Dr Eliza Filby on the Bank of Mum and Dad and Britain’s Inheritocracy

This transcript is auto-generated and lightly edited for readability, it may contain errors.

[0:00] SPEAKER_01:

Welcome back to the Money Gains Podcast. Is the bank of mum and dad quietly shaping your financial future? And what is the impact of AI on our younger generations? Joining me is Dr. Eliza Filby. Eliza, welcome to the show.

[0:14] SPEAKER_00:

Pleasure to be here. I’m a bit hot. It’s very hot June day, but good. Oh good to be here.

[0:19] SPEAKER_01:

I know. I was late this morning in had to drive like halfway across the country to get on a train because the whole train line was down. Oh no. And then got here for the first guest that we were recording with today. You know, and I was just like, blow.

[0:33] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just explode. I hate that.

[0:36] SPEAKER_01:

You know, you get that feeling when you come off the tube and it’s like, oh my god, I feel like I’m like 90 million and good.

[0:41] SPEAKER_00:

I’ve had my face in other people’s armpits for 20 minutes and I feel terrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[0:45] SPEAKER_01:

London. Yeah.

[0:46] SPEAKER_00:

London. Bloody London. Yeah. Yeah.

[0:49] SPEAKER_01:

Typical, right? But your book, I’ve really enjoyed it. I’m a few chapters in now. It’s really good fun. It’s a great read.

[0:57] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you.

[0:58] SPEAKER_01:

And as I said to you before this, I’m a student today. Yeah. So I want to learn about this and understand. And because you’ve gone pretty deep into this topic, and it it’s so interesting because it’s not something which naturally gets spoken about a lot, but gets kind of referred to a lot.

[1:16] SPEAKER_00:

Right.

[1:16] SPEAKER_01:

So when I say to you, the bank of mum and dad, what does that actually mean to you?

[1:22] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I think you’re so right. It’s this is all unsaid, right? This is a subject that is not just like talked about enough. There’s a certain taboo around it. And I wanted to break that type taboo, not just by writing a book about it, but actually talking about my own experience, my own story of being the beneficiary of the bank of mum and dad. So what is the bank of mum and dad to answer your question? So it’s this term that sort of arose in the sort of mid-2010s to explain the amount of money that was being gifted, so not inherited, gifted, give while you’re still living, from parents down to their kids. And that was coming in the form of deposits for a house, um, support with the cost of living, um, hotel of the the of mum

[2:07] SPEAKER_00:

and dad. So you’re still living with your parents well into your 20s and early 30s. Um, the bank of mum and dad, in the housing market at least, has become a top 10 mortgage lender in the UK and the US.

[2:21] SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

[2:21] SPEAKER_00:

So it’s a considerable support system and financial institution. But it’s not just about housing. I wanted to map out the Bank of Mum and Dad and explain the role that parents and now grandparents are helping with childcare. Cost childcare is a massive outlay for parents now. Um, how the Bank of Mum and Dad is helping with everything from holidaying right through to Netflix subscriptions, right through to obviously the cost of education, particularly with university education costs going up.

[2:56] SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

[2:56] SPEAKER_00:

And and, you know, really eventually, beyond gifting, the bank of mum and dad will materialize into inheritances for some and not all. And so I wanted to talk about the massive amount of wealth and support, because it’s not just in terms of cash, that is being trickled down the family tree from parents to their millennial offspring, and now their Gen Z offspring, and now the generation after that, generation alpha, and how some have that and some don’t, and the complexities of that in terms of obligations, in terms of blended families, in terms of infantilization, and the complexities of money and parents and giving and

[3:42] SPEAKER_00:

not giving. And I was the beneficiary of the bank of mum and dad when my father passed away. And I wanted to talk about that because it doesn’t get talked about enough.

[3:51] SPEAKER_01:

No, it doesn’t. It’s an odd subject, taboo subject.

[3:55] SPEAKER_00:

It is. And, you know, look, money anyway.

[3:58] SPEAKER_01:

So no one wants to, you don’t want to tell your mates, do you?

[4:00] SPEAKER_00:

Like, no, and there’s so much to unpack there because I mean, firstly, money is a taboo subject, right? No one likes talking about it. We talk about, you know, our boyfriends, we talk about our, you know, maybe sexual desires, we talk about our mental health. Money is still taboo, and podcasts like this are seeking to break that ta taboo and help people become better educated about money, which is great. But I think I wanted to talk about that specific, awkward, sticky subject of actually the taboo within the taboo. Getting help.

[4:27] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

[4:28] SPEAKER_00:

Actually not making money or growing money or building wealth, but actually the amount of leg up and support you’ve got from your parents or not. And I wanted to talk about it because it’s become increasingly important, right? So inheritance and having rich parents has always been important, right? It’s always been a sort of, a sort of, you know, way that people have got ahead, right? There’s always been inheritance, there’s always been parental wealth. But because of the amount of money that is saddled in the baby boomer cohort, right? Um, it is an exceptional amount of money in terms of property wealth, pensions, and we talk a bit about that, I’m sure, later on. Is that

[5:14] SPEAKER_00:

that combined with an economy where it’s been ever increasingly difficult to buy a house, to um afford childcare, to leave university with any debt, you know, adult young adulthood has become more and more expensive and parents have stepped in. So, yes, we’ve already always had inheritance, but it’s become more important, which is why more than 50% of first-time buyers in the UK are reliant on the bank of mum and dad. Yeah. And and so the reason I want to talk about it is because it’s becoming the main access point to opportunity. So the whole tagline of the book is for anyone under 45, that’s millennials and Gen Z, it’s not what you’re earning because wages have stalled, it’s not what you’re

[5:59] SPEAKER_00:

learning because the return on the investment of education has declined, right? Just as the price went up. It’s whether you have access to the bank of mum and dad that is defining your ability to get on the ladder, your ability to leapfrog your peers and get into adulthood proper, your ability to afford childcare for your kids, your ability to, you know, manage your university debt is more and more dependent on who your parents are and what they can give.

[6:28] SPEAKER_01:

You see it everywhere. Um, like, and you see it as well in society from like how well people are positioned both financially but equally as well in the workplace as well, in terms of like their education and how that stems over into the way that they can leapfrog some people which perhaps haven’t had the same opportunities gifted to them.

[6:48] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it’s interesting. You say you see it everywhere. I actually don’t think we we see it, but we don’t talk about it. And so we we ran some data um um when we were writing the book. When I was writing the book, we rent with YouGov, I’ll start that again. We I commissioned some polling data when I wrote the book, and it was really interesting. The people that are most likely to say we live in an inheritocracy, right? One governed by the bank of mum and dad, were those who were earning over £100,000, right?

[7:19] SPEAKER_01:

Wow, really?

[7:21] SPEAKER_00:

But were dependent on the bank of mum and dad or the bank of in-laws, right? Because that’s actually much more complicated for obvious reasons. So it’s it’s it and the ones least likely to want to talk about it specifically were men earning over £100,000. Women are much more no, exactly. Women are much more open about um the help they’ve received from their parents.

[7:47] SPEAKER_01:

That’s so true, actually. Every single person that I know has openly spoken about it. I couldn’t tell you if any of my mates have, but I reckon they definitely did.

[7:56] SPEAKER_00:

Right. And I think it’s number one, it kind of it it deflates that idea, obviously completely destroys that idea of being self-made. Yeah. But it also destroys this idea of hard work and and and and and kind of owning your own destiny. You know, if if your fate is determined by your parents and how rich they are, then you know it’s really not only soul-destroying and demotivating, but for those who have received that, but have also worked hard, have also maybe worked hard in school education and in the workplace and built a professional career, saying, actually, I only got on the housing ladder because my parents actually undermines all the hard work that they’ve obviously put in. Because the truth is, you need an education and you need the bank of mum and dad.

[8:37] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I I agree with you to up and to a point because I still think like where we are in society right now, especially in London, right? For example, that you you’re not working hard, you’re not earning enough to get by. Yeah. And that’s like a fact, right? And then try even trying, even if you are working extremely hard and you’re extremely well paid in a lot of instances, you still can’t get on housing that happens. So like then you have to have that. I know I struggle with the like it undermines the hard work, but then I do see your point in some ways, like it may it may feel that way to others when they look in at it.

[9:09] SPEAKER_00:

And and you’re so right, because actually there is an exceptionalism around London because of the property prices. And I would say not just London, but the South East generally, right? Um, but this isn’t just a London Southeast story. Totally not. You know, it’s it’s telling. Well, it’s worldwide, certainly there are huge um sort of parallels in the US, where you know, greater dependency on the bank of mum and dad and certain, you know, level of widening inequality. Um there’s there’s I think what the critical thing is within the UK, like yes, there’s greater dependency on the bank of mum and dad in the property arena um for first-time buyers in London and the South East. But the dependency on the Bank of Mum and Dad or the hotel of mum and dad or

[9:54] SPEAKER_00:

the support system or the safety net of mum and dad is a national story.

[9:57] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

[9:58] SPEAKER_00:

And and certainly in the realm of education and and childcare, um, it is slightly different outside of London in terms of housing. But I mean, I think broadly speaking, the point you make about wages is so important. I mean, we have to reflect on the fact that we were told our whole narrative as you know, growing up in the 90s and and and coming of age in the noughties and 2010s was get an education, go to university. We didn’t, by the way, provide a an alternative pathway for whom that wasn’t an option or a desire.

[10:28] SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

[10:29] SPEAKER_00:

Um, get to university, get on that track, and you will be sort of guaranteed almost pathway into professional stability, home ownership, you know, adulthood proper before 30 and a level of financial um stability. And it hasn’t worked out like that at all for various reasons that I go into in the book. But the point is that there’s a sense of broken promise. And, you know, our parents stepping in is actually, you know, it’s it’s not a sort of evil capitalist system that we have to overthrow. You know, to a certain extent, this is about parental love and in many cases parental sacrifice. You know, there’s a lot of parents in their 50s now rethinking retirement plans to get their kids through

[11:14] SPEAKER_00:

university. And a lot of parents now rethinking um of you know um equity release in their house in order to get their kids on the housing ladder. So there’s a lot of parental sacrifice, not just generosity. And it it it’s why I wanted to broach the subject in a really sensitive way because I don’t disagree with inheritance. I don’t disagree with the bank of mum and dad. I can’t, I’d be a hypocrite if I did because I’m a beneficiary, right? But we have to understand how chronic the situation is and hopefully kind of move towards an economy and a society where inheritance and gifting matters less. You know,

[11:59] SPEAKER_00:

I I I you know everyone wants to build wealth and give the best to their kids. You know, I have two kids, that’s a huge motivation for me. But equally, for it to be the only system in which you can achieve anything in life and gain access to opportunity, you know, is is is a frightening state of affairs, right?

[12:19] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, you’re totally right. Yeah. I think, yeah, you’re right. Because I would naturally, like, that’s the whole reason that I would be growing my wealth past a certain point once I’d had kids. Because it’s like other, you know, other than yes, all right, personal retirement factor, but then it becomes a large factor of like, how much can I leave the kids and how do I, you know, actively do that to make sure they get the best lives and best leg ups, because you only want the best for your kids, don’t you?

[12:45] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and it’s it’s like I’m not saying that people that don’t have children don’t have the right objectives when it comes to building wealth.

[12:51] SPEAKER_01:

No, no, of course not. I know I I get what you’re saying.

[12:54] SPEAKER_00:

It’s not about that, but there is. I remember when um I gave birth to my son, and I I remember literally sitting in the hospital um kind of bed and trying to breastfeed him, being unable to, and thinking, oh, you know, I have never felt so ambitious and so motivated to get back to work. And there’s me sort of struggling to like get my son. Fair play. Yeah, I know I’m a bit weird. But like I was like, I suddenly have this sort of primal desire to offer this thing in my hands security.

[13:34] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

[13:35] SPEAKER_00:

Right?

[13:35] SPEAKER_01:

They say it switches on day one.

[13:37] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and and that is a motivator, and we shouldn’t be ashamed of that motivation for building financial security, right?

[13:48] SPEAKER_01:

Um You’re worried about the society not being able to handle it if that’s not in place.

[14:39] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I think like, you know, um Paul Johnson of the IFS, um, who’s the IFS has done great research on the Bank of Mum and Dad and its its effects and its impacts and its its um kind of the systematic challenges that have come as a result of that. And he said, you know, we want to get to an economy where inheritance matters less rather than ban inheritance or overtax inheritance, because that’s not the answer. You know, the fundamental fact is post 2008, the situation that we had was, you know, house prices did this and wages did this. And so the gap between wages and how house um prices obviously just exponentially um I’ll start that again. Ballooned.

[15:25] SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Thank you. Shall I start that again? Um so that you know, basically since 2008, we’ve had this widening gap between wage growth, which has effectively stalled, has grown a bit since the pandemic, and house prices that have have grown and grown and grown. And who’s filled that gap, if they can, has been the bank of mum and dad. Yeah. And, you know, who hasn’t had that access or hasn’t had that opportunity? Quite often those who haven’t had parents to help. And even through the mortgage crisis, parents stepped up. Through COVID, parents stepped up. The amount of billions of pounds that are transfer in, you know, transferring between the generations means that we shouldn’t talk about millennial disadvantage

[16:10] SPEAKER_00:

or Gen Z disadvantage, because there’s not a millennials doing very well, you know, or certainly millennials doing a lot better than others within that generational cohort because they’ve had that net, that support system and that springboard into adulthood. And the and the thing, the thing that I really struck me as I was writing the book, because the book is it’s not an economics book. I’m not an economist, I’m a cultural historian, and I wanted to interview people. That’s that I I knew my story and I wanted to tell my story, but I also wanted to, I knew my story was exceptional and London-centric and you know, very female in it as well. So I wanted to interview loads of people. So I interviewed lots of different people on the bank of Mum and Dad and how they’d either

[16:55] SPEAKER_00:

benefit from it or not. And one of the things that really struck me doing all these interviews was how it really is down to the individual family.

[17:04] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

[17:05] SPEAKER_00:

You know, I interviewed a guy who had whose dad had loaned him the money to get on the property ladder, but that loan came with interest, like a bank. Right. So I’ve seen that before. Yep. I interviewed um a girl in her 40s, a woman in her 40s, who had a bank account with her mum because she’d got property investments with her mum, but didn’t have a joint bank account with her partner. You know, so that economic sort of sort of relationship, financial relationship, was closer to with her mum than it was with her partner. She was a product of divorce, her parents had divorced, and she’d seen, you know, the how you know how complicated and how sour relations can can get between, you know, a couple

[17:50] SPEAKER_00:

and and when money is involved, certainly. I interviewed, you know, uh a woman from Mumbai who now lived in London, and she was like, Why are you even writing a book on inheritance on the back of Mama Dad? Like it’s what we do in India. Like my dad’s been saving for my wedding since I was four.

[18:06] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, actually. My in-laws, absolutely.

[18:08] SPEAKER_00:

You know, it’s like culturally, there’s nothing that’s exceptional in this story. It wasn’t anything that was exceptional to her, at least. And I was saying, Well, you know, it it’s it’s true. And she was, I said, Well, you know, the I can totally see that. And she was like, But what I don’t understand, and this is what she was saying to me, is like, I know that eventually I’m gonna have to go back to India and look after, or certainly, you know, bring into the family home not just my parents, potentially my in-laws. And so there’s that kind of there’s that switch.

[18:43] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[18:44] SPEAKER_00:

And I don’t want to use the term payback because that slightly cheapens what it’s not a transaction.

[18:49] SPEAKER_01:

No.

[18:49] SPEAKER_00:

Um, it’s it’s a familial obligation, but it’s one that I think we don’t talk about enough. Because if the money’s trickling down the family tree to millennial kids, to Gen Zs, are millennials and Gen Z going to reverse that process and provide care, provide space and a home for their parents. Yeah, we have it now.

[19:10] SPEAKER_01:

Literally, right now, that happening right now. And I I know that my nan gave, you know, my my my mum and their siblings legs up in certain areas, and then also now, but now she’s in care and the four children are contributing to that cost. Oh, really? So it’s that role reversal. Yeah, yeah.

[19:28] SPEAKER_00:

That’s so tough.

[19:29] SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, it it’s life. You know, it obviously, of course it’s sad, but you know, it is also life. But then you have to factor that in, and I think that’s really uh a really interesting point. I’d love to know from your conversations, because you’ve interviewed lots of people around this, the ones that hadn’t had the support, what was were some of the key things that they cite about their lives?

[19:50] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, this is such a great question because I don’t I don’t think I talk about this enough. So thank you for answering asking it. Is like, who subverted the inheritocracy into a meritocracy? Who subverted the inheritocracy? Who’s who’s winning in a system where the odds are stacked against them? Yes. Right? Great question. There was definite trends and themes and commonalities between those that were surviving and thriving in an age of an inheritocracy without the Bank of Mum and Dad. Number one, they didn’t live in London.

[20:20] SPEAKER_01:

Oh, interesting. Right? Right. Yeah.

[20:23] SPEAKER_00:

They didn’t live in London.

[20:24] SPEAKER_01:

Big one.

[20:25] SPEAKER_00:

Number two, they quite often, um, I would say the majority of them had STEM, had studied STEM subjects at university. Not all of them went to university. And then just for the The reward on that investment of the education is higher at the graduate premium is higher in STEM subjects.

[20:43] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and then what is a STEM subject for someone that doesn’t know that.

[20:47] SPEAKER_00:

So let me get this right. Science, tech, economics, maths.

[20:50] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

[20:51] Sammie Ellard-King:

Yeah. Cool.

[20:52] SPEAKER_01:

Gosh. That was a good thing. I thought that’s what it was. And then I was like, I’m gonna ask you because I was questioning myself. Yes.

[20:59] SPEAKER_00:

So number one, they don’t live in London. Number two, they’ve studied STEM, STEM. Um, number three, quite often they were building businesses or building wealth outside of their income.

[21:11] SPEAKER_01:

Ah, interesting.

[21:12] SPEAKER_00:

So they had a um life beyond wage approach.

[21:18] SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

[21:19] SPEAKER_00:

And and that totally makes sense, right? Because we know that our wages are not going to buy us what it brought our parents.

[21:25] SPEAKER_01:

No, no.

[21:25] SPEAKER_00:

In terms of housing, wage, you know, just just savings, pension, even, and and even like the top 10% of wealth in the world and is 82% or entrepreneurial. Yes, exactly. Entrepreneurs. And we’re growing, you know, we’ve grown in, we’ve grown up in a s in a world where you have access to the world’s information, but also the world’s marketplace in your pocket. And now we’ve got, you know, AI enabling solopreneurs, not just entrepreneurs, solopreneurs to build things and sell things to the world.

[21:54] SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely.

[21:55] SPEAKER_00:

So the opportunity there is huge. And I I think we talk a lot about the lack of opportunity. But there’s also like in the 2020s, it’s never been easier to build a business and scale that business and sell your product to the world. So, so that that was another commonality. The the fourth thing was financial self-education. So they were very aware of um uh, you know, house prices, um, ISAs. Um, they had, you know, they had done their homework on the financial front, right? So they knew the best best place to buy a house, interest rates, all the stuff I don’t know about. I shouldn’t know about. Um they had educated themselves. They hadn’t learned it

[22:40] SPEAKER_00:

in at at school, they hadn’t learned it from home. Wow. You know?

[22:44] Sammie Ellard-King:

Yeah.

[22:44] SPEAKER_00:

Um, and the final one was the degree to which a lot of them were helping their parents and supporting their parents. So it was the other way. Yeah. Yeah. So I interviewed a guy in the book who had um first gen university graduate in his family, grew up on a council state in Newcastle, um, hadn’t studied STEM, but was now working for one of big four accountancy firms. And he was now um back living with his parents and supporting them financially as well. Yeah. Yeah.

[23:19] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

[23:20] SPEAKER_00:

They were obviously also helping him ultimately save for a house. Um, but he spoke about his sort of financial future in the context of looking after his parents. So, so it it was interesting that that was, you know, basically, you know, the reverse. It was it was understandable, it wasn’t interesting. It was understandable that he was very much thinking that his financial health and wealth was not just building wealth for himself and a family um that he may have later later on, but ultimately also supporting his parents.

[23:55] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So let’s carry on down this road because this is really interesting to me. So I imagine large swaths, swathes of people, uh, can never say that word, um, within that area had parents that didn’t make very good decisions in their life and therefore weren’t able to pass down.

[24:15] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it’s not about I mean, yes, it is about making good decisions, but or had a tough life.

[24:21] SPEAKER_01:

Let’s say. Yeah.

[24:22] SPEAKER_00:

I mean, you know, he said to me, you know, my dad um worked in a factory, my my mum had um certain health conditions, you know, it it wasn’t that they hadn’t been financial savvy. I’m not financially savvy.

[24:36] SPEAKER_01:

I’m not I’m not saying across the entire board that I think that you know are absolutely their contributing factors, health, you know, um jobs available to you in your area, etc. But then what I’d always like to look at that is completely challenged that because then you know the son in that situation went and got the uh education and the degree and took it upon themselves.

[25:00] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I mean that particular example is an interesting one because he said to me, one of the things that I don’t know, and actually makes me feel a bit depressed and demotivated, is that he said, I don’t know if if I’d lived 30 years before, worked in a supermarket, hadn’t got my degree, and obviously all that debt that he was now carrying, but had, you know, got a decent job, but had lived in a time when housing was affordable, much more affordable than it is now.

[25:29] SPEAKER_01:

Whether he had gone to that length.

[25:30] SPEAKER_00:

Whether he could have actually just lived that life and not had to but then now he’d be paying for it. Well, you know, no, because he would have owned a house. So I mean, I think this goes back to my original point is that I wanted to set out, and I know Grace Um Blakely came onto your podcast. She did, yeah, the broken promise. I agree. She’s awesome. So Grace Blakely and I we we were talking about this, and actually, I think it’s really important for anyone under 45 to realise how exceptional that period from 1980 really to 2008 was. Yeah. In terms of your ability to get on the housing market at Housing Ladder, your ability um to access the professions, um, the access

[26:15] SPEAKER_00:

point of education and it being, you know, um not free or but certainly lower than it than it costs now. Um there is there was a set of advantages that no longer exist. And so if we still see the baby boomer pathway as life script, then we’re gonna struggle because we’re not gonna we do, right? That idea of get to university, get on the housing ladder, say for a pension, have a one quite a linear career path. That’s not the reality. You know, anyone under 45 is gonna live a multi-stage life. AI is gonna disrupt your career. So you’re gonna have to constantly upskill. You are going to be living not in a male-bredwinner household,

[27:01] SPEAKER_00:

most likely a dual-income household. Yeah. Okay. In which you’re gonna have to juggle if you have kids, childcare, and juggle elder care, right? So men have to step up on the baby front as well. Um, yes, but they also have to sell step up on the elder care front. You are going to certainly have multiple stages of your life where you are gonna be able to save, not be able to save, you know, gonna be able to build assets or not be able to build assets. You’re gonna have to work longer, certainly, and rethink retirement because the golf courses and grandkids that baby boomers are enjoying now is not gonna be a reality for our generation. It’s gonna be much more complicated and certainly we’re gonna have to want, we’re gonna have to work longer. Yes. So that script is broken.

[27:46] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And still massively ingrained.

[27:49] SPEAKER_00:

It’s massively ingrained. And and also there’s another script of of housing as an investment.

[27:55] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Now I have my uh personal opinions on this.

[27:59] SPEAKER_00:

We need to talk about this because there is um a lot of financial information out there and a lot of financial sort of advice saying, you know, invest in property, set up Airbnbs, you know, set up multiple high occupancy lets and all this kind of stuff. And obviously the government have tightened and will continue, I reckon, to tighten those rules and regulations. Now, I’m not for or against, I’m not offering financial advice here, but it the origins of that advice and that’s that sort of path to wealth date back to the 80s. Yeah. And the housing market is not what it was in the 1980s. No. And and I think, like you say, there’s this sort of legacy of property as an investment that is just not

[28:44] SPEAKER_00:

the reality for most people now.

[28:46] SPEAKER_01:

No.

[28:47] SPEAKER_00:

A few winners, there’s gonna be people that totally luck out on that system. But as an investment strategy, or even as a life strategy, thinking of housing in that way.

[28:59] SPEAKER_01:

It’s wrong.

[29:00] SPEAKER_00:

Is kind of stuck in the 20th century.

[29:03] SPEAKER_01:

You don’t make m that much money on your property at all. You just never have. Not now, anyway. Uh with once you factor in interest, once you factor in maintenance, upkeep, initial investment, it’s usually double or sometimes even 1.5 times what you pay for the property over that period of time. And yes, inflation and all of that, those those increases do have a factor. But people think that they’re going to turn around and sell that house suddenly when they get to that point. Right. Most of them don’t. They don’t downsize. They very rarely downsize. They may do a slight equity release, and great, well done for you, but then you’re just basically robbing Peter to pay Paul.

[29:39] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, I I I don’t know enough about the sort of economics of buy to let market. I’m certainly not someone that could give financial advice. But I think it’s really um our I’ll kind of I’ll illustrate this through my own example.

[29:53] SPEAKER_01:

So my the reason, sorry, I just make finish that point because I think it’s really important as on the point that you made, which is that like broken promise aspect of like going through that. And I feel like that’s where it’s become the problem, where still it would have been the case 30 years ago that that would have paid off for you because of the enormous rises in house prices we’ve seen in that period since 2008. But the main reason why I say this is because like how you can’t actually get yourself to that point now without having that leg up in life. So is it even worth it anymore if you don’t have the bank of mum and dad to even factor that into your kind of life path?

[30:35] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean we modelled. Um, I got a team work research team working with me, and we modelled sort of what the impact really is if you have the bank of mum and dad early on. Because as wealth accumulates, right, the advantage just builds. So if you get that gift in your mid-20s to get on the property ladder, don’t take it, compare that to your mate who gets nothing is and is continuing to rent, particularly in London, the advantage just grows and grows and grows and grows and grows. And so there is a point where it’s not just whether you have the bank of mum and dad, it’s also the age at which you get some kind of financial gift or financial leg up. But going back to the property broken promise thing,

[31:21] SPEAKER_00:

I think you’re so right. I think it’s a broken promise around property. Um, I think there’s a broken promise around education. Um, and that is really materializing. And AI, I think, is like exposing the challenges of education, not kind of um an example of students cheating the system. Because I genuinely think Gen Z are questioning the price and point of a degree in a world dominated by AI when they’re gonna have to constantly be upscaling, upskilling, pivoting, remaining agile. And if you’re carrying that debt throughout your working life and unable to invest in your skills because of it, that’s a huge problem. And that’s gonna swell and swell and swell.

[32:06] SPEAKER_00:

I do think there’s still advantages for graduates compared to non-graduates, but the biggest rise in wages has been in non-graduate roles. So, so I think the the shattered script around education is huge and is going to really evolve in the next five years.

[32:22] SPEAKER_01:

Certain industries, I completely agree, certain industries which are, you know, heart surgeon. Please go to education, you know, like please, you know, I don’t want you coming anywhere near me otherwise. Even even that is gonna be massively impacted by AI, but they would still have to have some human oversight of the operation, right? Did it go well? Yes, big tick. Um but then

[33:54] SPEAKER_01:

someone studying fashion PR is, you know, that for me, there’s a bit of a I don’t know.

[34:01] SPEAKER_00:

I mean, I think you could actually get to a point where, and I’m not an AI expert here, but I think you could we all find very quickly that, you know, the development in robotics and AI diagnostics means that actually where do you need that heart surgeon is potentially the human going, you’ve got heart disease.

[34:21] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[34:22] SPEAKER_00:

Because I don’t want AI telling me I’ve got heart disease, right? I want a human. Yeah. So the points of connection and the points of empathy and and humanity and ethics is where I want the human and overseeing the robot digging into my arteries.

[34:39] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. It just means there’ll be less heart surgeons because they don’t need a team of six of them in the Yeah, and I think, but I think, you know, I think you’re right.

[34:46] SPEAKER_00:

There’s certain industries and sectors where we’re gonna need to be able to do that.

[34:48] SPEAKER_01:

Well, it’s just like you pay 40 grand for that and pay 40 grand for the fashion PR thing, that’s that’s where my I struggle because I think it’s something crazy, like 21% of people work in the field that they’ve a degree that they’ve studied.

[35:01] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[35:02] SPEAKER_01:

So 79% of them are now basically 50 grand in debt for something that they barely use. I’ve I struggle with that.

[35:10] SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so I taught in higher education for 10 years. So I I I’m I’m sort of with you to a point because I think that the best degrees teach you how to learn, right? So you might not be learning the knowledge you consume, but I bet you’re learning the way the life skills, the learning skills and deploying them in other subjects or other ways. However, I do think you’re right, and and I I I’m not looking 20 years ahead or even five years ahead. I’m looking at now. The data is already kind of illustrating a point here, which a lot of small businesses that have been um and big businesses are thinking we can get AI to do that. That entry-level job market is drying up and it’s we’re seeing a tightening of the labor market. Now, that’s partly to do with

[35:55] SPEAKER_00:

tax and it’s become more expensive to hire people, but it’s also incentivized, particularly small businesses like mine, to go, do you know what? We’ll just get AI to do a lot of that process, that repetitive process that tends to be predominantly in lower-skilled entry-level jobs done by graduates who are trying to enter the job market. Now, the real challenge there is if you are not getting those entry-level jobs, how on earth do you build a career, a knowledge base, a skills base? Because we know a degree may let teach you how to learn, but it doesn’t actually teach you life skills in order to work.

[36:30] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So what do we how do we fix that? Like student loans and tuition fees? Because they’re out of control already, you know. Like it even mine was expensive and I was, you know, before it went up.

[36:39] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean it’s just a great question.

[36:43] SPEAKER_01:

I think you see the universities posting enormous profits, and that pisses me off.

[36:48] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, I think I think it’s like when we’re talking about education, even talking about it in a university context, A is exclusionary of like 50% of the the the school leaves that don’t go to university. We need to talk about education in the round rather than fixate just on universities. I think we need to be really thinking about how we learn rather than what we learn.

[37:17] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

[37:17] SPEAKER_00:

We need to be open about use of AI across education. You know, it’s being used massively in in university coursework and essay writing, but you know, a lot of students are using it in in schoolwork. Like, so we need to be like really open about how students are using it. And like almost teachers, educators, lecturers need to be helping young people use it critically and evaluate and critically assess what the AI is spitting out. Yeah. So we need to kind of face modern technological reality. Um, and I think we need to be lifelong learners, right? We we are going to have we are all de-skilling at a rapid rate. I mean, this podcast, you know, how much of it now is edited by AI, whereas, you know, three years ago it’s probably edited

[38:03] SPEAKER_00:

by a human. We need to be upskilling in personally, um increasing expertise and niche expertise, um, human creativity and communication skills and soft skills. Because actually, if you’re building a business, or frankly, if you’re doing anything in life, um how do you build trust? How do you build connection? How do you build networks, relationships? It’s through human contact.

[38:33] SPEAKER_01:

Totally.

[38:34] SPEAKER_00:

And that and that’s actually if you’ve had a quite digital-driven childhood and a digital-driven education um sort of pathway, perhaps I’m not, I don’t want to generalize here, your soft skills and your communication skills are not, you know, perhaps where they need to be in order to really show an employer that you’re a greater asset than the AI system. And I work with a lot of companies, right, that that are seeing what they consider is a crisis in soft skills amongst young people. You know, the ability to make eye contact, the ability to have difficult conversations, the ability to build connections, the ability to give presentations, the, you know, and that’s where the education system

[39:20] SPEAKER_00:

because of the mobile phone. And lots of different things. I mean, I, you know, we could talk about COVID, we could talk about all sorts of things. And and also, you know, again, it goes back to my point. You can’t generalize here, you know, because the multiple factors. Well, and also if you’re neurodiverse, you know, you may find those those things exceptionally difficult. Yeah. So, so it’s it’s not about sort of tarnishing a whole generation with with a one brush here, but it’s about sort of explaining how important those things are. And and they’re going to be more important, not less. Yeah. So investing in those skills, I think, is the best sort of piece of advice I could give to young people for sure.

[39:58] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, I completely agree. Yeah, I I see it with um a lot of the kids that we know as a family that are at that kind of key 15 to 17 mark, which is where they’re starting to really, you know, make some decisions, right? Big decisions about the the way that they’re going to go in their studies or or even leave school and perhaps go into apprenticeships or whatever that might all be. And I I will say large, largely they struggle to have a baseline conversation without like looking down at the ground or holding their clutching a mobile phone or something along those lines. And it I I we we’ve had this conversation openly, like as a family, and we speak about this and like we find

[40:43] SPEAKER_01:

it.

[40:43] SPEAKER_00:

I think back to when I was 15, I was so awkward. Who are you? I mean, I don’t and there’s plenty of people in their 40s and 50s who can’t hold a conversation without a phone. Plenty of baby boomers who can’t hold a conversation without holding their phone. So I think I think it’s just instead of going, um, that generation don’t know how to, you know, make face to face.

[41:03] SPEAKER_01:

It’s just more of a noticed it. Yeah. And I think like, and and uh from what you said there, like it made perfect sense. The soft skills are a problem for young people.

[41:12] SPEAKER_00:

The second piece of advice is I think the future of tertiary education, university education, is in degree apprenticeships.

[41:18] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. They on the job.

[41:20] SPEAKER_00:

Grow, earn while you learn.

[41:22] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[41:23] SPEAKER_00:

Super popular with parents, understandably. Um, but also increasingly popular amongst young people and and they they are growing, right? So universities and employers are really sort of investing in that. They are now harder to get into than Oxbridge, right? And we’ve actually seen a decline of working class kids getting on degree apprenticeships. Why? Because middle, you know, class parents are sort of elbowing their way in and networking on LinkedIn and and and using their professional contacts to get their kids on these schemes because they’re so valuable. Not just better value for money, arguably, but also they’re immersing young people in the world of work earlier and and setting them up for, you know,

[42:08] SPEAKER_00:

a clearer professional path. Right, right.

[42:11] SPEAKER_01:

And and and that’s because that’s been happening since the beginning of the time, hasn’t it, though? Like those parents, the the higher net worth individuals get the best opportunities and but that but degree apprenticeships never used to have the sort of social cachet that an Oxbridge degree did.

[42:27] SPEAKER_00:

Now they do, right? Now they do. So, you know, the the degree apprenticeship at Rolls-Royce is like as good as doing English at Oxford. Like it’s it’s got that sort of elevated status amongst the middle class. It didn’t have 10 years ago. We need more of them. Um, we need a fairer system so that there is kind of full accessibility for for all socioeconomic groups. I think um universities will increasingly invest in them, and I think the government is probably more likely to to to certainly in this country encourage them.

[43:01] SPEAKER_01:

I I I would say Are we seeing a decline there then in like university uptake? And that’s why that they’re looking at that.

[43:07] SPEAKER_00:

A slight decline. But I think I think the but the point is is the level of disillusionment amongst young people around their degree is such that it’s gonna have changed by the time I’ve learned the thing. We need to sort of really be thinking about the options. And the cost of university isn’t just the debt. People always kind of focus on the debt. Actually, getting yourself through uni at a time when, you know, student accommodation has risen, the cost have risen nearly 20% since the pandemic. We have um, you know, some cities for some working class kids are no-go university cities. Like they cannot afford to go to university in London if they’re not from London or not have some sort of base in London or connection in London. So you you

[43:52] SPEAKER_00:

have almost kind of some working class kids excluded from certain universities because of the cost of living in those cities. You also have a rising number of students working during their degree. Um and I interview a couple of um Gen Zs in the book who who, you know, one of them was working like basically a full-time job and doing her degree and and was very financially savvy and didn’t spunk her money like I did at university. And she deterred she said, you know, basically I I was working full-time and learning part-time. And that’s a very different experience than I had at uni. And and I think it it’s testimony to the sort of

[44:37] SPEAKER_00:

modern reality of what getting a degree in the 2020s is like.

[44:40] SPEAKER_01:

You see that a lot in the US though, don’t you? Like they work through college as such, and they kind of have to to be able to pay those tuition fees.

[44:47] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and you’re also seeing, yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s always been the tradition in the UK to move away from home when you go to university. Yeah. You’ve actually seen a decline of people moving away from home. Moving away in state. Yeah, and that’s definitely.

[45:01] SPEAKER_01:

That’s really interesting. Yeah, that actually doesn’t surprise me. Yeah, for me, I was like, woohoo, how could I get as far away as I possibly can? Even though I didn’t actually want to go that far. No, yeah. Like, where did you go? I ended up going to Southampton. Right. I went I went to Leeds, literally was like, I’m in, I’m going to Leeds, and then I went to Southampton. I was like, it’s actually an hour and ten minutes from my house. I was like, I’m gonna do that. Just in case. Right. Because you don’t know, like you might want to just you might have had enough. You want to come home for the weekend. You never, you know, I don’t know, that was just in my head.

[45:31] SPEAKER_00:

No, I went to South High. I went to Durham and there were Durham, nice. Yeah. Well, it was very f I grew up in London, so it was very it’s like apart from Scotland, it was the north, yeah, the northest point I could go. But um, yeah, it was an interesting experience if you’re interested in class clashes at the At university um read chapter two of the book.

[45:57] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. That’s where I’m at at the moment. I’m really enjoying it. But I think you you know, the kid kid kid what worries me about this whole like three, four-year degree now is that what they’re learning is going to change almost like we’re moving from periods where change in business would have been 10, 15 years to two weeks. Things could be completely different because of a brand new system.

[46:25] SPEAKER_00:

But hasn’t that always been the case? I mean, I feel like not no.

[46:28] SPEAKER_01:

I don’t think we’ve seen this cultural level of shift since the internet really became incorporated into business. And then things changed rapidly, like from desks, no desk had a computer to all desks had a computer, etc. With an internet connection and email and phones and mobiles, etc. Those have been massive cultural changes for like global e-commerce. Whereas like AI is about to like do that again, but you know, that that change has happened gradually adopted over a number of years. Whereas tomorrow a brand new A to i tool could come out, which completely wipes an industry out. And so like if you’re then studying that industry, yeah, yeah, like you’re 40 grand in debt, you don’t

[47:13] SPEAKER_01:

need it anymore. So that’s where I’m worried about it.

[47:16] SPEAKER_00:

I think you know, for Gen Z, um if you’ve had a smartphone in your pocket since you were in your early teens and or mid-teens, you’ve you’ve grown up with the world’s information in your pocket. And and I I I think it’s uh really striking to just think for a moment my mum grew up with two TV channels, yeah, and eventually three. Yeah, right. My nephew, who’s 15, grew has grown up with his own TV channel. So how he sees information gathering, how he sees um

[48:02] SPEAKER_00:

trust in organizations, um, is so profoundly different from his grandmother. It’s in it’s incredible to watch. So my mum still buys a newspaper and she will go through, she will read it cover to cover, and then she will tell me what she thinks later in the while.

[48:19] SPEAKER_01:

That’s it.

[48:20] SPEAKER_00:

And she still watches the 10 o’clock news. She’s still her life is still punctuated by these big institutions telling us stuff, and she’s passive to it. Okay, I love her dearly, but she’s very much um a baby boomer in that respect. I look at my nephew and his kid, his friends, his generation, they don’t trust big news organizations. Um they’re inquisitive and have a critical eye, very healthy in a democracy. They are building their own corners of the internet, what’s known as the cozy internet. So they are not in the big social media environment just shouting at each other.

[49:06] SPEAKER_00:

It’s small communities on Discord or you know, you know, Fortnite or you know, exactly um, you know, WhatsApp. It’s it’s the privatization of of social media. Um he’s slightly I don’t want to talk for for him here now, but certainly his generation, distrustful of school and and authority within school and the information you’re learning at school and is this your his generation.

[49:39] SPEAKER_01:

Your your boy.

[49:39] SPEAKER_00:

Well, no, no, it’s not, it’s my nephew who’s but it’s like when we talk about and think about not just Gen Z, because frankly, they’re now getting old old, um Gen Alpha, the next generation, yeah, you’re you’re seeing a very different processing of information and a very different soaking up of information, and a very different level of trust, and a very different um sense of what the world looks like, who their you know allies are, where, you know, what their community is, and it’s so profoundly different from my mother, um that baby boomer generation. Even us, you know, even us that to even talk

[50:25] SPEAKER_00:

about you know education like it only happens in school is like like news, like it only happens you know, on broadcast channels, you know, or in newspapers or even frankly websites, um, is just profoundly not where people are these days. No and and so misguided that you’re starting from the wrong place.

[50:48] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. No, you’re totally right, you’re totally right. I mean so to bring this home, like if we’re if you’re listening to this and you’re not in the position of, say, a bank of mum and dad, and you’re not in a position of like, you know, or your job may be at slight risk of of AI. What have you seen come out of your research and therefore obviously like your your your work in this space as somewhere where someone could focus themselves on to try and bring themselves up a notch? Because everybody’s trying to move up the ladder.

[51:25] SPEAKER_00:

I I think the most important thing for anyone, sort of I would say under 30, who feels like they haven’t established themselves, whatever that means, um, in that kind of way. I would I would think in two ways. Number one is seek out and educate yourself on multiple streams of revenue. Like that’s just a no-brainer. And that comes from financial education and obviously a certain financial savviness, and it doesn’t mean constant hustling, multiple streams of revenue. It it could mean all sorts of forms of passive income, not just active income. Um, so think beyond the wage.

[52:08] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

[52:09] SPEAKER_00:

Um, and the second thing is always be learning because and upskilling and thinking, what is it that can make me distinct in this market? And quite often, what makes humans distinct when you think of like someone like Steve Jobs? You know, like it wasn’t just that he had this sort of ambition around and knowledge around technology, he had this understanding of human creativity, you know. He was someone that studied calligraphy, for example.

[52:41] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And he brought those two worlds together, which is Buddhism, Buddhism, yes, exactly.

[52:47] SPEAKER_00:

And and he is an example, and I hate using Steve Jobs because everyone uses Steve Jobs, but he’s an example of something that actually AI can’t do, which is what humans do, which is bring weird shit together that shouldn’t belong.

[53:00] SPEAKER_01:

Totally.

[53:00] SPEAKER_00:

Right? And that’s what Apple is is bringing all that kind of humanist um um and human creativity, combination of ideas. Humanizing text, yeah, basically. Yeah. And it it it sort of weirdly, I don’t want to compare myself to Steve Jobs here at all, but I’m someone, I studied history, um, you know, kings and queens, all of that jazz, right? And actually, um I’m now coming in and have been for the last 10 years, talking not about kings and queens and history, but using my historical sort of skills to talk about money, business, and how society is changing. Yeah. Yeah. And so that’s kind of I help

[53:46] SPEAKER_00:

businesses understand how, you know, family finances are changing, how people are viewing the world of work differently, how you can bridge that generational gap that I talked about between, you know, my grandmother and and her grand grandkids around my mother and her grandkids.

[54:02] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. But I enjoyed a newer workforce and older workforce. Right, yeah.

[54:06] SPEAKER_00:

And I think that’s not something a typical historian really should be involved with.

[54:11] SPEAKER_01:

No.

[54:11] SPEAKER_00:

But you know, I sit on a board, I’m heavily involved in business. And what is business? It’s a reflection of society and how society is changing. Totally. And and so that’s what interests interests me. I’m interested in change, not history. And so I’m coming into that world with a historical perspective that is quite, you know, different from other people that sit on boards or, you know, are addressing businesses and and do it slightly differently. And I think going back to the point you were getting me to make, um, is what would what would you what would should we young people be thinking about is like, how can you make yourself distinctly human and different, yeah, different from AI. And that’s bringing worlds together, whether it’s

[54:56] SPEAKER_00:

like gaming and gardening, whether it’s like, you know, um, you know, wellness and and and AI. I don’t know. I’m I’m I’m riffing here, but yeah, actually, I don’t know because I only know me. And I think actually part of that is knowing yourself really well and going, what am I really interested in? What could I concentrate on without checking my phone for over 45 minutes? That’s how you find out what you’re really interested in, by the way. And it could be something that you think other people think is meaningless, but you find meaning in. And so sourcing out those things and kind of putting them together, yeah, is where the secret source of of I think building a career

[55:42] SPEAKER_00:

and a portfolio career, which we’re all gonna have, yeah, um lies. Yeah. Finding your passion, I I think is is a is a is actually is is not really what the advice should be. I think it’s what is it that interests you? Because it’s ideally two or three things that you kind of put together.

[56:04] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. It’s really interesting because I was listening to Daniel Priestley talk about this and exactly this. And I love him. I think he’s a brilliant person. I’m doing his course. It’s brilliant. It’s so good. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s so good. Let me know how you got with that. I always uh yeah, I admire him a lot. I think he’s um brilliant. What he said now is where the the career arc used to be 30, 40 years, you would go up the ladder and then retire out. Um he was like, the careers are now gonna be like fast up, down uh two, three year blocks of like extreme, um, where you’re picking up skills at an extremely fast pace and down and out um very quickly as the trends and the world changes around him.

[56:46] SPEAKER_00:

But it’s always been like that. It’s only we you know, it’s rare if we think about um, you know, in the 20s and 30s when my grandfather was was working and building his career. He didn’t build his career, he was a professional gambler, right, on the side. But his job life, his work life, was he had sometimes multiple jobs and sometimes job for two years in so many different industries, factories, sectors that it was just a much more fluid job market and a much far less structured, and he didn’t have really a career. And I think that’s what we’re going back to is a much more kind of agile work life. Yeah. Now that

[57:32] SPEAKER_00:

the real issue is I wouldn’t think in terms of a career, I think in terms of skills. And the problem with most businesses is they don’t teach you anything, they expect you to arrive with those skills. You know, most learning departments in businesses are not really investing properly in skills. Um, and there should be tax incentives to do so. But one of the interesting case studies and interviews that I did in the book was a guy who had the most amazing employer in the Northeast. He was, he hadn’t done very well in school, but he’d he’d become a welder and he found this employer, fantastic employer that he was with for nine years. And they trained him up and then they um paid for his degree,

[58:17] SPEAKER_00:

and he was with them for nine years. And when he joined, they also gave him share options. And at the start of that business, those shares weren’t very much, worth very much. By the end of those nine years, they were enough for a deposit for a house.

[58:31] SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

[58:31] SPEAKER_00:

So he left that business after nine years with serious skills, a deposit for a house, and a degree. And he went on to to to um to work in a you know, basically a job that was paying more than 100 grand. And, you know, he was for he was a working-class boy from from Newcastle. And what’s really fascinating about that is if you don’t have the bank of mom and dad, and if you don’t succeed in school, but you have a great employer who invests in your skills and invests part of the business, allows you to invest in part of the business, you can have as much opportunity as anyone that has either of those things. And that’s what’s lacking is not just

[59:16] SPEAKER_00:

good jobs, you know, because jobs are changing. It’s good training in those jobs. We’ve outsourced the training to university, which is madness.

[59:25] SPEAKER_01:

You are right. You are so right. Like one of the things that we look, we do, we like to, you know, give as much if the guys want to do a course or they find something which is interesting, we do it straight away. Like we’re always doing that. And I think it’s really, really important. I’ve always done that because I agree with you. I’ve I uh you know, I’ve managed big teams in my 20s, and I would always turn around and say to the big bosses, etc., you know, I need 500 pounds per person per year added to salary, and that’s the minimum does it. But they can actually what we used to do, which I really loved, um, was they could go on a course of anything they wanted. So it didn’t have to be work related. Right. So they could go on a cooking claw, cook, you know, cooking class if that was what was important to them in that moment.

[60:11] SPEAKER_00:

And could have a massive difference to their lifestyle.

[60:14] SPEAKER_01:

Their lifestyle, their work, their health, their balance, right? Yeah, yeah. Pottery, we want to do it, go and do it. Um, and so because it makes them better as a person. It’s like they’re growing that mentality, they’re learning something, they bring that environment into the working place. And we, you know, we had some stuff that are there the entire time we run the business. So it makes a big difference.

[60:33] SPEAKER_00:

It makes and it accumulates. You know, we talk about wealth accumulating and and investments. And then when we launch other business, the skills do accumulate, you know, and and and I think um we’ve lost that. Businesses do not invest in their people in that way. Yeah. And they’re, I’m afraid, even less likely to in the age of AI. Because what’s the point? Let’s just wait until AI catches up with the people and then we’ll get rid of all the people. Like you need to be upskilling your people um at the same time.

[60:59] SPEAKER_01:

So they’re using the AI as well. And then your business grows faster.

[61:02] SPEAKER_00:

And I and I think that, you know, if you don’t have an employer to do that, you’ve got to do it yourself. And that’s ultimately what people will do. And they’re already doing. I was sat on a um in a you know, on the Northern Line yesterday, and I was sat next to a guy who was basically learning, I think, some sort of coding program on his phone, whilst, you know, going up the Northern line at 8 a.m. in the morning. And you do have the capacity to learn on the go and learn, you know, by the best people in the world. And we do now have the potential to have a personal AI tutor and kind of guiding us through these things. So it’s never been more possible to actually also upskill yourself. But that takes time, that takes commitment, that takes personal responsibility, and it takes motivation. And if you feel like you’re someone who wasn’t um good

[61:47] SPEAKER_00:

at school, or you feel like actually the world of work has let you down, or you feel a level and degree of self-blame, um, that’s really hard to do. And and I think actually one of the most important responsibilities of the education system is to not people put. I think one of the most important things within the education system is the goal should to not put people off learning. And for a lot of people, school puts them off learning for life. And so I think, you know, and obviously, you know, encourage people to love learning because we’re all gonna have to do a lot more of it.

[62:28] Sammie Ellard-King:

Yeah.

[62:29] SPEAKER_00:

Even people in their 40s who think they’ve passed some sort of golden point in their life where they’re just gonna cruise into retirement. No, it’s not gonna happen.

[62:37] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but actually, for realistically, they may even be more of a higher risk because they don’t they won’t have those skills natively. Like digit, they’re not digitally native. Um, so they do need to upscale themselves in that.

[62:48] SPEAKER_00:

Then all the indications are is that actually the best users of AI right now, as it currently stands, are people who’ve got sort of 10 to 12 years experience of the thing they are prompting. Yeah. Because they can critically evaluate, yeah, but also they can critically evaluate whether or not that’s been come back to the page. Yeah, exactly. They can sort of say that’s actually not very good. Taking it at face value.

[63:11] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Wow, wow, cool. This has been so interesting. I I feel like I’ve talked to you for this for legit hours.

[63:18] SPEAKER_00:

Have we talked about Inheritocracy in my book? We did.

[63:20] SPEAKER_01:

Uh I want to make sure that we push that. So um obviously give us the 411 on it, and um, we will of course leave a link to it in the show notes below.

[63:29] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so the inheritocracy, um, why we need to talk about no, I’ll get the right title. So Inheritocracy, it’s time to talk about the bank of mum and dad, um, the paperback of which is out on the 17th of July. And the essence of the book is it’s trying to explain why in the 2020s it’s not what you earn anymore or what you’re learning anymore. It’s whether you have access to the bank of mum and dad that’s defining opportunity.

[63:51] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I love it. Well, look, this has been so much fun. Um great fun. Other than that, do you like to send anybody anywhere else or just straight to the Yeah?

[63:59] SPEAKER_00:

I have a weekly Substack which um talks about sort of the world of your parents, the world of yes, you know, your kids and and how you’re somewhere in between and trying to explain everything from the rise of trad wives to to AI bots in the workplace.

[64:14] SPEAKER_01:

Love it. That sounds great. All right, really well. Thank you so much. It’s been a real pleasure.

[64:19] SPEAKER_00:

A real pleasure. Thank you so much.