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

Summary

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Podcast Summary

What Now? with Trevor Noah

Episode: Eliza Filby: Hard Work Is a Lie, This Is What Rich People Never Tell You
Date: December 11, 2025
Guests: Dr. Eliza Filby (historian and author of Inheritocracy), Eugene
Host: Trevor Noah

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Main Theme

This episode interrogates the myth of meritocracy and explores how deep, often unspoken, forms of inheritance – financial, social, psychological, and cultural – shape opportunity in the 21st century. Dr. Eliza Filby, through research and personal stories, illuminates how "inheritocracy" (a society where inheritance, not hard work, determines destiny) is increasingly the norm, overtaking the ideal of merit-based advancement. Trevor, Eugene, and Eliza candidly unpack family legacies, race, class, gender, and the psychological toll of social expectations in the era of the Great Wealth Transfer.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining "Inheritocracy"

• Inheritocracy is positioned as the opposite of a meritocracy: a society where opportunities and outcomes are determined not by hard work, but by the lottery of birth.
  • Quote: “It’s the antidote to a meritocracy… 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.” – Eliza Filby [08:21]

2. The Power and Complexity of Modern Inheritance

• Inheritance isn’t just about money. It’s location, support networks, safety nets, education, and opportunity.
• Dr. Filby shares a moving story of recording her ill father for family history, reflecting on the intangible inheritance of stories and values. [10:18]
• The hidden shame and silence surrounding received help from “the Bank of Mum and Dad” – a pattern across cultures, masked by narratives of “making it on your own.”

3. “Hard Work is a Lie”: The Structural Reality

• Many key markers of adult success (housing, education, childcare, healthcare) have become inaccessible for most without family support – a reversal from previous generations.
• Trevor encapsulates inheritance’s invisible power:
  • Quote: "Inheritance is almost like a passport. Before you go anywhere, it already determines where you can go and how you can go." [23:41]

4. The Myth of 'Self-Made'

• The term “self-made”, especially as applied to celebrities or entrepreneurs, is deconstructed as misleading.
  • Quote: "She had done an amazing job... but she’s not self-made... She inherited everything from her family." – Trevor Noah on Kylie Jenner [65:33]
• All achievements are built atop inherited advantages—be they financial, genetic, social, or psychological capital.

5. Cultural Contrasts and Honesty About Inheritance

• Some cultures (e.g., Indian families discussed) openly plan for and acknowledge intergenerational support. In contrast, US/UK approach often involves shame and concealment (e.g., the “protest-too-much” of “I want my kids to work for it” while quietly supporting them).
• Legal mechanisms like prenups now reflect the reality that family money (not just personal assets) is at stake in modern partnerships. [29:13]

6. Mechanisms of Generational Wealth

• The “great wealth transfer” has resulted in massive concentration of assets — the over-50s in the US own 60% of private wealth [21:49].
• Discussion of racialized aspects – e.g., “black tax” (the expectation successful Black individuals support wider family) and how advice/policies compound inequality. [35:06]
• Tools like insurance and co-ops, especially in South African and Afrikaner communities, have institutionalized generational wealth.

7. Shifting Family Structures & The ‘Passport’ of Birth

• Blended families, divorce, delayed parenthood, and multi-generational households are complicating the dynamics and distribution of inheritance.
  • Quote: “There’s so much resentment. She knew…they’ll get what is essentially mine.” – Eliza Filby, on blended families and inheritance [62:17]

8. The Psychological Toll and Social Expectations

• The narrative of meritocracy leaves many, especially young men, with a profound sense of personal failure when their reality is structurally determined.
  • Quote: “Thank you for writing this because I always felt that I'd let the system down… Reading your book made me realize that the system let me down.” [64:30]
• Social narratives around masculinity, femininity, and breadwinning are challenged and upended by economic reality, especially as women out-earn men in some areas.

9. Reframing Advice and Responding to the Future

• Parents struggle with what advice to give: career paths that once worked may no longer do so. Agile, adaptive learning and value formation arguably matter more than formal credentials now. [57:26]
• Millennials as a “sandwich generation:” stuck between boomer parents with wealth and Gen Z children with new (often lesser) prospects.
• Gen Z and Gen Alpha are more financially savvy but acutely aware of their vulnerability and the instability of the future. [85:07]

10. The Social Contributions of “Good Parenting, Bad Citizenship”

• The generational instinct to help one’s own children balloons inequality even as it’s understandable and often motivated by love.
  • Quote: "Brilliant parents, bad citizens" – the way parents protect their own can expand the wealth gap for everyone else. [49:21]

11. The Burden of Inheritance (“Nepo Babies” and Guilt)

• There’s both shame, burden, and sometimes paralysis among inheritors.
• The rise of family brands (e.g., Kardashians, Beckhams) and the glamourization of dynasties on social media mirror the broader social reality – and everyone may be a "Nepo baby" to some degree.

12. Solutions and Moving Forward

• No clear solution, but a call for radical honesty: acknowledge the system and make inheritance “matter less” by building structures (education, jobs, social networks) that mitigate the impact of family background.
  • Quote: "You want to make it matter less. You want to build a system that makes inheritance matter less." – Eliza Filby [106:54]

13. Ending Reflections: The Human Element

• The most crucial inheritance may be values, character, and the capacity to adapt.
• Quote: "Being free from my inheritance has been what I’ve spent the last four years doing. And writing that book was about...putting that to bed so that my kid doesn’t have that inheritance. He can have much more freedom." – Eliza Filby [120:06]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Inheritance is almost like a passport.” — Trevor Noah [23:41]
• “Brilliant parents, bad citizens.” — Economist, cited by Eliza Filby [49:21]
• “Thank you for writing this because I always felt that I'd let the system down…Reading your book made me realize that the system let me down.” — Letter to Eliza Filby [64:30]
• “Do as I do.” — Eugene, on parental inheritance of values [118:41]
• “The worst thing you can do as a parent is try to carry the family legacy down, because it’s full of expectation and quite often warped values…Being free from my inheritance has been what I’ve spent the last four years doing.” — Eliza Filby [120:06]
• (On wealth-building): “The first generation makes it, the second sustains it, and the third squanders it.” — Eliza Filby [108:50]
• “Make a world where the inheritance is less important. It’ll always be there, but less important. That’s why I love football...” — Trevor Noah, drawing the analogy to soccer’s system change enabling more talent [113:49]

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Key Timestamps

• 08:21 – Defining Inheritocracy
• 10:18 – Personal family history and the invisible inheritance
• 23:41 – Inheritance as a “passport”
• 29:13 – Marriage, inheritance, prenups & financial contract shifts
• 35:06 – The “black tax” and racialized inheritance
• 49:21 – “Brilliant parents, bad citizens” – on the social effects of inheritance
• 62:17 – Blended families and inheritance complexities
• 64:30 – Letter from a man feeling “left down by the system”
• 65:33 – The “self-made” myth
• 85:07 – Gen Z’s financial savviness and new worldview
• 106:54 – “Make inheritance matter less”—possible (if partial) solution
• 120:06 – The journey to being “free from inheritance”

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Tone & Style

• Candid, personal, and intellectually probing. There’s warmth and humor, including self-deprecating jokes (especially from Trevor and Eugene) and a willingness to challenge cultural taboos.
• Emotionally honest: Eliza openly discusses grief, therapy, intergenerational shame, and the hopes and anxieties of parenthood.
• Global and intersectional: Experiences from the UK, US, South Africa, India, and beyond; covering race, gender, class, and history.

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For Listeners: The Takeaway

This episode challenges you to question what you’ve inherited (seen and unseen), to look past myths of “hard work” and “self-made” success, and to consider how social, economic, and cultural forces shape “your lane” in life. The most powerful antidote, the hosts suggest, is radical honesty—about what we receive, what we pass on, and the systems we inhabit.

Ultimately, the goal is not to abolish inheritance—which is part of human nature—but to reduce its power over our collective destinies, and to invest more energy in passing down values and openness for change.

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Transcript

[Eliza Philby]

Millennials are struggling to make as much money as their baby boomer parents. They face greater wealth inequality than previous generations.

[Trevor Noah]

It's called the Great wealth transfer.

[Eugene]

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.

[Trevor Noah]

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 hundred thousand dollars.

[Eugene]

Was because I lived at home.

[Trevor Noah]

You don't pay your rent.

[Eliza Philby]

I'm like one of those spoiled rich kids that doesn't pay rent. Historian, generational expert, Dr. Eliza Philby. 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.

[Trevor Noah]

This is what now with Trevor Noah.

This episode is presented by Whole Foods Market. Eat well for less. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. Imagine this. You're at a checkout counter. You're ready to pay, when you realize you don't have your wallet. Dun, dun, dun. You could drive all the way back home and you could get it. But you remember that you have your Apple card on your iPhone so you can tap to pay with Apple Pay. Imagine that. No need to carry a wallet. But, you know, one of the things I do like about having my card on my phone is we live in a world where you lose your card and then you don't know where it is. And then you're like, what do I do? Well, if your phone is connected to your card and your card is connected to your phone, you know what's going on. The best thing about having the Apple card connected to your phone is, you know what every transaction is. You know, like, sometimes you're like, what did I spend this month? The Apple card will show you.

[Eugene]

One month.

[Trevor Noah]

I had spent an obscene amount of money ordering videos online.

[Eugene]

Just videos?

[Trevor Noah]

They were just videos.

[Eugene]

What kind of videos?

[Trevor Noah]

That's not the point. The point is, I knew that I didn't want to order those videos anymore because I'd spent too much money on it. It was videos on how to not spend money online.

[Eugene]

I felt like I'd been duped.

[Trevor Noah]

Point is, Apple showed me what I was spending my money on, and I was able to change my spending habits. And you can do it, too. I earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase with my Apple card. That's unlimited daily cash back no matter Where I shop. Apply for every Apple card in the wallet app on your iPhone. Subject to credit approval. Apple card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and.

[Ashley Flowers]

[e-mail] hi, everyone, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of Crime Junkie, the go to crime podcast for the biggest cases and the stories you won't hear anywhere else. So whether on your commute, studying or while you work, let us keep you company. With new episodes every Monday, it is truly a crime junkie's dream. So join me, my best friend Britt, and our entire crime junkie community right now by catching up on hundreds of episodes and by listening to a new case every Monday on Crime Junkie, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Eliza Philby]

That's good tea. That's good tea.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Having that sense.

[Trevor Noah]

What tea is that?

[Eliza Philby]

Tea. Why? Because herbal tea.

[Eugene]

Herbal tea, ginger and lemon, that always.

[Trevor Noah]

Feels like medicine to me.

[Eugene]

No, this one is actually. Doesn't have that medicinal taste.

[Trevor Noah]

Are you sure?

[Eugene]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Trevor Noah]

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

[Eliza Philby]

It is medicine.

[Trevor Noah]

I enjoy them, but they're medicines.

[Eliza Philby]

Your body just. It just thanks you.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, because it's medicine.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah. It doesn't thank you when you drink coffee.

[Eugene]

No.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know, because it's not medicine.

[Eliza Philby]

No. Stimulant, I prefer.

[Eugene]

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 because it helps me from feeling.

[Eliza Philby]

Settles your stomach.

[Trevor Noah]

Medicine. Everything you've said is medicine here.

[Eliza Philby]

But don't you think. Don't you think as actually as a sort of. Human beings are getting better at relearning all that we've forgotten in the age of like, mass consumption about food, we're relearning it all and slapping a fat price on it and charging the earth for it and giving it and discovering herbal tea.

[Trevor Noah]

I always say the. The greatest trick corporations ever pulled was getting poor people to be ashamed of all the things that they do right and consume. And then once they're gone off of it, the corporations jump in and then they. 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.

[Eliza Philby]

All of that learning, all of that knowledge throughout the family, the.

Culture, the cooking down the generations is gone. Language, 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 originally basically, like, source of.

[Trevor Noah]

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.

[Eugene]

Oh, yes.

[Trevor Noah]

With, like, a blanket or with a, you know, whatever fabric you would use. And they'd be like, oh, the ergonomics are terrible. There's no support. This is not how you should hold a baby's legs. Your child's legs are being suffocating your child. Oh, the whole thing.

[Eugene]

The whole thing.

[Trevor Noah]

And then, like, you'd see over time, people like, oh, you've got to get better. You got to buy a pram. Got to buy a stroller. You've got to. It became this whole world. And then when that was done and that maybe that market was saturated with, 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 who are selling.

[Eliza Philby]

Trevor, this is how you reconnect with your child.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

And they're like, I like it better when you said it. Because all of that.

[Eliza Philby]

No, no, no.

[Eugene]

It was a seduction about.

[Trevor Noah]

I sell things. A seduction of selling.

[Eliza Philby]

No, but to reinforce your point, there is a shop in Tooting where I grew up, where the book was in.

[Trevor Noah]

Where?

[Eliza Philby]

Tooting.

[Trevor Noah]

Tooting?

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You're from Tooting?

[Eliza Philby]

I'm from Tooting.

[Eugene]

You've been to Tooting?

[Trevor Noah]

I didn't know that tooting was a thing.

[Eliza Philby]

It's. Tooting is a thing. It's near Brixton. So 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. Yeah.

[Eugene]

In America, they call it papus. When you put a child across. Yeah. On your. Across your shoulder. But they're sitting right here in front, and you put them in that swaddle, and then it.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. You see all of that.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And now you get money from it. Meanwhile, people were basically doing it for free.

[Eugene]

Our mothers didn't patent it.

[Trevor Noah]

That's. That's the real. That's the inheritance we could have gotten.

[Eugene]

Yep. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

See what I did there? Segue into a conversation.

[Eugene]

You know what I love about you?

[Trevor Noah]

Tell me.

[Eugene]

Carry on.

[Trevor Noah]

Eliza, thanks for joining us.

[Eliza Philby]

Oh, pleasure.

[Trevor Noah]

I.

[Eliza Philby]

Having fun already.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, I was talking to Eugene before. Before we started this episode, like, earlier today, and Eugene was like, what excites you about Talking to Eliza. And I said, I'm. 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. 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, oh, the corporations. Yes. And, you know, there's a good part of that, 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 like, on the surface of it all is, what is an inheritocracy? When you use that word, what is that?

[Eliza Philby]

Thank you. 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 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. 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, and it is defining the 21st century. And the book is essentially. It's a memoir. It's my own story. But I define an inheritor as one where your opportunities in life are not defined by what you earn, because wages have stalled, certainly in Europe, and are slightly more here, but very 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

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.

[Trevor Noah]

You started from a very personal place. You know, you, 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, you're recording his life in 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, 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, rands cents level. It's just like this is the journey that we're gonna get because of the person who came before us.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah. And I think I wanted to start the book in that moment because I remember it so well. My 8 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. 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's 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 mom still lives in and my dad inherited. But my family grew up, born, worked, lived, died in the same area for about 200 years.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Eliza Philby]

So like we have never moved. Like our story is so dull. Right. It's just the exceptionalism is that we've never moved. But there's so many, so many stories. No, I still live in literally around the corner.

[Eugene]

This is my mum.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. But it's gone from dull to being exceptional now because it's weird.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Who can say that?

[Eliza Philby]

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 Our family. But I knew they were about to be lost. And so I still have those tapes. I can't listen to them.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, wow.

[Eliza Philby]

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.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

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

[Eugene]

What makes it difficult for you to listen to those stories? Because I'll tell you. The other day when I was saying goodbye to my mom before coming here, she just turned 72.

[Eliza Philby]

Right.

[Eugene]

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.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, that happened.

[Eugene]

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'd 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?

[Eliza Philby]

I think.

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. His death. I mean, four years on, you know, and I've had three years of therapy, and I've lived other lives, and I'm.

[Trevor Noah]

Rare for an English person.

[Eliza Philby]

What, therapy? Yeah. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Congratulations. Wow.

[Eliza Philby]

Thank you. It's not common.

[Trevor Noah]

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?

[Eugene]

Is it the whole stiff upper lip thing?

[Eliza Philby]

It's all very interesting. Yeah. You got.

[Trevor Noah]

You've got to hold it in. Oh, all right. Well, okay.

[Eliza Philby]

But I. But 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 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, he, he actually filmed her talking about her life and telling stories. And we sat around actually about four years before my father actually watching my grandmother tell her life story.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Eliza Philby]

And you know, it's just so bizarre to 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. 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

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.

[Eugene]

Card game, yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

He was a gambler. He was a serious gambler, a very good gambler, clearly.

[Trevor Noah]

My father.

[Eliza Philby]

My father. Yeah, he was. Well, no, what he did was this was very, very clever. 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.

[Trevor Noah]

That is the key.

[Eliza Philby]

But the point is, is my dad is now buried in the garden of that house. So there's so much, it's just all, it's very located in place for me, for other people, it's, it's in different families, different stories, different, different, you know, generational histories. But the mundane was what I was interested in.

[Trevor Noah]

But 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. 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, 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.

[Eliza Philby]

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 shaped my life. But I also interviewed people sort of with very different trajectories. People who come from blended families, had really difficult relationships with their parents, but accepted financial inheritance. You know, I interviewed a woman from Mumbai and she is now living in London. She was like, why are you writing a book about the bank of Mum and Dad? Of course there's the bank of Mum and Dad. Of course they support you. Like, of course. Why is this a thing? Of course we live in a 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 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 very nice part of London. Not cheap, 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 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, 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.

[Trevor Noah]

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

[Eliza Philby]

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

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, we gotta come back to that. No, I've got thoughts on this. We gotta come back to that.

[Eliza Philby]

Babies.

[Trevor Noah]

Put a pin in the gym.

[Eliza Philby]

Put in it.

[Trevor Noah]

Put a pin in it.

[Eliza Philby]

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

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, cool.

[Eliza Philby]

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 cultural, can be anything cultural, you know, 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 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 just felt, wouldn't do full service to the subject.

[Eugene]

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 families later and later in life.

[Eliza Philby]

Yes.

[Eugene]

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

[Eliza Philby]

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, 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 U.S. now in 2025 it's around 125 trillion.

[Eugene]

Wow.

[Eliza Philby]

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 U.S. 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.

[Trevor Noah]

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. Or 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, no, 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.

[Eliza Philby]

And this is the thing, it goes unsaid. So you know the. 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. In the US Gen Z, about a quarter of Gen Z are getting that down payment from the bank of Mum and Dad. So it's not as much because housing generally is cheaper in the us not everywhere, not on the island of Manhattan of course. But generally speaking, where's 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh yeah, it changes your trajectory it completely 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, 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, so you've got like a Canadian passport or like a, you know, 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?

[Eugene]

Why. Why did you have to.

[Trevor Noah]

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 and then you want. Yeah, okay, fine. Then some people have.

No, but it is, though. It really is.

[Eliza Philby]

It's.

[Eugene]

It's.

[Trevor Noah]

It's a passport.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

It's a passport that takes you through your life, like, just from the get go in what you're saying.

[Eliza Philby]

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. When my first son literally came out of me, I was like, right, life's purpose has arrived.

[Trevor Noah]

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 him. Ma', am, please. Ma', am, please, please hold her down. We'll talk about intergenerational health in a second. Let me just finish with.

[Eliza Philby]

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 got to create wealth because I have to create some sort of financial stability here.

[Trevor Noah]

You immediately felt that thing guttural.

[Eliza Philby]

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, that's not stated. No, no, no, no. It's just. It's. It's something bit shameful, hush, hush. Sort of said, but, you know, sort.

[Trevor Noah]

Of actually inferred, like daddy and mummy's money. You don't.

[Eliza Philby]

You don't just don't talk about it. Because we sort of, you know, our greatest export, right, is. Is Downton Abbey.

[Eugene]

I thought you were gonna say Gordon Ramsay.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah, and Gordon Ramsay. But Downton Abbey, we kind of sell this aristocratic past, but we like to go, oh, that was ages ago.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, that's not.

[Eliza Philby]

British. Society's not no longer like that. Class is no longer an issue. We have a self made society, we have a meritocracy. Bullshit. The thing is, is that class and the bank of mum and dad engineers privilege in the way that it has always done, if not more now than ever before. And we just don't talk about it.

[Trevor Noah]

But you say the US Y.

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 in the way you're saying it, but you've 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 post work 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 them. But they're still gonna have to earn their keep and my kids are not gonna have it easy. And you know what? Yeah, I'm gonna get them into a good school, but I'm not gonna give them anything. And I still want them. And you're like, you've just told me everything you're gonna 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 gonna have to. They're still gonna 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're like, whoa, what an asshole. And Bill Gates was like, 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. Cause 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. 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. And we're gonna keep this going. And you're like, oh, you're passing it down. They're like, you're damn straight we are.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know what I mean?

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%.

[Trevor Noah]

There's no, like, hiding and there's no. It's like.

[Eugene]

No.

[Eliza Philby]

The lady I was, I was interviewing, she was like, my dad was saving for my wedding and my education.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly.

[Eliza Philby]

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 it's quite a legal driven culture and. And litigious. And so Therefore, you know, 41 of Gen Z is. And millennials have prenups in the U.S. oh. And they're binding in a way that they're not in the uk. And what do you mean?

[Trevor Noah]

What do you mean, not in the uk?

[Eliza Philby]

They are. They're sort of. They're sort of binding. We have a different, okay, legal system. But prenups are incredibly important here. And what a prenup does is it forces a conversation before you get married on the onset. And so that culture of openness, I think, is also because the lawyer's going, come on, what's going on here? Oh, yeah, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? 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 mum and dad has changed marriage.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

So what's happened 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Eliza Philby]

And in the 90s, when more and more women started going to university, what happened was, was that graduates started to partner up with graduates.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Eliza Philby]

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.

[Eugene]

Yes, the bank of mom and dad.

[Eliza Philby]

The banks and Mum and dad who are fighting for their cash back. So prenups become really, really important in an inheritocracy.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Because you. Have you seen one of my favorite genres on TikTok is you're on TikTok, people discovering.

[Eugene]

Why.

[Trevor Noah]

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.

[Eliza Philby]

So on TikTok, I'm on TikTok. You can follow me.

[Trevor Noah]

No, you know, one of my favorite. One of my favorite genres on TikTok is. 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. 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 heir 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.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah. And they.

[Trevor Noah]

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?

[Eugene]

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'd 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 industrious.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

How to use their money properly.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

So until I was doing something with an insurance company that explained how most of the fortune that the Africanas 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 Boers moved.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

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

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, interesting.

[Eugene]

They must use the payout to, to help the land and to help the kids. And then only the third one can spend the money. Yes. 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. 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 in the 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 and that owned a farm and the dad that owns a house.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

For Kemps Bay. 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 the leg up that the other way 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh yeah, that's the biggest one.

[Eugene]

And I feel like insurance has been the biggest scam 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. One generation dies and from their death you get like this, 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 start with a free roll of the dice. Like, they get a free six.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

And you're like, oh, we all started on zero. It's like, yeah, yeah, but your parents gave you a six.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what I mean?

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

But you write about this. You write a bit about this in your book about what you call your mum called the Black tax.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Eliza Philby]

And how she had to sort of support and fund. Oh, yeah, completely. Other parts of her family. And 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 family, extended family, friends were like, tap, tap, help me out, help me out. There was an expectation, 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 in the organization.

[Trevor Noah]

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 it as well. If you come from a group of people who have been oppressed for a very long time.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

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

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Because wealth compounds. Right. If you are on zero and your cousins are on zero and your grandparents on zero, everyone's 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. 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.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Eugene]

One thing I loved about how Trevor explained your book to me was, it's almost the same as, I hate it when an athlete who's naturally gifted and who has all the opportunities in the world tells someone else who's not as athletic that they can do anything they put their mind to.

[Trevor Noah]

You still mad that guy told you you can dunk?

[Eugene]

Kill this man.

[Eliza Philby]

Who told you you can dunk?

[Eugene]

It was him actually.

[Trevor Noah]

You can do it, Eugene. Put your mind to it 40 years later.

[Eliza Philby]

That's right. It's this idea that we're all starting from the same point in the race.

[Eugene]

We're not. We're not.

[Eliza Philby]

And so the sort of pretence of that I wanted to kind of literally lid on.

[Eugene]

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 will be given advice again in insurance. They'd say a funeral cover would be 120,000, 120rand and it will cover you for 80,000 rand. But life cover is 250rand and will cover you for 2 million rand.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eugene]

But that advice will not be given to that person because they think short term the bank will lose obviously if. 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.

[Eliza Philby]

I know just, just what wealth band you are at.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes, oh, definitely.

[Eliza Philby]

What risk you can take. Definitely mechanisms you can pull. You know, the kind of advice that you get, you know, and is there's.

[Trevor Noah]

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, uh, let's talk to you about. And you're like, wait, 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. Cause I make money. Why didn't you call me when I was trying to make money?

[Eliza Philby]

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 with my husband to go and see a financial advisor. We were told to go by my in laws. Cause we need to sort out our money. I was six months pregnant. And you know, immediately as I walked 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 due? Is that kind of like that's what you do? That's what you do. And 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, I was like, we are not going with them. Like, even if we need a financial advisor, like, I do not want it 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 decision. Financial advice and being. Thank you. Being part of the decisions. You know, I did the, 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, wow. Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

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 U.S. 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.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Eliza Philby]

Men are more likely to give it at the point of death. Yeah. In a while. 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eliza Philby]

Who are kind of ignored by the financial services industry. And then below that you've got Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z women, young 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Reminded me of, 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.

[Eugene]

It's not gelling.

[Trevor Noah]

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, 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 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 like walk us through that because I know my mind was blown when you broke it down step by step, where you went. I think it was like their values, their education and.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah. So 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 was a baby boom in Europe, slight baby boom in Japan, Australia, Canada. So we're talking, we're not talking about a global phenomenon here.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eliza Philby]

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 were 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 globalization of threat. Yes, professions. So if you were a college educated baby boomer who went into the professions and bought a house and got a really good pension and were quite savvy with your money. Yeah, you've got a lot to pass down.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

So that, that trajectory. Right. And let's 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. But 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 and then the access to invest and build that wealth is unprecedented and I would argue, unrepeatable and exceptional, Truly exceptional.

[Trevor Noah]

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. 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.

[Eugene]

You're far ahead.

[Trevor Noah]

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. 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 experience this explosion at a time. And again, not false. You know, you don't even make it fault in the book. It's just they experience this explosion.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

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

[Eliza Philby]

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 financial crisis, certain things became cheap. Food, no longer cheap, but food and eating out specifically used to be, you know, was cheap. Yeah, right. Buying a coffee, 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 democratization of travel in the 21st century has been wonderful. Nothing but benefits, Right? Except to the climate. What else became cheap? Tech, of course, 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, their kids. So what became expensive? Healthcare. 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, is both renting and buying.

And childcare. I shouldn't forget childcare, because it's become extraordinarily expensive. So what? Weirdly, as millennials became adults, the big things in life, health, education, housing, childcare, childcare 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 indulge in those things.

[Trevor Noah]

That's an amazing way of discouraging us.

[Eliza Philby]

Unless you had the bank of Mum and Dad. So unless you had the bank of Mum and Dad, you don't have access to housing, affordable health care, you know, affordable education, affordable child care. And so it's a two part story. Number one is the baby boomers 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Damn. Say that again.

[Eliza Philby]

Brilliant parents, they've gifted as much as they can, but bad citizens, because ultimately it's created and contributed to this widening inequality.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

Wow.

[Trevor Noah]

Good parents and bad citizens. Don't go anywhere because we got more. What now? After this.

[Ashley Flowers]

Hi, everyone, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of Crime Junkie, the go to Crime podcast for the biggest cases and the stories you won't hear anywhere else. So whether on your commute, studying, or while you work, let us keep you company. With new episodes every Monday. It is truly a crime junkie's dream. So join me, my best friend Britt and our entire crime junkie community right now by catching up on hundreds of episodes and by listening to a new case every Monday on Crime Junkie. Available wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Eliza Philby]

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[Trevor Noah]

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[Eugene]

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.

[Eliza Philby]

You're gonna be doing it for a long time.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm just loving. 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 parents who are, you know, doctor, lawyer, engineer. You got this. And now I'm picturing you just like, hey, maybe just do something you like. Yeah. No, hey, yes. Things are tough out there.

Because I'm the.

[Eliza Philby]

It's a full 180. It's a full 180.

[Eugene]

Yes. Because I'm the worst person to give, to give career advice. I mean, what do I do for a living? You know?

Like, I studied for this.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm picturing you in brave art now. You're just like there on your horse and you're riding along and you're like, hey, look, guys, hey, they might take our land, eh? Hey, they might take everything. Let's just enjoy ourselves.

[Eugene]

We're here now.

[Trevor Noah]

Charge.

[Eliza Philby]

I think it's good advice, but it.

[Trevor Noah]

Is a good, it is a question I think a lot of parents share though. What, what advice do you give if, you know, if the hatches have been battened, like, what happens now?

[Eliza Philby]

So I, I, One of the things that I wanted to kind of make clear in the book was that I was, 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, destroy us in classy, demolished us. Were 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, and by 31, I had a PhD. I was earning £10,000 a year, so about $12,000, I think.

[Trevor Noah]

A year.

[Eliza Philby]

A year, right. I had a PhD, I had a part time cleaning job which involved some quite heinous toilet cleaning and men's or women's bathrooms, Both.

[Trevor Noah]

Which were the worst?

[Eliza Philby]

Both men's. Come on, you know.

[Trevor Noah]

Ah, you see, you see? This is what I said the other day. And then they looked at me like I was crazy.

[Eugene]

I looked at you like you were crazy?

[Trevor Noah]

No, everyone looked at me like I was crazy.

[Eugene]

Here's my logic. I said people looked at.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm sorry. People looked at me like I was crazy.

[Eliza Philby]

Let me answer the question.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm sorry.

[Eugene]

Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

Put a pin lid, put a pin in it. Bathrooms and Nepo babies.

[Eliza Philby]

The point I want to make there, because by the way, there's, you know, my dad, his last job was as a cleaner. But there's nothing more demoralizing than thinking, I've spent 10 years in education and this hasn't got me anywhere.

[Eugene]

What?

[Eliza Philby]

And the only place that had got me somewhere was the fact that my parents had helped support me.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Eliza Philby]

So I'd like, I was like, hang on a minute. When it was all said and 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?

[Eugene]

Love you having a good time, innit?

[Eliza Philby]

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 health, healthcare and child care. And it's lawyers, it's not bankers, it's not engineers and it's definitely not doctors. Definitely not even, even in the US where doctors are certainly paid more than, 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, 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 because I think that was a good idea.

[Eugene]

Am I staying there?

[Trevor Noah]

Oh wait, I'm going to throw a curveball at the.

[Eugene]

She came up with it. So I must throw a curveball.

[Trevor Noah]

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.

[Eliza Philby]

That is a problem, which is impossible.

[Trevor Noah]

But I'll.

[Eliza Philby]

But that's the careful is the things that worked when we were in, in building our profession. Yeah, right. Not working now. So law actually is uniquely exposed, particularly younger lawyers are exposed to AI, you know, and I think because a lot of that work is like checking documents and grunt work and really repressing totally be done by, you know, an algorithm LLM. So yeah, you're absolutely right. So, you know, I think maybe it's so hard. 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, but because. Because the economy is changing. But like, I think we fixate on this. Like, become this, become this. Be an engineer, be a doctor.

[Trevor Noah]

Because that was safe before.

[Eliza Philby]

It's not safe.

[Eugene]

What do we say now to our kids?

[Eliza Philby]

You need skills and 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? 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.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

And I wouldn't even have called them careers. And gambling on the side.

[Eugene]

And the only one that got in my house was gambling.

[Trevor Noah]

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

[Eliza Philby]

It is a form of career.

[Trevor Noah]

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, 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. They go, I worked as a milkman and I worked like my grandmother. She's like, I worked as a seamstress. And I did this and I did that and I did that.

[Eugene]

We're not that old and we have those stories as well.

[Trevor Noah]

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 an 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 gonna be done. You can be something because there's so many new things. But as soon as entropy is reached, you're not gonna see these big jumps anymore in the same way. So being becomes a lot less attractive, it seems like you're saying.

[Eliza Philby]

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 U.S. for example, you know, one in six households in the U.S. is now multi generational.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Eliza Philby]

That's three generations living under one roof. Okay. That's double what it was in 1970. So we have moved, you know, evermore towards multigenerational households, which was more.

[Trevor Noah]

Which was more the norm.

[Eliza Philby]

That was the norm, which was.

[Trevor Noah]

People forget that.

[Eliza Philby]

Exactly.

[Trevor Noah]

One family, two people in one house is a crazy thing when you think about it, actually. Do you know what I mean? 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.

[Eugene]

Yeah. Lack of access to someone who can help you. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

There never used to be a babysitter when we were growing. 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.

[Eugene]

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. Black families. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

There was no such thing.

[Eugene]

Like your cousin would just live with you and never leave.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

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

[Trevor Noah]

But those moments were the worst when you found out. Oftentimes because they had the biscuits that were apportioned for you previously.

[Eugene]

But why was there so much guilt in giving him all the things that were yours?

[Trevor Noah]

What do you mean exactly?

[Eugene]

The biscuit story.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Like there would be this. Ah, man, you know, he's going, they would do that.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, they would do that. And then now that would build Resentment. Because now you'd see your inheritance slipping.

[Eugene]

Through your fingers because you're like, yo.

[Trevor Noah]

You remember your grandmother's tin of biscuits? That was your inheritance. And then now 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.

[Eliza Philby]

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 goodness.

[Eugene]

Tell us more.

[Eliza Philby]

Well, I interviewed one girl in the book, and she had.

She came from a. She was a product of a divorce. That was how she phrased it. And her father had remarried and had 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. Mine.

[Trevor Noah]

Damn.

[Eliza Philby]

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.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

Of my two families, still help.

[Trevor Noah]

That's needed, though.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

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 with 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.

[Eliza Philby]

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 coming 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. In our. Into our eyes every. Every second.

[Trevor Noah]

But.

[Eliza Philby]

I got a message after I published the book, actually from 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Damn that I'd let the system down.

[Eliza Philby]

Right. And he said, reading your book made me realize that the system let me down.

[Ashley Flowers]

Whew.

[Eliza Philby]

And because he hadn't had access to the bank of mum and dad, he. 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, and I think, you know, that is such a powerful thing to sort of compute and realize. And it, it is, it is quite defeating to say, you know, your parents will determine your future.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

But it's also empowering to know that that's the system.

[Trevor Noah]

That's what I mean. At least, you know, that's what I mean about the honesty of it all. So, like to go back to the US One. I always bristled when I would hear people say, what? Bristled?

[Eugene]

He's pulling out the fine china tonight.

Bristle away, my friend, bristle away.

[Trevor Noah]

Great word.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Like a little hedgehog or porcupine.

When I would hear people say the phrase self made, I don't know why. It got me. It still gets me till this day. So when I, 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. 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 self made? 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 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 in the door a lot easier and a lot quicker when you're Kim Kardashian and then Kim Kardashian inherited from her parents.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know what I mean? So if you are coming from a world where you're of the Jenners 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, he's like hundreds of thousands came from family members that enabled him to start these businesses in a garage and fail.

[Eugene]

And start.

[Trevor Noah]

And fail.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

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.

[Eliza Philby]

It actually makes me laugh because in venture capital there's a phrase. Friends and family round.

[Eugene]

Oh, they love that.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, they call it that.

[Eugene]

What is it?

[Eliza Philby]

They call it the friends and 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.

[Trevor Noah]

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, then come back, 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. Once again, there's a loophole that allows you to give friends and family shares before the thing lists. And now you can give them shares to a company at a price that basically is not going to exist. It doesn't exist yet. And that little investment that your dad or your mom or your dad, your dad in law, your mom in law gave you now balloons. And look what you've done. Do you know what I mean?

[Eugene]

So it becomes the, the. The pre. Four skins.

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, that's one way to think of it. The skins, not four skins.

[Eugene]

Yeah, but I need to get it before. So it's a four.

[Trevor Noah]

This is true.

[Eliza Philby]

I love that this is true.

[Trevor Noah]

I don't think anyone who's playing video games would call them.

[Eugene]

They are four skins.

[Trevor Noah]

They are skins. There are skins in video games.

[Eugene]

Yes, but if you get the skins.

[Trevor Noah]

Before, before the game comes out, are.

[Eugene]

They not for skins?

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Therefore, they are skins from before.

[Eugene]

So you're for skinning you.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm willing to accept this as a term. Many rich people are for skinning. And so by foreskinning they make sure that they're able to erect a larger fortune.

[Eugene]

Got you to penetrate the market more.

[Trevor Noah]

That's exactly what it is. Sorry. We're so sorry. We'll cut ourselves out of this podcast. We're so sorry.

[Eugene]

You've got a PhD. You don't deserve this.

[Trevor Noah]

Back to the toilets. Look at everything you've done. And we've taken you back to the toilets.

[Eliza Philby]

Brilliant.

[Trevor Noah]

But it is that. You know what I mean? And to your point, that's what I mean by the honesty is 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.

[Eugene]

Speaks to exactly what you're. Your writer said, the one who wrote your letter, who studies something. You. You are basically essentially lifting the veil 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. Someone said you have to have boots first. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

How about that? You had boots.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

For you to pull straps.

[Trevor Noah]

And by the way, people can't pull you this great. You can't pull yourself up by your boots. Have you tried. Try and lift yourself up by your bootstraps, see what happens. For me, it is impossible. You, on the other hand, it is impossible.

[Eugene]

Puss in Boots. That's there, there, there, there. You did it.

[Trevor Noah]

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. I feel like I have failed the system.

You, you tackle this in a, in a, in a beautiful and poignant way. You make us see a generation of men now who, who have been framed as just like losers, basement dwellers, angry at society for no reason. Yeah. But when you, when you break it down you go. What else could you be? If this, if you are failing and the system's telling you that you are failing because it's your fault, what would you be if not angry and completely. Because you're disillusioned? You know what I mean?

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

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 you know, one of the fastest growing demographics in the US is female breadwinners. You know, young women, young Gen 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 inheritocracy?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

And the gender breakdown was so revealing because men were particularly affluent. Men that were receipt 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh wow.

[Eliza Philby]

Publicly.

[Eugene]

Publicly, yes.

[Eliza Philby]

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 stuff, self made narrative, however, you know, sort of airbrushed.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

And, 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, you 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 I, you know, my husband and I, we've, 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 really interesting how people reacted to it.

[Trevor Noah]

What did you notice?

[Eliza Philby]

You know, you're carrying a lot, you know, there's what they've taken you. 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, was that he was doing most of the childcare and it wasn't childcare. Cause it's his kids. He was doing most of. The. Most of the children.

[Trevor Noah]

He was being a father.

[Eliza Philby]

He was being.

[Eugene]

I think you spent too much time with us.

[Eliza Philby]

Now I know you've corrupted me.

[Eugene]

Oh, my God.

[Eliza Philby]

But, you know, he was doing. He was. He was doing everything that.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Doing his bit.

[Eliza Philby]

A traditional house.

[Trevor Noah]

He was being a partner. Yes, right. He was being a partner.

[Eliza Philby]

But it's incredible how we still, after 40 years of feminism, unable to accept that in society.

[Trevor Noah]

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. Some things are more feminine as they've been defined.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

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, I this. 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 to be angry at. 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 exact opposite. 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, you gotta 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.

[Eliza Philby]

But I mean, to just add a counter argument.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, go, please.

[Eliza Philby]

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.

[Trevor Noah]

This is. No, 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.

[Eliza Philby]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

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 Gini 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 till 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. 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.

[Eugene]

That close.

[Trevor Noah]

Close. I. I mean, literally, not figuratively, not not. You know, when people go, a stone's throw away. 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. I was like, oh, Mr. Amani's like the Ambani family. And they've done. And it's magic. 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 are all proud of the Ambanis. And I was like, huh? 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 me and my family, he said, like, for my cast, we're not gonna 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 gonna 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 piece 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.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what I mean?

[Eliza Philby]

And you're so. You're so hit brilliant point. Which is it's all about expectation.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Eliza Philby]

Mo Gaudat. You know the.

[Trevor Noah]

Of course. Yes. Yeah, brilliant.

[Eliza Philby]

He has this whole theory about happiness, and it's all based around expectation.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Eliza Philby]

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.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Eliza Philby]

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.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

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 unmet expectations that you didn't, you know.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

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 oh, 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. Hey, you gotta do this. You got. 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, 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.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah, genetic.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Like we take this for granted. So people will tell you all these, oh, work hard and I worked harder. 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 played basketball at a high level and you're now in the NBA.

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[Eugene]

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[Trevor Noah]

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[Eugene]

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. You didn't win a mansion, but that house became a legacy for your family.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

And I think now for our generation because of like you said, expectations that we've 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. Oh yeah, there's some people who won't buy a one bedroom flat.

[Trevor Noah]

No.

[Eugene]

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 one. Another, another one. And now years later, the expectation 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 asking 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.

[Eliza Philby]

And I do think if you look at like people in their 20s, you know, I'm in my 40s.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

I look at them and I'm like, you are in your what, 40s? I'm here midlife.

[Eugene]

You're looking 40s.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Hey, look, tell you what.

Sorry, I couldn't help this.

[Eliza Philby]

No. But you look at Gen Z, right? They're in their 20s and they are, they are becoming like financially educated investing.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

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 savvier. Whereas I think millennials are still, I call them the in betweeners. 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 pocket since they were 13, you know, social media, that, yes, creates comparison, the thief of joy, but also creates aspiration.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

You know, and. And you're not just defined by your immediate circle, your immediate community. You're on your phone seeing what's possible.

[Trevor Noah]

Right. And, you know, but unfortunately, that possibility might be out of reach.

[Eliza Philby]

Yes. But it also, it does widen your world in a way that we did not have.

[Trevor Noah]

Completely. Completely. I agree with that.

[Eliza Philby]

You know, and it makes you think, think I think differently and bigger. And I. And I think it maybe is diluting for that generation the narrative of this is the path to success. Become a lawyer.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, 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 is 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 counteract it 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. But when we look at women, it almost feels like on an emotional level, it's destabilizing. It almost feels like in heritocracy 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?

[Eliza Philby]

I know it's ironic, really, because feminism, certainly in. In the. In the US in the 70s, was about freeing the woman from the family, you know, and enabling and this kitchen sink and, you know, kind of, you know, widening opportunities and access for women. And if you look at millennial women, they're. And I'll tell it through one of the stories I demonstrate in the book, I spoke 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Of.

[Eliza Philby]

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 mum and dad than a male partner. Not always true. I generalize 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 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 how to change a nappy? Why don't they know how to. Why don't they? And actually, the truth is, millennial dads are changing more nappies, pushing more prams, doing more school runs than any other generation of dads before them. It's not cause 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 care front. And I see it. I see modern masculinity in a really positive sense being redefined around fatherhood. Yeah, right? The public demonstration of the father, you know, father of girls, you know, father. Right. 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, 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.

[Eugene]

Because balance it out on the other.

[Eliza Philby]

Side 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, it's, it's.

It'S also one of those, one of those problems that has so many different prongs sticking out of it that you realize you have to just push, 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, ah, yeah, I gotta look after my gran. Or there's like a little. There isn't, you know what I mean? To your point, there isn't a chest out. There isn't somebody like, oh, no, I look after my grandmother.

[Eliza Philby]

There's no elder care influences.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, that's true.

[Eliza Philby]

There's mum influences. There's no elder care influencers.

[Trevor Noah]

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, they're 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, but more importantly, it's interesting that in poorer places where people are living like a more, you know, like sustenance, life, their, their birth rate is pretty high still. They, you know what I mean? They're still having the kids, they're still growing population, they're still declining at quite a rapid rate. But not, but not even close. I'm saying, like, if we account for the mic, 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's. 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 gonna 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 gonna 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 it all. If you look at how many times the word afford comes into the equation, you realize we've warped part of what I. What I believe is a very natural thing, and that is you just have kids because you are having sex and.

[Eugene]

We'Re not having frozen babies.

[Trevor Noah]

No, they won't be frozen.

[Eugene]

Oh, they themselves?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, they themselves. Won't you thaw them.

[Eliza Philby]

But I mean, I think. I think the conversation around fertility as. As a mother who had babies late. I was a geriatric mother.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eliza Philby]

That's official. But anything medical term.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

What is the age for geriatric?

[Eliza Philby]

I think it's 36.

[Trevor Noah]

It's wild that they use geriatric for that.

[Eliza Philby]

So I was. I was a geriatric mother. You're talking to a geriatric mother here.

[Trevor Noah]

And thank you for your service.

[Eliza Philby]

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 at 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.

[Trevor Noah]

You're creating your inheritance.

[Eliza Philby]

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 has 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. Because families come in many forms. And also you're seeing 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, childcare's too expensive, you know, healthcare's too expensive, education too expensive. The economics of parenthood have become more expensive, but people had a lot more children in a lot tougher economic times.

[Eugene]

During wars.

[Eliza Philby]

Exactly. It's not economics, just economics. Nor is it state support either. Because if you look at Scandinavia, for.

[Trevor Noah]

Example, they've got some of the lowest.

[Eliza Philby]

Birth rates, 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.

[Trevor Noah]

And you seem to take them away.

[Eliza Philby]

No.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay. Just making sure it sounds from your tone, I was like, damn, this is going to be a spicy take. We've given women too many options. Time to take them away. No, that's what I was like, damn. You know what?

[Eugene]

I want to be a clinch. I was not here. Women's rights were being taken away.

[Eliza Philby]

The point is, 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 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 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. 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 life. So woodpeckers inherit trees.

[Trevor Noah]

No.

[Eliza Philby]

Ants inherit mounds.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Squirrels inherit the nuts.

[Eliza Philby]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

These nuts. Sorry, I couldn't help. I couldn't help it. Eugene, I apologize that you were caught in the crossfire. I apologize that you were caught in the crossfire.

[Eugene]

But I mean, sorry for this. I am.

[Trevor Noah]

My friend is here, and I. I can't let him get away with that. I can't let him get away with that. I apologize. I apologize. You haven't. You have inherited our friendship, and I apologize for that.

But that's an interesting way to think of it. It's like, so which one do you think is most natural for us as humans then?

[Eugene]

If.

[Trevor Noah]

If different animals have different inheritance, is what's most natural for humans? Is there. Is there any literature on this?

[Eliza Philby]

In an. In an economy that feels fragile, let's keep them close, okay?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, okay.

[Eliza Philby]

When it feels danger, when it feels full of danger, full of uncertainty, fragile existence, you keep your babies close, you know, and that's why you have the situation where 1 in 4 Gen Zers take their parents to job interviews.

[Trevor Noah]

1 in 4 Gen Z'ers take their parents to job interviews for support. Wow.

[Eugene]

For support or I thought to get.

[Eliza Philby]

Them a job, maybe the parents are, you know, actually going and that 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.

[Trevor Noah]

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 that'll. Because of what the parents have earned. They will earn. Is that still true? Is there going to be this massive boom that everyone experiences if they are the children of the boomers.

[Eliza Philby]

I mean, inheritance is not a guarantee, right?

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, damn.

[Eliza Philby]

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 I'm 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. Okay. 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 will really inherit it a lot later. And so it may fund their retirement because they're perhaps not putting enough into their pensions that.

[Trevor Noah]

So now it might skip a generation where it was, I guess, at some point, meant to be like the next generation.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah, but I mean, these things are so fraught with uncertainty. Who knows what governments do? Who knows? 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.

[Trevor Noah]

It really is.

[Eliza Philby]

The education, the jobs, the path, the family unit. You know, the various sort of expectations we had feel so sort of.

Not abandoned, but just, like, irrelevant.

[Trevor Noah]

Hmm. It feels like there's three distinct conversations that are happening at the same time then. So you have the Gen Z who are, 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.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And then you have the millennials, the sandwich generation, who are stuck in between. Is there a way that each group should.

[Eliza Philby]

There's one more. Oh, which one generation. So in between that. So millennials, that's worth saying. Gen Z are those born from. And these are arbitrary date ranges, but really.

1996 to about 2010.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Eliza Philby]

That's Gen Z. After that is Gen Alpha.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Eliza Philby]

And before that is millennials. 1981 to 1996. Before that is Gen X. No one really talks about them because they're actually, there's nothing as many of them, but that's those born from, from 1966 to 1980. And what's interesting about them. So they are generally speaking, the parents of Gen z. Okay, boomers, 1945, 1965.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eliza Philby]

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. That's the jet. That's. We talk about millennials suffering. Actually they were too young. It was the assets that were vulnerable were those owned by Gen X. Gen X side, okay, 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.

[Eugene]

They're hedging their bets on their children.

[Eliza Philby]

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.

[Trevor Noah]

So how do we think of inheritance then? You know, to go back to the premise of the book, you know, an inheritocracy, we're always told that we, 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 system. But in an inheritocracy.

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.

[Eliza Philby]

That's such a great question, which I think is beyond me. But I, I'll try. I think the most important thing is to be open about it. You know, generally speaking, in a Theatocracy and an autocracy and a meritocracy and a democracy. They're quite open about what the system is.

[Trevor Noah]

They really are.

[Eliza Philby]

In an inheritocracy, we need to place.

[Eugene]

Where they're not open is a kleptocracy.

[Eliza Philby]

Kleptocracy.

[Eugene]

Because that one you have to call the police.

[Eliza Philby]

Inquisition.

[Eugene]

Yes. No, no, no.

[Eliza Philby]

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 all become lawyers? Do we all, like, oh, my God, you know, just build generational wealth? 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 generational 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? What, you know, 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.

[Eugene]

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.

[Eliza Philby]

There's an old sort of saying that the first generation makes it, the second generation sustains it and the third squanders it.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

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.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

And someone that had inherited the money, like literally and was then passing it on.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eliza Philby]

So. So if you've been an heir and then you will be a heir, you know.

Someone that shares their wealth, you have a greater 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.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Eliza Philby]

And it goes back to just full circle moment on the Nepo babies.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Eliza Philby]

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. The fact. Yeah. You know, sons of footballers, that's a really heavy, you know, legacy to pass forward.

[Eugene]

And you can also carry the family shame and guilt.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

If we trace where the wealth came from.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, damn. Huge. Yeah. Don't do that.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Don't follow the money. Never follow the money.

Yeah. I don't. I don't know. Do you have a view on Nepo babies in general?

[Eliza Philby]

I think, I think it's. I think it's really interesting how we are living culturally in an inheritocracy, 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 it's talking about Kennedys. Yeah. There's always been political dynasties, but I.

[Trevor Noah]

Think you're like, this is a new age.

[Eliza Philby]

Social media creates the lineage. And actually it's been around long enough now that those babies are now like mini adults.

[Eugene]

You're right.

[Eliza Philby]

And like you're seeing them. Literally everyone's getting their deals now and doing the work. Yeah. Because of their parents. And actually there's huge economic reward in being a family brand. Right. Oh, I thought of that. 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 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 or another. 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 gonna run the family business. But actually, maybe we could relate to that more than we'd like to think or would have thought, because actually, it was about families and money.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

Which have become more and more prevalent.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

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.

[Eugene]

Even last names are inheritance.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah, that's very true, actually. Yeah. Because it opens or closes doors in some cases.

Never thought of it like that.

[Eliza Philby]

Also, I love the fact that your mom called you Trevor because there was no association.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. My mom wanted me to. She just wanted something unique and random because of what Eugene is saying.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

So my mom thought at a time when a name bore, it came with it, especially, like, in. In South Africa. But, like, your name was generally your African name was a name that. That meant something to the family. And my mom felt like it was an inheritance of an expectation.

[Eliza Philby]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, and so some, you know, like her. Her name is Nombuise, 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 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.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Because by doing that, I spent my whole life being surrounded by kids who were like, yeah, but what's your name? Name? And I was like, Trevor. Then they're like, hey, man, no one's named Trevor. What's your name? Name? Then I was like, trevor, they're like, abe, Yo. You're in a safe place. Tell us your name.

[Eugene]

Gabriel.

[Trevor Noah]

No, really? And so I love that Eugene said that. It's like even your last name can be an inheritance. But this is. This has been a great way to think about it. Like, make a world where 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 do you know what? One of my favorite stories. You know what? Can I tell you one of my favorite stories?

[Eugene]

Did I say it right?

[Trevor Noah]

You can't.

[Eugene]

You know what?

[Eliza Philby]

Yes. Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

So one of my. One of my favorite stories is the story of Lionel Messi.

[Eugene]

Yes, Right.

[Trevor Noah]

Arguably 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.

[Eugene]

Didn't they also give him a nickname to that effect as well?

[Trevor Noah]

I don't know, actually.

[Eugene]

Yeah, the Flea.

[Trevor Noah]

I wouldn't. Oh, there you go.

[Eugene]

Yeah, yeah, but in Spanish, there you go. Could have been La Chicharon.

Don't take my word for it.

[Trevor Noah]

Messi now goes on this journey. You know, he. He struggles as this young kid's 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 that 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.

[Eliza Philby]

And I feel like. And as a mother and as parents, like, I grapple with that all the time. Like, what, 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.

[Trevor Noah]

No. Almost nowhere.

[Eliza Philby]

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, is going to be hugely valuable. We know the definition of luxury is going to be anything delivered by a human.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eliza Philby]

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, and as a mother, I feel that in an age that, where everything feels quite fragile.

And your urge to create certainty and, and safety is. I've. I've never felt so inadequate.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Eliza Philby]

And. And that just literally I came from having a really deep conversation with my husband about, like, what are we going to do about schools? What, what, where, you know, what's, what's the right avenue? Because what I did doesn't necessarily work anymore.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eugene]

I'll tell you something. Seventeen 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.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eugene]

So monkey see, monkey do situation with them.

[Eliza Philby]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eugene]

So they look at your values more than anything else. How you treat people, which car you like, which neighborhood 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.

[Eliza Philby]

Our children, the guideline, such high stakes, such high pressure. Do as I do. Yeah. It's, I think, 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 so much of that. Who he was, what he believed in, his values. He was such a unique character. I just wanted to sort of envelop it as much as I possibly could as he lay there basically dying.

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 warped values and. Yeah. 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.

[Eugene]

You're doing a good job.

[Eliza Philby]

Thanks. I feel a bit emotional.

[Eugene]

I can't think of doing a good job.

[Trevor Noah]

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 Philby.

[Eugene]

Thank you.

[Eliza Philby]

You.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm blessed that I inherited both of you for this conversation.

[Eugene]

Great.

[Trevor Noah]

Thank you.

[Eugene]

Y.

[Eliza Philby]

Thank you.

[Eugene]

You're amazing.

[Eliza Philby]

Thank you. Thank you. That was such fun, guys. Thank you so much.

[Eugene]

Thank you.

[Trevor Noah]

I learned so much. Wow.

[Eugene]

Wow.

[Trevor Noah]

That was really cool.

[Eugene]

You are deep and funny.

[Trevor Noah]

Bless you.

[Eliza Philby]

Deep and funny.

[Eugene]

Yeah. You. Deep and funny. What a great combination.

[Trevor Noah]

This episode is presented by Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods Markets has everything you need for the holidays, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner. Whole Foods Markets has convenient and cost friendly finds that'll delight everyone at your table. Plus great gift ideas, all of which follow the Whole Foods Market's strict ingredient standards. Shop for everything you need at Whole Foods Markets, your holiday headquarters.

What now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with SiriusXM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiou. Music mixing and mastering by Hannis Brown Random other stuff by Ryan Parduth. Thank you so much for listening. Listening. Join me next week for another episode of what now.

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