Zohran Mamdani used a billionaire's words against him this week when he recalled recent remarks by DoorDash Chief Executive Tony Xu about the need for entrepreneurs to act like a "greedy algorithm."

The term is a reference in computer science to making optimal choices for the moment, without thought to the consequences, the New York mayor explained at a press conference at City Hall. DoorDash's delivery workers had been the victims of such a mindset, he claimed.

"Thousands of them have felt the human cost of the greedy algorithm," Mamdani said Tuesday while announcing the city's $131.5 million settlement with DoorDash over unpaid wages to its workers.

The remarks seemed calibrated to tap into the public's growing unease with the influence of corporations and Big Tech, in particular, and the sense that they prize profits above all else. It is a sentiment that helped power the 34-year-old Democratic socialist's long-shot bid for mayor in the world's center for capitalism, where even those earning seven-figure salaries can feel like they are struggling to keep up.

Now, as the midterms approach, his targeting is at the forefront of a progressive campaign to appeal to a broader swath of Americans frustrated by rising costs for groceries, health insurance and homeownership and unsettled by a sense that they have little say over large corporations that dominate their lives.

In a statement posted online, DoorDash said the settlement was to acknowledge inadvertent errors. "Simply put, we screwed up," the statement said. "While these mistakes weren't intentional, that doesn't make them okay."

Already, Mamdani's administration has backed a bill that would require Amazon to hire delivery workers, rather than use subcontractors, and moved to raise safety standards at the company's warehouses. The retail giant has fought the bill and said it might pull out of New York if it were required to obtain new operating licenses.

Mamdani also provoked the city's richest residents when he released a video promoting his new pied-de-terre tax that was filmed outside the luxury apartment of hedge-fund CEO Ken Griffin.

While Griffin and fellow business leaders were outraged by the stunt, Mamdani's poll numbers haven't suffered.

At least since the days of Standard Oil, big American companies-and the ultrarich who control them-have endured bursts of public fury. Recent episodes include the 1990s World Trade Organization protests and Occupy Wall Street. The latter set the stage for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders's populist movement and the Democratic Socialists of America's modern rebirth.

Coloring the latest flare-up is Big Tech's growing reach into all corners of life. When Google went public in 2004, its corporate motto was "Don't Be Evil." This year, the biggest stock-market debut is expected to come from AI giant Anthropic, where a former research engineer warned on X that its technology could cause the extinction of the human race.

At a more prosaic level, software engineers and other tech workers who, until recently, seemed to have found an eddy of security in an uncertain economy, now fret that AI will take their jobs, too.

Political candidates around the country are trying to harvest the disillusionment with corporate influence.

After Abdul El-Sayed clinched the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, he painted his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, as a "corporate sellout." In Texas, James Talarico has made anticorporate sentiment a centerpiece of his campaign to become the first Democrat elected to the Senate from the state since Lloyd Bentsen. "These are people who aren't actually contributing anything-and they're taking from all of us," he said of private-jet-riding chief executives on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"

For Christian Rosa, 26, an IT worker in Brooklyn, his frustration with corporate influence crystallized during President Trump's inauguration when he saw the "tech oligarchs" given privilege of place for the ceremony.

"That was a turning point," recalled Rosa, who strains to make rent on his $52,000 salary and says he struggles to afford health insurance. "You see all this wealth but you don't see the hardship that people are going through."

Rosa, who said he had been politically apathetic for much of his life, has since become an ardent supporter of Mamdani and the DSA. Asked about his fondness for the mayor, he replied: "You can see what Zohran's done. He froze my f-ing rent."

While slim, Mamdani's political biography is marked at key moments by brushes with big tech. As a DSA member in Queens, he supported protests that scuttled a deal in 2019 to bring Amazon's second headquarters to Long Island City. The deal was touted by centrist Democrats, including then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as a job-creating bonanza. But the DSA and its progressive allies argued that the tax breaks to lure Amazon were too generous and not worth the supposed benefits.

Later, as a member of the state Assembly, Mamdani's signature achievement was winning relief for New York City taxi drivers whose pricey medallions had collapsed in value because of the advent of ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft.

Now in City Hall, the Mamdani administration shows little sign of letting up on the economic message that helped elect it.

The city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, which led the investigation into DoorDash, is expected to play a central role in Mamdani's administration.

"People are becoming a lot more cynical about the kind of rip-offs they're facing," said Samuel A.A. Levine, the department's commissioner.

As part of the city's settlement with DoorDash, about 260,000 delivery drivers are expected to be contacted about repayment this fall, with about 12% of them owed $1,000 or more.

The settlement also requires DoorDash to provide worker-pay data for three years, allowing the city to monitor for violations. The city is also developing software with outside nonprofits that will let delivery workers record their own data, which they can hand to the city to dispute their pay.

The app, Levine said, would end an "asymmetry" between companies that collect vast amounts of data and the workers who believe they aren't getting paid what they are owed.