  We explore the possibility that the semi-leptonic $B$ decay ratios
$R_{K^{(*)}}$ which violate $\mu - e$ universality are related to the origin of
the fermion Yukawa couplings in the Standard Model. Some time ago, a
vector-like fourth family (without a $Z'$) was used to generate fermion mass
hierarchies and mixing patterns without introducing any family symmetry.
Recently the idea of inducing flavourful $Z'$ couplings via mixing with a
vector-like fourth family which carries gauged $U(1)'$ charges has been
proposed as a simple way of producing controlled flavour universality violation
while elegantly cancelling anomalies. We show that the fusion of these two
ideas provides a nice connection between $R_{K^{(*)}}$ and the origin of Yukawa
couplings in the quark sector. However the lepton sector requires some tuning
of Yukawa couplings to obtain the desired coupling of $Z'$ to muons.
