Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyosaki book cover for the Book of the Day personal finance book review

Our Score4.7/ 5

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EDITION PUBLISHEDApril 2017

Genres

Themes

Assets versus liabilitiesFinancial education outside traditional schoolingWorking for money versus owning income sourcesRisk tolerance and entrepreneurship

Rich Dad Poor DadWhat the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!

Name: Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
Author: Robert T. Kiyosaki

Robert T. Kiyosaki

Robert Kiyosaki's personal-finance classic sets two father figures against each other, one credentialed and broke, one self-taught and rich, to argue that financial literacy, not income or a diploma, decides who actually builds wealth and who stays stuck living paycheck to paycheck.

The Review

Our take

The whole book runs on one contrast, repeated until it sticks: a highly educated father who chases a paycheck, and a less-schooled one who buys assets. Kiyosaki keeps returning to that split because the argument depends on it. This isn't a step-by-step investing manual. It's closer to a mindset reset, delivered through parable, and it reads fast because the lessons are simple on purpose.

The useful part is the vocabulary. Kiyosaki defines an asset as anything that puts money in your pocket and a liability as anything that takes money out, then applies that test to houses, cars, and salaries in ways that annoy people who've already paid off a mortgage. Plenty of readers will balk at calling a paid-off house a liability. But the underlying habit, tracking cash flow instead of net worth on paper, is the actual takeaway, and it's one a reader can start doing this week with nothing more than a notebook.

What the book doesn't do is show its work. There's very little in the way of numbers, tax detail, or market specifics, and the anecdotes about deals and rental properties are told well after the fact, polished into lessons rather than logged as they happened. Readers looking for a manual on how to actually acquire rental property or evaluate a business will need a second book; this one sells the why, not the how. That gap is the most common complaint about it, and it's fair.

Why you should read

New to personal finance and want a mindset primer
Like parable-driven teaching over spreadsheets
Ready to question assumptions about jobs and homeownership
Want a fast, repeatable framework over technical depth

What to expect

Short chapters built around one recurring father-vs-father contrast
Conversational, repetitive teaching style
Light on numbers, heavy on mindset and anecdote
A quick read that front-loads its core lesson early

What holds up, decades on, is the reframe itself: work builds income, ownership builds wealth, and most schooling trains people for the first while ignoring the second. Kiyosaki isn't subtle about pushing readers toward entrepreneurship and real estate over steady employment, and that bias will grate on anyone happy in a career. But as an entry point for a reader who has never separated an asset from a liability, or never questioned whether a paycheck was actually the finish line, it still does the job it was built for.

Reviewed by Jordan · How our reviews are written

4.7 - Outstanding

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Common questions

What is Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! about?: The whole book runs on one contrast, repeated until it sticks: a highly educated father who chases a paycheck, and a less-schooled one who buys assets. Kiyosaki keeps returning to that split because the argument depends on it. This isn't a step-by-step investing manual. It's closer to a mindset…
Is Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! worth reading?: We scored Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! 4.7 out of 5. Robert Kiyosaki's personal-finance classic sets two father figures against each other, one credentialed and broke, one self-taught and rich, to argue that financial literacy, not income or a diploma, decides who actually builds wealth and who stays stuck living paycheck to…