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{{Infobox person {{Infobox person
| name = Charles G. Koch | name = Charles G. Koch

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Charles G. Koch
Born (1935-11-01) November 1, 1935 (age 89)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Occupation(s)chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries, Inc.
Parent(s)Mary Robinson
Fred C. Koch

Charles de Ganahl Koch (Template:Pron-en; born November 1, 1935) is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries, Inc., the second largest privately held company by revenue in the United States.

Early life, education, and career

Koch was born and lives in Wichita, Kansas, one of four sons of Mary Robinson and Fred C. Koch; Koch's grandfather was a Dutch immigrant who settled in West Texas. Koch's academic life was spent at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1957 he received a bachelor's degree in general engineering, a master's degree in mechanical engineering in 1958, and a masters degree in chemical engineering in 1960. Koch first started working at Arthur D. Little, Inc.; Koch moved back to Wichita and joined Rock Island Oil & Refining Company in 1961. In 1967 he became president of his father's business, which was then a medium-sized oil firm. In the same year, he renamed the firm Koch Industries in honor of his father. By 2006, Koch Industries had a $90 billion revenue and had grown by more than 2000 times under Koch with an annual compounded return of 18%.

Market-Based Management

Koch's strategy for running a business, Market Based Managment (MBM), is described in his 2007 book The Science of Success. Koch Industries' 2004 acquisition of Invista "pushed him to write the book" in order to reach new employees with the philosophy.

In the nearly 40 years that Koch has run Koch Industries, the company's revenue increased from $70 million to $90 billion.

He supports "decision rights," which Koch says empowers employees to manage assets as if they were their own. Koch holds his employees to a high standard after Koch was required to pay $30 million in government fines for an oil spill. "If somebody intentionally commits a compliance violation, they're gone," he told The Houston Chronicle.

Too many companies, Koch says, focus on short-term gains rather than their long-term success. In Koch's view, companies ought to reinvest in their earnings in their future, and shareholders should "be willing to forgo larger dividends in the short term to enable the growth that would lead to much greater dividends over the long term."

He believes that Berkshire Hathaway is another company that follows his principles of caring more about the long, rather than the short, term. For that reason, he's against going public, saying that Koch Industries would go public "over dead body." He saluted people running public companies. "My hat is off to people running public companies because there's such pressure to keep the stock price up. It's such a blessing being private."

Views

Koch's views are described as libertarian. He told the National Journal that his "overall concept is to minimize the role of government and to maximize the role of private economy and to maximize personal freedoms."

Philosophically Koch owes "a huge debt of gratitude to the giants who created the Austrian School" of economics. Koch was especially impressed by Ludwig von Mises' Human Action, and sought to apply its ideas to his business practices early in his career. Other influences on Koch include F.A. Hayek, Michael Polanyi, Joseph Schumpeter, Julian Simon, Paul Johnson, Charles Murray, Leonard Read, and F.A. Harper. Brian Doherty, author of Radicals for Capitalism, and an editor of Reason, stated Robert LeFevre was an anarchist (autarchist) figure who won Charles' heart.

To Koch, "the short-term infatuation with quarterly earnings on Wall Street restricts the earnings potential of Fortune 500 publicly traded firms". Koch also considers public firms to be "feeding grounds for lawyers and lawsuits", with regulation like Sarbanes–Oxley only increasing the earnings potential of private firms.

In an interview article for the Wall Street Journal, Stephen Moore writes "Charles Koch—no surprise—disdains government and the political class." Koch thinks the billionaires Warren Buffett and George Soros, who fund organizations with different ideologies, "simply haven't been sufficiently exposed to the ideas of liberty". Koch thinks "prosperity is under attack" by the Obama administration and "warns of policies that 'threaten to erode our economic freedom and transfer vast sums of money to the state'".

Political activities

Koch funds and supports libertarian and free-market organizations such as the Cato Institute, which he co-founded with Edward H. Crane and Murray Rothbard in 1977, and is a board member at the Mercatus Center, a think tank at George Mason University that promotes deregulation. Koch supported his brother's candidacy for vice president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980. After the bid, Koch told a reporter that conventional politics "tends to be a nasty, corrupting business ... I’m interested in advancing libertarian ideas". In addition to funding think tanks, Charles and David also support libertarian academics. Koch also organizes twice yearly meetings of Republican donors. Koch funds the Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow Program through the Institute for Humane Studies.

In the August 2010 New Yorker, Jane Mayer writes that "As their fortunes grew, Charles and David Koch became the primary underwriters of hard-line libertarian politics in America." The article states the Koch brothers fund a multitude of groups opposed to Obama administration policies.

Charles, along with his brother, David, have been repeatedly singled out for criticism by members of the Obama administration for their political activism. On September 23, 2010 op-ed in the Washington Post Obama senior adviser David Axelrod accused Americans for Prosperity of being a "front group" that was "hijacking our elections" by "promot Republican candidates who support their right-wing agenda and corporate interests." The article also compared the brothers unfavorably to past robber barons.

Philanthropy

Koch has given money to support educational, academic and public policy research focused on "developing voluntary, market-based solutions to social problems." He has given to the Bill of Rights Institute, a non-profit that educates teachers, students, and others about the Bill of Rights. He has also given to the Young Entrepreneurs Kansas, an organization that teaches business skills to at-risk youth in Kansas schools.

Personal life

As of 2010, Koch was worth approximately $21.5 billion according to the Forbes 400 list. Koch "rarely grants media interviews and prefers to keep a low profile". Koch has been married to his wife Liz for ~37 years and has two children. The Koch brothers were involved in litgation against each other in the 1980s and 1990s.

See also

References

  1. "Koch, Charles (1935)". New Netherland Project.
  2. Charles Koch profile page. Forbes.com. Retrieved September 2010.
  3. Forbes List
  4. ^ "The 400 Richest Americans". Forbes. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bachelor of Arts / Science Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Master of Science Son of Koch Industries founder Fred C. Koch (d. 1967), MIT grad who invented method of refining gasoline from heavy oil. Took refining innovation to Soviet Union 1929; returned home 1930s. Sons Frederick, Charles, David and William inherited Koch Industries after father's death; Charles and David bought out William and Frederick for $1.3 billion in 1983. {{cite news}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 66 (help)
  5. "FMK Foundation History". Fmkfoundation.org. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
  6. Daniel Fisher (26 February 2007). "Koch's Laws". Forbes. Retrieved 16 November 2010.
  7. ^ "Twenty Questions for Charles Koch". American Journal of Business. 24 (1). Muncie: 15–8. Spring 2009.
  8. ^ Stephen Moore (May 6, 2006). "The Weekend Interview with Charles Koch: Private Enterprise". The Wall Street Journal. p. A.8.
  9. ^ Phyllis Jacobs Griekspoor (4 March 2007). "Charles Koch: His philosophy and his company". McClatchy - Tribune Business News. p. 1.
  10. Mark Skousen (4 March 2007). "Business Bookshelf: A Short Course In Long-Term Value". The Wall Street Journal. p. D.8.
  11. ^ Loren Steffy (5 August 2007). "Empire Builder Tells How It's Done". The Houston Chronicle. p. Business Pg.1.
  12. Maria Saporta (19 April 2007). "Not in This Lifetime: CEO Says Koch Won't Go Public". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. p. Pg. 2C. {{cite news}}: |page= has extra text (help)
  13. National Journal (May 16, 1992)
  14. Roger Fox (2008). "The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World's Largest Private Company". Economic Affairs. 28 (2): 97–8. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0270.2008.836_5.x. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  15. ^ Jane Mayer. "Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2010-09-07.
  16. ^ Kate Zernike (25 October 2010). "Secretive Republican Donors Are Planning Ahead". The New York Times.
  17. "25 Years at Cato" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-07-10.
  18. Davis, Bob (16 July 2004). "Rule Breaker: In Washington, Tiny Think Tank Wields Big Stick on Regulation; With White House Ex-Staffers, Mercatus Helps Zap Codes It Says Restrict Business; The Cost of Protecting a Fish". Wall Street Journal. p. A.1.
  19. "The Brothers Koch: Rich, Political And Playing To Win". Fresh Air. August 26, 2010. 12:09 minutes in. National Public Radio. WHYY. One of the more important, kind of less well-known but very important ones is called the Mercatus Center, which is at George Mason University in Northern Virginia. And it is a think-tank that is very targeted in its approach, basically aimed at gutting all kinds of federal regulations, particularly environmental regulations. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |city= ignored (|location= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help) Listen
  20. Brian Doherty (2008). Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement. PublicAffairs. p. 410. ISBN 1586485725. One longtime Koch lieutenant characterized the overall strategy of Koch's libertarian funding over the years with both a theatrical metaphor and an Austrian capital theory one: Politicians, ultimately, are just actors playing out a script. The idea is, one gets better and quicker results aiming not at the actors but at the scriptwriters, to help supply the themes and words for the scripts—to try to influence the areas where policy ideas percolate from: academia and think tanks. Ideas, then, are the capital goods that go into building policy as a finished product—and there are insufficient libertarian capital goods at the top of the structure of production to build the policies libertarians demand.
  21. "Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow Program". Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. Retrieved 2010-09-10. The Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow Program combines a paid public policy internship with two career skills seminars and weekly policy lectures. You'll gain real-world experience, take a crash course in market-based policy analysis, and hone your professional skills. The intensive ten-week program begins in June and includes a $1,500 stipend and a housing allowance.
  22. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/22/AR2010092204665.html
  23. ^ "About Charles G. Koch". Charles G. Koch Foundation. February 2009.
  24. "Bill of Rights Institute". Media Matters for America.
  25. "Young Entrepreneurs Kansas". Charles G. Koch Foundation.
  26. "Epic struggle among Koch brothers ends". Houston Chronicle. 26 May 2001. p. 2.

External links

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