What Now? with Trevor Noah - Eliza Filby: Hard Work Is a Lie, This Is What Rich People Never Tell You

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

We were all told the same story. Work hard, get an education, and the world will reward you. Dr. Eliza Filby joins us to explain why that story has quietly collapsed, and why inheritance, family money, and generational wealth now shape your future more than anything you do on your own. This episode breaks down the truth about the great wealth transfer, why millennials feel like they are failing, why men are angrier, why women are more stressed than ever, why Gen Z sees the world more clearly than we did, and why most people’s lives are shaped by money they never earned and stories they never questioned. If you have ever wondered why life feels harder than it was for your parents, this conversation will change the way you see work, success, family, and the future. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Millennials are struggling to make as much money as their baby boomer parents. They face greater wealth inequality than previous generations. It's called the Great Wealth Transfer more than $100 trillion expected to go from baby boomers to Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Z by 2048. One of the best things that you can do to save money in 2025 is to live at home with your parents. The only reason that I was able to save my first $100,000 was because I lived at home. You don't pay your rent? I'm like one of those, like, spoiled rich kids that doesn't pay rent. kids. It doesn't pay rent. Historian, author and generational expert, Dr. Eliza Filby.

Eliza's writing has been published in The Times, The Guardian and the Financial Times, and she's recently published her latest book in Heritocracy. It's time to talk about the bank of mom and dad. This is What Now with Trevor Noah. This episode is presented by Whole Foods Market. Eat Well for Ler. That's good day Yeah I've been having that sense

What tea? Is that? It's a tea why? It's herbal tea It's ginger and lemon That always feels like medicine to me No Those one is actually

Doesn't have that medicinal taste Are you sure? Yeah, yeah, absolutely It means lemon and ginger Lemon and ginger to me are medicines It is medicine I enjoy them but they're medicines Your body just thanks you

It just thanks you Yeah, because it's medicine You know, it doesn't thank you when you drink coffee. No. Do you drink coffee? Because it's not medicine. No, stimulant. I prefer, so I usually have, if I haven't eaten anything, I'll have the coffee, the macha.

I mean, the mocha, but if I've eaten like I have now, this does me good. Because it helps me from feeding. Sounds your stomach. Medicine. Everything you've said is medicine here. But don't you think as actually as a sort of human beings are getting better at re-learning all that We've forgotten in the age of mass consumption about food. We're re-learning it all and slapping a fat price on it and charging the earth through it.

And discovering herbal tea. I always say the greatest trick corporations ever pulled was getting poor people to be ashamed of all the things that they do and consume. And then once they've gone off of it, the corporations jump in. And then they claim it and then they sell it for a fortune. And then when you try to come back, it's gone now. Do you know what I mean? Like everything, everything, everything. All of that learning, all of that knowledge throughout the family.

The culture, the cooking down the generations has gone. You've infused, you know, the sort of idea of eating from a KFC bucket as part of like family time. And yeah, slapped a fat price on something that was a really. Originally, basically. Like, I was always amazed when we were growing up, one of the things moms used to get shamed for all the time, especially African mothers, was tying their children to their back with like a blanket or with a, you know, whatever fabric you'd use. And they'd be like, oh, the ergonomics are terrible. There's no support. This is not how you should hold a baby.

Your child's legs. Your child's legs are being, they're suffocating your child. Oh, the whole thing, the whole thing. And then like, you'd see over time, people like, oh, you've got to get better. You've got to buy a pram. Got to buy a stroller. It became this whole world. And then when that was done, and maybe that market was saturated, all of a sudden they

went, you know, there's a more organic way to hold your child? And they're like, let me introduce you to the baby sling. This is how you reconnect with your child. Yeah, and they're like bond. I like it better when you said it. Because all of that. No, no, no. It was a seduction about.

I sell things. There is. No, to reinforce your point. It's the seduction of selling. No, but to reinforce your point, there is a shop in seating. where I grew up where the book is placed. Tuting.

Tuting. Yeah. You're from Tooting? I'm from Tooting. You've been to Tooting? I didn't know that Tooting was a ting. It's near, Tuting is a ting. It's near Brickston.

So, Teet, there's a shop that is just selling slings. Doesn't sell prams. Doesn't sell bottles, doesn't sell anything but organic cotton slings. Slings. In America, they call the papoos, ne? When you put a child across. Yeah. Across your shoulder, but they're sitting right here in front and you put them in that

swaddle. and then it Yeah, you see, all of that And now you get money from it Meanwhile, people were basically doing it for free Our mothers didn't patent it That's the real That's the inheritance we could have gotten

Yep See what I did there Segway into a conversation You know what I love about you Tell me I'm Yeah Carry on

Eliza thanks for joining us Oh pleasure I have fun already. You know, I was talking to Eugene before we started this episode, like earlier today. And Eugene was like, what excites you about talking to Eliza? And I said, I'm always just like out of this world, excited and chomping at the bit when I engage in an idea that I just didn't have, flat out didn't have. Some ideas I think I had in life. And then every now and again, you'll bump into somebody who is telling you something or discovering something or sharing something.

that you just didn't have in your head. And I feel like inheritocracy is inherently one of those topics. Like your book, the way you've thought about the subject, the way you speak about it. Because most people in the world right now are going, why can't we afford houses? Why does it seem like education is pointless for everybody? Why do people not want to have children? Why don't people get married? What is happening with economies?

Why are young men angry? Why are young women feeling destitute? What is going on in the world? and people will tell you, all the corporations, yes, and you know there's a good part of that. And some people say the governments, okay, and it's a good part of that as well. But this book and what you've looked at here is one of the more unique takes I've ever seen that gives us like a deep understanding of how it all goes. And I mean, like I want to get into everything, but just on the, like on the surface of it all is

what is an inheritocracy when you use that word? What is that? Thank you. Wow. Wow, that was great. Just, I deliberately chose that word because I knew it would be provocative. It's the antidote to a meritocracy, a society that's built on merit, one that is to do with hard work and reward. And in heritocracy is to do with the lottery of birth. You can't choose who your parents are, but increasingly it's determining the opportunities you have. And so I wanted to write about that because I was like, we're not talking about this enough. There's a level of shame, embarrassment. concealment um and it is defining the 21st century and the book is is essentially it's a memoir it's my own story but i define an inheritocracy as one where your opportunities in life are not defined by what you earn because wages are have stalled certainly in europe and are slightly

more here but very out of out of whack with house prices your opportunity is not defined by your wages It's not defined by your education because, as you said, the return on that investment, all that hard work is declining, particularly now in the age of AI. Yeah. It's ever more defined by who your parents are and the leg up they give you and the safety net they create. And that's the story I wanted to tell. You started from a very personal place. You know, you tell the story recording your father's life.

You know, your father's really ill. It's towards the end of his life. And you're recording his life in his life. his house that he inherited and it's interesting that at that moment you're sort of having this epiphany where you're going like what are the stories that we don't even realize we get told and we inherit from our parents that define the lives that we're going to go on to live and by the way I'm not I don't mean just on a like a psychological level and I'm talking like a like dollars pounds ranns sense level it's just like this is the journey that we're going to get because of the

person who came before us yeah and I think I wanted to start the book in that moment because I remember it so well. My eight-month-old son was playing in a playpen and being really roundy and screaming. And I was trying to record my dad who was stuttering and muttering and really towards the end of his life couldn't really coherently sort of articulate himself. But I was so struck by what was about to be lost. The stories, the memories, the knowledge, the expertise, the lived experience. And my family is quite unique in that I'm from London, but we've never moved. And when I say we've never moved, I grew up in the house that my mum still lives in

and my dad inherited. But my family grew up, born, worked, lived, died in the same area for about 200 years. Wow. So like we have never moved. Like our story is so dull, right? It's just the exceptionalism is that we've never moved. I hope you moved. So many stories.

No, I still live in that. literally around the corner from my mum. Yeah, but it's gone from dull to being exceptional now. But it's weird. Yeah, who can say that? Because in a weird sort of way, you know, London, like New York, like, you know, other parts of the world has such a kind of movement of people and various sort of histories. They're really complex and chaotic. And I was like, Dad, tell me, tell me the mundane stories. Tell me about the horse. Tell me about the pet dog. You know, like, because I just actually, there was nothing exceptional in the stories of. of our family. But I knew they were about to be lost. And so I still have those tapes. I can't listen to them. Oh, wow. I can't listen to them. And they're there, perhaps for my children to listen to. But it was that moment, that realization of, can I carry this forward to my children?

Because I don't think I now have all the details to do that. So tell me, Dad. Tell me what our story is. What makes it difficult for you to listen to those stories? Because I'll tell you, the other day I, when I was saying goodbye to my mom before coming here, she just turned 72. Right. But in my head, she's frozen in time. But I just turned my head quickly to look at her while she was talking. And for a second, I couldn't recognize her. I felt like she had grown old right in front of my eyes and I didn't see it.

Yeah, that happens. It took that moment for me to see it. So there's things that she says, obviously like you're saying now about where she comes from and what she did. done to get where she is that make me go, I feel like there's a big chunk that I haven't listened to, that I haven't heard from her. So what is it about your dad's stories that made you feel like you're not ready yet to listen to some of them? I think it's when a parent dies and I was in the weird situation where my father died and my father was diagnosed with cancer and I gave birth to my son all within a couple of months of each other. So I was confronting death and life

really sort of very much in a stark way and the reason I can't listen to my father's stories is because actually I haven't fully processed his death I mean four years on you know and I've had three years of therapy and I've lived other lives That's rare for an English person What therapy?

Yeah, congratulations wow thank you It's not common Oh no all my English friends when you say that You go like therapy they're like Huh what's wrong with you What's wrong? Is it the whole Stiva. A lip thing.

It's all very... Yeah, you've got to hold it in. Oh, all right. All right. Well, okay. It is. But I can't... I just can't do it.

And it's maybe there will be a time when I listen to those stories with my children. I think that will be it. And what's actually, I don't mention in the book, but my dad did it with my grandmother. So she died in 1986 and he actually filmed her talking about. about her life and telling stories. And we sat around, actually, about four years before my father actually died, watching my grandmother tell her life story. Wow.

And, you know, it's just so bizarre. It's kind of like, and there was three generations sat there listening to my, you know, the grandmother, the matriarch of the family. Tell us about the Second World War. Tell us about, you know, what it was like being, you know, a woman on a motorbike in the 1930s, very unheard of. of, you know, just, it's that connection to the past that feels, that you want to feel. We're so connected to the future and the present now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, we've lost that personal, that emotional, that actual connection to the past down the generations. And I always felt that very viscerally in my family because we lived in the house that my grandfather had won in a card game. Card game. Yeah, he was a gambler. He was a serious gambler.

A very good gambler, clearly. My father, my father, yeah, he was. He said, you guys. Well, no, what he did was, this is very, very clever. He, once he won it, he put the deeds to the house in his wife's name, my grandmother, so he couldn't gamble it again. Right, that's the key. That is the key. But the point is, is my dad is now buried in the garden of that house.

So, so there's so much. It's just all, it's very located in place for me. For other people, it's in different families, different stories. different generational histories, but the mundane was what I was interested in. But it took you on a journey that I think everyone can relate to beyond just like one story and one family. I almost feel like we don't think of inheritance until we're reaping the benefits or the loss of it. Do you know what I mean? So like climate change is a good example, right? We don't really think about the inheritance of climate change until we're

now experiencing the effects, then we go, how did it get this way? And how did we have these factories? And who decided that this was okay? And now you look at the chimneys that are, you know, puffing out smoke from all these things. And you go like, wow, now you think about the inheritance. And in the book, you get into it, I think for everyone, everywhere in the world. If you're in the United States, right now, you are thinking to yourself, do I have a future? And some people are saying, what did I actually inherit? You know what I mean? What did we inherit as a country? What did we inherit as children from a previous generation?

In South Africa, people asking the same thing. In the UK, half of the conversations I have with people sort of center around that feeling, you know? And I was reading through your work and I was going, is this like a reckoning that needs to change how we think about who's supposed to give what to whom? Or whether it should even be the way it's always been? Like, is an inheritance good or bad? Is sort of the question I'm asking? Such a brilliant question.

And I wanted to approach the issue with in the round. I wanted to look at it from all different sides, which is why, yes, it's a memoir, my story, how my parents shape my life. But I also interview people sort of with very different trajectories, people who come from blended families who had really difficult relationships with their parents but accepted financial inheritance.

You know, I interviewed a woman from Mumbai and she was now living in London. She was like, why are you writing a book about the bank of mom and dad? Like, of course there's the bank of mom and dad. Of course they support you. Like, of course, why is this a thing? Of course we live in an heritocracy. There was an expectation.

She was like, she couldn't even understand why this was an issue. And she said, but, you know, in, in, in, In India, in Indian cultures in Indian families, that multi-generational contract is financial down the family tree to a point. And then it goes up, back up the family tree in terms of care and support for the elderly. So she was living in Mumbai. She was living in Mumbai. She moved to London. She got married.

Both parents had helped buy a flat in a very nice part of London, not cheap. But she fully accepted that she was going to have to go back to Mumbai. very soon to look after not just her parents, but her in-laws as well. That intergenerational contract is about, yes, about support safety nets, financial aid, but also about care and, you know, the responsibility, that multi-generational responsibility. So there's so much to unpack what you just said that because I think what I wanted to do was not go, inheritance is all bad, you know, like this is the system, economic system, where it's all to do with, you know, privilege, economic privilege

and parents basically, you know, creating an easy path for their affluent kids and, you know, whole sort of nepo baby phenomenon, which is, you know, rightly mocked in society and culture. Whoa, wait, wait, you think it's rightly mocked? We'll come back to that. We'll come back to that. No, I've got to come back to this. We've got to come back to that. We've got to come back to NEPO babies because it's such a huge thing. Put a pin in it. Put a pin in it. Put a pin in it. You can't just say, inheritance is bad.

Okay, cool. But you've also got to look at how actually having massive amount of support from your parents can be disabling. It can be full of shame. It can be demotivating. And so I deliberately went in search of people that had received a lot of money and actually didn't want it or felt controlled by it or felt demotivated by it. Because inheritance is, you know, and that can be economic inheritance.

It can be, you know, it can be emotional. It can be, you know, there's all sorts of forms. It can be cultural, yeah. But the key thing is, is that this isn't just a subject where we calm down and we make some crude economic argument where we go, right, there's the privilege for you and there's the rest and, you know, they're screwed and they're, you know, not. Because actually, the inheritocracy fundamentally isn't this evil capitalist system. it's quite often, I would say the majority of the time, a system, an economic model that's built on parental love. Yeah. Right?

So just dismissing it as crude, economic, nihilistic, you know, system that is really unfair. Yeah. I just felt wouldn't do full service to the subject. Do you think that the way the older generation used to think about family and about money sort of shaped how they left an inheritance for their children, right? So most of it would be a house to stay in, a home that you guys can all share, some money to live in case you want to study further if you're young enough, if you're old enough to maybe one day branch out and do your own thing. But now we see people starting feminists later and later in life. And do you think that will affect how they leave inheritance for their children? Ultimately, yes. I mean, we're talking about, I think it's important to kind of drill down on the fact that in the US, in the UK, most of Europe, Australia, Canada, English-speaking world, we're talking about trillions of dollars. here. You know, five years ago, it was estimated that the great wealth transfer, the money trickling down from parents to their kids, was about 80 trillion in the US. Now, in 2025, it's around 125 trillion. Wow. It's increased just because the amount of the assets and,

you know, stocks have increased, right? So we're talking a considerable amount of money. In the US, you know, the over 50s own about 60% of the nation's private wealth. So we have a huge disparity of older generations owning a lot of wealth. I read something the other day that basically said in New York, I don't know about other major cities, but I think it might be similar, but in New York, the entire housing market is propped up by parents who are in some way, shape or form subsidizing their kids. Almost every single young person you see who lives in New York, New York, like Manhattan, Manhattan, they're not here on their own money.

You know what I mean? It's a parent who owns a place, a parent who's renting a place for them, a parent who's bought a place for them. And then they're like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm just making my way through life. I'm just like grinding and, you know, it's so hard living. And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, you couldn't even be here unless your parents were part of the 60% who own the thing. And this is obviously, unless you're living with like 10 other people in one apartment. And this is the thing, it goes unsaid. So, you know, in New York, certainly, in London, it's 52% of first-time buyers on the property ladder.

52% have access to the Bank of Mum and Dad. There you go. In the US, Gen Z, about a quarter of Gen Z are getting that down payment from the Bank of Mom and Dad. So it's not as much because housing generally is cheaper in the US. Right. Not everywhere, not on the island of Manhattan, of course.

But generally speaking, in the US, where the real investment is, is in education. So it's paying for college. That's where the Bank of Mom and Dad is sort of really sort of getting people on that ladder, getting people on that trajectory. And you know how wealth works, right? The earlier you get it, the better it materializes. Oh, yeah.

It changes your trajectory for the rest of your life. When I was reading your book, I was thinking to myself, inheritance is almost like a passport. Before you go anywhere, it already determines where you can go and how you can go. And we always go like, you know, a lot of people will be like, I didn't get anything. I barely got anything from my parents. It's like, no, no, no, you got the passport. And so even if your parents have put you in the right country,

giving you access to the right networks, or giving you the belief that they will be there as a fallback, you've got a better passport. You know, so you've got like a Canadian passport or like a, you know, an Emirati passport. And then like other people have African passports where like no country lets you in without 10 visa interviews.

What do you mean? Why did you have to? Do you want me to do it like this? Like this. Oh, now you say our country. It's funny. It's funny. when it's a bad thing, you didn't want it.

I didn't want any of it. Yeah, okay, okay, fine. Okay, fine. No, but it is, though. It really is. It's a passport, yeah, it's a passport that takes you through your life, like just from the get-go in what you're saying. Yeah.

And it's, but it's a natural human instinct. Let's be clear here to create that safety net and that springboard for your kids. I have two kids. It, when my first son literally came out of me, I was like, right, life's purpose has arrived. Wow, and your doctor was like, slow down, excuse me, ma'am, hold on. I haven't been, I'm not done with the umbilical cord lady.

Excuse me, ma'am, ma'am, please, just wait a second. We're still busy. We're still busy with the ambitial wealth. Please, ma'am, please, please hold her down. We'll talk about intergenerational health in a second. Let me just finish with it. No, I was, seriously, I was not one of that. I was literally not one of those mothers was like, let me just bask in the glory of creating life.

I was like, I've got to create wealth because I had to, I have to. to create some sort of financial stability here. You immediately felt that thing. Gutteral, yeah, 100%. And I think in America, when I think about how my cultural reference point for this, by the way, is love is blind, how you guys talk about generational wealth is the aspiration. There is so much more openness about I am aiming to create generational wealth. In the UK, no, no, no, no, no, that is not stated. No, no, no, no. It's something bit shameful, hush, hush, sort of said, but, you know, sort of actually inferred.

Like Daddy and Mummy's money. You don't, you don't. You just don't talk about it because we sort of, you know, our greatest export, right, is downtown Abbey. I thought you're going to say Gordon Ramsey. And Gordon Ramsey. But downtown abbey, we kind of sell this aristocratic past, but we like to go, oh, that was ages ago. Oh, that's not now. That's not now. That's not now. Class is no longer an issue. We have a self-made society. We have a meritoxic bullshit.

The thing is, is that class and the bank of mom and dad, an engineer's privilege in the way that it is always done, if not more now than ever before. And we just don't talk about it. Whereas in the US, much more open. It's open, but it's closed, though. I find it's interesting that you just said that. So here's how I see it.

I didn't pick that up in the UK and the way you're saying it, but you really made it clear. But I find in the US, people, also hide it. They just frame it differently. They frame it as if they've pre-worked. And they're going to get some postwork going. So they go like, yeah, well, you know, I want my kids to work hard.

And that's why I'm setting up a college fund for it. But they're still going to have to earn their keep. And my kids are not going to have it easy. And you know what I mean? Yeah, I'm going to get them into a good school. But I'm not going to give them anything. And I still want them. And you're like, you've just told me everything you're going to give them.

And then told me that they're not going to have to do it. You know what I mean? And they're like, no. But they're still going to have to, they're still going to have to what? Well, I mean, and I'm not saying that they won't have to do anything, but people like to make it seem as if they're not giving them anything. You know, one of the more honest people funny enough about this was Bill Gates. Bill Gates said, I'm not giving my kids.

They're not inheriting anything. And people were like, whoa, what do you mean? He said, yeah, I'm giving all my money away. And they were like, wow, what an asshole. And Bill Gates was like, let me ask. He said, if what I have given you with my name, with my network cannot earn you money, then you don't deserve the money that I have. Because he understood, and I think understands fundamentally, that the inheritance goes beyond

the checkbook. Do you know what I mean? He's like, I can get you into any room. I can get you talking to anybody. You're only thinking, what's the bank account? What's the bank account? And so now when you say that, I actually wanted to go to India, I wonder if places like India are almost more honest about it. Because people will say, I'm from a good family. And, things are going to go and we're going to keep this going. And you're like, oh, you're passing it down. They're like, you're damn straight. We are.

Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, 100%. There's no, like, no. The lady I was interviewing, she was like, my dad was saving for my wedding and my education since, you know, basically my birth. And there's no shame in that. There is absolute pride in that.

And I think that you're right. It's the openness that is there. I do think there's another element to this in American culture that is quite unique to American culture, which is quite a legal-driven culture and litigious. And so therefore, you know, 41% of Gen Zias and millennials have prenups in the U.S. And they're binding in a way that they're not in the UK. And what do you mean? What do you mean not in the UK? They are, they're sort of binding. We have a different legal system. But pre-nups are incredibly important here. And what a pre-up does is it forces a conversation before you get

marriage. And so that culture of openness, I think, is also because the lawyer's going, come on, what's going on here? What are we going to do? What are we going to do? And I think why preempts have become so important and not just the kind of, you know, sort of things that celebrities do anymore is because of the way the inheritocracy and the bank of mom and dad has changed marriage. Yeah. So what's happened is, is it used to be, so there's this whole theory and sociology called assortative mating, right? Which is where, you know, the idea is that you marry someone similar to you. Yes.

And in the 90s, when more and more women started to go to university, what happened was that graduates started to partner up with graduates. Yes. And it was no longer the nurse marrying the doctor, the secretary marrying the boss. Women used to marry up. Now they were marrying their intellectual equal, right? What's happened in the last 10 years is not so much graduates, marrying graduates, but one individual with the bank of mum and dad marrying another individual

with the bank of mum and dad. So you're getting this sort of Jane Austen-like sort of marriage culture where if there is a divorce, it's not the son and daughter's money at stake. It's the mom and dad's. The bank of mum and dad. The banks and mom and dad who are fighting for their cashback. So pre-ups become really, really important in an inheritocracy. Yeah, because you, have you seen one of my favorite genres on TikTok is people discovering, why do you look so shocked? I'm a man of the world, Eugene. I've invited you many times and you've refused my DMs. So on TikTok. I'm on TikTok. You can follow me. No, you know, one of my favorite genres on TikTok is, um, is you like, I forget how I stumbled on it once, but it was people discovering that the person they're dating

actually has inherited like a shit ton of money or is in like line to inherit. Yo, it is to what you just said now, you have not seen people's minds more broken by the knowledge that the person they're with is basically a pseudo prince or princess that they didn't understand. And then they'll go, hey guys, so I just discovered that the person I'm with is like the air to whatever fortune or their parents own this mega company or they're worth whatever million dollars and whatever and they go we've been splitting the rent and

we've been no and they both start working out yeah yeah and they both live like a trashy life they're both like struggling then they find out the other person was cosplaying the struggle and they were really in the struggle do you know what I mean? And it's different eating dry bread the two of us

if we both don't have money but when you find out that I was just you know what I mean you know when I after high school I worked in a student campus area in a CD store that tells you how old I am. And I would see a mixture of white and black kids

who would be hanging out together because they go to the same university together. But I could see in their lifestyles outside of school that they were not the same. Others went to the township and others went to the suburbs. And that inequality of what some people have that leg up in South Africa is very huge. But also it's been weaponized as well

as to make other races look like they're being lazy or they're not being... What's the way? Industrious. Yeah. Like you're not working hard enough. Or they don't know how to use their money properly. Yeah.

So until I was doing something with an insurance company that explained how most of the fortune that the Afrikaners had was built, was built through insurance. So the first, first generation. Yes, first first generation after having a fight with the English, moving, the buers moved. Yeah. They started having farms. Those farms were not making as much money. So they decided to start co-ops. And then they started to have insurance companies.

companies that they built, then they would put money. So the deal was the first generation to get the payout, mustn't use the payout. Oh, interesting. They must use the payout to help the land and to help the kids. And then only the third one can spend the money. Can spend the money. Yes. But by that time, they already owned the farm and they've used the money from the first insurance payout to make the farm viable.

Then there's banks. Then they can finance from the banks. And then from there, from the farms, they move to the cities. And then that's how the houses in the suburbs were financed. Water Clues and the Cape Town and all of that. So by the time they have children in the 80s and the 90s, those children already have a grandfather that owned a farm and the dad that owns a house in Water Clue for Kemm's Bay.

And then they go to school with us and then your parents are from the township. And it looks like there's something that they did wrong with their money. Meanwhile, it was just the leg up that the other were afforded to pay a minimal amount every month to guarantee that when the one passes away, a lump sum comes your own. Oh yeah, that's the biggest one. And I feel like insurance has been the biggest scale. of them all to help people get rich and a lot of black people in South Africa don't know that you can actually use insurance that way to build generational wealth. Yeah, one generation dies and

from their death you get like this beautiful rebirth. And again, like to your point, I like that you said it, not good or bad, but it's interesting how many people don't realize what mechanisms some people use to make sure that the next generation has a slingshot. So it's like your generation will die. And like if it was a game of monopoly, the next generation gets to stop. with a free roll of the dice like they get a free six yes and you're like oh we all started on zero it's like yeah yeah but your parents gave you a six yeah you know what i mean yeah but you write about this you write a bit about this in your book about what you called your mom called the black tax yes and how she had to sort of support and fund oh yeah completely other parts yeah completely

and i just i was listening to a podcast with michelle obama and she was referring to the fact that when she entered the white house everyone like a family, extended family, friends were like, tap, tap, help me out, help me out. Yeah. There was an expectation. Yes. And she was like, she had to really hold firm and say, no, I'm, A, not as rich as you think I am. And B, I have to, you know, make our family supported and good before we can then extend

the help. It's one of the hardest things anyone will experience. And we know it as the black tax, but I'm sure in other cultures you can experience. experience it as well. If you come from a group of people who have been oppressed for a very long time, there is a good chance that none of them have had the opportunity

to accrue wealth. Because wealth compounds, right? If you are on zero and your cousins are on zero and your grandparents are on zero, everyone's on zero, everyone's on zero, you are starting from scratch, right? The issue though is, like, the person who's next to you who goes,

oh I'm also on zero we went to the same school it's like no they aren't on zero because their first paycheck their family has no claim to it because they don't need to have a claim to it do you know how liberating it is to earn a paycheck and your parents aren't calling you to say hey can you help us pay this orphan

and can you help us and that's something you also get into in the book is like we forget that an inheritance isn't necessarily what you get in terms of credit it's also what you get in terms of debt Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. One thing I loved about how Trevor explained your book to me was it's almost the same as I hated when an athlete who's naturally gifted and there's all the opportunities in the world tell someone else who's not as athletic that they can do anything.

They put their mind to you. You still mad that guy told you you can dunk. Who told you you can dunk? It was him, actually. You can do it, Eugene. Put your mind to it. 40 years later That's right

It's the idea that we're all starting From the same point in the race We're not We're not And so that the sort of pretence of that I wanted to kind of literally Lift the lid on I would love to also get some

To hear some research About how advice is given Depending on the group of people It's given to For example I have a big gripe With how for example Black people would be given advice Again in insurance

That's say a funeral cover would be $120,000, 120,000, and it will cover you for $80,000. But life cover is $250,000 and will cover you for $2 million. Right. But that advice will not be given to that person because they think short term, the bank will lose, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see what I'm saying?

So most advice is also tailored to the kind of people that it's given to, to sort of preserve also the generational wealth that props up these institutions. I know, just what wealth band you are at. Yes, depends what risk you can take. Oh, definitely. What mechanisms you can pull, you know, the kind of advice that you get, you know, and it is... There's a different bank division that phones you. Right.

Most people don't know that like there's different banks in your bank. All of a sudden, one day if you earn enough money, someone else phones you and goes like, hey, let's talk to you about... And you're like, well, where were you all along? And they're like, well, now you make money. And then I'm like, well, I don't need you now because I make money. Why didn't you call me when I was trying to make money? Well, I mean, I had that. kind of scenario and I write about it in the book because you know being a woman there is a sort of

still this perception that you know your husband is the breadwinner and I went um with my husband to go and see a financial advisor we were told to go by my in-laws because we need to sort out our money I was six months pregnant and you know immediately as I walk through that door the two financial advisors went to shake my husband's hand and kind of just sort of looked at my bump and went when are you do is that kind of like that's what you're doing is that kind of like that's what you do. That's what you do. And I kept, the meeting was just like literally none of it directed at me. It was like I didn't exist. And we came out of that interview and I said to my husband and I was like, we are not going with them. Like, even if we need a financial advisor, like I do not want to

ever encounter those men again. And I was like reflecting on why. And A, they had not obviously credited me as someone that was capable of earning or out-earning. Or even being part of the decisions. Understanding financial advice and being, thank you, being part of the decisions. You know, I do the weekly household budget, but I'm not making the investment, the big investment decisions. And it's like that's so short-sighted because now, you know, you are seeing what I'm calling the great gender wealth transfer. Because we talk about the money going from the parents to the kids. Well, quite often it doesn't go from the parents to the kids.

It goes from the patriarch to the matriarch. it goes to the mum. Oh, wow. Yeah. So the average, you know, the average spousal transference of wealth in the US is 1.4 million. So those women are inheriting, on average, in the US, 1.4 million, right? And women actually use their money very differently to men. You can, you know, obviously there's exceptions and nuance in that, but women are more likely to give their money during their lifetime. Yes. Men are more likely to give it at the point of death. Hmm? Yeah. In a well. Women are more likely to take less. risk in investments, more likely to invest in like ESG sort of investments and consider

the wider sort of community, earth, you know, think very differently about money to men. And there's a whole generation of women who are inheriting a lot of money. Who are kind of ignored by the financial services industry. And then below that, you've got Gen X, millennials and Gen Z. women out-earning a lot of young men now, a lot of single female investors and homeowners, like to ignore like more than half the population when it comes to financial advice is madness. And you're right, it's not just about gender, it's about, you know, racial categories and

just like the way that financial advice is a privilege for the top, top tier in society. I think that reminded me of the part in your book where you're talking about the history of it all, like the origins, the backstory. You know, a lot of people are trying to make sense of the world they live in today because they've been told a story that doesn't seem to pan out. It's not jelling. Yeah, so in the UK, if you're in London, it seems like things are going well.

As soon as you leave London, you're like, whoa, what is happening here? And those numbers are deceiving. oh the GDP of the UK is still and it's like yeah yeah one company can be the GDP of an entire nation it doesn't mean the people in that nation actually have the money GDP is deceiving right in the US people are having a tough time and they go but I'm doing everything I'm working I'm getting an education I why why is this not working out and then you travel around the world and the stories are the same South Africa Australia with houses etc this is where the back story I found was so important because you took a step back and you talked about the boomer generation

and what they inherited or what they experienced at that time that they didn't realize they were experiencing just just like walk us through that because I know my mind was blown when you when you broke it down step by step where you went I think it was like their values their education and yes I mean the baby boomers and let's be clear that's a western term right there was a baby boom in the US there's a baby boom in Europe slight baby boom in Japan Australia Canada so we're We're not talking about a global phenomenon here, right? That's really important. It's that generation, born after the Second World War, had the advantages and also the

struggles, let's not forget, of that post-war period. But there is an exceptional and phenomenal period of great social mobility and wealth. So in that generation were the key beneficiaries of that. So they had access to widening education, of course. They had access to, particularly in the US, the opening up of the college degree and greater accessibility. They had, so the best educated generation in history that had access to the professions at a time when there wasn't the globalisation of threat of professions. So if you were a college-educated baby boomer who went into the professions and bought a house. house and got a really good pension and we're quite savvy with your money, you've got a lot

to pass down. Yeah. So that trajectory, right? And unless you remember, we're not talking about all baby boomers. We're talking about, you know, but quite a fair chunk of them experienced that period of meritocracy. I would say from really 1945 to 1979, you know, that the Thatcher and Reagan and the sort of neoliberal push is a different story, but, and they benefited from that.

So let's be clear, there was a widening of participation in education, greater access for women and men. And then you had this massive explosion of assets and investments in the 1980s. And that has benefited them ever since. And so you've got the democratization of property owning, property ownership and investments. And so the wealth, the access to opportunity they had. then the access to invest and build that wealth is unprecedented and I would argue unrepeatable and exceptional, truly exceptional.

It's a moment in time. I was trying to explain it to my younger brother. And so we're discussing this and we're going through. I mean, he's 21. So we're having this conversation, right? And he's like, what do you think went wrong? And you know, I'm reading your book and I'm trying to and the analogy I used for him was, I was thinking of video games. If you play a video game and you get like early access, sometimes what you can do is you can play the game before it comes out and I think now they've patched it in most games, but what you could do is you could actually build up your stats before the game comes out. So you could get all the good skins as they call them. You could get all the good weapons. You could get all the tools. If it was like a building

game, you could get the houses, you could build. You could just build out. You're far ahead. Yeah, you're far ahead. And then when everyone else got access, they came into the game and they could not catch you. Now, for instance, like, FIFA was a good example. I remember when we used to play FIFA, you would own a player in the game, but you got to like buy them before the game came out. So the prices were lower. And then when everyone else came into the game now, they had to buy the players from you. But because there's more people, you could charge higher amounts for the thing. And when I said it to my brother this way, he was like, oh, damn. He's like, wait, so this is, I was like, yeah, this is how it is. You know what I mean? Because they experienced this

explosion at a time. And again, not fault. You know, you don't even make it fault in the book. It's just they experienced this explosion. And that sets a trend in place that the next generations then have to deal with. So what you have is, and the sort of way of thinking about it is when millennials sort of came of age in the aftermath of financial crisis, certain things became cheap. Food. No longer cheap. But food in eating out specifically used to be, you know, was cheap. Yeah. Right. Buying a cough. avocado on toast, you know, all of that. It became really cheap. Food used to be really expensive. It used to be a fair, much higher chunk and proportion of your income you spent on food.

What else became cheap? Travel. You know, the democratisation of travel in the 21st century has been all wonderful, nothing but benefits, right, except to the climate. What else became cheap? Tech, of course, and that universalisation of the smartphone, laptop, whatever. But what became expensive, and this is the key thing. The things that were cheap for baby boomers became really expensive for millennials, their kids. So what became expensive? Health care in the US, of course, education, both public, college and private. And across the UK and really across the world, the cost of education goes up. Housing, of course, both renting and buying. That's the critical thing, it's both renting and buying. And so the, and childcare, I shouldn't forget child care

because it's become extraordinarily expensive. So what weirdly, as millennials became adults, the big things in life, health, education, housing, child care became really, really expensive. And unattainable. But what became cheap was eating out, technology, travel, the three things that are synonymous with millennials. It wasn't that we loved all. that avocado and coffee, the economy was literally encouraging us to indulging those things and discouraging us unless you had the bank of mom and dad. So unless you had the bank of mom and dad, you don't have access to housing, affordable health care, you know, affordable education, affordable childcare. And so it's a two-part story. Number one is the baby boom has had this

phenomenal experience, again, some, not all, of access to assets, professional workplaces, you know, investment in their pensions and wealth. And the second part of the story is millennials didn't. So their parents, those that could pass the money down. And they've been incredibly generous. And I was speaking to an economist when I was writing the book and he said to me, the way I see it is they've been brilliant parents, but bad citizens. Damn, say that again? Say brilliant parents. They've gifted as much as they can.

But bad citizens, because ultimately it's created and contributed to this widening inequality. Yeah. Wow. Good parents and bad citizens. Don't go anywhere because we got more what now after this. Is it still worthwhile to advise kids to get a higher education to study to become a lawyer? For example, because I was telling you, my daughter says she wants to be a lawyer. And I was like, I don't know what to tell you, but maybe study something that you enjoy.

Because I, because I, because you're going to be doing it for a long time. I'm just loving your dad having, no, you know, obviously every moment is happening in time, you know. And then like, there's the cliche of asking your parents, what should I study? And they're like, become a lawyer. become like especially like African person word you know doctor lawyer engineer you got this and I'm picturing you just like

hey maybe just do something you like yeah no hey things are tough out there because I'm the It's a full 180 It's a full 180 Yes because I'm the worst person

To give carry advice I mean what do I do for a living You know I'm not like I'm picturing you in brave art now You're just like there on your horse and you're riding along you're like, hey, look, guys, hey, they might take our land, eh?

Hey, they might take everything. Hey, let's just enjoy ourselves. We're here now. Charge! I think it's good advice. But it is a good, it is a question I think a lot of parents share, though. What advice do you give? Oh, my goodness.

You know, if the hatches have been battened out, like what happens now? So one of the things that I wanted to kind of make clear in the book was that I was I was on that track, not for to become a lawyer, but to become an academic, right? So I was the first person in my family to graduate. And my dad was like, education, education, education, education. And he was all kind of all in, all in. And also I came of age when it was all about girls getting into education, you know. And actually, as soon as those doors were open, girls started to out, out, out, out,

destroyed us in class. Totally. Absolutely demolished us. Because we're really conscientious and good at exams. But anyway, I digress. The point is, is that then I like stayed. I did a BA and then a master's and then a PhD. And I was like, I'm on track.

I'm doing everything I'm told to do. And by 31, I had a PhD. I was earning 10,000 pounds a year. So about $12,000, I think. A year. All right. I had a PhD. I had a part-time cleaning job, which involves some quite heinous toilet.

look, cleaning and... Men's or women's bathrooms? Both. Both men's. Come on. You know that... Ah, you see! You see, this is what I said the other day. And then they looked at me like I was crazy. I looked at you like you were crazy. No, everyone looked at me like I was crazy.

Yes, my logic. I said. People looked at, I'm sorry, people looked at me like I was crazy. Let me answer the question. I'm getting to point. Okay, put a pin in it. Put a pin in it. Bathrooms and Nepo babies. Pinn in a pin. The point I want to make there because, by the way, there's, you know, my dad's his last job

was as a cleaner, but there's nothing more demoralising than thinking, I've spent 10 years in education and this hasn't got me anywhere. What? And the only place that it got me somewhere was the fact that my parents had helped support me. Wow. So I was like, hang on a minute. When it was all sitting done. I'm like, yeah, when it was all said and done, the only way I could stay in London, mom and dad, the only way that I could basically be like, you know, sort of survive in London was the supplement and support that my parents were giving me at the time. And he was like, you're following your passion though, aren't you? Good on, you love.

You're having a good time. I was like, I've gone wrong here. And actually the people around me that were doing well without the bank of mum and dad were the lawyers. Because actually, if you look, if you track, we're doing this. on our team, we're tracking different professions and what wages have kept pace with house prices and education costs and healthcare. And it's lawyers. It's not bankers. It's not engineers and it's definitely not doctors. Even in the US where doctors are certainly paid more than the UK. So lawyers are, you know, the demons of capitalism, always the bankers, right? We always

bash the bankers, yeah. Those lawyers get away with it because they are getting paid very, very well, particularly obviously the ones in the big law firms. But they have their wages of outpaced house prices in the UK and the US. And that is something I don't think is talked about enough. So I think actually go back to the law plan because I think that was a good idea. Oh, wait, I'm going to throw a curveball. Because she came up with it. I'm just going to throw a curveball just from the tech side.

Don't forget that the legal space is seeing the greatest replacement of entry level jobs by AI. So tell your daughter to study law, but also tell her. to become an expert. No, no, no, tell her that she should have experience in a law firm by the time she's trying to go to a law firm. That is a problem. Which is impossible, but else. But that's the careful is the things that worked

when we were in building our professions, right? Not working now. So law actually is uniquely exposed, particularly younger lawyers are exposed to to AI you know and I think because a lot of that work is like checking documents and grunt work and really repressive stuff should totally be done by you know an hour ago at LLM so so yeah you're absolutely right so you know I think maybe it's so hard I said I you know I have two kids one's eight one's four and I just think again and again and again what skills do they need not what career path are they

going to take because they're going to have multiple careers. There's no way what they're doing at 21 is what they're going to be doing at 75 and they will have to work till 75 because that's just a fact because I ain't supporting them. No, because the economy is changing. But like I think we fixate on this like become this. Become this. Be an engineer. Be a doctor. Because that was safe before. It's not safe. What do we say now to our kids? You need skills and you need to you need to be agile. You need to learn, not what to learn, but how to learn so that you can go away. And if you need to career pivot, you can go away, concentrate, work that out and pivot. What we don't have is an education system that creates those learners. It puts you on a track. You're this. You're in that

department. You're in that school. You're on that, you know, route to career. And actually, what we all need to do, not just gen Alpha, not just Gen Z, but also Millennials, right? It is just be really, really sort of agile and be prepared to like pivot, switch, learn, upskill, upgrade, change direction. That agility was there before. You know, my grandfather had about 10 different careers. Yeah. And I wouldn't even have called them careers and gambling on the side. And the only one that got in my house was gambling.

Yeah. which is a career it is a form of career but it's interesting when you say that it makes me realize that part of the thesis of your book becomes even more clear when you look at it through that lens could it be that we have defined society by an exceptional moment in time that is not the norm

right so to what you just said your grandfather your great grandfather etc these people had every job possible and if you talk to like if you had the privilege of talking to someone who was like way older than you they'd say that they go I worked as a milkman and like my grandmother

she's like I worked as a seamstress and I did this and I did that and I did that and I did that But we're not that old and we have those stories as well This is true but it became ironically a byproduct of poverty became our gift because we couldn't become a banker

our parents couldn't send us to become in anything so all you had to do was hustle in that way and that's you just learn to be agile and do what you can do but it makes me wonder if we have based the entire view we have on the world

on an exceptional moment in time so in this moment in time post-World War II post the world reconstructing itself this new influx of wealth this new rebuild then you will be an engineer

because there's so much engineering that needs to be done you will be a banker because there's so much new banking that's going to be done you can be something because there's so many new things but as soon as entropy is reached

you're not going to see these big jumps anymore in the same way So being becomes a lot less attractive, it seems like you're saying. Yeah, and that's in reference to what job we do. You could also apply that theory to how we live and who we live with. Because like the US, for example, you know, one in six households in the US is now multi-generational. Yes. That's three generations living under one roof.

Okay. That's double what it was in 1970. So we have moved, you know, ever more towards multi-generational. Households, right? Which was more the norm. That was the norm. Which was the norm. People forget that. Exactly. One family, two people in one house is a crazy thing when you think about it actually. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And so now it feels like we're just going back to what was before this anomalous moment in time. Like, live with your grandparents, live with your grandchildren, live with your, to your point of like childcare, I sometimes wonder if the cost of childcare has shot up the way it has because people don't live with grandparents. Yeah. Lack of excesses. to someone who can help you. Yeah, they never used to be a babysitter when we were great. Like, that concept I only knew from TV, genuinely. I don't know about you.

Did you ever hear a babysitter? Babysitter was not a thing. Because the people who babysat were the people who lived in the house with you. But also, to be fair, a lot of things in our community were not normal and didn't have titles. Like, for example, there was no adoption in black families. Yeah, there was no such thing. Like your cousin would just live with you and never leave. Yeah, yeah.

And then you'd find out now he's part of your famine. Those moments were the worst when you found. out oftentimes because they had the biscuits that were apportioned for you previously. But why was there so much guilt in giving him all the things that were yours? What do you mean? Exactly the biscuit story. Yeah. Like there would be this, oh man, you know, he's going.

They would do that. Yeah. They would do that. And then now that would build resentment because now you'd see your inheritance slipping through your fingers. Because you're like, you know, you remember your grandmother's tin of biscuits. That was your inheritance. And then now you, all of a sudden you got to share this with somebody else.

The will has been changed. let me tell you something man i still have scars i share but i still have scars but that's a really important point to sort of like refer to how families look now we're talking about the rise of multi-generational households but also rising divorce and remarriage and blended families really complicates inheritance my good tell us more well i was i interview one girl in the book and she had um she came from a uh she was a product of a divorce that was that was how she phrased it and her father had remarried and had um married a woman who had two children so they became his stepchildren and there was so much in her sort of expression and voice and tone

that was resentful that she knew that because essentially her relationship with her dad had become distant and his relationship with his stepchildren had become close the money you know and she wasn't being materialistic i was you know she was really careful to caveat that but she was kind of like you know they'll get what is essentially mine damn yeah and and that's you know one example i interviewed another guy who was saying you know the problem i have is that my first marriage my children are now entering their 30s and wanting help with a house. My second marriage, my kids are going through school. So I've got like these competing priorities just in the age gap of my two families. It's still help that's needed though. Yeah. And then society will tell you that one group

is a failure because of that. So they'll go, well, the ones in school, you should be helping them because they need to get through school. And the ones at the house, I mean, they've got to get out there and they've just got to work and society basically tells people that they're failing and their families are failing when in fact it's just a lack of inheritance that's basically making you make these decisions.

Yeah, I was, you put that so well and I think you're right because it's, in a capitalist economy, there is a right way of doing things and becoming a success, particularly in a capitalist economy that is driven by social media and comparison culture in which we are,

you know, have these images thrust into our, into our eyes every, every second. I got a message after I published the book, actually, from a man in his mid-thirties. And he said to me, thank you for writing this, because I always felt that I'd let the system down. Damn, that I'd let the system down. Right. And he said, reading your book made me realize that the system let me down.

And because he hadn't had access to the bank of mom and dad, And because he hadn't, you know, succeeded in education, because he, you know, he had this sense of, this very pervasive sense of being a failure in modern, you know, categorization. And I think, you know, that is such a powerful thing to sort of compute and realize. And it is quite defeating to say, you know, your parents will determine your future. Yeah. but it's also empowering to know that that's the system that's at least you know that's what i mean about the honesty of it all so to like to go back to the u.s one i always bristled

when i would hear people say bristled he's pulling out the fine china tonight bristle away my friend bristle away that's a great word yeah like a little hedgehog of a porcupine um when i when i would hear people say the phrase self-made made. I don't know why it got me. It still gets me till this day. So when I heard it, it was the one that stuck out to me was Kylie Jenner, right? She had done an amazing job with her beauty brand and it was whole thing. And they went, the youngest self-made billionaire. And I went, I'm not discrediting anything that she's done. But she's not self-made. And they're like, what do you mean? They're self-made. Then I was like, no, no, no, no, she inherited everything

from her family. And I'm not, again, I'm not saying she's not good at business. And I'm not saying that she didn't do well and didn't fit. No, no, no. But you cannot tell me that she didn't inherit what Kim Kardashian had worked to build by building her piece of the empire. You get on the door a lot easier and a lot quicker when you're Kim Kardashian. And then Kim Kardashian inherited from her parents. Do you

know what I mean? So if you're coming from a world where you're of the Jenner's and you're of the Kardashians, you've inherited something. And again, there's nothing wrong with that, but there's an inheritance. Jeff Bezos, self-made in his garage. What they don't tell you is like hundreds of thousands came from family members

that enabled him to start these businesses in a garage. And fail, and start and fail. Mark Zuckerberg, same thing. People go, yeah, he just dropped out and he started. Guys, you can't just drop out of school and start these companies. You can try and maybe you will succeed and be an anomaly. But then his story also involves a bank of mom and dad injecting cash.

It actually makes me laugh because in venture capital, there's a phrase, friends and family round. Oh, they love that. Yeah, they call it that. They call it. They call it the friends and family round. family round. So before you ask like, you know, investors that you don't know, ask investors that you do. Yeah. Your friends and family round. So you have different rounds of funding, right?

When you start the company. And then one of the, they go, start with the friends and family round. But they call it a round as if it's, you know, it now makes it that you're, you're not just asking them. This is a round of funding, of course. And then to your point, and what you said about a generation, paying the next generation, go back and look, Google it, use AI whatever you want to do, look at how much each of these family members then got when the companies would IPO because that's another way where you can give an inheritance back to your parents. You come from a wealthy family or you have access to wealth because of your family, right? You start this company.

You take a few hundred thousand dollars. Oh, still working hard. You lose a bit of it. You lose all of it. They give you some more. You go back in. You do it again. Things go well.

They go well. They go well. They get even better. next thing you're launching a company, it's an IPO. Before the company lists on a stock exchange for everyone else to buy the shares. Start here first. Once again, there's a loophole that allows you to give friends and family shares. First.

Before the thing lists. Didn't know that. And now you can give them shares to a company at a price that basically is not going to. It doesn't exist yet. And that little investment that your dad or your mom or your dad-in-law or your mom, mom-in-law gave you, now balloons, and look what you've done. Do you know what I mean? So it becomes the four skins.

I mean, that's one way to think of it. The skins, not four skins. Yeah, but I get to get it before. So it's a four. This is true. I love that. This is true. I don't think anyone who's playing video games would call them.

Before skins. They are skins. There are skins in video games. Yes. And if you get the skins before. Before the game comes out. Are they not four skins? Yeah.

For four skins. Therefore, they are skins from. four. So you're four-skinning. I'm willing to accept this as a term. Many rich people are four-skinning. And so by four-skinning, they make sure that they're able to erect

a larger fortune. Got you. To penetrate the market more. That's exactly what it is. Sorry, we're so sorry. We'll cut ourselves out of this podcast. We're so sorry. You've got a PhD. You don't deserve this. Back to the toilets. Look at everything you've done and we've taken

you back to the toilets. Brilliant. But it is that. You don't know what I mean? And to your point, that's what I mean by the honesty. It's like, if we're honest and we're not making it good or bad, it just makes it a little more, it just makes it easier to navigate. Just tell me that your parents had that or acknowledge.

Again, it's not about fixing or not fixing, but it's nice to know. It speaks to exactly what your writer said, the one who wrote your letter, who studied something. You are basically essentially lifting the. avail on what people have been so ashamed to admit and it makes other people admit even better. So in South Africa there was a huge debate about

people who say they're self-made or this term that they've pulled themselves up with their bootstraps. Oh yeah, they love that here. And someone said, you have to have boots first. Yeah. How about that? You had boost. Yeah. For you to pull straps. And by the way, some people don't. You can't pull yourself up by your boots. Have you tried?

Try and lift yourself up by your bootstrap. See what happens. It is impossible. You on the other hand. It is impossible. Puss and boots. There, there, there, he did it. You know, actually, I like that Eugene, no, I like that Eugene brought that up because I think to what that man said to you in your writing,

I feel like I have failed the system. You tackle this in a beautiful and poignant way. You make us see a generation of men now who have been framed as just like losers, basement dwellers, angry at society for no reason. Yeah, but when you break it down, go, what else could you be? If you are failing and the system's telling you that you are failing because it's your

faults, what would you be if not angry and completely? Because you're disillusioned, you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I think the manosphere has many causes, but I think the sort of economic disfigurations are one really core element, particularly how men have suffered in the last 20 years economically, right? And, and, you know, one of the fastest growing demographics in the US is female breadwinners. You know, young women, young G&Z women in major cities across the US are out-earning young men. You know, we know they're outperforming men at university, in education.

And it's really interesting. We did some data asking people, do you think we live in an heritocracy. And the gender breakdown was so revealing because men were particularly affluent men that were receiving the help from the bank of mum and dad were most likely to say, yes, we absolutely do, but least likely to admit it. Oh, wow. Publicly, yes. Oh, wow. So there's a sort of weird sort of scenario that women are much more likely to say, I got help from my parents than men. Men are much more likely to lean on a kind of self-made narrative, however, you know, sort of airbrushed. Yeah, yeah. And I think it pierces at the heart of this perception of what masculinity is all about, which is you are the breadwinner, you bring home the bacon.

You did it yourself. create the financial security that enable women to do what they need to do and, you know, and breed, breed, breed, you know, that we are still so far from that being, you know, countered in society. It's so pervasive. And, you know, I remember when, you know, my husband and I, we've, I call us, we have a seesaw marriage. At one point he was earning more. And then another point I was earning more. And then, you know, and so I've been a breadwinner. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's really interesting how people reacted to it. What did you notice?

You know, you're carrying a lot. You know, there's a perception of, yeah, you're carrying the children, you're carrying the domestic burdens, but you're also carrying the financial burdens, you know, okay, let's just box your husband as not performing, you know. Wow. The assumptions made. Well, the reality was that he was doing most of the childcare, and it wasn't childcare because it's his kids.

He was doing most of the domestic chores. He was being a father. I think you spent too much time with us now. I know you've corrupted me. Oh my God. But, you know, he was doing everything that's, you know, a traditional housewife. He was being a partner.

Yes. Right. He was being a partner. Right. But it's incredible how we still, after 40 years of feminism, unable to accept that in society. Yes. And that's what we talk about.

all the time as we go, it's not about us defining. I mean, society will always shift these roles and they'll gradually move here and there. Some people would argue some traits are masculine, some are feminine, but you as a person may contain more regardless of your gender. You may be more masculine in some things and more feminine as they've been defined. Yes. Put that aside for a second. We take for granted what it does to a society when the stories we're telling people don't match up with the realities, right? So to your point, exactly, if we're telling young men these stories,

then there's no reprieve in their minds. They're going, I suck, I fail, I this, either. And then someone pops in in the manosphere and goes like, hey, hey, before you judge yourself, let me give you someone else to judge. Let me give you someone else to hate. Let me give you something else to be angry. And that's a powerful outlet

because then you go, deep down, I think it's me, but they've said it's not me, it's these things, but they don't point you to the thing that it is. And then to your point with women, it's the, it's the exact opposite. They go, I mean, he can't pay your rent. And I mean, is he going to support you and your family? And is he going to, I mean, you've got to be with a high value man and you fail. And you hear people using these terms as if human beings are only defined by their economic value.

And I know people are all experiencing the pressure of the environment we're in. But we're also not able to be honest about it because the thing itself isn't honest. But, I mean, to just add a counter argument. Yeah, go, please. If you look at all the data, women want high-value men. Like, the whole marry a guy in finance phenomenon is a consequence of an economy where it used to be you could survive on a male breadwinner salary. Right. Now, you need two salaries.

Yeah, completely. Two salaries. So you actually need more than ever, you know, men to step up and to provide, particularly if the woman wants children. And obviously, we are talking about heterosexual. normative relationships here there is a lot of variance and dynamics here of course there are

and difference but it is quite telling that women are very economically driven when looking for a mate I don't think it's a counter I think it's exactly what I'm saying maybe I wasn't clear enough

that's exactly what I mean and I'm saying so okay you know there's a story that always sticks with me when I think when I read you know when I'm reading economics and I'm trying to understand the world when I went on tour and I did shows in India,

one of the biggest things that strikes you in India is how close the wealth inequality gap is. Now, I come from South Africa. We have one of the highest genie coefficients in that the gap between the rich and the poor is one of the widest in the world and it's ever expanding, right? But because of the legacy of apartheid,

they've done a good job of obscuring it. You go to Cape Town. They've built walls that hide it from you when you drive from the airport until you get to the mansions. You know, you're in the city in Johannesburg. You can avoid it on the highways and you can get to where you need to get to with minimal disturbance to your emotional well-being in terms of seeing how far you may or may not be from somebody else, right?

America does it as well and it's done it for years. Different parts of the world have it in different ways. And that's where the whole like you come from the suburbs or from the, that's sort of what it was. In India, it's crazy how, and I haven't been everywhere, so please don't get me wrong. This is not a blanket statement, but where I went, you'd be shocked at how one minute you'd be driving through, as they call them, the slums of India. And the next thing, you know, there'd be a mega mansion that is one of the most beautiful buildings you've ever seen in your life. That close. Close.

I mean literally, not figuratively. You know when people go, stones throw away, literally a stone's throw, right? And I'm with the taxi driver in the car, and I said, whose house is that? And he said, that's Mr. Ambani's house. And I was like, oh, Mr. And he's like the Ambani family and they've done it. And I look it up and I'm like, wow, this building cost a few billion dollars or something. It's one family. Now, I immediately apply my thinking. I'm like, oh, you must feel terrible. And this man said something fascinating. He said, no, it's amazing. I said, good for them. They make India proud. Look at what they've done. It's great to see them. They're building a name all over the world. We're all proud of the Ambani's. And I was like, huh. And I said, but like, how does it feel for you though? And he said, no. I said, I come from a different. family and he said for me and my family he said like for my cost we're not going to get there but I'm just working hard to get to the next place and now maybe in like a you know in a way that I shouldn't have I pitied him but then I realized he didn't pity himself because he was working

in my opinion with a more honest reflection of what his situation was he was like oh no no no I never thought that I'm going to get there because of my family lineage so my goal is just to keep growing this thing, but that's not our path. And he had a peace to him that I think many people have been robbed of in the world. Again, I'm not saying people should or shouldn't be in a downtrodden position. I'm not saying that. But I went, what would happen if somebody could say, yeah, I'm living in my mom's basement and I'm a 24-year-old guy, but my family didn't have much of an inheritance and the system has let me down. And because I didn't have these things, I can't go. But I don't have the shame anymore because I understand that

I'm in it, it's not in me. Yeah. You know what I mean? And you're so hit, brilliant point, which is all about expectation. Yes. Mo Goudat, you know, the... Oh, of course, yes. Yeah, brilliant.

He has this whole theory about happiness and it's all based around expectation, whether they're met or unmet or surpassed. And, and, you know, the guy that wrote to me and said, the system has failed me, had higher expectations. He's experienced a downward social mobility. Yes. And he had high expectations because he watched what had happened to potentially his peers and ultimately potentially even what had happened to his parents. And so his expectations were a degree would get me this. I would have access to a house. I would have a certain sort of measure of success in this system. And it's those, yeah, unmet expectations that you didn't, you know.

Yeah, it's the story that they're telling you over. And there was a book that I read that changed the way I saw it even in sports. They were like, you know, people talk about, what's the best way to get into the NBA and what's the best way? Well, you know, it's hard work and training. Are you got to do this? And they're like, you know what? One of the best ways to get into the NBA or into the Premier League or into any of the top sports league in the world. You know what one of the best ways is? No. Have parents who are athletes.

Have a father or a mother who played sport at the highest levels. You have a better chance of getting into that sport at the highest levels. Because to what you said earlier, even beyond access, which they can very big give you, just the physical inheritance that they've given you. Genetic. Yeah, like we take this for granted. So people will tell you all these, oh, work hard and I worked hard. Yeah, you did.

I'm not saying you didn't. But did your dad play basketball at a high level? Yes. And did your, oh, wow, look at that. Both parents play basketball at a high level, and you're now in the NBA. Don't go anywhere, because we got more, what now, after this? You know what I think a lot of people that are not telling about the story of inheritance is how every measurable inheritance now was, at some point,

a humble beginning. Like your grandfather winning, you didn't win a mansion, but that house became a legacy for your family. And I think now for our generation, because of, like you said, expectations that we put on ourselves, unmet ones, we're also adding what society we sort of think is expecting from us, depending on who we are, what we are, what we've studied and what we look like based on also what we see on social media as well. There's some people who won't buy a one-bedroom flat because they think to themselves,

I'm a surgeon, why would I live in a one-bedroom flat? But years and years ago, someone bought that one bedroom flat and bought another, another, another one. And now, 50 years later, the expectation of, of also, I think it's, I'm yet to read the book. But I hope there is a part that speaks to how we can, there was a quote that I read somewhere that said, poverty is a disease of pride because it stops you from asking for help. It stops you from starting small. And it also stops you from getting paid small so you can build on something else. So once you cure that, I think a lot of things will be.

will be solved, you know, expectations met and also just knowing that starting small is something that you can use to build a legacy for your family. And I do think if you look at like people in their 20s, you know, I'm in my 40s. I look at them and I'm like... You are in your what? 40s. I'm here midlife.

You look at 40s? Yeah, hey, look. Tell you what? Sorry, I couldn't help it. No, but you look at Gen Z, right? They're in their 20s and they are They are becoming, like, financially educated, investing, however randomly in certain things. Like, they are fully aware that you cannot live by salary alone.

That dream has died. And they are fully aware of how exposed they are to AI. They are fully aware that a college degree isn't the access and the entry point to opportunity that it was 20 years ago. They're so much savier, whereas I think millennials are still, I call them the in-betrayinginges, tweeners. They're like caught between two centuries, right? They're still sort of like hankering after the 20th century dream and sort of trying to sort of navigate the 21st century. And whereas true 21st century kids that have also grown up with, you know, a smartphone in their pockets since they were 13, you know, social media that yes, creates comparison, the thief of

joy, but also creates aspiration. Yeah. And you're not just defined by your immediate circle, your immediate community, you're on your phone seeing what's possible. Right. And, you know, that's-fortunately that possibility might be out of reach. Yes, but it also, it does widen your world in a way that we did not have. Completely. Completely. I agree with that. You know, and it makes you think, I think, differently and bigger. And I think it maybe is diluting for that generation the narrative of this is the path to success, become a lawyer.

How do you think it adversely affects women, like specifically? Because, you know, we will now especially talk about, like, young men. And I think one of the reasons I do it is because I go, when young men are angry, that's when shit pops off. Do you know what I mean? Like revolutions and militias and rebel groups, groups of men who have had no, like ISIS was one of the best examples, right? the US goes into Afghanistan and that whole region there's a power vacuum

it's all young men who now have no jobs they've lost families they have no hope and because of that someone corrals them all up and says we'll give you money we'll give you women and we'll give you purpose

ride with us and all of a sudden you have this mini army that takes years to now counteract and the only way people counteracted is by killing it as opposed to going back to its source and so it's easy to focus on that

because it's almost more threatening Yeah. But when we look at women, it almost feels like on an emotional level, it's destabilizing. It almost feels like inheritocracy at times butts up against some of the freedoms that feminism promised, right? Like choosing when to have your child, choosing how many children to have. Some of these become luxuries that you inherit because you did or didn't have parents that could give it to you. I know it's ironic really because feminism. certainly in the in the in the u.s in the 70s was about freeing the woman from the family you know and enabling and the kitchen sink and you know kind of you know widening opportunities and access for women and if you look at millennial women there and i'll tell it through one of the stories i i demonstrate in the book i spoke to to one girl who was she was she had a joint bank account with her mother

and not one with her partner. She wasn't married to him, but they'd been together over 15 years, right? So her financial ties were with her mother and they had property together and they'd, you know, sort of, you know, very much sort of open dialogue and relationship with money with her mother.

But she was very clear that she wanted complete separate finances from her, from the partner. And the reason I tell that sort of that story and her as an illustration is that for the daughters

of the feminist pioneers the millennial women they found greater financial security in the bank of mom and dad than a male partner right not always true I generalise hugely here and there's really important nuance

but I think one of the frustrations I see with a lot of my female friends and a lot of the narrative around motherhood in particular is what were all those feminist baby boomer women doing when they were raising their sons? Like, why don't they know to change your nappy? Why don't they know how to? And actually the truth is, millennial dads are changing more nappies, pushing more prams, more school runs than any other generation of dads before them. It's not because they love their children more than any other generation of fathers before them. It's because the economics of marriage

have fundamentally changed. Women have stepped up in the economic contribution to the household because they've had to, but also because they wanted to, right? But men have had to step up on the carefront. And I see it, I see modern masculinity in a really positive sense being redefined around fatherhood, right? The public demonstration of the father, you know, father of girls, you know, father. It's a really positive sort of narrative around fatherhood.

I see less positivity and public demonstration around elder care and looking after aging parents and people in our families because we're living in an aging society right? We have fewer and fewer children

we have a ticking time bomb of an aging society and within families who historically has always done the elder care looking after the parents we know predominantly women so just brilliant that fathers

have stepped up looking after kids now we need sons to change as many catheters as they're changing nappies for their babies. Because all of those hard-earned, you know, career opportunities that millennial women have done and succeeded in will be seriously under threat as their parents' age and they have to look after their parents.

Yeah, it's also one of those problems that has so many different prongs sticking out of it that you realize you have to just push each one in to finally get to a solution. So one of them to what you're saying is the system. If people are ashamed to live in a multi-generational family, they're less likely to do that. I don't know about you, but I've definitely heard people say, yeah, I've got to look after my grand. There's like a little, there isn't, you know what I mean, to your point, there isn't a chest out. There's somebody like, oh no, I look after my grandmother.

There's no elder care influences. Yeah, that's true. There's mom influences. There's no elder care influences. It's not seen as a positive. And then to the second side of it, it's what you said. populations are declining generations are getting older

but we don't seem to ask in my opinion like a core question everyone goes like birth rates are declining and then I see all these things that like could it be microplastics it could be the microplastics and I'm like all right maybe it is I'm not a biologist I don't know maybe it is

I do find it interesting though that birth rates are not declining everywhere in the world at the same like in the same way at the same clip You know, if you look at where capitalism has gone and how it's gone and how people live, more importantly, it's interesting that in poorer places where people are living like a more, you know, like sustenance life,

their birth rate is pretty high still. You know what I mean? They're still having the kids. They're still growing populations. Although it's declining at quite a rapid rate. But not even close. I'm saying like if we account for the microplastics, let's say we account, I'm not even saying it's microplastics.

Let's say we account for that, the decline across the globe. Africa is still growing at a rate that many places in the world aren't. And I'm not saying that it is or isn't. I just wonder how much or how less likely you are to have kids in a world where you go, I do not have the resources to have these kids. Like when are you going to have your kids? How many conversations have we had with people who have frozen their eggs but haven't had the kids? And you go like, but why aren't you having the kids?

They're like, well, I can't afford them right now. but I know that I want the kids in the future so I'm going to freeze my eggs now so that I can have the kids when I have the money to have the kids and when I have the man who can help me afford to have the kids and if you look at how many times

the word afford comes into the equation you realize we've warped part of what I believe is a very natural thing and that is you just have kids because you are having sex and we're not having frozen babies no they won't be frozen

oh they themselves yeah they themselves won't be you thaw them But, I mean, I think the conversation around fertility as a mother who had babies late, I was a geriatric mother, right? That's an official medical term. Yeah, isn't it like a young age? What is the age for geriatric? I think it's 36. It's wild that they use geriatric for that.

So I was a geriatric mother. You're talking to a geriatric mother here. Thank you for your service. Yeah. I breed for the world. But women historically have never had control over their fertility and in some places and in different, obviously, you know, different conversations, even in this country, around controlling one's fertility and birth rights. It's a really sensitive and complex issue that deserves attention and nuance because you're absolutely right. the economic constraints and burdens of having children now

are at completely odds with perhaps what our grandfathers and grandmothers and certainly our great-grandfathers. Having children used to be a net benefit because they used to earn money and come back and give it and spread it to the family, right? Having as many children, actually, you'd create this sort of mini-economic empire. You're creating your inheritance.

Right. Oh, wow. Now, really since the 1980s, when children started to live at home longer now parenting is a 30 year financial commitment with the most expensive years after 18 right and that's how we you think about the language we use around parenting

we invest in our children it's an economic commitment here right so the way that parenting is gone is women are having fewer children they're having them closer together that's really important and they're having them much later in life And that is a product to a large degree of choice, right?

Because as soon as you start educating women to tertiary level, the birth rate declines massively and they have children later, it's about choice. But it's also about economic burdens and the complexities of trying to find a partner. And I use gender neutral terms there deliberately, right? Because families come in many forms. And also, you're saying increasing number of women, I have many friends that are, chosen single mothers that are choosing to make a child on out, you know, on their own steam. So the model of what a family looks like, the model of how women procreate looks like, just

all looks very different. But to speak to the political point, which I think is mentioned too often too casually, which is we, you know, child care's too expensive, you know, healthcare's too expensive. Education, too expensive. The economics of parenthood has become more expensive. But people had a lot more children in a lot tougher economic time. During wars. Exactly. It's not economics, just economics, nor is it state support either. Because if you look at Scandinavia, for example, they've got some of the lowest birth rates in the world. They've got some of the best provisions in terms of paternity leave, childcare, but the lowest birth rates as well. So what we're really talking about here, which is something that no one really, I think, fully addresses, which is we've given women better options.

This is about individualism. And you're saying we should take them away. No. Okay. Just making sure. It's from your tone. I was like, damn, this is going to be a spicy take. We've given women too many options.

We've given women. No, that's what. I was like, damn. And do you know what? I was throwing it up. When women have given the choice. I wanted to be a glitch. I was not here.

The point is that when women are given the choice, having 10 children is not what they do with their life, right? So, you know, and I think there's that we have to also have a genuine conversation, a much more positive one. But when you have kids, it's all about sacrifice. It's a thankless task. They don't thank you. The whole point of having a child is, you know, you build it within you and you let it go.

You literally push it out. of you and you spend the next 20 years trying to push it out into society, hopefully, so that they can have enough resilience and independence and savviness to not, you push them out of the pride. You literally, and that's, you know, I think it's really interesting if you look at how inheritance operates in nature, is, you know, there is that sort of, let's push the kids out of the pride, but actually there are other examples in nature where, you know, inheritance, material inheritance actually is a fact of, like, of life. So woodpeckers inherit trees.

No. Ants inherit mounds. Yeah. Squirrels. Inherit the nuts. Yes. These nuts. Sorry, I couldn't help. I couldn't help it, Eugene. I apologize that you were caught in the crossfire. I am so sorry for this. I am. My friend is here and I can't let him get away with that. I can't let him get away with that. I apologize. I apologize. You have inherited our friendship, and I apologize for that. But that's an interesting way to think of it. So which one do you think is most natural for us as humans then? If different animals have different inheritances, what's most natural for humans?

Is there any literature on this? In an economy that feels fragile, it's keeping close. Okay. When it feels danger, when it feels full of danger, fill of uncertainty, fragile existence, you keep your babies close. You know, and that's why you have the situation where one in four Gen Zia's take their parents to job interviews. One in four Gen Zs take their parents to job interviews. For support.

Wow. For support. Oh, I thought to get them a job. Maybe the parents are, you know, actually going and the kids are having to tag along. But you're seeing a process of what I call extended adolescence. It used to be you became an adult, you know, 18. then it was 21. Now it's more like 30.

So what happens in the future? Because, you know, we got all these promises. I would see all these news headlines and I would see all these stories where they'd go. Millennials will be the greatest inheritance generation of a lifetime. There will be trillions of dollars because of what the parents have earned. Is that still true? Is there going to be this massive boom that everyone experiences

if they are the children of the boomers? I mean, inheritance is. is not a guarantee, right? I mean, you've got the contingency issue around elder care and that being social care being incredibly expensive. All the inheritance could be wiped out. You've got, as I said, the complication around blended families. You've got the fact that most millennials will inherit in their 60s.

So it ain't going to them. It's probably going to go to their kids. So the intergenerational unfairness trickles down the generations, I suspect, is how it will roll. because, and it will happen differently in different countries. I mean, in the UK, for example, the tax system encourages you to give early while you're still alive. Don't wait until death. Like, you'll lose it to the tax man, 40%.

So give it away in life. In the US, it is slightly different. And Trump's amended it so that more people in the US give at the point of death, which means that millennials really inherit it a lot later. And so it may fund their retirement because they're perhaps. not putting enough into their pensions that... So now it might skip a generation where it was, I guess, at some point, meant to be like the next generation.

Yeah, but I mean, these things are so fraught with uncertainty. Who knows what governments do? Who know, policies will change. You know, the affordability of various things in our lives will change. That's what I think is really important what you were saying about earlier, is the script is so unclear for the 21st century. It really is. The education, the jobs, the past.

The family unit, the, you know, the various sort of expectations we had feel so sort of not abandoned, but just like irrelevant. Hmm. It feels like there's three distinct conversations that are happening at the same time then. So you have the Gen Z who, as you said, on the cusp of this new era, technology, AI, social, just a whole new world that hasn't even been defined yet and keeps changing every day. You have the boomer generation that is nearing the end of their journey, but no one knows where their wealth will go when it goes, if it goes.

And then you have the millennials, a sandwich generation, who are stuck in between. Is there a way that each group should think? There's one more generation. So in between the millennials, that's worth saying, Gen Z are those born from, and these are arbitrary date ranges, but really 1990, 1996 to about 2010. Okay. That's Gen Z.

After that, it's Gen Alpha. Okay. And before that is Millennials, 1981 to 1996. Before that is Gen X. No one really talks about them because there's actually not as many of them. But that's those born from 1966 to 1980. And what's interesting about them, so they are generally speaking, the parents. of Gen Z, okay? Boomers,

1945 to 1965, the parents, depending on when the mother gave birth, the parents of millennials. Now, what's interesting is, boomers have a lot more money than Gen X. Gen X were the generation that really suffered the most during the financial crisis.

We talk about millennials suffering. Actually, they were too young. It was the assets that were vulnerable were those owned by Gen X. But in America, you now have Gen X's trying to push their kids through college, support them with everyday cost of living bills, potentially help them with a down payment on a house. They are putting twice as much money into their kids than they are their retirement.

They're hedging their pets on their children. And they are not as rich as the boomers, potentially hedging their bets on their kids. I like that. But there is a sort of that forgotten generation who are sort of entering their 60s, you know, 70s now, who are actually quite vulnerable. So how do we think of inheritance then, you know, to go back to the premise of the book, you know, and in heritocracy, we're always told that we aim to and we live in meritocracies. You work hard and things will work out for you. And, you know, in the UK, they got rid of the monarchy so that everyone could be equal and everyone could work their best and get their best. And in America, they said, we have no monarchy. You just work your best and you will get the best.

And this message really, for the most part, has permeated the globe. It's the story that everyone tells. Work hard and you will be rewarded. We hear about oligarchies. You know, we hear about, you know, straight up monarchies and oppression. But in an heritocracy, how do you think that we should think about it? You know, because as you said in the beginning, it's not good or bad. You're always going to inherit something.

So how do we then think about it? in a way that will help as many people as possible because then society as a whole moves forward? That's such a great question, which I think is beyond me. But I'll try. I think the most important thing is to be open about it. You know, generally speaking, in a theotocracy and an autocracy

and a meritocracy, and a democracy, they're quite open about what the system is. They really are. In an heritocracy, we need to be open. The only case when they're not open is a kleptocracy. Because that one you have to call the police inquisition. Yes, no, no, no. I think being open about it, but then I was, I think one of the major failures of the book is that I don't offer any solution.

There's no like, what do we do with this information? Do we do we all become lawyers? Do we all like, oh my God, you know, just build generational wealths? Do we tax everything and everyone? Do we, you know, kill aspiration in the process? Like, what is it that we need to do? And the one conversation I had with an economist in the UK, I think came to the right sort of conclusion, which is you have to make, you have to, you don't want to kill inheritance.

You don't want to kill that aspiration of building general. wealth. It's a really positive thing and it's a huge drive for a lot of people. But you want to make it matter less. You want to build a system that makes inheritance matter less. So what levers do you need to pull in the economy? How does the education system need to change? How do you need to make nepotism not be the sort of, you know, key mechanism of access to power? What is it that needs to be done as individuals? Because there's always, you know, a point about individual responsibility in this, as communities, as professions, you know, but also in terms of governance and government. You know, what I'm realizing now as I speak to you is that there are so many ways that people have acquired a lot of wealth that they've passed down. And it speaks to a point that you raised earlier that some people are ashamed to say where their wealth comes from. And I think there should be a book about how people have gotten their wealth in the first place. You know, in South Africa, obviously we have our history.

In many countries, they have sugar cane plantation owners, cotton farm owners, slave laborers. And now we're seeing what's happening in Nepal with kleptocracy and people stealing just generally from the public purse and their children having a great time in Soho. So I think there's a lot to be said about what inheritance is and what wealth is. But I think what the previous generations from us did is what we could learn is inherit their values. Because those values are the ones that generated the wealth that we generally are enjoying now, you know, and how to use money, what family is, what investments to make, and how to keep the family structure together. And I think, shame, they tried very hard to try and do that. But what they gave in education took less and gave them less grandchildren. There's an old sort of saying that the first generation makes it, the second generation sustains it, and the third squanders it.

And it's really interesting when I was writing the book, the difference I discovered talking to a first-gen wealth, someone that had made the money and someone that had inherited the money, like literally, and was then passing it on. Right. So if you've been an heir and then you will be someone that shares their wealth, you have a greater understanding. understanding of that responsibility of wealth, but potentially the shame that comes with that wealth, but also none of the drive that was with the builder of the wealth. Oh, wow. And it goes back to just full circle moment on the Nepo Babies. Yes.

Because actually there is huge burden of inheriting wealth. And really difficult weight to carry if you're, you know, not just carrying the family business or potentially the family wealth, yeah, you know, sons of footballers, that's a really heavy, you know, legacy to pass forward. And you can also carry the family shame and guilt. Yeah. If we trace where the wealth came from. Yeah. Oh, damn. Yeah, don't do that. Don't follow the money. Never follow the money. Yeah, I don't know. Do you have a view on Nepal babies in general? I think it's really interesting how we are living culturally in an heritocracy, not just economically. So dynasties have become huge. Whether we're talking

about the Kardashians, they were obviously the first. But, you know, Beyonce and Blue Ivy, whether we're talking about the Beckhams, whether we're talking about Kennedy's. Yeah, there's always been political dynasties, but I think you're like getting cultural dynasties. Social media creates the lineage and actually it's been around long enough now that those babies are now like mini adults and like you're seeing them literally grow up

getting the deals now and doing the work so you're seeing the next gen and actually there's huge economic reward in being a family brand right and so I feel like I feel like in a way the whole sort of like phenomena of nepo babies

is partly because of the sort of culture facilitating it it and tech facilitating it. But it's also because we can maybe relate to them in a way that we maybe don't admit because a lot of us are nepo babies to some degree. Yeah, no, I agree. You know, that TV show succession was ostensibly about, you know, the billionaire class with their quiet luxury and their, you know, family infighting about who was going to

run the family business. But actually, maybe we could relate to that more than we'd like to think or would of thought, because actually it was about families and money, which have become more and more prevalent. Yeah, who gets the house, who gets the car, who gets the land, who gets, I mean, even small things like the closet or the, you know what I mean, like furniture. We take for granted how many things are assigned value and like where the inheritance goes. Even last names are inheritance. Oh, yeah, that's very true, actually. Yeah, because it opens or closes doors in some cases.

Never thought of it like that. So I love the fact that your mom called you Trevor because there was no association. Yeah, my mom wanted me to, she just wanted something unique and random because of what Eugene is saying. Yeah. So my mom thought at a time when a name bore, it came with it, especially like in South Africa, but like your name was generally your African name was a name that meant something to the family and my mom felt like it was an inheritance of an expectation, you know? And so some, you know,

like her name is Numbuiselo, which means the one who has to give back. And that's pretty much the role she played in the family. You know, she was the one who had to give back. And I think a lot of people have these stories where they go like, oh yeah, my name is that meaning. But I laugh with her now and I go, the irony is it became that she gave me Trevor because she's like, what a random crazy name that means nothing in her world. And she's like, I'll give him this name. Because Because I don't want him to have the expectation of being normal. Of being normal. And then look at my life.

So in a way, she still gave me the thing. I was laughing with her saying, you can't avoid it. All you can do is try and aim it in the direction you wish for it to go. Because by doing that, I spent my whole life being surrounded by kids who were like, yeah, but what's your name name? Then I was like, hey, man, no one's named Trevor. What's your name name? Then I was like, Trevor. They're like, hey, yo, you're in a safe place.

Tell us your name. Gabriel. No, really. And so I love that Eugene said that. It's like even your last name can be an inheritance. But this has been a great way to think about it. Like make a world with the inheritance is less important. It'll always be there, but less important.

That's why I love football, Eugene. I'm trying to get him into football. But one of my favorite stories. Can I tell you? One of my favorite stories. Did I say it right? Do you know what? Yes.

Yes. So one of my favorite stories is the story. This is the story of Leonel Messi. Yes. Right. Argued be the greatest footballer to ever do it. When Messi was first scouted, he was seen as a prodigious talent. Very early on, scouts saw him and said, this boy has the potential to do things we've never seen before.

However, they all noted in their scouting reports that his body was going to hold him back. They said, he's too small. He's just not strong enough. He's just not big enough. We're worried. In fact, at some stage in his life, Messi wasn't growing. I think he had a, it was like a growth deficiency that he was experiencing. So he wasn't growing at the same rate as his peers.

Didn't they also give me a nickname to that effect as well? I don't know, actually. Yeah, the flea. I wouldn't, oh, there you go, yeah. Yeah, but in Spanish. There you go. And so. Could have been like a little chicharonne, but.

And so. Don't take my word for it. Messy now goes on this journey. You know, he struggles at this young kids, super talented. But the game of football changes to your point. and as Messi matures and he's like 15 16 17 the system that he's playing in starts to value kicking the ball on the ground

more than kicking it up in the air and now being the tallest, biggest, strongest person doesn't define your success on a football pitch and all of a sudden Messi has the opportunity to become the greatest where if he came around we don't know 10 years earlier 20 years earlier, it might have just ended as you are not big enough to play football. And so in that way, I don't think they planned it in such a beautiful way.

But it is amazing to see what a system can do. If you change it so that your inheritance is less important, more people can join the game. And right now we may be missing out on some of the greatest talents of a generation because they haven't inherited the tools that the system currently requires. And I feel like, and as a mother and as parents, like, I grapple with that all the time. Like, what is going to be valuable when he's out into the world? I'm pretty sure the educational system, education system that he's in is not necessarily nurturing those skills. No, almost nowhere.

And you can't really predict them either. That's what I find is difficult. I mean, we know in the age of AI to be the most human you can be full of character, full of great communication skills, full of humor, you know, it is going to be hugely valuable. We know the definition of luxury is going to be anything delivered by a human. Yeah. That is like a given. So if you can be the most human you can be, we know that's going to have some currency, right? But beyond that, no idea.

No idea. And as a mother, I feel that in an age where everything feels quite fragile and your urge to create certainty and safety is, I've never felt so inadequate. Wow. And that, I was just literally, I came from having a really deep conversation with my husband about like, what are we going to do about schools? what, where, you know, what's, what's the right avenue because what I did doesn't necessarily work anymore.

Right. I'll tell you something, 17 years in, the biggest lesson is we, as a parent, you look at the world and you look at your child as interacting if they were an animal, you think of them as being in this big, bad jungle. Meanwhile, you don't realize that by what you've given them, what they've inherited from you, your life circumstances, they actually live in a game farm. where all the animals are curated and controlled and they interact with the world

according to how they behave so the way they are and what they have will determine in a big bad world who they interact with so they'll never find themselves in the wrong side of town because of how they grew up automatically that stops them from going to the other end so what you must give to your kids

more than anything and kids are very slick because they don't do what you tell them to do they do what you do so monkey see monkey do situation with them. So they look at your values more than anything else, how you treat people, which car you like, which neighbourhoods you love, how often you're on your phone. Do you watch the news or do you watch magazine shows?

Do you prefer walking or do you prefer driving? And you'll see that as you get older and they get older, they'll start emulating the life that you've created. And if you're certain enough that you've created a life that you would be willing to pass on to them, they'll definitely inherit that. So all what we're giving now to our children, the guidelines. Such high stakes, such high pressure. Do as I do, yeah, it's, it's, it's, I think, and like, coming back to where we started this conversation, when I was with my father in the last couple of weeks of his life, I wanted to soak up as so much of that, who he was, what he believed in, his values, he was such a unique character, I just wanted to, to sort of envelop it as much as I possibly could as he lay there, basically.

dying and and and desperate to kind of carry it on and actually that's why I went into therapy because I knew I'd end up fucking up my kids trying to do that because the worst thing you can do as a parent is try to sort of carry the family legacy down because it's full of expectation and quite often walked values and and yeah and and actually being free from my inheritance has been what I've spent the last four years doing. And writing that book was about essentially working out the journey my parents had had, the journey I have had, and putting that to bed so that my kid doesn't have that inheritance. He can have much more freedom.

You're doing a good job. Thanks. I feel a bit emotional. I can't think of a better way to end the conversation. This was amazing. Thank you. Thank you for, yeah, I mean, wow. I feel like we benefited more than we ever thought of. Can't wait to see, if you do write another book, I can't wait to see what it'll be.

No pressure right now, don't say anything at all. We'll leave it right here. Thank you, Eugene. Thank you so much, Eliza Filby. Thank you. I'm blessed that I inherited both of you for this conversation. Great. Thank you, y'all.

Thank you. Thank you. That was such fun, guys. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I learned so much. Wow. That was really cool.

You are deep and funny. Bless you. Deep and funny. Yeah, you're deep and funny. What a great combination. This episode is presented by Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods Market has everything you need for the holidays, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner.

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