Podcast
What Now? with Trevor Noah
In the episode, the host interviewed the author and described the memoir as a compelling critique of meritocracy, arguing that opportunities are increasingly dictated by family background rather than hard work. The discussion highlighted the book’s focus on the concept of inheritocracy and its relevance in the age of AI, presenting it as an important antidote to prevailing narratives about merit and reward.
Episode: Eliza Filby: Hard Work Is a Lie, This Is What Rich...
The book was described as a memoir that explores how opportunities are increasingly defined by family background rather than merit, arguing that society operates more as an inheritocracy than a meritocracy.
Eliza's writing has been published in The Times, The Guardian and The Financial Times and she's recently published her latest book, Inheritocracy.
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.
It's the antidote to a meritocracy, a society that's built on merit, one that is to do with hard work and reward. 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.
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. It's ever more defined by who your parents are and the leg up they give you and the safety net they create.
The book is, is essentially, it's a memoir. It's my own story, but I define an inheritocracy as one where your opportunities in life are not defined by what you earn because wages are, have stalled, certainly in Europe.