10 ms·

Is "Rich Dad Poor Dad" a Fraud?

104 points by spking 2y ago

katzinsky 2y ago
I haven't read his book but I've watched my parents try to follow his ideas and I'm worried they're going to bankrupt themselves. They're not dumb, my dad has a much more successful career as an SWE than I've had (at least so far) but he's never been great with investing his money. There are so many bad ideas out there. You really have to be discerning. I don't really know what else to say but I'm glad I never expected an inheritance. EDIT: I'm out of comments for today but they encourage leverage (specifically with mortgages) without really talking about how VAR works. I'm not sure if it came from the author or somewhere else but they have this really bizarre idea about how real estate markets work. The models he comes up with flat out don't sound like viable economies to me.
- sumtechguy 2y ago
  The advice out there is all over the place. I use the Warren Buffet advice. 'if I cant understand it I dont do it'. The problem is many people fall into the trap of 'i am smart at XYZ so therefore I am smart'. For me excel has save me many times from doing some really dumb things. Just put the numbers in. Do a 'everything is good' role and 'everything is bad' many times you will be surprised on how those numbers pop out. After the beating the market has taken for the past few weeks I bet there are many people who are now at 'margin call' having borrowed against assets that no longer exist.
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
    I've been happy with my "get rich slow" scheme on stock indexes the last 7-ish years. > the beating the market has taken for the past few weeks Yeah I saw someone on Fediverse say the stock market was crashing too. I held through 2020 so... No this is really not a crash, I wouldn't even call it a beating. I have drastically slowed down my investments the last 4 years both because of COVID and because I'm saving cash for something special I want, but I'm planning to get back into regular contributions soon.
- epolanski 2y ago
  What bad ideas are in the book that could bankrupt your parents? Don't buy stuff you don't really need and invest your money is really not a way to bankrupt.
  - CommieBobDole 2y ago
    'Invest your money' is a great way to go bankrupt, if you choose bad investments.
arresin 2y ago
It’s so insulting low effort BS that it’s almost sneering. I really don’t understand the phenomenon. I’ve had people earnestly recommend it to me as an “amazing book”. Is it the catchy name? (This is my strongest theory).
- abirch 2y ago
  I like the book's message much like I enjoyed The Four Agreements; however, they both could have been a magazine articles instead of books. My takeaway from Rich Dad Poor Dad is think about ownership and value creation instead of working for wages. I religiously follow having my assets buy my luxuries.
  - arresin 2y ago
    Hey hey, no way does it deserve to be put in the same class as the four agreements. That’s legit.
    - abirch 2y ago
      They're the same as in there the good takeaways could be written in an article. Does the Four Agreements really need a book? - Be impeccable with your word - Do not take anything personally - Do not make assumptions - Always do your best Poor Dad Rich Dad: - Save Money in assets that grow (spend time learning about the assets) - Live within your means - Don't spend your income on luxuries, spend some of your asset growth on luxuries - Try to be a business owner instead of a workers
- passion__desire 2y ago
  Here's a food for thought. Many people aren't that well read or critical thinkers, they just lap up anything served to them in a book. If many people are recommending something, consider it passing through your well-hardened filters/firewall.
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  It scratches the same itch as Amway. It legitimizes the economic system for some people who want to believe there is a special path to riches for them. The bit about getting a mortgage on a rental property and charging enough rent to make the payments, pay the property taxes, pay some property manager to fix leaking pipes at 2am, and make a positive cash flow is a hoot. Just try that.
paulryanrogers 2y ago
TLDR: yes "If Books Could Kill" also did a critique for those who prefer to listen to a podcast. I found the book appealing as naive young person. Yet so little of its advice was within reach to me. And the house I bought was a modest net loss compared to rent I would've paid. It boils down to buy cheap real estate and antiques that will be desirable in the future. I.e. be born in the right place, right time, to not too poor people, and make lucky choices. Also financial fraud wherever you can get away with it.
bsuvc 2y ago
I haven't read the book, but does it really say this? > He also tells of how he can back out of contracts by inserting a clause “subject to the approval of my partner”, where said partner was actually his cat. That is called “fraud”. How can you take anyone seriously who does a thing like this?
- bitexploder 2y ago
  It is the sort of advice people who will never be in those positions hear and think it must be part of how rich business people operate. It is basic knowledge porn, like Malcolm Gladwell books, but with less sophistry.
  - silverquiet 2y ago
    From what I've learned about how rich business people operate, they don't even tend to bother with contractual shenanigans like this; if they perceive that they have the upper hand in a situation, they'll just effectively say, "fuck you, I do whatever I want".
    - bombcar 2y ago
      This is basically a restating of how high-level rich people deals work; the contracts might exist, but it's really all down to trust and a handshake. If you do screwy things, you may find nobody willing to deal with you at all, contracts or no.
      - matwood 2y ago
        > trust and a handshake Bingo. If you really want to screw someone in a deal, you probably can regardless of contract. But, do that enough times and no one will work with you.
        bombcar 2y ago
        Yep, and it helps explain why you can have some rich guy complain about another rich guy who "screwed him over in a deal" for an hour, and then he casually mentions he has to go to lunch with him for a new deal. It's just business.
jakey_bakey 2y ago
Kiyosaki is absolutely a charlatan, I thought we all learned that in 2010?
- epolanski 2y ago
  While a charlatan, something I agree on, his points are solid. Don't get in debt, direct your cash flow as soon as possible to things that make you money, rather than buying Teslas and other stuff you don't need. His whole point is that two people with same incomes and jobs, can be extremely different in wealth after a decade based on their habits and how they spend or invest money and the obvious fact thst it compounds.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    To quote someone actually successful: Rise early, work hard, strike oil.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    Wouldn't interest rate matter for debt? And for most it would be impossible to afford a home without going to debt.
    - hylaride 2y ago
      There's different kinds of debt. Many argue "good" debt is debt spent on assets that appreciate or provide income. However, people often forget that it's not guaranteed (see 2008). Some also only measure net debt (the leftover debt minus asset value). Some people, especially Dave Ramsey, take anti-debt sentiment way to far. Sometimes you just have to live in the system (and the USA encourages home ownership with subsidized mortgages via freddy and fannie as well as mortgage interest deductibility). North American society also tends to look down on renting as bad financial move, which can have benefits of making you more highly mobile and it's easier to move (fun fact, Switzerland has a home ownership rate in the 30% range and the Swiss have most of their wealth in other often more liquid assets).
      - 2y ago
gizajob 2y ago
Even a quick glance at Kyosaki’s twitter will show you he’s gone full loony nowadays.
- agumonkey 2y ago
  Some shorts report he is broke now.
gsky 2y ago
Yes and also 4 hour work week
- lawn 2y ago
  I found it very amusing that Tim got burnt out because people got into the habit of tricking him into a lunch by claiming that he would be joined by someone important, who of course didn't show up. A tactic that Tim himself popularized. Not so great when you're the one being taken advantage of now is it?
bananapub 2y ago
the advice is all shit but the meta-game isn’t - writing pop advice books actually is lucrative, especially back then. It’s just that you have to pretend you’re doing something else, which in his case was some nonsense about residential property.
- citizen_friend 2y ago
  You don’t think he made a lot of money in real estate?
  - bananapub 2y ago
    Dunno. I don’t think his real estate advice in the book was good.
    - citizen_friend 2y ago
      Idk if it was very technical for him to succeed. Know your local market and be aggressive in buying is a good strategy throughout 80s and 90s.
  - dahart 2y ago
    That’s what the article suggests: “there’s no evidence that Kiyosaki actually made significant money by real estate dealings, prior to making millions of dollars with his book sales (and presumably putting some of that into real estate.)”
noelwelsh 2y ago
The "If Books Could Kill" podcast discusses this book and others in the same genre. The two hosts are reasonably thorough in their research, and quite amusing as well.
- wickedsight 2y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation. I often get books recommended that I think could've been an article or where I doubt the science behind it. This sounds incredibly interesting!
- space_oddity 2y ago
  Love the podcast. It’s worth a listen.
- janice1999 2y ago
  Excellent recommendation. I'm always impressed by how thorough and fair the hosts are. In their recent episode on "The Anxious Generation" it honestly feels like they did more research than Jonathan Haidt did when he was writing it.
citizen_friend 2y ago
He already has stated publicly that the “rich dad” is a characterization. And the book is about the 4th product in his attempt to teach finance courses. So I’m already suspect of the article. Yes it’s a terribly written book, but that’s typically the case from non-professional writers who just have something to say. My biggest takeaway is that “stay in school so you can get a good job” is not a great wealth creation strategy. You just compete with other highly qualified candidates for jobs that pay 20-30% more (See 20+ years at Boeing). Jobs like this also attract other risk averse people.
Oarch 2y ago
"Get Rich" books have frequently worked throughout history. For the author.
- swimorsinka 2y ago
  +100 to this. There's no better successful enterprise than becoming a guru - assuming you have the personality to pull it off.
- lnsru 2y ago
  Reading your comment I immediately think about this personality: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_Sch%C3%A4fer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_Sch%C3%A4fer Getting rich by selling books how to get rich.
  - space_oddity 2y ago
    It’s stupid and funny and sad, all at once
spamizbad 2y ago
You can distill all the advice this book has to offer into one sentence: Rather than succumb to lifestyle creep, direct your cashflow from your 9-to-5 towards other endeavors that can make you money. That's it. That's the book. There is no step-by-step guide on how to do this, just a narrative, anecdotes and a few examples mostly around real estate.
- jacknews 2y ago
  If his advice actually for real, it could be distilled further: own the means of production (or an indirect proxy, eg land).
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    Aye, the real trick there isn't in the book: getting some guy with more means of production than he - or any other human - could possibly exhaust in a lifetime to let you have any means of production of your own.
  - jocaal 2y ago
    in capitalism, the most important factor of production is capital.
    - Nifty3929 2y ago
      There are two factors: capital (not money), and labor. E.g. the factory and the workers. Neither is more important than the other.
      - jocaal 2y ago
        My intro economics course taught there are 4: land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship. > Neither is more important than the other. I would say capital is a more important factor than labor, because the tax responsibilities for earnings from different factors are different. Income tax is a lot more than capital gains tax. It is an undeniable fact that our system places more value on growth from capital, than growth due to increased labor efficiency.
83457 2y ago
What is a good alternative book along the same lines?
- lawn 2y ago
  Morgan Housel's books are pretty good I'd say.
- tim333 2y ago
  The "How I Turned $1,000 into Five Million in Real Estate in My Spare Time" by William Nickerson books are good on US real estate. At least on the principles - they are old now and laws change but the principles remain. eg https://www.amazon.com/Turned-into-Million-Estate-Spare/dp/0671253689/ref=sr_1_2 https://www.amazon.com/Turned-into-Million-Estate-Spare/dp/0... Basic idea but tatty discounted rental property, fix it up, borrow against it, buy more.
DataDive 2y ago
And for contrast, here is another book from the early 2000s that, seems to have stood the test of time: The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It 1: the entrepreneurial myth: the myth that most people who start small businesses are entrepreneurs 2: the fatal assumption that an individual who understands the technical work of a business can successfully run a business that does that technical work > Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280 https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About...
- iainctduncan 2y ago
  Yes, this one is actually good. It definitely helped me learn how to operate better as a self employed person. On the other hand, I've only ever heard "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" recommended by other people in the selling-dreams game.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    That was the #1 thing that set me off against it decades before I found Reed's evisceration. The only people talking about it and promoting it were multi-level marketing scammers and adherents. Very cult. Much hype. Wow.
- edanm 2y ago
  Very, very good book IMO. One of the few business books I've read that's absolutely worth reading.
velcrovan 2y ago
I've done alright for myself investing and owning a small business. I read this book years ago and I found it gimmicky. It's chapters and chapters of clickbait-y cliffhangers and parables that just never pay off with anything concrete. I recognized a lot of the rhetorical maneuvers from MLMs and "filler sermons" I grew up around. And the most financially illiterate people I know swear by it as an infallible text.
- bitwize 2y ago
  If Kiyosaki's rhetoric sounds MLM-like, it's because he's made fistfuls of cash as a spokesman/motivator for the MLM movement, Amway specifically. The MLMs love these motivational speakers because they help keep people in the program buying product, even when they otherwise would have wised up and left. And it gives the higher-ups plenty of "training materials" (books, tapes, etc.) they can sell to their downline (which is how the real money gets made).
_uhtu 2y ago
One thing not mentioned in the article: People may be wondering how this book became so popular, basically it's because it became intimately tied to the MLM movement, Amway specifically but it did spread beyond that. People at the top of the pyramids would buy thousands of copies to send down their "downline" as part of a motivational tool. The primary goal of someone near the top of an MLM is to convince everyone down the line that you are ripping off that it's their fault for not hustling hard enough, and this book was and is one of the popular ways of doing that.
pratio 2y ago
I read the book on someone's recommendation, but I won't be doing the same to anyone else. The only person that book helped get rich is the author. Recently, his videos have been going around where he encourages everyone to get into debt and calls everyday working people suckers. I can only imagine how many more people he's managed to swindle.
space_oddity 2y ago
If you're looking for motivational insights and a change in mindset about money, it can be valuable I think.
intalentive 2y ago
I don’t remember any specific advice from the book. My takeaway was that rich and poor have different mindsets and motivations which account for the difference in outcomes.
bitwize 2y ago
Yeah, I call it "Real Dad, Fake Dad". Kiyosaki is also very much a part of the MLM motivational complex. Not to be trusted.
lnsru 2y ago
I got my hands on the translated book and original computer game. As very first book about wealth management for poor people it’s fine. I wouldn’t use it blindly as an investment manual. Obviously I learned that wealth generating assets are better than consumed money. I inherited some money, bought an apartment. Its value skyrocketed and I had a down payment for a house. I didn’t had this option if I consumed the money buying fancy car back then. So yeah, the book and the philosophy helped me a lot. I don’t own endless wealth as a rich dad did though.
Tade0 2y ago
My friends in college bought Cashflow: the board game so I had a chance to play it. The notion that children were a financial burden, while correct, didn't sit well with me. Anyway, I've always read the title as "Rich Dad Poor Dad but most importantly Rich Robert Kiyosaki" because truly that to me was always the real goal behind writing this book. I've made the financially sound decision to not buy any of his work and let others read it to me.
pgraf 2y ago
On another note the author of the book, Robert Kiyosaki, has also been a rampant promoter of Bitcoin. Just recently he predicted the price of one Bitcoin to be 10 million USD soon: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/robert-kiyosaki-predicts-10-million-bitcoin-heres-why https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/robert-kiyosaki-predicts-10-... I don't think you should take someone who says that seriously for your financial planning.
iainctduncan 2y ago
If you want a book that will actually change how you think about money and leverage, I recommend Peter Drucker "The Effective Executive". The first chapter alone is gold. Apparently when Bill Gates was asked what he read, he started with "well of course, Drucker" or something similar. It's harder to read, but the advice is actually useful!
nunodonato 2y ago
You can't imagine how frustrated I get when week after week, month after month, I see his book on the "top sellers" of all the major bookstores in my country.
etendo 2y ago
Every how to get rich/successful book is a waste of time to read in my opinion. Go read a book that teaches you something valuable (to assist you in making money).
thevillagechief 2y ago
This was one of the most frustrating books I ever read when I was young. A bunch of people around me kept talking about how they quit their jobs and found success after reading the book, how it had changed their lives. I'd ready it and come out with nothing. I couldn't figure out what I was missing and just thought I must be dumb. It wasn't until I learnt the trick: becoming successful by selling advice about how to become successful that I stopped worrying about it. This silliness is obvious now, but I was barely 20 back then.
lencastre 2y ago
Yes. Saved you a clock.
lencastre 2y ago
Also,… avoid this like the plague and read “IF YOU CAN” instead by the great Bill Bernstein. Thank me later.
lackoftactics 2y ago
Picture this: Teenage me, eyeing a self-help book my old man brought home. I was skeptical, sure, but still green enough to think, "Hey, it's a bestseller. Gotta be some good stuff in there, right?" Fast forward 20 years, and boy, have things changed. These days, my BS detector goes haywire the second someone starts singing praises of self-help books. Finance gurus, spiritual know-it-alls (I'm looking at you, Eckhart Tolle), you name it. But the crown jewel of nonsense? "The Silva Mind Control Method." I'm still gobsmacked by how many folks bring it up as their life-changing bible, despite it being chock-full of pure insanity. The good news? It seems like it's getting tougher for these wordsmiths to pull a fast one on people. Gone are the days when you could slap together a bunch of truisms, sprinkle in some tall tales, and watch the cash roll in. But hey, it's not all doom and gloom. There are some self-help gems out there that actually deliver the goods. "Atomic Habits," "Thinking, Fast and Slow," and Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" spring to mind. These bad boys? They're the real deal.
etempleton 2y ago
I think it is pretty well known that "Rich Dad Poor Dad" is a self help /motivational speaker type book, that is to say it is mostly drivel. Is it fraud? As much as any of those books, seminars, products are.
ageitgey 2y ago
It's a very terrible book BUT it was also super important, influential book at the time it was published. It can be both! As a child, I read this book in a bookstore. Nothing else like this was available to me in the suburbs with parents who didn't have any business experience. The idea of doing anything other than just "getting a job" was totally foreign. The book opened my mind to the idea that you don't have to work for someone else your whole life and that you want to build appreciating assets. Literally everything else in the book is fluff or flat out wrong. It's not a good book. But for a lot of people, it was also life changing because it broke through in a place and a time when little else was available. In 2024, we don't need this book. There is so much content available online that is so much better. Someone would get more out of reading a random page of the bogleheads wiki than this entire book. But I wouldn't call the book a "fraud" and I wouldn't deny the amount of influence it had decades ago when it first came out.
mintfreshcancun 2y ago
Most criticism in this thread can be summarized as: He is dumb and unsophisticated He doesn’t give technical advice The assumption is that success comes from being smart or credentialed (or fraudulent). This is a bad bias because it manifests as an inability to learn from sources outside your demographic. Furthermore, you develop a susceptibility towards marketing which presents itself as sophisticated (journalist podcasts, Ted talks, ML white papers, etc). It didn’t take a genius to make money in real estate in 1980. You probably have dumb relatives who did it too. The character traits that helped most were optimism and tolerance for risk. Is this true today? I don’t know. Thinking about that question is more fruitful than assuming failure and seeking evidence to support that view.
tacon 2y ago
John T. Reed, an actual real estate guru, has been targeting Kiyosaki for decades.[0] Reed graduated from West Point and Harvard Business School, and he was so early into the real estate investing wave that he debated Robert G. Allen (No Money Down) on 60 Minutes in the 1970s. No one can ever find any of Kiyosaki's investment properties. And check out his opinions of dozens of other real estate gurus on his web site.[1] He does respect a few, but they are few and far between. [0] https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-investment-blog/61651011-john-t-reeds-analysis-of-robert-t-kiyosakis-book-rich-dad-poor-dad-part-1 https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-invest... [1] https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-investment-blog/61653315-john-t-reed-s-views-of-various-real-estate-investment-gurus-part-1 https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-invest...
2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago
never read the book nor am I interested to do so but I have to say this must be one of the most mentioned books ever next to the bible. it's like reality set out to find reasons to confront me with it in random places consistently about once every two months for at least 10 years by now. and as for it being a fraud or not ... isn't the answer obvious already from its cover?
ath3nd 2y ago
Yes. It's basically a salesperson/charlatan selling you their book in which they tell you some very obvious things potentially their far more expensive entrepreneurship course. If you want the book summarized, here it is: - take control of your finances and understand what taxes, stocks, futures, etc mean
tim333 2y ago
>As best anybody can tell, there never was this “rich dad” character as described by Kiyosaki. This is just false. Rich Dad was guy called Richard Wassman Kimi. There's an interview with his son here https://youtu.be/CRq6sjpo9iU https://youtu.be/CRq6sjpo9iU
sophiemoss890 2y ago
[dead]

104 points by spking 2y ago

I haven't read his book but I've watched my parents try to follow his ideas and I'm worried they're going to bankrupt themselves. They're not dumb, my dad has a much more successful career as an SWE than I've had (at least so far) but he's never been great with investing his money. There are so many bad ideas out there. You really have to be discerning. I don't really know what else to say but I'm glad I never expected an inheritance. EDIT: I'm out of comments for today but they encourage leverage (specifically with mortgages) without really talking about how VAR works. I'm not sure if it came from the author or somewhere else but they have this really bizarre idea about how real estate markets work. The models he comes up with flat out don't sound like viable economies to me.

sumtechguy 2y ago
The advice out there is all over the place. I use the Warren Buffet advice. 'if I cant understand it I dont do it'. The problem is many people fall into the trap of 'i am smart at XYZ so therefore I am smart'. For me excel has save me many times from doing some really dumb things. Just put the numbers in. Do a 'everything is good' role and 'everything is bad' many times you will be surprised on how those numbers pop out. After the beating the market has taken for the past few weeks I bet there are many people who are now at 'margin call' having borrowed against assets that no longer exist.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  I've been happy with my "get rich slow" scheme on stock indexes the last 7-ish years. > the beating the market has taken for the past few weeks Yeah I saw someone on Fediverse say the stock market was crashing too. I held through 2020 so... No this is really not a crash, I wouldn't even call it a beating. I have drastically slowed down my investments the last 4 years both because of COVID and because I'm saving cash for something special I want, but I'm planning to get back into regular contributions soon.
epolanski 2y ago
What bad ideas are in the book that could bankrupt your parents? Don't buy stuff you don't really need and invest your money is really not a way to bankrupt.
- CommieBobDole 2y ago
  'Invest your money' is a great way to go bankrupt, if you choose bad investments.

arresin 2y ago

It’s so insulting low effort BS that it’s almost sneering. I really don’t understand the phenomenon. I’ve had people earnestly recommend it to me as an “amazing book”. Is it the catchy name? (This is my strongest theory).

abirch 2y ago
I like the book's message much like I enjoyed The Four Agreements; however, they both could have been a magazine articles instead of books. My takeaway from Rich Dad Poor Dad is think about ownership and value creation instead of working for wages. I religiously follow having my assets buy my luxuries.
- arresin 2y ago
  Hey hey, no way does it deserve to be put in the same class as the four agreements. That’s legit.
  - abirch 2y ago
    They're the same as in there the good takeaways could be written in an article. Does the Four Agreements really need a book? - Be impeccable with your word - Do not take anything personally - Do not make assumptions - Always do your best Poor Dad Rich Dad: - Save Money in assets that grow (spend time learning about the assets) - Live within your means - Don't spend your income on luxuries, spend some of your asset growth on luxuries - Try to be a business owner instead of a workers
passion__desire 2y ago
Here's a food for thought. Many people aren't that well read or critical thinkers, they just lap up anything served to them in a book. If many people are recommending something, consider it passing through your well-hardened filters/firewall.
PaulHoule 2y ago
It scratches the same itch as Amway. It legitimizes the economic system for some people who want to believe there is a special path to riches for them. The bit about getting a mortgage on a rental property and charging enough rent to make the payments, pay the property taxes, pay some property manager to fix leaking pipes at 2am, and make a positive cash flow is a hoot. Just try that.

paulryanrogers 2y ago

TLDR: yes "If Books Could Kill" also did a critique for those who prefer to listen to a podcast. I found the book appealing as naive young person. Yet so little of its advice was within reach to me. And the house I bought was a modest net loss compared to rent I would've paid. It boils down to buy cheap real estate and antiques that will be desirable in the future. I.e. be born in the right place, right time, to not too poor people, and make lucky choices. Also financial fraud wherever you can get away with it.

bsuvc 2y ago

I haven't read the book, but does it really say this? > He also tells of how he can back out of contracts by inserting a clause “subject to the approval of my partner”, where said partner was actually his cat. That is called “fraud”. How can you take anyone seriously who does a thing like this?

bitexploder 2y ago
It is the sort of advice people who will never be in those positions hear and think it must be part of how rich business people operate. It is basic knowledge porn, like Malcolm Gladwell books, but with less sophistry.
- silverquiet 2y ago
  From what I've learned about how rich business people operate, they don't even tend to bother with contractual shenanigans like this; if they perceive that they have the upper hand in a situation, they'll just effectively say, "fuck you, I do whatever I want".
  - bombcar 2y ago
    This is basically a restating of how high-level rich people deals work; the contracts might exist, but it's really all down to trust and a handshake. If you do screwy things, you may find nobody willing to deal with you at all, contracts or no.
    - matwood 2y ago
      > trust and a handshake Bingo. If you really want to screw someone in a deal, you probably can regardless of contract. But, do that enough times and no one will work with you.
      - bombcar 2y ago
        Yep, and it helps explain why you can have some rich guy complain about another rich guy who "screwed him over in a deal" for an hour, and then he casually mentions he has to go to lunch with him for a new deal. It's just business.

jakey_bakey 2y ago

Kiyosaki is absolutely a charlatan, I thought we all learned that in 2010?

epolanski 2y ago
While a charlatan, something I agree on, his points are solid. Don't get in debt, direct your cash flow as soon as possible to things that make you money, rather than buying Teslas and other stuff you don't need. His whole point is that two people with same incomes and jobs, can be extremely different in wealth after a decade based on their habits and how they spend or invest money and the obvious fact thst it compounds.
- llm_trw 2y ago
  To quote someone actually successful: Rise early, work hard, strike oil.
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  Wouldn't interest rate matter for debt? And for most it would be impossible to afford a home without going to debt.
  - hylaride 2y ago
    There's different kinds of debt. Many argue "good" debt is debt spent on assets that appreciate or provide income. However, people often forget that it's not guaranteed (see 2008). Some also only measure net debt (the leftover debt minus asset value). Some people, especially Dave Ramsey, take anti-debt sentiment way to far. Sometimes you just have to live in the system (and the USA encourages home ownership with subsidized mortgages via freddy and fannie as well as mortgage interest deductibility). North American society also tends to look down on renting as bad financial move, which can have benefits of making you more highly mobile and it's easier to move (fun fact, Switzerland has a home ownership rate in the 30% range and the Swiss have most of their wealth in other often more liquid assets).
    - 2y ago

gizajob 2y ago

Even a quick glance at Kyosaki’s twitter will show you he’s gone full loony nowadays.

agumonkey 2y ago
Some shorts report he is broke now.

gsky 2y ago

Yes and also 4 hour work week

lawn 2y ago
I found it very amusing that Tim got burnt out because people got into the habit of tricking him into a lunch by claiming that he would be joined by someone important, who of course didn't show up. A tactic that Tim himself popularized. Not so great when you're the one being taken advantage of now is it?

bananapub 2y ago

the advice is all shit but the meta-game isn’t - writing pop advice books actually is lucrative, especially back then. It’s just that you have to pretend you’re doing something else, which in his case was some nonsense about residential property.

citizen_friend 2y ago
You don’t think he made a lot of money in real estate?
- bananapub 2y ago
  Dunno. I don’t think his real estate advice in the book was good.
  - citizen_friend 2y ago
    Idk if it was very technical for him to succeed. Know your local market and be aggressive in buying is a good strategy throughout 80s and 90s.
- dahart 2y ago
  That’s what the article suggests: “there’s no evidence that Kiyosaki actually made significant money by real estate dealings, prior to making millions of dollars with his book sales (and presumably putting some of that into real estate.)”

noelwelsh 2y ago

The "If Books Could Kill" podcast discusses this book and others in the same genre. The two hosts are reasonably thorough in their research, and quite amusing as well.

wickedsight 2y ago
Thanks for the recommendation. I often get books recommended that I think could've been an article or where I doubt the science behind it. This sounds incredibly interesting!
space_oddity 2y ago
Love the podcast. It’s worth a listen.
janice1999 2y ago
Excellent recommendation. I'm always impressed by how thorough and fair the hosts are. In their recent episode on "The Anxious Generation" it honestly feels like they did more research than Jonathan Haidt did when he was writing it.

citizen_friend 2y ago

He already has stated publicly that the “rich dad” is a characterization. And the book is about the 4th product in his attempt to teach finance courses. So I’m already suspect of the article. Yes it’s a terribly written book, but that’s typically the case from non-professional writers who just have something to say. My biggest takeaway is that “stay in school so you can get a good job” is not a great wealth creation strategy. You just compete with other highly qualified candidates for jobs that pay 20-30% more (See 20+ years at Boeing). Jobs like this also attract other risk averse people.

Oarch 2y ago

"Get Rich" books have frequently worked throughout history. For the author.

swimorsinka 2y ago
+100 to this. There's no better successful enterprise than becoming a guru - assuming you have the personality to pull it off.
lnsru 2y ago
Reading your comment I immediately think about this personality: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_Sch%C3%A4fer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_Sch%C3%A4fer Getting rich by selling books how to get rich.
- space_oddity 2y ago
  It’s stupid and funny and sad, all at once

spamizbad 2y ago

You can distill all the advice this book has to offer into one sentence: Rather than succumb to lifestyle creep, direct your cashflow from your 9-to-5 towards other endeavors that can make you money. That's it. That's the book. There is no step-by-step guide on how to do this, just a narrative, anecdotes and a few examples mostly around real estate.

jacknews 2y ago
If his advice actually for real, it could be distilled further: own the means of production (or an indirect proxy, eg land).
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  Aye, the real trick there isn't in the book: getting some guy with more means of production than he - or any other human - could possibly exhaust in a lifetime to let you have any means of production of your own.
- jocaal 2y ago
  in capitalism, the most important factor of production is capital.
  - Nifty3929 2y ago
    There are two factors: capital (not money), and labor. E.g. the factory and the workers. Neither is more important than the other.
    - jocaal 2y ago
      My intro economics course taught there are 4: land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship. > Neither is more important than the other. I would say capital is a more important factor than labor, because the tax responsibilities for earnings from different factors are different. Income tax is a lot more than capital gains tax. It is an undeniable fact that our system places more value on growth from capital, than growth due to increased labor efficiency.

83457 2y ago

What is a good alternative book along the same lines?

lawn 2y ago
Morgan Housel's books are pretty good I'd say.
tim333 2y ago
The "How I Turned $1,000 into Five Million in Real Estate in My Spare Time" by William Nickerson books are good on US real estate. At least on the principles - they are old now and laws change but the principles remain. eg https://www.amazon.com/Turned-into-Million-Estate-Spare/dp/0671253689/ref=sr_1_2 https://www.amazon.com/Turned-into-Million-Estate-Spare/dp/0... Basic idea but tatty discounted rental property, fix it up, borrow against it, buy more.

DataDive 2y ago

And for contrast, here is another book from the early 2000s that, seems to have stood the test of time: The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It 1: the entrepreneurial myth: the myth that most people who start small businesses are entrepreneurs 2: the fatal assumption that an individual who understands the technical work of a business can successfully run a business that does that technical work > Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280 https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About...

iainctduncan 2y ago
Yes, this one is actually good. It definitely helped me learn how to operate better as a self employed person. On the other hand, I've only ever heard "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" recommended by other people in the selling-dreams game.
- bombcar 2y ago
  That was the #1 thing that set me off against it decades before I found Reed's evisceration. The only people talking about it and promoting it were multi-level marketing scammers and adherents. Very cult. Much hype. Wow.
edanm 2y ago
Very, very good book IMO. One of the few business books I've read that's absolutely worth reading.

velcrovan 2y ago

I've done alright for myself investing and owning a small business. I read this book years ago and I found it gimmicky. It's chapters and chapters of clickbait-y cliffhangers and parables that just never pay off with anything concrete. I recognized a lot of the rhetorical maneuvers from MLMs and "filler sermons" I grew up around. And the most financially illiterate people I know swear by it as an infallible text.

bitwize 2y ago
If Kiyosaki's rhetoric sounds MLM-like, it's because he's made fistfuls of cash as a spokesman/motivator for the MLM movement, Amway specifically. The MLMs love these motivational speakers because they help keep people in the program buying product, even when they otherwise would have wised up and left. And it gives the higher-ups plenty of "training materials" (books, tapes, etc.) they can sell to their downline (which is how the real money gets made).

_uhtu 2y ago

One thing not mentioned in the article: People may be wondering how this book became so popular, basically it's because it became intimately tied to the MLM movement, Amway specifically but it did spread beyond that. People at the top of the pyramids would buy thousands of copies to send down their "downline" as part of a motivational tool. The primary goal of someone near the top of an MLM is to convince everyone down the line that you are ripping off that it's their fault for not hustling hard enough, and this book was and is one of the popular ways of doing that.

pratio 2y ago

I read the book on someone's recommendation, but I won't be doing the same to anyone else. The only person that book helped get rich is the author. Recently, his videos have been going around where he encourages everyone to get into debt and calls everyday working people suckers. I can only imagine how many more people he's managed to swindle.

space_oddity 2y ago

If you're looking for motivational insights and a change in mindset about money, it can be valuable I think.

intalentive 2y ago

I don’t remember any specific advice from the book. My takeaway was that rich and poor have different mindsets and motivations which account for the difference in outcomes.

bitwize 2y ago

Yeah, I call it "Real Dad, Fake Dad". Kiyosaki is also very much a part of the MLM motivational complex. Not to be trusted.

lnsru 2y ago

I got my hands on the translated book and original computer game. As very first book about wealth management for poor people it’s fine. I wouldn’t use it blindly as an investment manual. Obviously I learned that wealth generating assets are better than consumed money. I inherited some money, bought an apartment. Its value skyrocketed and I had a down payment for a house. I didn’t had this option if I consumed the money buying fancy car back then. So yeah, the book and the philosophy helped me a lot. I don’t own endless wealth as a rich dad did though.

Tade0 2y ago

My friends in college bought Cashflow: the board game so I had a chance to play it. The notion that children were a financial burden, while correct, didn't sit well with me. Anyway, I've always read the title as "Rich Dad Poor Dad but most importantly Rich Robert Kiyosaki" because truly that to me was always the real goal behind writing this book. I've made the financially sound decision to not buy any of his work and let others read it to me.

pgraf 2y ago

On another note the author of the book, Robert Kiyosaki, has also been a rampant promoter of Bitcoin. Just recently he predicted the price of one Bitcoin to be 10 million USD soon: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/robert-kiyosaki-predicts-10-million-bitcoin-heres-why https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/robert-kiyosaki-predicts-10-... I don't think you should take someone who says that seriously for your financial planning.

iainctduncan 2y ago

If you want a book that will actually change how you think about money and leverage, I recommend Peter Drucker "The Effective Executive". The first chapter alone is gold. Apparently when Bill Gates was asked what he read, he started with "well of course, Drucker" or something similar. It's harder to read, but the advice is actually useful!

nunodonato 2y ago

You can't imagine how frustrated I get when week after week, month after month, I see his book on the "top sellers" of all the major bookstores in my country.

etendo 2y ago

Every how to get rich/successful book is a waste of time to read in my opinion. Go read a book that teaches you something valuable (to assist you in making money).

thevillagechief 2y ago

This was one of the most frustrating books I ever read when I was young. A bunch of people around me kept talking about how they quit their jobs and found success after reading the book, how it had changed their lives. I'd ready it and come out with nothing. I couldn't figure out what I was missing and just thought I must be dumb. It wasn't until I learnt the trick: becoming successful by selling advice about how to become successful that I stopped worrying about it. This silliness is obvious now, but I was barely 20 back then.

lencastre 2y ago

Yes. Saved you a clock.

lencastre 2y ago

Also,… avoid this like the plague and read “IF YOU CAN” instead by the great Bill Bernstein. Thank me later.

lackoftactics 2y ago

Picture this: Teenage me, eyeing a self-help book my old man brought home. I was skeptical, sure, but still green enough to think, "Hey, it's a bestseller. Gotta be some good stuff in there, right?" Fast forward 20 years, and boy, have things changed. These days, my BS detector goes haywire the second someone starts singing praises of self-help books. Finance gurus, spiritual know-it-alls (I'm looking at you, Eckhart Tolle), you name it. But the crown jewel of nonsense? "The Silva Mind Control Method." I'm still gobsmacked by how many folks bring it up as their life-changing bible, despite it being chock-full of pure insanity. The good news? It seems like it's getting tougher for these wordsmiths to pull a fast one on people. Gone are the days when you could slap together a bunch of truisms, sprinkle in some tall tales, and watch the cash roll in. But hey, it's not all doom and gloom. There are some self-help gems out there that actually deliver the goods. "Atomic Habits," "Thinking, Fast and Slow," and Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" spring to mind. These bad boys? They're the real deal.

etempleton 2y ago

I think it is pretty well known that "Rich Dad Poor Dad" is a self help /motivational speaker type book, that is to say it is mostly drivel. Is it fraud? As much as any of those books, seminars, products are.

ageitgey 2y ago

It's a very terrible book BUT it was also super important, influential book at the time it was published. It can be both! As a child, I read this book in a bookstore. Nothing else like this was available to me in the suburbs with parents who didn't have any business experience. The idea of doing anything other than just "getting a job" was totally foreign. The book opened my mind to the idea that you don't have to work for someone else your whole life and that you want to build appreciating assets. Literally everything else in the book is fluff or flat out wrong. It's not a good book. But for a lot of people, it was also life changing because it broke through in a place and a time when little else was available. In 2024, we don't need this book. There is so much content available online that is so much better. Someone would get more out of reading a random page of the bogleheads wiki than this entire book. But I wouldn't call the book a "fraud" and I wouldn't deny the amount of influence it had decades ago when it first came out.

mintfreshcancun 2y ago

Most criticism in this thread can be summarized as: He is dumb and unsophisticated He doesn’t give technical advice The assumption is that success comes from being smart or credentialed (or fraudulent). This is a bad bias because it manifests as an inability to learn from sources outside your demographic. Furthermore, you develop a susceptibility towards marketing which presents itself as sophisticated (journalist podcasts, Ted talks, ML white papers, etc). It didn’t take a genius to make money in real estate in 1980. You probably have dumb relatives who did it too. The character traits that helped most were optimism and tolerance for risk. Is this true today? I don’t know. Thinking about that question is more fruitful than assuming failure and seeking evidence to support that view.

tacon 2y ago

John T. Reed, an actual real estate guru, has been targeting Kiyosaki for decades.[0] Reed graduated from West Point and Harvard Business School, and he was so early into the real estate investing wave that he debated Robert G. Allen (No Money Down) on 60 Minutes in the 1970s. No one can ever find any of Kiyosaki's investment properties. And check out his opinions of dozens of other real estate gurus on his web site.[1] He does respect a few, but they are few and far between. [0] https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-investment-blog/61651011-john-t-reeds-analysis-of-robert-t-kiyosakis-book-rich-dad-poor-dad-part-1 https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-invest... [1] https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-investment-blog/61653315-john-t-reed-s-views-of-various-real-estate-investment-gurus-part-1 https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-invest...

2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago

never read the book nor am I interested to do so but I have to say this must be one of the most mentioned books ever next to the bible. it's like reality set out to find reasons to confront me with it in random places consistently about once every two months for at least 10 years by now. and as for it being a fraud or not ... isn't the answer obvious already from its cover?

ath3nd 2y ago

Yes. It's basically a salesperson/charlatan selling you their book in which they tell you some very obvious things potentially their far more expensive entrepreneurship course. If you want the book summarized, here it is: - take control of your finances and understand what taxes, stocks, futures, etc mean

tim333 2y ago

>As best anybody can tell, there never was this “rich dad” character as described by Kiyosaki. This is just false. Rich Dad was guy called Richard Wassman Kimi. There's an interview with his son here https://youtu.be/CRq6sjpo9iU https://youtu.be/CRq6sjpo9iU

sophiemoss890 2y ago

[dead]