The philanthropist and comedian talks with Indeed’s LaFawn Davis about expanding opportunities and why office conversation should be about anything but politics.
Key Takeaways
- Giving people the tools to do a job is just as important as giving them the skills.
- The workplace isn’t always the right place for politics. And that’s okay.
- AI can open up access to opportunities and extend human capabilities.
When Trevor Noah was getting ready to graduate high school, his mother made him a deal: If he could scrape together enough money to pay for half of his college tuition, she’d cover the rest. “From that moment onward, I’ve been on a journey to earn enough money to go to university,” Noah joked during a discussion onstage at Indeed FutureWorks 2024. “University costs keep going up.”
Of course, the former host of “The Daily Show” and author of the bestselling memoir “Born a Crime” did eventually make the money. But he never did get a degree.
Former host of “The Daily Show” Trevor Noah onstage with Indeed’s Chief People and Sustainability Officer, LaFawn Davis, at Indeed FutureWorks 2024.
Like roughly half of the U.S. workforce, Noah is what’s known as a STAR, which stands for “skilled through alternative routes.”
“In simpler terms, it just means you skip the whole ‘bachelor’s degree’ thing,” said Indeed’s Chief People and Sustainability Officer, LaFawn Davis. During her conversation with Noah, Davis explained her own challenges finding a job without a college degree, “even though I had skills and expertise.” There are 70 million STARs across the U.S., but as Davis noted, they make 75% less over a lifetime than people with a college degree.
LaFawn Davis, Indeed’s Chief People and Sustainability Officer, explains her own challenges finding a job without a college degree, “even though I had skills and expertise.”
To tear down this so-called “paper ceiling,” Indeed has set a goal to help 30 million people facing barriers to employment land a job by 2030. That includes STARs, as well as people with disabilities and those with criminal records. As of March 2024, Indeed has helped nearly 7 million of these people get hired. “If you can do the job, you should get the job, regardless of where or how you gained your skills,” Davis said.
It’s an initiative that aligns closely with the work the Trevor Noah Foundation has been doing in schools throughout South Africa. Noah founded the organization in 2018 to fund schools for underserved youth, but it has since grown to include mentorship programs and efforts to connect students with jobs after they graduate. “It’s not enough to just give kids an education,” Noah said. “Oftentimes, the connection to opportunity is more important than the qualifications.”
In conversation with Davis, Noah discussed how employers can expand opportunity for job seekers, the right way to approach politics in the workplace and the case for AI optimism. Here’s a look at their conversation.
On his personal career journey:
Noah never planned on becoming a comedian. In fact, he dreamed of going to college to study “anything computer-related.” But it didn’t quite work out that way:
“I’ve never seen [my career] as a career. It really was just one step to the next. Every time I would get another job, I would think, 'Okay, now I guess I have enough to go to university.' And then I’d think, ‘Well, let me get a little bit more.’ I went where the work would take me.
“Comedy started as a hobby. It wasn’t an industry in South Africa. It still is fledgling. So I just went from one show to the next, one club to the next. One day, this little website started up called YouTube. I put some of my videos on there, and then I got a call from someone in another country, and they said, ‘We’d like you to come and do comedy here.’ I went to do comedy in Australia, and I went and did comedy in the United Arab Emirates and in the U.K., and then one day, it was in America. All of these were just tiny little dominoes and tiny little steps that led me to the place people know me from now, and that’s hosting ‘The Daily Show’.”
On the importance of giving job seekers tools — not just skills — to succeed:
In his book, “Born a Crime,” Noah wrote that there’s a problem with the old adage, “Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he’ll eat for a year.” To be successful, Noah argued, that man also needs a fishing rod. Noah, for one, says he’s received a lot of them.
“One of the first 'fishing rods' I got was from a friend of mine in high school. He was a kid who was really on the cutting edge of technology. He used to burn CDs for people when nobody could do it, and he ran this little pirate business. He was a nerdy, sweet kid, but sometimes people wouldn’t pay him. I said, ‘Give me all of your bad debtors and I’ll sort that business out.’
Throughout my life, people have shown me the importance of giving somebody not just the opportunity to be part of something, but giving them the tools necessary to succeed.
Trevor Noah, Comedian and Bestselling Author
“For years, it worked well. Then one day, during recess at school, he called me aside. He’s like, ‘Hey, man, I’ve decided to retire from the business. Why don’t you take it over?’ I said, ‘Okay, but how? I don’t have a computer. I can’t afford a computer.’ He said, ‘Why don’t I give you all the equipment and you can pay me back?’
“That was one of the first moments I can think of where somebody gave me a fishing rod. I knew how to run the software to burn CDs. But had he not done that, I wouldn’t have been able to execute on it. That’s really the first time I realized the importance of equity.
“A more recent example was Jon Stewart bringing me on ‘The Daily Show.’ I can have the talent as a comedian. I can have the work ethic and everything else. But then somebody was saying to me, ‘Hey, why don’t I give you a platform?’ Throughout my life, I’ve encountered people who have shown me the importance of giving somebody not just the opportunity to be part of something, but giving them the tools necessary to be competent in that industry.”
LaFawn Davis (left) and Trevor Noah (right) discuss why the workplace isn't the right place for politics and how AI can open up a world of possibilities.
On why he’s optimistic — and “cautiously pessimistic” — about AI:
Noah describes himself as an “eternal optimist.” That applies to his view of the future of AI, with some exceptions.
“When I look at AI, what excites me most are the possibilities to scale ideas far beyond what humans have been capable of. There are ways that AI can help us achieve things and democratize ideas and tools that we really would have never been able to do. In education, where I spend a lot of my time, I dream of a world where every kid has access to a tutor, because we’ve seen through countless studies that one of the best ways to achieve your goals in education is to have one-on-one tutoring. Most kids cannot afford that, and we don’t have enough people in the world to tutor everyone. But we can do it with AI.
“I remember going to Johns Hopkins University and talking to the team there about the work they’re doing in breast cancer detection. AI has tremendously upscaled what they are capable of. Because there’s no doctor who can bring up every single scan they’ve ever done, no matter how good the radiologist. I think this goes to every industry, and that excites me.
“It doesn’t mean that I don’t think we should be wary and be responsible, but I don’t think we have to live in a world where it’s either this or that. I think two things can be true at the same time.”
On the proper place for politics at work:
At “The Daily Show,” Noah’s job was to talk about politics. It was enough to convince him that the right way to talk politics at work may be to not talk politics at all.
“One of the most important things I learned working on ‘The Daily Show’ was that we should never lose sight of the fact that issues are real but politics are imaginary. A pothole in the road — that’s an issue. Politics is arguing around how we fix that hole. I spend more time trying to focus on the issues that connect people than the politics that divide people. If you do that, you’ll come to realize that people aren’t as polarized as we’re led to believe. It’s just that people exist in a world where they’re fighting over solutions, when, in fact, they share the same issues.
“The workplace, in many ways, is an artificial village and an artificial community that has many real benefits, but I don’t think that’s always the place for us to engage in everything that we live through in our lives. If you start a conversation by talking about the thing that separates you, you’re generally never going to get to the thing that connects you.
“Connect about something that’s in the workplace. Connect about passions, sports, activities, hobbies, music that you listen to, movies that you watch. You’ll be shocked at how all of those things are the building blocks that lead us to the place where we can actually have discourse around politics. I don’t think anyone is in the position to talk about politics before they know the other person that they’re talking to. All that happens is, you say your politics, I say my politics, we jump straight to the biggest thing that disconnects us, and that’s it. We’ve shut down.”
Read more Indeed FutureWorks 2024 coverage:
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