Rich Dad is a brand established by Robert Kiyosaki for a series of educational books and games about personal finance. The trademark is owned by Cashflow Technologies, a corporation established in 1997 by Robert and Kim Kiyosaki to market these books and games.
Contents
Books and other media
Rich Dad Poor Dad was written by Robert Kiyosaki and advocates financial independence through investing, real estate, owning businesses, and the use of finance protection tactics.
Kiyosaki followed with Rich Dad's CASHFLOW Quadrant and Rich Dad's Guide to Investing.
Originally self-published before being picked up commercially, the central concept of Rich Dad Poor Dad is an anecdotal comparison of his "two fathers". His "poor dad" was his biological father, who became Superintendent of the Hawaii State Department of Education but had very little real net worth which is contrasted with this is his "rich dad".
Didactic 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" is a board game designed by Kiyosaki, which aims to teach the players concepts of investing and making money.
There are two stages to the game. In the first, "the rat race", the player aims to raise his or her character's passive income level to where it exceeds the character's expenses through a variety of investment options. The winner is determined in the second stage, "the fast track." To win, a player must get his character to buy his "dream" or accumulate $50,000 in monthly cash flow.
The game forces the players to do the accounts by themselves. In place of "score cards", there are financial statements. Therefore, players can see more clearly what is happening with their money. It generally shows how assets generate incomes and liabilities and 'doodads' affect expenses.
Basic strategies involved in this game are: buying and selling stocks, cashflow, appreciation, and leverage.
Controversy
In 2010, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation investigated the Rich Dad seminars associated with Kiyosaki on their consumer advocacy program, Marketplace. They found that one-day free seminars were conducted at which three-day courses were offered for $500. At the three-day classes, participants were offered longer courses priced between $12,000 and $45,000. A hidden camera was employed at a $500 seminar in Kitchener, Ontario, showing the trainer, Marc Mousseau, advising participants to request that their credit-card be raised and giving out scripts with instructions for how to ask for limits as high as $100,000.
The show interviewed Bob Aaron, a lawyer whose practice is 25% real estate law, who said that some of Mousseau's advice was unusual and unlikely to work, such as advising that a developer might give two condos free when selling ten, getting an option to buy the house at a later date and buying a house in pre-foreclosure. The program also found a claim by the trainer to be untrue; he claimed to have been part of a deal that made $32 million on a mobile home park in Saskatchewan, but the park did not exist. The instructor was described as "overbearing, obnoxious, and rude" by an attendee, after showing video footage of his behavior.
On August 20, 2012, one of Kiyosaki's companies, Rich Global LLC, filed for bankruptcy in Wyoming Bankruptcy Court. The move followed a ruling by a U.S. District Court jury that former business partners of Kiyosaki were entitled to $23,687,957.21 of the profits from events they helped to set up for Kiyosaki including a 2002 appearance at New York's Madison Square Garden. A spokesman for Kiyosaki asserted that the amount of the award exceeded the value of Rich Global LLC and that Kiyosaki would not use money from outside the company to meet the judgement.
Rich Dad Education
Part of Rich Dad Education's mission is to increase financial literacy among youth. Rich Dad Education’s CEO Anthony Humpage was interviewed by Business Insider in July 2014 for teaching the lessons that college bound teens need to know about financial independence.
Humpage is also a contributor to the Huffington Post.