Garrett Neiman, serial nonprofit entrepreneur, activist, founding CEO of CollegeSpring, co-creator of Liberation Ventures, and Senior Fellow at Prosperity Now, walks listeners through the issues of race and wealth discussed in his book, "RICH WHITE MEN: What It Takes to Uproot the Old Boys’ Club and Transform America", including the relationship between luck and power, "compounding unearned advantage", how America is a country of opposites on social issues, figuring out exactly how much is enough, and the "7 generations principle" of leaving a legacy.

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

Rich White Men: 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.