Welcome to Let's Talk Legacy. I'm your host Gary Michels. Today our guest is awesome. Garrett Neiman is a serial nonprofit entrepreneur, and activist, founding CEO at college spring, co creator of liberation ventures and senior fellow at prosperity now, he is also the author of the new book
what it takes to uproot the old boys club and transform America. So welcome to the show.
I appreciate it. Gary, thank you so much for having me.
Let's dig right into some questions and have a really healthy conversation here. We're going to talk about a few things today that for many of our listeners play major roles in shaping a legacy, which is what our shows about, and those are race and wealth. You're dedicated your career to helping the rich give their money away to social justice causes. But I want to start with the hard question. A lot of
listeners might be thinking, you are a successful white man. So what qualifies you to speak objectively on things like inequity and privilege and give us your background?
Yeah, absolutely happy to share a little bit of my journey. And I think the way I think about it is that really none of us are positioned to objectively speak about really anything, including social justice issues that I take, what I have to offer is my own lived experience and path and take what feels helpful or useful in your own life and let the rest
go. The connection to legacy for me runs pretty deep, because I grew up in Orange County, California, the white affluent suburb, but then when I was six, my younger brother died in the accident, completely turned my family's whole life upside down. And I think going through that experience, it just really helped me see how life can be short and fragile. And, you know, basically, as long as I can remember, I've tried to live a life that's meaningful and aligned with values and so
forth. You know, so for me, you know, the the main way that manifested is entering the nonprofit sector mice. My sister's adopted from China, I raised money for her former orphanage when I was in high school. And then when I went to college at Stanford, I started college spring, which is a national college access nonprofit, helping low income students of color prepare for the SATs, and become the first
in their families to go to college. And, you know, we served about 20,000 students during my tenure raise $15 million, got recognized by the Obama White House. So on the one hand, it was this big success. But on the other hand, that decade of work really helped me see how programs like ours, frankly, we're really ill equipped to address the deep systemic barriers that students of color and high poverty
communities faced. And so I've been on a journey since to really try to understand the root causes of inequality, how they can be addressed. And also, you know, what is my role in the work as a white man, and particularly a straight able bodied white man who grew up in a wealthy family and attended private schools that I think there's a real desire among many
people who share my background to contribute. But I think there's really, particularly in this moment, a lack of clarity about what that role can look like.
So you say that people at the top, often rich white men, too often are preserving their wealth over generations using what you call compounding unearned advantage. So what is compounding unearned advantage?
Unearned advantage is simply a way of saying that, you know, those of us who have advantaged identity markers like growing up in a wealthy family or growing up white, growing up male and so forth, that does lead to some unearned advantages in our lives and compounded unearned advantage as a way of talking about how when those show up sequentially through our experiences, it's a way that those advantages actually compound you know that there's
studies that show that white teachers believe white students are higher potential. There's evidence now that parents school more often is my son gifted than is my daughter gifted and certainly, you know, if you go to school in an affluent community, teachers have more time to advocate for their
students. In affluent families, parents have more time to advocate for their children, you know, so there's all these ways where these seemingly subtle compounding unearned advantage is really a way of talking to folks who understand how compound interest works, you know that if a slightly higher
annual return adds up to a lot exponentially over time. The same thing can be true for our identity based unearned advantages that seemingly small unearned advantages can really shift trajectories and produce large societal disparities.
What exactly is the problem was someone wanting to preserve their wealth for future generations, especially within their own family?
Yeah, it's a really good question. And I think in a certain sense, there isn't a problem and I think In particular, it's very rational, the way that our society is currently structured that in by inequality societies, there's a real hunger to want to cling to whatever rung you're on like that, if you imagine just sort of a ladder, you know that in a high inequality society, the gaps between the rungs are pretty large, that there's major differences in quality of life,
if you fall down a rung on that on the ladder, and, you know, in America, we don't have too much of a safety net, you know, so, you know, if you're at the very bottom of that ladder and let go, you know, you don't land in a safety net, you land in something that's more like a fiery pit, which nobody wants. The challenge with that is that from a societal perspective, that leads to a system that basically stays the way it is.
And so what I've become interested in is, what does it look like to produce a society where there's less inequality, and we don't have to be so anxious and scared about where exactly we fall on the ladder that I think about things like the college admissions craziness these days to try to get into an
elite university. You know, that only happens in a society where, you know, going to a Stanford or Harvard or Yale means you could become a billionaire and the society were going graduating from community college or state university doesn't guarantee a living wage. You know, that's where those high stakes come from. So what does it look like to protect ourselves and our families against risks of the society as it is, but also how do we protect against the risk of a society that stays like it is?
What would that look like for you, if the United States invested in these people more than they are now for? You could say, we actually are a society that does do this.
So I think there's there's different ways of looking at this. But I think at a, you know, a very basic level, I think about you know, how many, you know, how many Einsteins, how many steve jobs are out there who are societies is not not investing in. And if you're if you're in a situation where you're focused on your day to day survival, you know, just trying to pay your rent check, or, you know, pay the bills, you know, that you're not going to be able to invest in your your
talents and gifts and unique capabilities and skills. And so, you know, what does it look like to create a society that offers that for more people? And I think that what I'm very interested in is what does it look like to invest in every community in America so that every person can have opportunities like I had growing up?
What would be some of those opportunities? What does that look like for the government to really give more?
The approach I've become particularly interested in just because I think it's simple, is direct cash transfers to folks. And that can be on an income basis, you know, that you may have come across ideas like the universal
basic income. You know, other folks have talked about things like a universal basic capital, or things like baby bonds that are basically a trust fund that matures over a low wealth child's lifetime, and enables him to pay for college or a down payment, or whatever it may be that wealth inequality is so high in American society that we're leaving a lot on the
table, by enabling things to continue down that path. So just as one concrete example, you know, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co founder, co founders of Google, have a combined wealth of about $200 billion. Larry and Sergey have enough money to create an endowment that provides $100,000 guaranteed income to everyone in San Francisco who lives in
poverty. Plus, they have enough money to provide a million dollars in reparations to every black family that's been locked out of intergenerational wealth in San Francisco, and they would have something like $70 billion leftover at the end of that, you know whether or not you agree with those specific policies, we have a lot of resources locked up in vaults of the very, very
few. And if those resources were invested in marginalized communities that have historically been locked out of wealth, building opportunities, that would make an enormous difference. And there's efforts now like the mayors for a guaranteed income that over I think over 100 mayors have
signed on to now to run these pilots in their communities. And what they're finding is, you know, when people who don't have well have an extra 500 bucks a month, 1000 bucks a month, you know, they're able to make better decisions, decisions that better suit them for the long term, that the same way that a cash strapped business is going to have a hard time focusing for
the long term. You know, the same thing is true for families that don't have well so you know, families that get these stipends are able to do things like take a day off and interview for another job that pays better and is a better fit for their skills or, you know, to invest in continuing education or whatever it may be that there's all of these different opportunities that are available to Folks once there once they're not quite so cash strapped.
Got it. That's big. But let's talk a little bit about what you kind of explained as an interesting relationship between luck and power. Can you talk to that a little bit?
This was one of the more interesting aspects of, of my journey into this is that I think luck is often maybe not always, but I think most of the time, good luck has something to do with a powerful person making a decision that benefits us, you know, things that felt like serendipity, you know, that there really is a component of power attached to it.
So what's your definition of luck?
For the most part, I think luck is when a powerful person, usually a rich white man makes a decision that benefits us.
This is my definition. I'd like to hear what your thoughts are on it. Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. Do you think that just because a person maybe as at a lower economic level or lower status level, they should still be able to be given privileges? If they haven't put the work in the preparation? Are they still entitled? Because that's not healthy for the society either.
Yeah, absolutely. It's a really good question. And I liked your definition of luck. And maybe it's even better than my definition. I've heard this one before. And I think, yes, the preparation matters. And that preparation doesn't necessarily yield the same things for
everybody. And I think about, you know, my great grandfather, for example, who emigrated to the US he does escaped persecution as a Jew from the Russian Tsar, you know, and he, he worked in the steel mills in Ohio as a 12 year old, you know, eventually found his way to Saudi to business that he ended up buying and running epicbot plant that was the family's business that eventually led to real estate being acquired that provided the foundation of wealth for my family, you know,
so, you know, he's somebody who, you know, when you talk about preparation meets opportunity, I mean, worked incredibly hard, incredibly, intentionally, to access opportunity. And there's, there's this complexity where, you know, the real estate he bought, for example, was in red line communities that were only available to white folks, you know, so it's this weird thing, where, for me to talk as if my great grandfather who worked in the steel mills as a 12 year old, you know, to say that, Oh,
you know, like, he is so privileged. I mean, he faced a lot of obstacles, you know, but then it's still the case that, you know, that that hard work, and resourcefulness yielded something different for him than it might have for somebody else. And that's, that's the big complexity, and red all we have in our society is that it really is both that are showing up in the outcomes people get.
That makes sense. Now, surely, the problem can't be exclusively limited to white men, there must be some examples of wealthy woman using compounding unearned advantage or wealthy individuals of other races. What does the research show? Do you have any statistics that can illustrate the imbalance a little bit?
Yeah, and like we were talking about earlier, like, it's some of both here. Like, I don't want to say that, you know, there aren't any wealthy white women who, you
know, are quite advantaged in our system. And, you know, like, even for me is, you know, like, as a Jewish person, you know, that, like, there's still anti semitism in the US, you know, so like you for me, you know, that it's not that I'm the most advantaged person in all of America, you know, I think the way I've come to see it is, you know, that I can acknowledge that, overall, the system favors me, you know, even if it doesn't favor me, absolutely. In every situation, you know, more than
any other person on the planet. And so, you know, like, very wealthy white women, you know, are in that category of highly advantaged folks, I chose to talk about wealthy white men in my work, because I feel like there's not a lot of wealthy white men who are willing to take that on. And what I found across differences is, you know, that if you're a wealthy white woman, you know, you still don't necessarily feel safe going for
a run at night. Or if you're a wealthy black man, you still might be afraid that a cop is gonna pull up, pull you over, and something's gonna happen to you, you know, so there's this complexity where, you know, even even folks who are advantaged in a number of ways if you're missing even one of those advantaged identity markers, it's going to impact your experience a lot, you know, so how do we acknowledge that?
Now, we talked a little bit about these two separate issues here race and gender and inequity in it? Is one posing a larger challenge than the other?
It's a really good question. I think the the best way I can think of how to describe it is, you know, when you look at who you know, who holds wealth and power in our society, you're gonna see a lot more a lot more white women in
those positions. And then black folks, for example. And then also, when you look at people's political press principle, it's really interesting that if, if you think of, you know, conservative and progressive, as you know, not saying that one is better than the other, but that if progressive is about, you know, changing society dramatically, you know, and conservative is about conserving society the way it is, you know, it's interesting that, you know, white men as a group, not
everybody, but white men, as a group are the most politically conservative. Black women are the most politically progressive, you know, so I think there's, there's something about, you know, how how people really vote in ways that suggests that in order for people from different groups to feel like they can succeed in America, there's different viewpoints about how much the society needs to change.
Is there one of these you think that's moving quicker and gaining momentum?
It's so complicated, because there's like, there's so much, you know, moving forward and backwards all the time, like, and we're in a very strange time in America, like when you look at racial justice, for example, the nullification of race based affirmative action is a big step backward on the gender fraud, you know, that Roe versus Wade
is seen by many as a big step backward. And then you have this bizarre, you know, counter reality where, you know, policies like reparations, you know, are gaining traction in California and cities like Evanston, Illinois in ways that
have never been seen before. And I think that that's, I think that's one of the really interesting things about this country is that, you know, America is a deeply racist and anti racist country, it's a deeply sexist and anti sexist country, that it's deeply egalitarian and deeply, you know, struggling to be egalitarian. And so, you know, I think that certainly, the movement on racial justice, the last several years has been substantial. And I think, in
some ways, maybe more enduring than things like me, too. But also, it's, it's hard to know what's going to last and, you know, I, part of why I'm doing the work that I'm doing it is with the hope that we can continue to drive some of that progress forward.
A lot of people nowadays like to say there's no such thing as a good billionaire. Is that really the case? And is that really the fault of the person themselves, or the tax system or other systems that have been built around them?
You know, I really try to focus on the system, not on individuals, you know, there's a lot of structural factors, and you know, that we live in a very economically segregated society, a very racially segregated society, all of these structural reasons, the way I think about it is, I really tried to step away from the notion of good or good or bad, I think that is, is rooted in this, you know, kind of deeply held view that you can be a good person or a bad
person, you know, I feel like I'm a, I'm a good person or a bad person, depending on the day or depending on the moment. And so what I'm interested in is, you know, instead of, I guess, condemning people as bad, you know, what I'm very interested in is, how do we get more people, you know, to, to take more good actions, and to, to to be good, a higher percentage of the time. And I think that I think anybody can do that if they'd make the effort.
So we have a lot of listeners who are very successful and might find themselves in this advantaged position you're talking about, but also are already generous. What can people like that do to be more sympathetic to what you're saying?
Yeah, I love that question. And I think something that I question I spend a lot of time with wealthy folks on in particular, is this question of, you know, how much money is enough? It's, it's a, it's a tricky question. Because what I found is, millionaires usually say, you know, that, Oh, Rich is the 1%, you know, and I talked to one percenters and they say that Rich is being a billionaire. And I talked to billionaires, and they say, you know, being rich is Bill Gates.
And then if you go on the Gates Foundation website, Bill Gates talks about how he doesn't have as much money as some countries. And so, you know, there's this tendency to, you know, feel like the answer to that question, you know, how much is enough? That is, you know, always more and more and more, I think the reality is that that approach is actually really constraining. You know, I think a lot of folks are to why they want to become wealthy is to have financial independence to feel freedom.
And it actually doesn't necessarily, you're not necessarily that free if you're spending your whole life chasing the next dollar, while you know, your your marriage is going down the drain your kids aren't speaking to you, you know, that you're not having an impact in the community and so forth. So
what does it look like? To really get clear on that question, and I found that an easier version of that question is, you know, do I have enough right now, you know, for folks who have made a good amount of money and feel like they are there, you know, what does it look like to consider the possibility of, of not accumulating for further and so like, I was just talking to a wealthy couple, you know, a few days ago, they have about $10 million in wealth. I think, you
know, one of them feels strongly they have enough. The other one is not quite so sure, you know, but the one who does feel sure, you know, I, I've encouraged her to think about, well, what would it look like to to distribute your investment returns beyond your living expenses next year to not get richer next year and make a much more substantial investment in communities? You
know, so, you know, they hold about 10 million. I think their living expenses are a couple 100,000 a year, you know, and they they give a little bit philanthropically, but why not trying to give him 300,000 This year, that it's not, you're not going to have less than you have before, you're just not going to have more? And, you know, what does it look like to play around with that as an experiment? And I'm not saying that everybody
has to do that, or they have to do that forever? But what does it look like to take a pause on it continue accumulating, live life differently for a little while and see, see how it goes and how it feels?
That's an interesting perspective. Let's move into legacy a little bit. What does legacy mean to you?
I think for me, you know, I think of there's a indigenous principle called The Seven generations principle, where the way the way some of these tribes who have who have this belief operate is what does it look like to make decisions with an eye toward how they'll impact people, seven generations
out? You know, so looking out 150 years, 200 years, you know, what does it look like to make decisions at an individual, institutional and societal level, with that viewpoint in mind, and, you know, maybe that's a little abstract, but I think aspirationally that's something that I take really
seriously. And, you know, particularly now that I'm a dad, you know, I wrestle with these questions of, you know, do I, you know, do I invest in maximizing the unearned advantages of my son, you know, or do I invest in building a society where, you know, everybody can thrive regardless
of what their unearned advantages are? And I think that the reality is I do some about that there's, there's ways that you know, that I invest in my kid in ways that I know that not everyone has the opportunity to and but I'm also trying to take a less myopic view than I think some folks take and really try to, you know, put significant time and attention and resources into, you know, how we build a just and equitable society for everybody and, you know, a society that is sustainable for
people and planet for the long haul. And the other thing I'll say about legacy is that I didn't want to things that I've looked a lot at is, you know, what do people regret on their deathbeds? You know, people regret things like, I wish I didn't work so hard. I wish I was there more for my family and friends, I wish I had the courage to do what I wanted, instead of getting caught up in those those fears. There's lots of ways where societal pressure actually leads many of us maybe
most of us toward regret. And so what does it look like to take a step back and really be intentional about, you know, what are the lives that we want to have, and in particular, knowing that, you know, the day to day rewards of doing something like, you know, having brunch with your kid, you know, that that might not generate the same, you know, hit or high as
you know, knocking out a work deliverable. But in the long run, you know, those relationships, you know, are really all that matters, you know, that the material success fades. And I've never heard of anybody late in life who said, Gosh, I just I wish I worked more hours spent more hours at the office. And so it makes me wonder if our allocations a little off in our day to day.
I hear you there, I hear you. We want to finish this interview talking about the great work that you're doing with college spring. Tell us a little bit about that program and the initiative and how if people wanted to help they could.
College Spring as I mentioned is a program that helps low income students of color prepare for the SATs and become the first in their families to go to college. It's a national program based in Oakland, but I think there's opportunities for folks to plug in and you know, a number of cities around the country. College spring has a particularly big presence in California, Detroit, a few cities in Texas, but you know, has presence in other places as
well. College spring.org is a website their liberation Ventures is focused on racial justice and repair liberation ventures.or. So folks who are interested in racial justice, and it really how do we repair a society that has a problematic history? How do we heal as a society? Liberation Metro supports grassroots organizations that are wrestling
with those questions and trying to drive progress? And then the last thing I would say about my current work is that I'm very interested then being a resource for wealthy white folks and rich white men in particular who are trying to advance equity and social justice and live their lives in this meaningful multigenerational lens. So, Garrettneiman.com, GA R R E TT neiman.com, which is the book website, there's a contact form,
I would love for anybody to reach out to me. And I'd be happy to available to anyone personally on this podcast, who wants to engage further.
Awesome. Well, Garrett, I really thank you for your time today, you're certainly given some perspective to people that are wealthy, you've given some perspective to people that maybe aren't at that wealth level yet, but want to be and how they can make a difference in this world. You touched some different things that everybody could benefit from.
Yeah, I enjoyed that. Thank you, Gary. This is great. And yeah, Gary, thank you for the work that you do. It's it's cool that you found this way to bind you know, that when people are looking at their long term decisions through life insurance and so forth, that that's an avenue to having some of these deeper conversations about our long term life decisions. I think that's awesome. I wish more people would would do that. So thank you. Appreciate it.