So how did this happen? Well, when Charles Koch took over the company in '67, it was this kind of motley assortment of different assets.

So these businesses are extraordinarily profitable, and the company is a huge player in them. So if you eat, Koch Industries is almost certainly making a profit off of that activity. They make nitrogen fertilizer, they're the third or fourth largest producer of nitrogen fertilizer in the world, which you and I don't think we buy, but that's at the literal foundation of our food system. They make the wall paneling and the building materials they make the glass windows of this wall they make the sensors in our cell phone. They make the synthetic carpet fibers in this carpet. They refine the fuel people use to drive to work. And this is a company that specializes in the sort of businesses that underpin civilization. Their annual sales are larger than that of Facebook, Goldman Sachs and US Steel combined. LEONARD: Koch Industries is one of the largest private companies in the United States. LEONARD: So first of all, let's look at what this organization is today. (Photo: Gavin Peters, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0) Why did Charles Koch not want to get involved with other investors, private equity, the stock market, but he just had to have this all to himself.Ĭharles Koch inherited the Koch company in 1967 at the age of 32, and over decades has massively grown Koch Industries into the second largest privately-held company in the U.S. Can you walk us through how Charles Koch built this empire, and particularly the central role of the oil and gas industry in all of this? And you start at the beginning by mentioning that when the private equity boys came by to talk to him about expanding his daddy's company, he said nyet. Author Christopher Leonard joined us to discuss his book at a “Good Reads on Earth” event in Boston.ĬURWOOD: Let's see. The new book “Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America” chronicles the rise of this behemoth and shows how it has shaped American society.

Koch Industries earned Charles and his late brother David massive fortunes of as much as one hundred billion dollars. Charles Koch built the company he inherited from his father Fred into a financial powerhouse based on oil and gas all the way from the well to the pump. And much of these anti-climate regulation interests can be traced back to one powerful man, Charles Koch.

CURWOOD: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Steve Curwood.įor decades now, climate policy has been stymied in the United States by a well-funded campaign of denial that includes elected officials dependent on campaign contributions from fossil fuel interests.

Christopher leonard kochland