California Standard Oil Company

Standard Oil of California was Robert T. Kiyosaki’s first major employer after college, hiring him for its oil-tanker fleet in 1969. His six-month departure became an early example of the book’s central distinction between working for security and choosing work for what it can teach.## Employment After College After graduating from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in 1969, Kiyosaki joined Standard Oil of California as a third mate. The position offered an annual starting pay of about $42,000 including overtime, and its schedule meant he worked seven months and had five months of vacation. The salary was low compared with what his classmates earned, but he regarded it as acceptable for a first job after college.

A more lucrative route was available: he could take a run to Vietnam with a subsidiary shipping company and easily double his pay, giving up the five months of vacation. He did not take it. The choice frames the job not simply as an opportunity for income, but as one option among competing uses of his time and early career.## Resignation and Competing Ideas of Success Kiyosaki resigned after six months and joined the Marine Corps to learn to fly. His educated father was devastated by the decision; Rich Dad congratulated him. The contrasting responses embody the book’s divide between a career valued for pay, benefits, and promotion, and a path judged by the skills and experience it might provide.

When Kiyosaki later tried to explain the resignation to his father, the two men’s reasoning did not align. His father prized job security, while Rich Dad treated learning as the priority. Kiyosaki’s decision therefore becomes a concrete instance of the financial mentor’s advice to look beyond immediate earnings and conventional career progress.## Place in the Book’s Career Argument The episode helps establish why Kiyosaki presents education as something broader than formal schooling or specialization. Rather than remain in a promising corporate post, he moved on to pursue a different kind of training; the book connects that choice to his subsequent decision to join Xerox to learn sales and, later, to form his first company.

Standard Oil of California is not described as an antagonist or as an inherently bad employer. Its importance lies in what Kiyosaki was willing to leave: a well-paid position with benefits, vacation time, and prospects for advancement. In the book’s argument, the resignation makes the difference between earning securely and acquiring skills visible in a single career turning point.