YouSaid · the spoken record

Charles Koch

lines on the record: 97
first: 2019-08-11
most recent: 2019-08-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Because you don't have free speech, you don't have communication. They haven't seen a better alternative. Or you're so bureaucratic and protectionist you don't allow anybody to improve or like in a company. The approval process is so painful and difficult that you just give up. Somebody we work with in one of the major oil companies years ago was always complaining about the bureaucracy there and he couldn't do anything wrong and finally I said, well, so what do you do about it? And he says, well, after a while, you just paint your ass white and run with the antelope. That's what happened. So these principles may seem obvious, but if they're so obvious, why are so many countries, organizations, and people ignoring them anyway?”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People only act if the action will satisfy three requirements. The first is you become dissatisfied with your current state. You have a vision of a better state and you have a path to get there. So this is very important for how companies or societies organize themselves. If people believe They're dissatisfied with the current state. They see what's wrong with it. But they have no vision of a better state.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That focusing on helping others in a way that's also rewarding to you, then the whole dichotomy between selfish and unselfish disappears. Now, that's in an idealized case. That'll never be perfectly true. But if we could have a society and an organization where that's generally true, then you're going to be much better off. And that's what we try to apply here. That is to have what's in the long-term interest of the company in the interest of the individual employees. And as I say, I learned that from Maslow. And then free speech and open inquiry is another one. The role of property rights and decision rights, which is a key, one of the five dimensions of market-based management. Then basic values such as integrity, humility, respect, and desire to contribute. Then another from, this is from Von Mises, human action model.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is creative destruction Schumpeter's conceptionist in your own shop. That is, you're doing something a certain way like Kodak in making film rather than do it digitally. They had the technology, but they tried to protect their existing product line. And so I ended up growing broke. So you've got to drive creative destruction internally that is constantly replace what you're doing with a better way, a better product, a better technology. Another one is self-actualization, which I described. And then another one also from Maslow and other positive psychologists is what he called synergy, is a system and a state of mind where what Selfish and unselfish merge. I mean, and that's what he meant by becoming contribution motivated.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of labor by comparative advantage, which also fits Howard Gardner's thesis on multiple intelligence. That is basically that people aren't smarter or dumb overall, except in real extremes, but most of us are gifted in some ways and not too swift in others and that I'm exhibit A in that. And so, I mean, that was that division of labor by comparative advantage. That was first developed by Ricardo on nations. Nations ought to focus on what they're good at and then trade with others. And then that optimizes everything. Learning, best use of resources, and so on. Another concept is”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Then the second one is do whatever you can to fully develop those. So first you learn to be, then you learn to learn, and then you learn to apply it. Okay, how do I apply these that will make a contribution in society that will help me better myself and in the process better others, help others better their lives? And that's three-dimensional education. And we find that in our programs we've started and support. That's what we're looking for because that's what moves us toward a society of mutual benefit where people have the opportunity to realize their potential. Okay, so that's personal knowledge is another one. Another one is division.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And what we found in our programs that works and helps people realize their potential is to consider real education to be three-dimensional rather than one-dimensional. And those three dimensions are discover your gifts, your aptitudes, and what will turn you on.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And after these parts become natural, like the violin then becomes an extension of your hands. You don't have to think about how to use your hands. That's what he calls personal knowledge as opposed to conceptual knowledge. And then after you do that enough where the parts become second nature, then you can focus on the whole. The whole is making beautiful music. And so that's what, I mean, just that changed our whole approach to teaching our management philosophy. Because we were, and it's what I call, I think a flaw in our education system, it's not really education, it's schooling, teach to test.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. Well, we've talked about Popper and Polanya, and there was another, besides Republic of Science that I got from Polanyi. It's personal knowledge that he's written a book, name personal knowledge, which Says there's a huge difference between conceptual knowledge and personal knowledge. And he uses an example of a concert violinist. The first thing a concert somebody wants to be a concert violinist, first, how do I hold the violin? How do I move my hands? How do I make notes? And so they focus on the parts.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it blows me away constantly, the power of these ideas. People say, oh, well, you're so smart. I am not. Believe me, everywhere I've ever worked or whatever, there are a lot of people who are smarter than I am. It's just I was dedicated to understanding and living by these principles. And that's what's made the difference in my life. That transformed my life.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For immediate gain. So I would say what guides us first are these basic principles of human progress, human flourishing. Second is building capabilities that will enable us to create value for others and then to continually transform ourselves to do a better and better job of that and to focus on using our capabilities to contribute. So that's what's made us successful. So I mean, you look at our track record, not that we've been perfect and we haven't had problems and haven't violated these principles because we're all flawed. We all make mistakes and get off track, which we've done many times and do it continually, particularly when as we do have 130,000 employees”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so we hire on those, we reward on those, we promote on those. And if somebody isn't living by them, we encourage them to go somewhere else because it's not a fit for them here. And so we have harmony. That doesn't mean we don't have challenges and disagreements, but on how to realize this vision and these goals rather than whether we want to sacrifice our principles for”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We had those kind of disagreements decades ago, but I can't think of any of those. Now, we may have a debate on whether this will help or hurt long term, but it is always, will this enable to fulfill our obligation as a business? That is to profit by helping others improve their lives. I mean, what we do is we teach these principles. We have dozens of people who work full-time on teaching these and consulting on these principles, the principles of human flourishing and how to apply them that'll make us successful long term. And that's how we try to reward our people. Well, first of all, we hire first on values, on our guiding principles. We have now eight guiding principles.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, the biggest are all these forms of corporate welfare, which I mentioned occupational licensure. The restrictions on innovation and competition and opportunities for those who start with nothing. As I said on occupational licensure. So that's what goes with those and then all the protectionist provisions, these trade restrictions are crazy immigration system. All of these are things we're working hard on to change.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To tell what the great majority of companies, whether they were for or against that, depending on whether they thought it would make them or cost them money short term. So that's it. All this short term is. That's going on, we think Is hurting people and undermining a business's role in society.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The border adjustment tax, like a 20% tax on all imports, even though we determined in the most likely case it would make us over a billion dollars a year by increasing the cost of living to Walmart and Costco buyers. And we help get that defeated because as I told the leaders in Republicans, I said How does this make sense? Are you going to promote this? We're for this because it's going to make coke industries a lot of money and probably big exporters like Boeing and General Electric will probably never pay tax again. And it will increase the cost of living for the great majority of people in this country, particularly those who are least well off And of course, they had their reasons, but it didn't make sense. And so we and others got it defeated. But the sad thing is you could.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The only way society is going to permit that long term is if they're contributing to helping people improve their lives, not making it worse. So this is a problem with business today. We have business people have a bad, wealthy people have a bad reputation because there's so much of this cronyism and protectionism going on. We oppose the”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you can't avoid it. I mean, if we, for example, take steel tariffs. We oppose those even though we have a 40% interest in the newest steel I think Forbes just wrote an article about it in the last issue. River Steel, and so it makes us money. But we oppose it. I mean, we play by the rules. We're going to play by the rules. We're going to obey other laws, but we're going to oppose all the ones that That undermines the ideal role for business and society. And why are you just running a charity? No. But we take the long term view. And so to rig the system, to make a quick buck and makes people's lives worse, then what are you doing? Why does society need business that's making people's lives worse? If business And individuals are getting wealthy.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this things like hair braiding, hairdressing, manicurous, yoga instructors, funeral parlors, interior decorators, you name it. Not things that will blow people up or anything that you think guys, the government needs to approve that. So it's all just cronyism, protectionism, and corporate welfare.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And a great example of this is occupational licensure in which there are like a third of all, I think a third of all occupations today required some kind of government approval, whether that's, and it depends on the state or locale, but there are hundreds of these which mainly keep people who start with nothing from being able to do anything because some of them require a couple years of going to school and paying a substantial fee that they can't afford. So it just keeps poor people poor rather than enabling them to realize their potential by developing their skills that other people will value.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Our job is to produce products and services that our customers will value more than their best alternatives. And in doing so, to constantly reduce and become more efficient in the resources we consume in doing that, which, okay, how does that benefit society? It frees these resources then to satisfy other needs. So that's what good profit is. Bad profit is all the ways they profit that is antithetical to that approach. That is trying to cheat your customers, misrepresenting what you're doing, and rigging the system, getting corporate welfare, protectionism of all different kinds, including protection from foreign competition, but also domestic competition.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Applying these principles of human flourishing and to create these beneficial cycles focusing on how do I create value for all my constituencies, particularly those who will reward us for the value we create for them is what has enabled us to do what we've done.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Key constituencies that starts with customers, but it includes employees, suppliers, communities, and society as a whole. And then the second piece is to continually transform yourself. Like our philosophy is if we in a business or you as an individual working in an area, if you're the best in the world, it's not good enough and particularly today with the rapid improvements in technologies within a year or two you're going to be obsolete if you just rest on your laurels. So you've got to be constantly thinking on how do I improve, how do I do things differently. What are the new opportunities? I mean, if we had just stayed with the crude oil gathering and making those tower internals, I mean, we'd be out of business now. But it's by applying that.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then to find the opportunities for those capabilities that will create the most value for others. And particularly others who will reward you for that value. So our idea that the ideal for business is to maximize the value create for others and your profit would come solely as compensation for that value you're creating for others and then to continually improve and add to those capabilities and then look for based on that what other opportunities are there for which you can create superior value so there are two components then one is to become preferred partner for all your”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I won't go through them all. But okay, the way we've done that is by creating what I now call virtuous cycles of mutual benefit. And that may be high flutant expression, but it accurately describes what we did. So the starting point is to understand what capabilities you have that others will value, that you can use to create value for others”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What I like are a management approach is based on understanding the principles of scientific and social progress. And we've codified and systematized those in the market-based management in five dimensions. And then which I didn't describe in good profit because I hadn't clearly thought through how we applied that that enabled us to do all the things we did. That is to in 1961 when I joined the company, we had two businesses. The largest one was a crude oil gathering system in southern Oklahoma, and the other was a smaller company that my father let me run initially that made Internals for distillation At the time, and since then we've increased the value of the company $7,000 and entered all these different businesses. We now have 12 business groups such as Georgia Pacific, DuPont's Old Nylon business, and so forth.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Who can help me elsewhere in the world? Who's working on something similar? I mean, it's like what Newton said, if I see further, it's because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. But they don't need to be giants. Anybody who's working on a similar problem may have an idea that can help you. And collectively, we're all smarter than we are. Any of us are individually.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is the way to get knowledge sharing is show when you help somebody else if the right person or group, then they will reciprocate. And so we have this culture now of knowledge sharing, what we call Republic, create the Republic of Science. And that's true for everything, for not just compressors, but everything. And then we have innovation conferences that get draw from different disciplines and different of our businesses. They get together and throw out ideas they have. And then they get to know each other so they don't just share when we set up a structure to do it, but when they have what we call a spontaneous order where people just naturally know, gosh, I'm working on this problem. Who might help me in the company? And then...”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So one group, or we built a group to do data analytics to take measurements and determine whether it was near breaking down so we could repair it before it shut the whole plant down. And then everybody shared this knowledge and learned from each other. And this is our whole philosophy of mutual benefit.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the first thing we do is we emphasize knowledge sharing. Many companies, particularly large companies, operate in silos, and you have an incentive where, gosh, you have an idea or you learn something and you don't want to share it because you may not get credit for it. We consider that the kiss of death. So we expect everybody to share and we build mechanisms and incentives in the company to encourage this internal knowledge sharing. And then we expect every discipline and every business to build knowledge networks. Around the world, and it may not be largely isn't something that's in your field or just with the competitors, but something that's going on elsewhere. And so we do that. I mean, for example, on how to keep compressors from breaking down and shutting down your whole operation.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where the reason a scientific community has been so productive and innovative is that no one's in charge. It's by consensus, debate, and knowledge sharing. And the innovations come about by taking different ideas and combining them in new and novel ways. And so that's another thing that we, or approach that we use in management. Every one of our businesses we look at is a laboratory for innovation and finding new and better ways to do things. And new and better opportunities.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so the first thing I do is think through okay, what What are the key drivers of success here? What needs to happen? And let's say there are five different main drivers. Then I go find the people who can best show what's wrong or what could go wrong in each of those drivers. And we get together and I go through my idea and each one is expected to come up with ways that could go wrong. And every time we go through that, we come up with a better answer than I developed. And so that's critical. The other philosopher of science that I've particularly drawn on is Polanyi. Whose essay a couple of things, his essay on Republic of Science.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, that's a great question. At MIT, I became fascinated with science and the scientific method. And then after I moved back to Wichita, I started studying one of the early things I studied was the philosophy of science and the scientific method, and particularly one particular essay of Karl Popper's called Science is Falsification, in which he says that The true scientific method is develop a testable proposition, not a proposition that is untestable, but one that's testable. And then your obligation is to not to go find evidence that will support it, but go out and seek criticisms of it, find what's wrong with it. And that's what we do on everything. Thing like we have a project or an acquisition. The first thing to do is find what could go wrong. And any idea I have, let's say I have an idea for a new strategy or a new business.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is with generalized rules that enable people to succeed by assisting others rather than detailed rules that cause conflicts and people trying to undermine each other makes all the difference. And that was from his study of history, well, history, philosophy, economics, and so on. So you put those two together and it forms the core of my philosophy and what's enabled me to accomplish more than I ever was really capable of doing.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so that's, and then he called that state of where you are fulfilling your nature self-actualization, that what you can be, you're becoming. Not that any of us are ever perfect in that because it's a continual learning experience, which requires ongoing effort. That's what we try to apply here at Coke Industries, and that's what we're applying in our philanthropic efforts to enable everybody to have the opportunity to realize their potential. And then what IX said of all the insights that he's provided, one that I quote in my book, Good Prophet, that what he called perhaps the greatest discovery in the history of mankind is that people can live and work together. In peace and to their mutual advantage under generalized rules of just conduct.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I can talk about those, but the two authors that have had the biggest influence on me are Abraham Maslow and Frederick Hayek And a lot of what we do is based on Maslow's ideas of positive, he was one of the early positive psychologists rather than most of them in history. Freud and others had worked on the psychiatry of illness. And he took the other side. He said, what can enable somebody to have a fulfilling rewarding life? And what he said is what you can be, you must be. If you are determined to live your life without developing your potential, you may be successful in other ways, but you will be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life. He said, a bird has wings, a bird has to fly. What you can be, you must be.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I took mathematics for nuclear engineers, all these abstractions, because that's what I was good at. And so not that I've used a lot of that, but it really helped develop my aptitudes. And so then as I got to work in business and business consulting, I found, wow, this came naturally because what I was good at in business were things like vision, philosophy, strategy, logically analyzing problems and looking at the other side, what could go wrong rather than just go with whatever ideas we had, but to really experiment, test them, apply the scientific method to them, which a part of which I learned at MIT, part of which I learned afterward.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think it's that I said my father always had me doing dirty jobs and I was minimizing my work. Am I doing And maybe his lessons and his example seeped in. And so I started reading probably as a junior in high school, started reading, started with novels. And then at MIT, I got three degrees in engineering there, but I was a lousy engineer. But I was good at the concepts behind engineering, but not on how to apply anything. So I maximized the taking the courses in theory.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I started, I got a much lower time preference, and that is I became focused on the long term, on studying and developing these aptitudes and looking for a calling that I could use to create value for others and that would make me successful and that I would be fulfilled by so I would be passionate about it. Work so I through all this I worked in multiple departments at Arthur D. Little and I just”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we had my father, the way he got me to come back, he had been after me. I was working for a consulting firm in Boston and learning a lot, and I got to work in all different phases. This wasn't just a management consulting. I started in product development and then I did process development. And then I worked in an innovation group. And I kept maneuvering so I got to try different things. I was looking for something that I could use a few gifts I had in a way that would be productive and that I'd be passionate about. And by the way, the reason I was able to get into MIT is I started my time preference change rather than being instant gratification.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whether I liked it at the time was toward that end. And so he, and I think this is so important for anyone who's a parent, and certainly we've tried to do that, is you don't lecture your kids on anything that you don't live up to. And he exemplified integrity, humility, treating others with respect. And as he used to preach to me, son, learn everything you can. You never know when it will come in handy. And so those were all great lessons. And there was no hypocrisy in there. I mean, that's the way he lived.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, he wrote that I think January of 1936, and I was I was born in November, so I was, let's say, three months old. And so he wrote it to my older brother and me. And in there, he talked about adversity, provides the greatest lessons, and is certainly the greatest character builder. And then his hope for us and whatever he had given us that we used it, we didn't misuse it or waste it, but used it. So we could experience the glorious feeling of accomplishment. And so that's everything he did”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Use that I could create value with that and then to partner with people who were good at all the other things that needed to be done that I wasn't good at and dream possible is because I've done that whenever I've tried to do things by myself or without that kind of support, I've basically failed.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I had what the economists call high time preference. That is, I was into instant gratification. How could I minimize the work? How could I do something that's fine? So that was my whole orientation. And then I was blessed that I thought the only thing I was good at was getting in trouble. And I was pretty expert at that. And I found in the third grade that I had a gift in math. And I later learned when I studied studying psychology, I read Howard Gardner and his multiple intelligence theories. And boy, did that fit me because the only thing I was good at was what he called logical mathematical intelligence. And so I had a gift for math and abstract concepts. So basically, my whole life has been to find opportunities that”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the first was digging dandelions. The reason I say digging, you can't just cut them off or pull them. You've got to get all the roots out or they just come back. So that was my job. And then I graduated into shoveling out stalls, feeding the animals, milking cows, digging postals, fixing fence and all that stuff. And then as I got older, I got jobs in other places. So it was quite an opportunity to learn the value of work and learn that I better develop some skills that other people will value or I could end up doing this the rest of my life, which I didn't look forward to. He used to say that he said I was a good kid in many ways as long as the work didn't come too close.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, my father started this on my older brother, and he was more of an artistic bent. So this manual labor that involved helping out on this experimental farm didn't work as well for him. And so I bore the brunt of it. You may ask why did I bear it? Well, that was one reason. And as he put it, I asked him years later, I said, Pop. Why were you so much tougher on me than my younger brothers? And he said, son, you plum wore me out. So I earned the right to be in more trouble, get knocked around more, and do more work. So I started, he started me. In all my spare time working.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I was really consider myself blessed because I had the best of all possible worlds looking back. It didn't seem that way at the time. But we were wealthy and my father, he called himself a half-baked chemist, and he loved doing experiments. So we lived on an experimental farm. It wasn't a commercial farm, but it was a farm where my father could experiment with various things. So we had cows, horses, dogs, chickens, and raised crops. And my father announced at an early age, he said, I don't want any of my sons to grow up to be country club bums. And I was a middle child and a brother who was two years older and two younger brothers who were twins, who are four and a half years younger than I was.”
2019-08-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #381: Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT