Eliza Filby: Hard Work Is a Lie, This Is What Rich People Never Tell You

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.

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, Inheritocracy: It's Time to Talk about the Bank of Mum and Dad. [upbeat music]

This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. This episode is presented by Whole Foods Market. Eat well for less.

[upbeat music] That's good tea.

Mm.

That's good tea. Yeah, yeah. I've been having that since.

I discovered it by mistake.

What, what tea is that?

Can you guess the tea? Why? 'Cause herbal tea-

It's, uh-

... herbal tea vibes

... ginger and, uh, lemon.

That always feels like medicine to me.

No. This one is actually, doesn't have that medicinal taste.

Are you sure?

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

I mean, it's lemon and ginger. Lemon and ginger to me are medicines.

It is medicine, but-

I enjoy them, but they're medicines

... it's a, your body just thanks you.

Needs it.

It just thanks you when you drink-

Yeah, 'cause it's medicine

... you know?

Yeah.

It doesn't thank you when you drink coffee.

No.

Do you drink coffee?

'Cause it's not medicine.

No. Stimulant.

I prefer c- so I usually have, if I haven't eaten anything, I'll have the coffee, the matcha. I mean, the, the mocha. But if I've eaten like I have now, this does me good.

Mm.

[laughs]

But don't you think-

No

... don't you think as actually as a sort of human beings are getting better at relearning all that we've forgotten-

Yes

... in the age of like mass consumption-

Mm-hmm

... about food, we're relearning it all-

Mm-hmm

... and slapping a fat price on it. [laughs]

Mm-hmm.

And charging the Earth for it. [laughs]

Yeah, and giving it names.

And discovering-

Yes

... herbal tea.

I always say-

[laughs]

... I always say the, the greatest trick corporations ever pulled was getting poor people-

Mm-hmm

... to be ashamed of all the things that they do-

Yeah.

Right

... and consume.

Yeah.

And then once they've gone off of it, the corporations jump in-

Yeah

... and then they, they claim it, and then they sell it for a fortune.

Mm-hmm.

And then when you try to come back, it's gone now.

I, I, I was always amazed when we were growing up-

Yes

... one of the things moms used to get shamed for all the time-

Mm

... especially African mothers, was tying their children to their back-

Oh, yes

... with like a blanket or with a-

Yes

... you know, whatever-

Mm.

.. fabric you'd use.

Mm-hmm.

And they'd be like, "Oh, the ergonomics are terrible. There's no support."

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

"This is not how you should hold a baby."

Your child's legs. Yes.

"Your child's legs are being, they're being-"

Yep. "You're suffocating your child."

"Oh."

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

"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. You've got to buy a stroller."

Yes.

"You've got to..." It became this whole world. And then when that was done and that, maybe that market was saturated, all of a sudden they went, "You know, there's a more organic way to hold your child."

[laughs]

And they're like, "Let me introduce you to the baby sling."

Who was telling you this thing, Trevor?

Baby sling. This is how you reconnect with your child.

Yeah, and they're like-

Create bonds.

I like, I like, I like it better when you said it.

to Eliza?" And I said, "I'm, I'm always just like out of this world excited and, 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, 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?"

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

"Why does it seem like education is pointless for everybody? Um, why do people not wanna have children? Why don't people get married? Uh, what is happening with economies? Why are young men angry?"

Mm.

"Why are young women feeling destitute? What, what is going on in the world?" And people will tell you, "Oh, the corporations." Yes, and you know, there's a good part of that.

Mm.

And some people say the governments. Okay, 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 wanna get into everything, but just on, on, on the, like, on the surface of it all is what is an inheritocracy?

Mm.

When you, when you use that word, what is that?

Thank you. Wow, that was great. Um, just I deliberately chose that word because I knew it would be provocative.

Hm.

It's the antidote to a meritocracy, a society that's built on merit.

Mm-hmm.

One that is to do with hard work and reward. An inheritocracy 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.

Wow.

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 in- an inheritocracy as one where your opportunities in life are not defined by what you earn-

Mm-hmm

... because wages are, have stalled-

Mm-hmm

... certainly in Europe, and are slightly more here, but very out of, 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.

Hm.

And that's the story

I wanted to tell.

You, you started from a very personal place. You know, you, you tell the story recording your father's life. You know-

Mm-hmm

... your father's, um, really ill, it's towards the end of his life, and you, you're recording his life in his house that he inherited.

Mm-hmm.

And it's interesting that at that moment you're sort of having this epiphany where you're going, like, what, what are the stories that we don't even realize we get told and we inherit from our parents-

Mm

... that define the lives that we're gonna go on to live? And by the way, I'm not, I don't mean just on a, like, a psychological level. I'm talking, like, a, like, dollars, pounds, rands-

Mm

... cents level. It's just like this is the journey that we're gonna get because of the person who came before us.

Yeah. And I, I think I, 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 rowdy 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.

Hm.

The stories, the memories, the, the knowledge, the expertise, the lived experience. And my family's quite unique in that I'm from London, but we've never moved. And when I say we've never moved, I, I grew up in the house that my mom still lives in and my dad inherited.

Mm-hmm.

But my family were, were, grew up, born, worked, lived, died in the same area for about 200 years.

No way.

So, like, we have never moved. Like, our story is so dull, right? It's just we- the exceptionalism is that we've never

moved, but there's so many-

I hope you've moved

... so many stories. No, I still live in, literally around the corner from my mom.

This is, actually, yeah, but it's, it's gone from dull to being exceptional now because [laughs]

But it's weird, you know-

Yeah, we can say that

... because-

Wow

... in a weird sort of way, you know-

Mm-hmm

... London, like New York, like, you know, other parts of the world, has such a kind of, um, movement of people and, and, and, 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, and because I just actually, there was nothing exceptional in hi- the stories of our family. But-

Yeah

... 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, um, 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-

Hm

... because I don't think I now have all the details to do that.

Yeah.

So tell me, Dad. Tell me, tell me what our story is.

What makes it difficult for you to listen to those stories? 'Cause I'll tell you, the other day I, when I was saying goodbye to my mom before coming here-

Mm

... she just turned 72.

Right.

But-

Yeah

... 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-

Oh, no

... 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.

I think, I think it's when a parent dies-

Mm-hmm

... and, and I, I was in the weird situation where my father died and, uh, my father was diagnosed with ca- cancer, and I gave birth to my son all within a couple of months of each other.

Mm-hmm.

So I was confronting death and life really sort of very much in a, 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, his death.

Mm.

I mean, four years on, you know, and I've had three years of therapy and [laughs] I've lived other lives, and I've given birth-

That's rare for an English person

... I've, what, therapy or-

Yeah

... yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Congratulations. Wow.

Thank you. It was, yes, it was-

Is it not common?

Oh, no. All my English friends, when you say that, you go like, "Therapy," they're like, "Huh, what's, what's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong?" [laughs]

"What's, what's wrong?"

Is it the whole stiff upper lip thing?

It's all very internalized and-

Yeah, you got, got, you gotta hold it in.

[laughs]

Oh, all right. All right, well, that's, mm, okay. [laughs]

It is. But I th- but I, I, I can't, I just can't do it, and it's, it's maybe there will be a time when I listen to those stories-

Mm-hmm

... 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 in, she died in 1986, and he, he, um, he actually filmed her talking about her life and, and, and, and telling stories. And- 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, it's just so bizarre to kind of like, and there was three generations sat there listening to my, their, you know, the grandmother, the, 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. You know, just it's that connection to the past that feels, that you wanna feel. We're so connected to the future and the present now-

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm

... but, you know, we've lost that, that, 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, had won in a card game.

Card game?

Yeah, he was a gambler. He was a serious

gambler. We, we-

A very good gambler clearly.

You know, my father, my fa-

[laughs]

Yeah, he was, he was.

He set you guys up [laughs] .

Well, no, what he did was-

Yeah

... this was very, very clever. He, once he won it, he put the deeds to the house in my, in his wife's name-

Wow

... my grandmother-

Yes

... 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 close.

So, so there's so much.

Yeah.

It's just all, it's very located in place for me. For other people, it's, it's in in- different families, different stories, different, different, you know, um, generational histories. But the mundane was what I was interested in.

But it, it took you on a journey that I, 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, or the loss of it.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

Mm.

So like climate change is a good example.

Mm.

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, how did we have these factories, and who decided that this was okay?"

Mm.

And now you look at the chimneys that are, you know, puffing out smoke

from all of these things, and you go like-

Yeah, mm

... wow, now you think about the inheritance.

Mm.

And, and in the book, you, you get into it, I think for everyone everywhere in the world.

Mm.

If you're in the U- United States right now, you are thinking to yourself, "Do I have a future?" And some people are saying, "What did I actually inherit?"

Mm.

You know what I mean?

Mm.

What did we inherit as a country? What did we inherit as children from a previous generation? In South Africa, people are asking the same thing. In the UK-

Mm-hmm

... half of the ques- half of the conversations I have with people sort of center around that feeling, you know? Um, and I, I, I was, I was, I was reading through, 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?"

Mm.

Or whether it should even be the way it's always been. Like is an inheritance good or bad, is, is, 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-

Yeah

... which is why, yes, it's a memoir, my story, how my parents shaped my life. Um, 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.

Mm. Yeah.

You know, I interviewed a woman from Mumbai, and she is now living in London, and 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."

I like that.

"Of course they support you. Like of course. Why is this a thing?"

Mm.

"Of course we live in an inheritocracy." 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 India, in Indian cultures, in, in Indian families, that multi-generational contract is financial down the family tree to a point-

Yeah

... and then it goes up, back up the family tree-

Yeah. Explain how-

... in terms of care and support for the elderly." So she was living in Mumbai.

Oh, okay.

She was living in Mumbai.

Yes.

And, um, she'd moved to London.

Mm-hmm.

Um, she got married. Both parents had helped buy a flat in-

Mm-hmm

... a very nice part of London, not cheap.

Mm-hmm.

But she fully accepted that she was gonna have to go back to Mumbai very soon to look after not just her parents but her in-laws as well. That intergenerational contract-

Yeah

... 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 there because I think what I wanted to do was not go, "Inheritance is all bad."

Yeah, mm-hmm.

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 a, a, an easy path for their affluent kids and, you know, whole sort of nepo baby phenomenon-

Yeah

... which is, you know, rightly, uh, [laughs] mocked in society and

culture.

Whoa, whoa, you, you think it's rightly mocked?

But we'll come back to that. We'll come back to that.

Okay, we, we gotta come back to that.

[laughs]

No, I've got thoughts on this.

Yeah, yeah.

We gotta come back to that.

We've gotta come back to nepo babies-

Okay. Nepo babies

... because it's such a huge one.

Put a pin in it, Jan.

Put a pin in it. Put a pin in it.

Put a pin in it [laughs] .

You can't, you can't just say inheritance is bad.

Okay, cool.

But you've also gotta look at how actually having massive amount of support from your parents can be disabling.

Oh, damn.

It can be full of shame. It can be demotivating.

Mm-hmm.

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-

Mm-hmm

... or felt demotivated by it.

Hmm.

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.

Can be cultural. Can be anything.

It can be cultural, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

But the, 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 privileged few 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 wouldn't, I, I just felt wouldn't do full service to the subject.

Do you think that the way the older pe- generation used to think about family and about money sho- sort of shaped how they left an inheritance for their children, right?

Mm.

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 wanna study further if you're young enough.

Mm.

If you're old enough to maybe one day branch out and do your own thing. But now we see people starting families later and later in

life.

Yes.

And do you think that will affect how they leave, um, inheritance for their children?

Ultimately, yes. I mean, we're talking about, I think it's important to kind of, like, drill down on, on the fact that in the US, in the UK, most of Europe, Australia, Canada, English-speaking world-

Mm

... 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-

Yeah

... 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, um, assets and, you know, stocks have increased.

Yeah.

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-

No way

... private wealth. So we have a huge-

Yeah

... disparity-

Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah

... of older generations owning a lot of wealth.

I read something the other day that basically said,

in New York-

Mm

... 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-

Yeah

... they're not here on their own money. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

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, no. You, you couldn't even be here unless your parents were part of the 60%-

Aw

... who own the thing.

And this-

And this is obviously unless you're living with, like, 10 other people in one apartment

Right, right. Yeah. And this is the thing, it's, it goes unsaid. So, you know, the, in New York certainly. In London it's 52% of, of, of first-time buyers. On the property ladder, 52% have access to the bank of mom and dad, right?

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, where's, in the US, where the real investment is-

Mm-hmm

... is in education.

Hmm.

So it's, 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, you know how wealth works, right? The earlier you get it, the better it-

Oh, yeah

... materializes

... it changes your trajectory-

Yeah, it completely

... for the, for the rest of your life. When I, 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-

Right

... and how you can go.

Right.

And we, we always go like, you know, a lot of people will be like, "I, 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, given you access to the right networks, or given you the belief that they will be there as a fallback, you've got a better passport, you know?

Mm.

So you've got, like, a Canadian passport or, like, a, you know, a Emirati passport.

Mm.

And then, like, other people have African passports where, like, no country lets you in without 10 visa interviews.

Why are you looking pointed at me? [laughs]

What do you mean?

Why, why, why did you have to-

Do you want me to do it like this?

Like this.

Oh, now you say our country.

[laughs]

It's funny. It's funny. When it's a bad thing you didn't want to-

Yeah

... and then when it-

I didn't want any of it. [laughs]

You want... Yeah, okay, okay, fine.

Okay, fine. [laughs]

Then some people have a... [laughs] No, but it is, though. It really is.

It's crazy, isn't it? [laughs]

It's, it's, it's a passport-

What's going on here?

Yeah, it's a passport that takes you through your life.

Yeah.

Like, just from the get-go in what you're saying. You know?

Yeah. And it's, but it's a natural human instinct, let's be clear here, to create that safety net-

Mm

... 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.

[laughs]

Hold on. I haven't been, I'm not done with the umbilical cord, lady."

I was like, I was done.

"Excuse me, ma'am. Ma'am, please. Just wait a second. We're still busy."

Get me out of this bed.

"We're still busy with the-"

Intergenerational wealth

... "Ma'am. Please, ma'am. Please. Please hold her down. We- we'll talk about intergenerational health in a second. Let me just finish with..." [laughs]

No, I was, seriously, I was not one of the, I was literally not one of those mothers who was like, "Let me just bask in the glory of creating life." I was like, "I gotta create wealth, because I ha- I have to create some sort of financial stability here." It was-

You immediately felt that thing

... guttural. 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.

Mm.

Um, how you guys talk about generational wealth is the aspiration. There is so much more openness about I am aiming to create generational wealth.

Yeah.

In the UK we, no, no, no, no, no.

Oh, that's not, that's not-

That is not stated. No, no, no, no, no. It's a, it's, it's something a bit shameful, hush-hush sort of said, but, you know, sort of actually

inferred.

Like daddy and mommy'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, is Downton Abbey, right?

I thought you were gonna say Gordon Ramsay. [laughs]

But, yeah. And Gordon Ramsay. But Downton Abbey. We, we kind of sell this aristocratic past.

Yeah. Oh, yes.

But we like to go, "Oh, that was ages ago."

Oh, that's not now.

British society's not lo-

That's not now

... no longer like that. Class is no longer an issue.

Yeah.

We have a self-made society. We have a meritocracy. Bullshit. The thing is, is that class and the bank of mom and dad- And engineers-

Yeah, yeah, yeah

... privilege in the way that it is always done, if not more now than ever before. And we just don't talk about it.

But you see, the US-

Whereas in the US-

Yeah

... much more open.

It's open, it's open, but it's closed though. I find it's interesting-

Yeah

... that you just said that. So here's, here's how I see it. I, I didn't, I didn't pick that up in the UK in the way you're saying it.

Mm.

But you, you've really made it clear. What I find in the US, people also hide it. They just frame it differently. They frame it as if they've pre-worked-

Mm

... and they're going to get some post-work going.

Mm-hmm.

So, so they go like, "Yeah, well, you know, I, I want my kids to work hard, and that's why I'm, I'm setting up a college fund for them, but they're still gonna have to earn their keep, and-"

Right

... "my kids are not gonna have it easy, and, uh, you know what I mean? Yeah, I'm gonna get them into a good school, but I'm not gonna give

them anything, and I, I still want them..." And you're like, "You've just told me everything you're gonna give them."

[laughs]

"And then told me that they're not going to have to do it." You know what I mean?

Mm-hmm.

And they're like, "No." But they're still gonna have to. They're still gonna have to what?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, and not, 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.

Right.

You know, one of the more honest people, funny enough about this, was Bill Gates. Bill Gates, Bill Gates said-

Yeah

... "I'm not giving my kids... They, 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're like, "Whoa, what an asshole." What? And Bill Gates was like, "Let me, let me ask." He said, "If what I have given you with my name and with my network cannot earn you money, then you don't deserve the money that I have."

[laughs]

'Cause he, he understood-

That's fair

... as, I think understands fundamentally-

That's fair. Yeah

... that the inheritance goes beyond the checkbook.

Yes, yes.

Do you know what I mean? He's like, "I can get you into any room. I can get you talking to anybody."

Mm-hmm.

You're only thinking, "What's the bank account? What's the bank account?"

Mm.

And so now when, when you say that, I actually wanted to go, like, to go to India. I wonder if places like India are almost more honest about it. 'Cause people will say, "I'm from a good family, and things are

gonna go well, and we're gonna keep this going." And you're like, "Oh, are you passing it down?" They're like, "You're damn straight we are."

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%.

There's no, like, hiding-

No

... and there's no, it's like, no.

And it's, the, the lady I was, I was interviewing, she was like, "My dad was saving for my wedding and my education-"

Exactly

... "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.

Mm.

I do think the, there's another element to this in American culture-

Yeah

... that's quite unique to American culture, which is it's quite a legal driven culture and, and litigious, and so therefore, you know, 41% of Gen Z-ers and millennials have prenups in the US.

Oh.

Right? And they're binding in a way that they're

not in the UK. And that-

What do you mean, what do you mean not in the UK? Like-

They're, they're, they are, they're sort of, they're, they're sort of binding.

Oh.

We have a different-

Okay, okay

... legal system, but prenups are incredibly important here, and what a prenup does is it forces a conversation-

Mm

... before you get married.

On the, on things. Yeah.

And so that culture of openness, I think, is also because the lawyer's going, "Come on."

Mm.

"What's going on here?"

Oh, yeah. With the-

"What, what, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?"

Mm-hmm.

And, and I think why prenups 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-

Yes

... is it used to be, so there's this whole theory in 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, 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.

No.

Women used to marry up.

Mm.

Now they were marrying-

Mm-hmm

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.

Mm.

Wow.

And then they'll go, "Hey, guys, so I just discovered that the person I'm with i- is, like, the heir to whatever fortune, or their parents own this mega company, or they're worth whatever million dollars and whatever."

Mm.

And they go, "We've been splitting the rent, and we've been-"

[laughs]

No, and, and they both-

It's not working out.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And they, and they both live, like, a trashy life.

Yeah, yeah.

They're both, like, struggling. Then they find out the other person was cosplaying the struggle-

[laughs]

... and they were really in the struggle. Do you know what I mean?

Mm. Mm.

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, w- when I w- after high school, I worked in a student campus area at a, in a CD store. That tells you how old I am.

Yeah.

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.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that inequality of what some people have, that leg up in South Africa-

Mm

... is very huge.

Mm.

But also it's been weaponised as well as to make other races

look like they're being lazy or they're not being, um, h- what's the word?

Oh, industrious. Yeah, yeah.

Industrious.

Like, they're not working hard enough. Yeah.

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-

Oh, okay

... yes. First, first generation-

Yeah

... after having a fight with the English, moving, the Boers moved.

Yeah, yeah.

They started having farms. Those farms were not making as much money, so they decided to start co-ops, and then they sta- started to have insurance companies that they built. Then they would put money. So they w- the deal was the first generation to get the payout mustn't use the payout.

Oh, interesting.

Oh, okay.

They must use the payout to, to help the land-

Yeah, yeah

... and to help the kids.

Yeah, yeah.

And then only the third one-

Can spend the money

... in line can spend the money, yes.

That's ... yeah.

But by that time they already own the farm, and they've used the money from the first insurance payout to, to make the farm viable.

You've paid it forward, yeah.

Yeah.

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, were, were financed and the Waterkloofs 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 a dad that owns a house-

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

... in Waterkloof or Camps Bay.

Yeah.

And then they go to school with us, and then you, parent- your parents are from the township. And it looks like there's something that they did wrong with their money, meanwhile it was just-

Yeah

... the leg up that the other were afforded to pay a minimal amount every month to inherit, to, to guarantee that when the one passes away, a lump sum comes your way.

Oh, yeah, that's the biggest one. That's-

And I feel like insurance has been the biggest scam of them all to help people get rich, and-

Yeah

... 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, this beautiful-

Yep

... rebirth. And, again, like, to your point-

Mm-hmm

... I like that you said it. Not good or bad.

Mm-hmm.

But it's interesting how many people don't realize what mechanisms some people use-

Mm, mm

... to make sure that the next generation has a slingshot.

Slingshot, right.

So it's like-

Yeah

... your generation will die.

Mm-hmm.

And, like, if it was a game of Monopoly, the next generation gets to start-

Mm

... with a free roll of the dice. Like, they get a free six.

Yes.

say, "No. I'm, A, not as rich as you think I am," [laughs] "and, B, I have to, you know, make our family supported and good-

Mm

... before we can then extend the help and the arm." And-

It's, it's one of the hardest things anyone will experience, and we know it as the black tax-

Yeah. Yeah

... but I'm sure in other cultures you can experience it, uh, it as well.

Yeah.

If you come from a group of people-

Mm-hmm.

Yeah

... who have been oppressed for a very long time-

Yeah

... there is a good chance that none of them have had the opportunity to accrue wealth.

Yeah.

Mm.

Because wealth compounds, right?

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

If you are on zero and your cousins are on zero and your grandparents are on z- everyone's on zero, everyone's on zero, everyone's on zero-

Mm-hmm

... you are starting from scratch, right?

Mm, mm.

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-

Mm-hmm

... their first paycheck, their family has no claim to it-

Yeah

... because they don't need-

Yeah

... to have a claim to it.

Mm-hmm.

again. And I was, like, reflecting on why, and A, they had not obviously credited me as someone that was capable of earning-

Yeah

... or out-earning.

Mm-hmm.

Capable of-

Or even being part of the decisions

... understanding financial advice-

Yeah, yeah

... and being, thank you, being part of the decisions.

Yeah.

You know, I did the, I do the weekly household budget, but I'm not making the investment, the big-

Mm

... investment decisions. And it's like that's so shortsighted because now, you know, you are seeing what I'm calling the great gender wealth transfer.

Mm-hmm.

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.

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-

Oh, wow

... 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.

Mm.

Yeah, in a will. Women are, are more likely to take less risk in the investments, more likely to invest in, like, ESG sort of investments-

Right, right

... and, and consider the wider sort of community, us, you know, think very differently about money to men. And there's a whole generation of women who are inheriting a lot of money-

Right

... who are kind of ignored by the financial services industry.

Wow.

pan out.

Mm. It's not gelling.

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, and those numbers are deceiving. Oh, the GDP of the UK is still ... And it's like, yeah, yeah. One company-

Mm

... can be the GDP of an entire nation. It doesn't mean the people in that nation actually have the money.

Having a tough time. Mm-hmm.

GDP is deceiving.

Mm.

Right?

Mm. Mm.

In the US, people are having a tough time, and they go, "But I'm, I'm doing everything. I, I'm working. I'm getting an education. I w- 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, et cetera.

Mm. Mm.

This is where the backstory I found was so important because you, 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-

Yeah, so I mean, the baby boomers, and let's be clear, that's a Western term, right? It, there was a baby boom in the US.

Right.

There was a baby boom in Europe.

Mm.

Slight baby boom in Japan, Australia, Canada. So we're talking, we're not talking about a global phenomenon here, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

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.

Mm.

So and that generation were the key beneficiaries of that. So they were, had access to widening education-

Mm-hmm

... of course.

They had access to, particularly in the US, the opening up of, of the college degree-

Mm-hmm

... and greater accessibility. They had, so the best educated generation in history that had access to p- the professions at a time when there wasn't the globalization-

Mm.

Yes ... of threat, of-

Yes

... professions. Mm. So if you were a college-educated baby boomer who went into the professions and bought a house-

Mm-hmm

... and got a really good pension and were quite savvy with your money-

Yeah

... you've got a lot to pass down.

Yeah.

Mm. So that, that trajectory, right? And, and let's remember, we're not talking about all baby boomers.

Yeah.

We're talking about, you know, but quite a fair chunk of them experienced that period of meritocracy.

Mm-hmm.

I would say from really 1945 to 1979. You know, the, the Thatcher and Reagan and the sort of neoliberal push is a different story, but, and they benefited from that. But let's be clear, there was a widening of participation in e- 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-

Yeah

... property ownership-

Yeah

... and investments. And so the wealth, the access to opportunity they had, and then the access to invest and build that wealth-

Mm-hmm

... is unprecedented, and I would argue unrepeatable. And exceptional. Truly exceptional

It's a, it's a moment in time. I was trying to explain it to my younger brother.

Mm.

He, he, like, and, and so we're discussing this and we're going through it. I mean, he's 21, so we, we're having this conversation, right? And he's like, "What do you think went wrong with..." And, you know, I'm reading your book and I'm trying to just ... And the analogy I used for him was I, I was thinking of video games.

Mm. Mm.

If you, 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.

Mm-hmm.

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.

Yeah.

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.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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.

Okay.

And then when everyone else came into the game now-

Mm-hmm

... they had to buy the players from you. But because there's more people, you could charge higher amounts for the, 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."

Mm-hmm.

You know what I mean? Because they experienced this explosion-

Mm

... 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.

Yeah.

And that sets a trend in place that the next generations then have to deal with.

So what you have is, and, and the sort of way of thinking about it, is when millennials sort of came of age in the aftermath of the financial crisis, certain things became cheap. Food, no longer cheap, but food and eating out specifically used to be-

Was cheap

... you know, was cheap.

Yeah.

Right? Buying a coffee, avocado on toast.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, all of that became really cheap. Food used to be really expensive. It used to be a fair-

Yeah

... much higher chunk and proportion of your income you spent on food. What else became cheap? Travel. You know, the democratization of travel in the 21st century has been wonderful. Nothing but benefits, right?

Mm.

Except to the climate. What else became cheap? Tech, of course.

Mm-hmm.

And that universalization 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-

the, it's a two-part story. Number one is the baby boomers had this phenomenal experience.

Yeah.

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. [laughs] So their parents-

Mm

... those that could, passed the money down, and they've been incredibly generous. And, 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.

Yeah.

Say that again.

So brilliant parents.

But-

They've gifted-

Yeah, yeah

... as much as they can.

But bad citizens.

But bad citizens, because ultimately it's be cr- created and contributed to this widening inequality.

Inequality. Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow. Good parents, bad citizens.

Bad citizens. [upbeat music]

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Is it still worthwhile to advise kids to get a higher education to study to become a lawyer, for example? 'Cause I was telling you my daughter says she wants to be a lawyer, and I was like, "Mm, I don't know what to tell you, but maybe study something that you enjoy." 'Cause I [laughs]

[laughs]

'Cause I, 'cause I [laughs]

[laughs]

[laughs]

'Cause you, you're gonna be doing it for a long time-

I'm just loving-

... and it helps a lot

... I'm just loving your dad having, no. You know, obviously every moment is happening in time, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

And then, like, there's the cliche-

Yeah

... of asking your parents, "What should I study?" And they're like-

Yeah

... "Become a lawyer."

Yes.

I was, I was on that track not for l- to become a lawyer-

Mm-hmm

... but to become an academic, right?

Mm-hmm.

So I was the first person in my family to graduate.

Hey.

And my dad was like, "Education, education, education, education."

Yeah.

And he was all kind of, um, f- all in, all in. And, and also I came of age when it was all about girls getting into education, you know? And actually, as soon as the, those doors were open, girls started to out, out, out, out s- um-

Destroy us in class

... pace boys. Totally, totally, right.

Absolutely demolished us.

'Cause we're really conscientious and good at exams.

Yeah.

But anyway-

[laughs]

... I digress. The point is, is that then I, like, stayed. I did a BA-

An academia

... and then a master's-

Mm

... and then a PhD. And I was like, "I'm on track."

Mm-hmm.

"I'm doing everything I'm told to do."

Mm-hmm.

And by 31, I had a PhD. I was earning 10,000 pounds a year, so about $12,000, I think.

A year?

A year. Right, I had a PhD.

Mm.

I had a part-time cleaning job, which involved some quite heinous toilet cleaning. And-

Men's or women's bathrooms?

without the bank of mom and dad were the lawyers.

Mm.

Because actually if you look, if you track, we're doing this, um, um, on our team, we, we're tracking different professions-

Mm-hmm.

Yeah

... and what wages have kept pace with house prices and education costs-

Oh, interesting

... and healthcare and childcare, and it's lawyers. It's not bankers-

Mm

... it's not engineers, and it's definitely not doctors. It's definitely not-

It's lawyers

... even, even in the US where y- doctors are certainly paid more than, than the UK. So lawyers are, you know, the demons of capitalism are always the bankers, right? We always bash the bankers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Ah, these lawyers get away with it because they are getting paid very, very well, particularly obviously the ones in the big law firms. But they, they have, their wages have 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, 'cause I think that was a good idea. [laughs]

Am I staying there?

Oh, wait, wait. I'm gonna throw-

However-

... a curve ball at you though.

'Cause she came up with it, so I'm gonna support it. Yeah

... I'm just gonna throw a curve ball just from the tech side.

Mm.

Don't forget that the legal space-

Yeah

... is seeing the greatest replacement of entry-level jobs by AI. So tell your daughter to study law, but also tell her to become, um, a, an expert-

AI savvy

... 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.

Mm.

No, 'cause this, and that's-

I think we fixate on this, like, become this.

Mm-hmm.

Become this. Be an engineer, be a doctor.

Because that was safe before.

Be a lawyer. It's not safe anymore.

What do we say now to our kids?

You need skills, and you need to, you need to be agile. You need to n- 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.

Mm-hmm.

It, it, 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? I- is just be really, really sort of agile, and be prepared to, like, pivot, switch-

I love that

... learn, up-skill, upgrade, change direction.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

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 him a house was gambling. [laughs]

Yeah. [laughs]

Which is a career. It is a form of career.

But it is, it is a f- form of career.

But, but, but it's interesting. When you say that, it, it makes me realize that part of the thesis of your book becomes even more clear when you look at it through that lens.

Mm.

Could it be that we have defined society by an exceptional moment in time?

Mm.

Mm.

That is not the norm.

Mm.

Yeah.

Mm.

Right? So to what you just said, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, et cetera, 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.

Yeah.

They'd go-

Right

... "I worked as a milkman."

Yeah. [laughs]

"And I w- " And, like, my grandmother, she's like, "I worked as a seamstress, and I did this-

Yeah

... 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-

Yeah

... it became, ironically, a by-product of poverty became-

Yeah

... our gift, because you, we couldn't become a banker.

Mm.

Our parents couldn't send us to become an anything.

Mm.

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.

Mm.

But it makes me wonder if we have based the entire view we have on the world on an exceptional moment in time.

Yeah.

So in this moment in time, post-World War II-

Mm, the boomers

... post the world reconstructing itself, this new influx of wealth, this new rebuild-

Mm

... then you will be an engineer, because there's so much engineering that needs to be done.

Mm, mm.

You will be a banker, because there's so much new banking that's gonna be done. You can be something-

Mm

were grow- like, that concept I only knew from TV.

No.

Genuinely.

Mm-hmm.

I, I don't know about you.

Mm.

Did you ever hear of babysit-

Nope.

Babysitter was not a thing.

Mm.

Because the people who babysat were the people who lived-

In the house [laughs]

... in the house with you.

But also, to be fair, a lot of things in our community were not normal, and they 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, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And then you'd find out now he's part of your family, but

Those moments were the worst, when y- 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, "Ah, man, you know, he's going-"

They would do that.

Yeah.

They would do that, and then now that would build resentment, 'cause now you'd see your inheritance slipping through your fingers.

Yeah. [laughs]

Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

I still have scars.

[laughs]

I share, but I still have scars.

Oh, man.

But that, but that's a really important point, to, to, to sort of like Refer to how families look now. We're talking about mul- the rise of multigenerational houses-

Mm

... um, households. But also rising divorce and remarriage-

Ah

... 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, a, she was a product of a divorce.

Mm.

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 were, became his stepchildren. And there was so much in her sort of expression and voice and, and tone that was resentful, that she knew that because essentially her relationship with her dad-

Oh

... had become distant-

Mm-hmm

... and his relationship with his stepchildren had become close-

Yeah

... 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

... mine.

Damn.

Yeah. And, and that's, you know, one example. I interviewed another guy, he 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-

Hm. Hm

... priorities-

Mm-hmm

... just in the age gap-

Yeah

... of my two families."

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 of they need to get through school."

Mm. Mm.

"And the ones with the house, I mean, they, they gotta get out there and they've just gotta work." And the, 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, 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-

Yeah

... and becoming a success.

Mm-hmm.

Particularly in a capitalist economy that is driven by social media and comparison culture in which we are, you know, the, have these images thrust into our, in our, into our eyes every, every second. I, I got a message after I, I published the book, actually, from a, from a, a man in his mid-30s. 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.

Mm.

And he said, "Reading your book made me realize that the system let me down."

Oof.

And because he hadn't had access to the bank of mom and dad, because he hadn't, you know, s- succeeded in education, because he f- you know, he had this sense of, this p- very pervasive sense of being-

Yeah

... a failure-

Yeah

... in modern, you know, um, categorization. And, and I think, you know, that is such a powerful thing to, to, to, to sort of compute and, and realize. And it, it is, 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 [laughs] that's in play.

That's what I mean by, that's what I mean-

At least you know

... that's what I mean about the honesty of it all. So to, like, to go back to the US one, I always bristled when I would hear people say-

What?

Bristled.

He's pulling out the fine china tonight. [laughs]

[laughs]

[laughs]

thing, and they went, "The youngest self-made billionaire." And I went, "I'm not discrediting anything that she's done-

Mm-hmm

... but she's not self-made." And they're like, "What do you mean? She's self-made." So then I was like, "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 f- no, no, no. But you cannot tell me that she didn't inherit what Kim Kardashian had worked to build by building her piece-

100%

... of the empire.

100%.

You get in the door a lot easier and a lot quicker when you're Kim Kardashian s- and then Kim Kardashian inherited from her parents.

Yes.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So if you're coming from a world where you, you're of the Jenners and you're of the Kardashians, you've inherited something.

Mm.

And again, there's nothing wrong with that.

Mm.

But there's an inheritance. Jeff Bezos, self-made in his garage. What they don't tell you, his, like, hundreds of thousands came from family members that enabled him to start these businesses in the garage.

And fail, and start, and fail.

Yes. Mark Zuckerberg, same thing.

Yeah.

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-

Yeah

... and maybe you will succeed and be an anomaly. But then his story also involves a bank of mom and dad-

Yep. Hm

... injecting cash.

It, well, it makes me, it actually makes me laugh, because in venture capital there's a phrase, friends and family round.

Ah, they love that.

No.

Yeah.

Yes.

They call it that.

They call it.

What is it?

They call it the friends and family round.

Mm.

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 f-

Yeah

... of funding, right?

Rounds of funding.

When you have, when you start the company.

Mm-hmm.

And then one of the, they go, uh, start with the friends and family round.

Then come to us.

But they call it a round, as if it's, you know ... It, it now makes it that you're, you're not just asking

them. This is a round of funding, of course.

Yeah.

And then to your point, and what you said about a generation paying the next generation.

Mm-hmm.

Go back and look. Google it, use AI, whatever you wanna do. Look at how much each of these family members then got-

Mm

... when the companies would IPO.

Wow.

Because that's another way where you can give an inheritance back to your parents.

Mm-hmm.

You come from a wealthy family, or you have access to wealth because of your family, right?

Mm.

You start this company. You take a few hundred thousand dollars. Ah, 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.

[gasps] Didn't know that. Wow.

And now you can give

them shares to a company at a price that basically is not gonna-

Doesn't exist

... it doesn't exist yet. And that little investment that your dad or your mom or your dad-in-law or your mom-in-law gave you

Mm-hmm

... now balloons, and look what you've done. Do you know what I mean?

So it becomes the-

Mm

... the, the, the pre foreskins.

I mean, that's one way to think of it.

Or fortnight.

[laughs]

Uh, the, the skins, not foreskins.

Yeah, but I need to get it before, so it's a fore.

This is true.

I love that idea.

This is true. I don't think anyone who's playing video games would call them ... They are the s-

Foreskins

... they are skins. There are skins in video games.

Yes.

And then-

But if you get the skins before

... before the game comes out.

Yeah.

They're not foreskins.

No, no, no. Yeah.

Fore- foreskins.

Therefore, they are skins-

They are foreskins

... from before.

So you are foreskinning. You, y-

you are basically essentially lifting the veil on what people have been so ashamed to admit-

Mm

... 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. Yeah.

And someone said you have to have boots first.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How about that?

Yeah.

You had boots-

Yeah

... for you to pull straps.

And by the way, you can't pull your-

Some people don't

... this great- you can't pull yourself up by your boots. Have you tried?

I don't have boots.

Try and, try and lift yourself up by your bootstraps. See what happens.

No boots for me.

It is impossible.

You, on the other hand.

It is impossible.

Puss in Boots. That's ... There, there, there. There, you did it. [laughs]

[laughs] You know, you know, actually, I like that Eugene, no, I like that Eugene brought that up because I, I think to what, to what that man said to you in your writing-

Mm-hmm

... "I feel like I have failed the system."

Mm-hmm.

You, you tackle this in a, in a, in a beautiful and poignant way. You make us see a generation of men now-

Yeah

... who, who have been framed as just, like, losers-

Losers. Yes

education. And it's really interesting. We did some data asking people, "Do you think we live in an inheritocracy?"

Yeah.

And the gender breakdown was so revealing because men were, particularly affluent men that were recei- receiving the help from, um, the bank of mom and dad-

Mm

... were most likely to say, "Yes, we absolutely do."

Okay.

But least likely to admit it.

Mm.

Oh, wow.

Publicly.

Publicly, yes, yes.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Okay.

So this i- so that-

Mm

... so there's this sort of weird sort of scenario that women are much more likely to say, "I got help from my parents," than men.

Mm-hmm.

Men are much more likely to lean on a kind of self-made narrative.

Hmm.

However, you know, sort of airbrushed.

Yeah. Yeah.

And, and I think it pierces at the heart of m- this perception of what masculinity is all about-

Mm-hmm

... which is you are the breadwinner.

Yeah.

You bring home the bacon.

You did it yourself.

You create the financial security that enable women to do what they need to do and, you know, and breed, breed, breed, you know.

Mm-hmm.

it.

What, what did you notice?

You know, um, you're carrying a lot. You know, there's this perception of-

That's what they say to you

... yeah, you're carrying the children.

Hmm.

You're carrying the domestic burdens, but you're also carrying the financial burdens.

Hmm.

You know, okay, let's just box your husband as not performing, you know.

Wow.

The, the assumptions made. But the reality was-

Mm

... was that he was doing most of the childcare, um, and it wasn't childcare 'cause it's his kids. He was doing most of the, most of the domestic chores.

He was being a father.

He was being a fa- thank you. Thank you.

I think you spend too much time with us now. [laughs]

I know. You've corrupted me.

[laughs]

Oh, my God. But the ... You know, he was doing, he was, he was doing everything that, you know-

Yes. He was doing his bit

Yeah

... a traditional housewife.

He was, he, he was being a partner.

He was cooking.

Yes.

Fights.

He was being a partner.

Fights.

Yeah.

But it's incredible how, how we still-

then there's no reprieve in their minds. They're going, "I suck, I fail, I this, I..." And then someone pops in in the manosphere and goes, like, "Hey, 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-

Something else

... to be angry at."

Yes.

Mm.

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, the exact opposite.

Mm.

They go, "I mean, he can't pay your rent. And, I mean, is he gonna support you and your family? And is he gonna ... I mean, y- you gotta be with a high-value man, and you've failed." And you hear people using these terms as if human beings-

Mm

... are only defined by their economic value. And I know people are all experiencing the pressure-

Mm

... of the environment we're in.

Mm-hmm.

But we're also not able to be honest about it because the thing itself isn't honest.

But, but I mean, to, to, to just add a counterargument there-

Yeah, go, please

... is if you look at all the data, women want high-value men. [laughs] Like, the whole marry-a-guy-in-finance-

Yeah

... phenomenon is a consequence of, of an economy where it used to be you could survive on a male breadwinner's salary.

Right.

Mm.

Now you need two salaries.

Yeah, completely.

Mm.

Two salaries. So you actually need more than ever, you know, men to step up and to provide, particularly if the woman wants children.

Yeah.

And obviously we are talking about heterosexual, um, normative relationships here. There, there is,

there is a lot of, um, variance and, and dynamics here.

Mm-hmm.

Of course there are, and difference. But it is, it is quite telling that women are very economically driven when looking for a mate.

No, but this is ... No.

You know?

I don't think it's a counter. I think it's exactly what I'm saying. Maybe I wasn't clear enough.

Mm.

That's exactly what I mean.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

A- and I'm saying ... So, okay, I'll g- ... 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. Um, when I, 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.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Now, I come from South Africa, where h- we have one of the highest Gini coefficients in that the gap between the rich and the poor-

Mm

... is one of the widest in the world.

Mm-hmm.

And it's ever-expanding.

Mm.

Right? But because of the legacy of apartheid, they've done a good job of obscuring it.

Yeah.

Right.

You go to Cape Town, they've built walls that hide it from you-

Mm, mm, mm

... when you drive from the airport till you get to the mansions.

Mm-hmm.

You know, you, you, you're in the city in Johannesburg, y- you can avoid it on the highways, and you can get, you can get to where you need to get to-

Without, yeah, having a problem

... with minimal disturbance to your emotional wellbeing-

Mm, mm

... 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.

you come from the suburbs or from the ... That's sort of what it was. In India, it's crazy how ... And I, 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.

Mm.

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.

Mm. Mm.

That close?

Close, I, I mean literally, not figuratively. Not, not f- you know when people go, "A stone's throw away"?

Yes.

Literally a stone's throw, right? And I'm, 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 ... And it's ma-" 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." He said, "Good for them. They make India proud. Look at what they've done."

Mm.

"It's great to see them. They're building a name all over the world. We are all proud of the Ambanis." And I was like, "Ah." And I said, "But, like, how does it feel for you, though?" And he said, "No." He said, "I come from a different family." And he said, "For, for me and my family," he said, like, "for my caste, w- we're not gonna get there. But I'm just working hard to get to the next place."

Mm.

And now maybe in, like, a, um, you know, in a, in a way that I shouldn't have, I pitied him, but then I realized he didn't pity himself.

Mm.

Mm.

Because he was working, in my opinion, with a more honest reflection of what his situation was.

Yeah.

He was like, "Oh, no, no, no. I never thought that I'm gonna get there-

Mm

... because of my family lineage. So my goal is just to keep growing this thing, but that's not our path."

Mm.

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 positioning.

I totally get it.

I'm not saying that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

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, I don't have the shame anymore-

Mm

... because I understand that I'm in it, it's not in me."

Yeah.

You know what I think a lot of people 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.

Mm.

He, he didn't win a mansion.

Mm.

But that house became a legacy for your family.

Yeah.