Your operations become public. You are forced to disclose information to the public that had previ- ously been private. 2. The IPO is very expensive. 3. Your focus is diverted from running the operations of the business to facilitating and meeting the re- quirements of being a public company. 4. Compliance with the IPO and ongoing quarterly and annual reporting requirements are extensive. 5. You risk losing control of your company. 6. If your stock does not perform well in the public market, you risk being sued by your shareholders. For many investors the potential financial reward of taking their company public greatly overshadows any potential disadvantage of an IPO. Starting on My Path The rest of this book is about rich dad guiding me as an in- side investor and sophisticated investor on my path to be- coming the ultimate investor. He no longer had to guide his son Mike. Mike was content being an inside investor. You will gain some insights into what rich dad thought was important, what I needed to learn, and some of the mistakes I made along the way. It is my hope that you can learn from my suc- cesses as well as my mistakes on your own path to becoming the ultimate investor. Chapter 27 How to Get Rich Quick Rich dad would regularly review the various levels of investors with me. He wanted me to understand the various ways in- vestors made their fortunes. My rich dad had become wealthy by first investing as an inside investor. He had started small and learned the tax advantages available to him. He quickly gained confidence and became a truly sophisticated investor at an early age. He had built an incredible financial empire. My real dad, on the other hand, had worked hard all his life as a government employee and had little to show for it. As I got older, the gap between my rich dad and my poor dad was increasingly evident. I finally asked my rich dad why he was becoming wealthier while my real dad was working harder and harder. In the introduction of this book I related the story of walk- ing along the beach with my rich dad looking at the large piece of ocean front property he had just purchased. During that walk on the beach, I realized that my rich dad had just purchased an investment that only a rich person could ac- quire. The problem was my rich dad was not really a rich man, yet. That is why I asked him how he could afford such an ex- pensive investment when I knew my real dad, a man who made more money than my rich dad, could not. 290 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing It was during this walk on the beach that my rich dad shared the basis of his investment plan. He said, "I can't afford this land either, but my business can." As I stated in the intro- duction, this was when my curiosity about the power of in- vesting began and when I became a student of the profession. During that walk on the beach, at the age of 12,1 was begin- ning to learn the secrets of how many of the very richest peo- ple in the world invest and why they are the 10% that control 90% of the money.