THE 100 TRILLION DOLLAR WEALTH TRANSFER

An examination of “the largest flow of generational capital ever seen in the history of humanity.”

It turns out that millennials and Gen Z are not “entitled, ungrateful, impatient good-for-nothings who complain about everything.” According to Costa, a former chairman of UBS Investment Bank, “at heart, [they’re] a deeply prophetic generation, willing to scrutinize every angle of the prism of society and call out a future that is not yet realized.” But, with the titular event looming as baby boomers age, the youngsters must be carefully mentored so that when they “inherit the financial world [they may] treat that responsibility in a grown-up way.” Adopting the portmanteau Zennial to describe both generations together, Costa alternately reassures his fellow boomers that their successors aren’t all that bad—in fact, “many…are ‘grown up’ ”—and warns them that if they don’t start engaging productively with Zennials, “capitalism dies.” While the author accepts responsibility on behalf of his generation for the “bad hand” Zennials find themselves holding, his ability to see beyond the financial sphere is limited; he lays at young people’s feet “what we’ve seen happen socially, good and bad, in the 2010s and 2020s.” What about Brexit and Trumpism? Writing to a presumed audience of “intellectually privileged” boomer peers, Costa seems unaware that even as he calls for “a world in which boomers don’t patronize Zennials,” he models exactly that throughout. The author is short on analysis and long on buzzwords. Repeatedly, we learn that the future of capitalism rests on the fusion of “Boomer hindsight [and] Zennial insight.” Costa is also weak on strategy, as he offers no concrete tools for managing the $100 trillion transfer. He does offer up “a new way of working [called] CO,” or “a shift from me to we,” gesturing at length and with much repetition to the promise of intergenerational collaboration.

Gassy and patronizing. OK, boomer.