Codie Sanchez Says She Disagrees With Robert Kiyosaki About This 1 Thing: Who’s Right?

“Rich Dad Poor Dad” author Robert Kiyosaki makes no bones about earned income from a W-2 job or freelance gig being the worst way to build wealth. Not only do you pay more tax as an employee than you would as an investor or business owner, you also limit your earnings when you trade your time for money.

For You: I’m a Financial Advisor: 10 Most Awesome Things You Can Do for Your Finances

Read Next: The New Retirement Problem Boomers Are Facing

Kiyosaki’s views came up in a recent episode of the YouTube program “Millionaires in Cars Getting Coffee,” when host George Kamel asked “Main Street mogul” Codie Sanchez about her thoughts on how working as a W-2 employee has been villainized in social media culture.

Sanchez, author of the bestselling book “Mainstreet Millionaire” and host of “The BigDeal Podcast,” told Kamel that she doesn’t care what your tax code is — whether W-2, 1099 or K1, it doesn’t matter.

“I like Robert Kiyosaki, but I never liked how he said that W-2 was a lesser profession,” Sanchez said. “I do not think that is true. I mean, Sheryl Sandberg became worth hundreds of millions of dollars by being a W-2.”

Find Out: Robert Kiyosaki Is Dumping Gold and Silver: Here’s What He’s Buying Instead

So, who’s correct? Technically, both.

It’s true that Sandberg got rich — Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires list estimates her net worth to be $2.3 billion — while working as a W-2 employee at Facebook, now Meta, where she served as chief operating officer from 2008 until 2022.

But her paycheck “only” amounted to about $1.12 million per year at the end of her stint. She received the rest of her $33.4 million in total compensation as equity in Meta and in pension and other compensation.

Forbes reported that by 2022, Sandberg had sold more than $1.8 billion worth of Meta stock. It was portfolio income, not earned income, that generated the bulk of Sandberg’s wealth.

Portfolio income is what Kiyosaki would consider the second-best type of income, behind passive income from a business. It’s also how most millionaires create their wealth.

For its National Study of Millionaires report, Ramsey Solutions surveyed more than 10,000 U.S. millionaires to learn about the financial behaviors and attitudes that led to their financial success.

Most of the millionaires were not particularly high earners, but the vast majority (80%) had invested in an employer-sponsored 401(k). Seventy-five percent had also invested independently of their 401(k)s, and that same percentage said that consistent investing over time played a big role in their success.