I Fell For It: Is Rich Dad Author Broke?

Let me save you the cost of a subscription to Vanity Fair.

Robert Kiyosaki is not broke. But the headline of their recent article, “Poor Dad Author Goes Bust: How Robert Kiyosaki Went Into Debt to the Tune of $1.2 Billion” sure made me think so.

Kiyosaki, author of the best-selling book Rich Dad Poor Dad and creator of the Cash Flow board game simply has bank debt on assets like real estate. Just like many of us do. He just used the power of leverage to acquire those assets. Leverage is the power of using a bank loan to aquire a duplex, so long as you give the bank the required down payment and meet their credit requirements. You put up a little. They put up a lot.

And by his own admission, in this case, he likely put up even less, as he has partners in much of his real estate holdings.

For many of us, Kiyosaki’s books were a key piece to our earliest interest in real estate investing. That doesn’t mean Kiyosaki is without flaws. The Vanity Fair article details his lawsuit with the co-author of Rich Dad over royalties. Further digging details his Chapter 7 bankruptcy of and bankruptcy of his Rich Global LLC seminar business, which a judge ordered to pay The Learning Annex $23,687,957.21 against $1.79 million in assets.

If you want to know who Rich Dad was, or more about Kiyosaki’s real feelings about his Poor Dad, or Buddhist monk sister, subscribe to the magazine’s free trial and cancel.

And if you don’t, I just saved you the cost of a subscription.