TITLE: How to prove $\text{Rank}(AB)\leq \min(\text{Rank}(A), \text{Rank}(B))$?
QUESTION [36 upvotes]: How to prove $\text{Rank}(AB)\leq \min(\text{Rank}(A), \text{Rank}(B))$?

REPLY [21 votes]: Since we have $\text{Col }AB \subseteq \text{Col }A$ and $\text{Row }AB \subseteq \text{Row }B$, therefore $\text{Rank }AB \leq \text{Rank }A$ and $\text{Rank }AB \leq \text{Rank }B$, then the result follows.