studying companies that deliberately shrink their own margins to lower everyday costs. His touchstone is Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs, which sells prescription medications at cost plus a small, transparent markup. From there, Yang drew up a list of the biggest line items in a typical household budget.

“Housing, education, food, fuel, transportation, media, and wireless,” he said on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast. “The things we all spend money on.”

Yang chose wireless as his proving ground. He launched Noble Mobile, a mobile virtual network operator that rides on existing infrastructure but charges far less than the major carriers. The twist: customers get money back if they use less data, effectively sharing in the company’s profits.

For Yang, this is not just a telecom play but a response to a broader economic shift. As artificial intelligence threatens to automate white- and blue-collar work alike, he argues that startups can create value by attacking the cost of living rather than chasing ever-higher subscription fees or ad revenue.

He points to Cost Plus Drugs, Noble Mobile, minimalist “dumb phone” makers like Light Phone, and discount grocery platforms such as Misfits Market as early examples of a category where the core product is savings. The startup’s differentiation is how much margin it hands back to the customer.

Yang’s thinking is rooted in the same concerns that powered his presidential run, when he championed Universal Basic Income as a buffer against AI-driven job loss and wealth concentration. He still believes the gains from AI must be redistributed, but he is less convinced government will do it effectively. That opens space, he says, for market-based mechanisms that connect “the money and the people” more directly.

Noble Mobile is his attempt to show that such a model can be both socially useful and commercially viable. The company has signed up thousands of customers and generates millions in revenue, Yang says, while remaining profitable on a per-user basis even as it rebates savings.

He frames the impact in personal finance terms: an extra fifty dollars a month, consistently invested, can compound into tens of thousands of dollars over a working life. In an era of stagnant wages and rising prices, Yang is betting that startups built to lower costs, not just raise valuations, will be the ones that matter most.