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Robert Kiyosaki

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Robert Kiyosaki
Born (1947-04-08) April 8, 1947 (age 77)
Hilo, Hawaii, United States
Occupation(s)Investor, entrepreneur, author, motivational speaker
SpouseKim Kiyosaki

Robert Toru Kiyosaki (born April 8, 1947) is an American investor, businessman, self-help author and motivational speaker. Kiyosaki is best known for his Rich Dad Poor Dad series of motivational books and other material published under the Rich Dad brand. He has written 15 books which have combined sales of over 26 million copies.[1] Although beginning as a self-publisher, he was subsequently published by Warner Books, a division of Hachette Book Group USA, currently his new books appear under the Rich Dad Press imprint. Three of his books, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Rich Dad's CASHFLOW Quadrant, and Rich Dad's Guide to Investing, have been on the top 10 best-seller lists simultaneously on The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the New York Times. Rich Kid Smart Kid was published in 2001, with the intent to help parents teach their children financial concepts. He has created three "Cashflow" board and software games for adults and children and has a series of "Rich Dad" audio cassettes and disks.

Personal life

A fourth-generation Japanese American, Kiyosaki was born and raised in Hawaii. He is the son of the late educator Ralph H. Kiyosaki (1919–1991). After graduating from Hilo High School, he attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in New York, graduating with the class of 1969 as a deck officer. He later served in the Marine Corps as a helicopter gunship pilot during the Vietnam War, where he was awarded the Air Medal.

Kiyosaki left the Marine Corps in 1975 and got a job selling copy machines for the Xerox Corporation. In 1977, Kiyosaki started a company that brought to market the first nylon and Velcro "surfer" wallets. The company was moderately successful at first but eventually went bankrupt. In the early 1980s, Kiyosaki started a business that licensed T-shirts for Heavy metal rock bands. In 1997 he launched Cashflow Technologies, Inc.[2] which owns and operates the Rich Dad[3] and Cashflow[4] brands.

Family

He is married to Kim Kiyosaki. He has one sister, Emi Kiyosaki, a Tibetan Buddhist nun and known by the name Ven. Tenzin Kacho. He has co-authored one book with her.[5]

Teachings

A large part of Kiyosaki's teachings focus on generating passive income by means of investment opportunities, such as real estate and businesses, with the ultimate goal of being able to support oneself by such investments alone. In tandem with this, Kiyosaki defines "assets" as things that generate cash inflow, such as rental properties or businesses—and "liabilities" as things that use cash, such as houses, cars, and so on. Kiyosaki also argues that financial leverage is critically important in becoming rich.

Kiyosaki stresses financial literacy as the means to obtaining wealth. He says that life skills are often best learned through experience and that there are important lessons not taught in school. He says that formal education is primarily for those seeking to be employees or self-employed individuals, and that this is an "Industrial Age idea." And according to Kiyosaki, in order to obtain financial freedom, one must be either a business owner or an investor, generating passive income.

Kiyosaki often refers to "The Cashflow Quadrant," a conceptual tool which he developed to categorize the four major ways income is earned. Depicted in a diagram, this concept entails four groupings, split with two lines (one vertical and one horizontal). In each of the four groups there is a letter representing a way in which an individual may earn income. The letters are as follows.

  • E: Employee — Working for someone else.
  • S: Self-employed or Small business owner — Where a person owns his own job and is his own boss.
  • B: Business owner — A person owns a business to make money; typically where the owner's physical presence is not required.
  • I: Investor — Investing money in order to receive a larger payout in the future.

Rich Dad brand

Main article: Rich Dad

Books

Kiyosaki is best known for his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Kiyosaki followed with Rich Dad's CASHFLOW Quadrant and Rich Dad's Guide to Investing. He has now had at least a dozen books published, including:

  • Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad's Guide to Financial Freedom (2000)
  • Rich Dad's Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not! (2000)
  • Rich Kid, Smart Kid (2001)
  • Rich Dad's Prophecy (2002)
  • Rich Dad's Who Took My Money: Why Slow Investors Lose and Fast Money Wins! (2004)
  • Why We Want You To Be Rich (2007, with Donald Trump)
  • The Business School
  • Before You Quit Your Job (2005)

Games

Kiyosaki stresses the value of games, particularly Monopoly, as tools for learning basic financial strategies such as "trade four green houses for one red hotel." Kiyosaki has created several games to reinforce the information in his books.

  • Cashflow 101
  • Cashflow 202
  • Cashflow for Kids
  • Cashflow The E-Game
  • Cashflow 202 The E-Game

Appearances

Several local stations of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), including WTTW of Chicago, KAET of Phoenix, KOCE of Orange County, California, WLIW of the New York/New Jersey area, and WGBH of Boston, have featured Kiyosaki during fund-raising drives. During this television special, Rich Dad's Guide to Wealth with Robert Kiyosaki, he provides viewers with financial education, as opposed to academic or professional education.

Kiyosaki has been seen giving financial advice on various network television news channels.

This speech was the subject of a CNN story.[6]

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation consumer affairs program Marketplace aired a documentary piece on Kiyosaki on Jan 29, 2010. It includes interviews with Kiyosaki.[7]

Financial advice

Mutual funds

Kiyosaki wrote in one column that investors in any mutual fund with a 2.5% annual fee would, over a long time period, surrender 80% of the earnings to the fund.[8] Kiyosaki expanded on his criticism of mutual funds in another column by stating they are for "losers."[9] He has drawn much criticism for comparing investing in mutual funds to playing the lottery, and for discouraging 401(k) investing, contrary to the advice of most professional financial advisers.[10] In contrast to these statements, Kiyosaki wrote in his book Prophecy that while mutual funds are not great investments, they remain one of the few acceptable investment vehicles available to those who will not educate themselves financially.

Kiyosaki's criticisms are supported by the founder of the mutual fund Vanguard, John C. Bogle. In a Frontline episode titled "401(k)s: The New Retirement Plan, For Better or Worse", Bogle stated that management fees and trading costs gobble up approximately 2.5% of an investor's annual returns and approximately 80% of an investor's long term gains. He says management costs reduce the value of a $1,000 investment over 65 years from approximately $140,000 at 8% compounded annually to a mere $30,000 at 5.5% compounded annually. Bogle's solution is to utilize index funds, which charge as little as 0.09%, to substantially reduce or eliminate management fees.[11]

Criticism and controversy

Kiyosaki's books and teachings have been criticized for focusing on anecdotes and containing little in the way of concrete advice on how readers should proceed.[12] Kiyosaki responds that his material is meant to be more of a motivational tool to get readers thinking about money, rather than a step by step guide to wealth. He also says the books are supposed to be "interesting" to people, which precludes involving a lot of technical material.[13]

ABC ran a 20/20 segment on May 19, 2006 in which Kiyosaki was to advise three entrepreneurs on how to make money. They were given $1000 and 20 days to try and make the most money possible. One earned a return of 24%, the second earned a return of 54% and gave it all to charity, and the third lost 100% because she invested in machines that could not be delivered in 20 days. The contestants alleged that Kiyosaki never gave concrete advice. "All he [Kiyosaki] does is, I guess, is open your mind to the possibility. He doesn't tell you how to do it." Kiyosaki responded that failure is important to learning. At the end, 20/20 asks, "Does anyone really need 18 books to learn to fail?"[1]

The Wall Street Journal criticized Why We Want You To Be Rich by Kiyosaki and Trump[14] as did Kiplinger's Personal Finance.[15]

Partial bibliography

  • If You Want to Be Rich & Happy: Don't Go to School? : Ensuring Lifetime Security for Yourself and Your Children (1992). ISBN 0-944031-38-2.
  • Rich Dad, Poor Dad - What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money - That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! (first published in 1997), by Robert Kiyosaki & Sharon L. Lechter. Warner Business Books. ISBN 0-446-67745-0.
  • Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad's Guide to Financial Freedom (2000). ISBN 0-446-67747-7.
  • Rich Dad's Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not! (2000). ISBN 0-446-67746-9.
  • The Business School for People Who Like Helping People (2001) - endorses multi-level marketing.
  • Rich Dad's Rich Kid, Smart Kid: Giving Your Children a Financial Headstart (2001). ISBN 0-446-67748-5.
  • Rich Dad's Retire Young, Retire Rich (2002). ISBN 0-446-67843-0.
  • Rich Dad's Prophecy: Why the Biggest Stock Market Crash in History Is Still Coming… and How You Can Prepare Yourself and Profit from It! (October, 2002). Warner Books, Incorporated. ISBN 0-641-62241-4.
  • Rich Dad's The Business School (2003)
  • You Can Choose to be Rich (2003) 12-CD Audio series with booklet.
  • Who Took My Money (2004)
  • Rich Dad, Poor Dad for Teens (2004)
  • Rich Dad's Before You Quit Your Job : 10 Real-Life Lessons Every Entrepreneur Should Know About Building a Multimillion-Dollar Business (2005). ISBN 0-446-69637-4.
  • Rich Dad's Escape from the Rat Race - Comic for children (2005)
  • Rich Dad's Increase Your Financial IQ: Get Smarter with Your Money (2008)
  • Rich Dad's Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money (September 21, 2009). ISBN 0446559806 (free online edition)

Notes

  1. ^ a b ABC News: Who Wants to Be an Entrepreneur?
  2. ^ Entity Details - Secretary of State, Nevada
  3. ^ Trademark Electronic Search System: RICH DAD
  4. ^ Trademark Electronic Search System: CASHFLOW
  5. ^ Robert and Emi Kiyosaki. Rich Brother Rich Sister. ISBN 1593154933
  6. ^ Leslie Haggin Geary (October 30, 2002). "Kiyosaki mania". CNN Money. Retrieved October 8, 2009.
  7. ^ "Who's Getting Rich off Rich Dad?". CBC Marketplace. Jan 29, 2010. Retrieved March 15, 2010.
  8. ^ Robert Kiyosaki (June 26, 2006). "Why Mutual Funds Are Lousy Long-Term Investments". Yahoo!. Retrieved October 8, 2009.
  9. ^ Robert Kiyosaki (September 1, 2006). "Lying is Easy, Wealth Takes Work". Retrieved October 8, 2009.
  10. ^ Robert Kiyosaki (April 30, 2007). "Playing the Mutual Fund Lottery". Yahoo!. Retrieved October 8, 2009.
  11. ^ FRONTLINE: can you afford to retire?: changing world: 401(k)s: the new retirement plan, for better or worse | PBS
  12. ^ Writer ignores critics of his self-help success - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):
  13. ^ Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
  14. ^ Jonathan Clements (October 11, 2006). "Rich Men, Poor Advice: Their Book Is Hot, But Their Financial Tips Aren't". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved October 8, 2009.
  15. ^ Kiplinger's Personal Finance. "They say they want you to be rich". MSN Money. Retrieved October 8, 2009.

References

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