$50,000,000,000
David Koch
Net Worth
Born in (City)
Wichita, Kansas
Born in (Country)
United States
Date of Birth
03rd December, 1940
Date of Death
23rd December, 2019
Mother
Mary Clementine Robinson
Father
Fred Chase Koch
About
David Hamilton Koch, born on 3rd May, 1940, to Fred and Mary Koch was an American businessman, philanthropist, political activist, and chemical engineer. He showed an early aptitude for technology and personal development that would serve him and others well throughout his eight decades. From business to philanthropy to politics—and even basketball—Koch made an indelible impression on everything he touched, leaving a legacy of helping others. David, who retired in 2018 as executive vice president of Koch Industries, was the third of four brothers—Frederick, the oldest; Charles, chairman, and CEO, Koch Industries; and William, his fraternal twin. Despite the family’s wealth, Fred was determined not to let his sons become “country club bums,” as Charles Koch recalled in Good Profit. Instead of leisurely afternoons on the golf course or by the pool, David and his brothers worked outside during the hot summers and applied themselves in the classroom.
Early Life
Upon graduating from Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts in 1959, David attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical engineering. David was captain of the basketball team and a small college all-American. In 1962, he set the school record by scoring 41 points in a single game, a mark that stood for 46 years. After graduation, David worked as a research and process design engineer for Amicon and Arthur D. Little in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before moving to New York City to join Scientific Design. In 1970, he joined the family business as a technical services manager at Koch Engineering, later, Koch Chemical Technology Group (KCTG), becoming its president in 1979.
Over the years, David and his team at KCTG, now Koch Engineered Solutions (KES), grew the process equipment and engineering business 50-fold. Today, KES businesses provide equipment and services that improve the quality of fuels, chemicals, and foods while increasing energy efficiency and lowering emissions.
David’s guidance and loyalty, especially in Koch Industries’ most troubled times, was unwavering. David never wanted anything for himself that he hadn’t earned, as his sole desire was to contribute. He was always dedicated to the long-term success of the company,” Charles recalled. “He wanted to focus on those areas where he could make the greatest contribution.”
The same year that David assumed leadership of Koch Engineering he became the Libertarian Party’s candidate for vice president of the United States. He and Ed Clark, the presidential candidate, ran on a platform that advocated for individual rights and against the oppression and harassment of people based on sexual orientation. They also proposed eliminating policies that were stifling innovation, competition, and opportunity for the least advantaged. This included policies such as occupational licensure and the criminalization of drug use. The Libertarian ticket received 921,128 votes, or 1%, the party’s best presidential showing in terms of percentage until 2016.
Then, in 1984, after Charles and Rich Fink founded what is now known as Americans for Prosperity to advance these same ideas, David became a committed supporter. Fink, who also served as executive vice president of Koch Industries, praised David for his tremendous thirst for knowledge, generosity, integrity, and passion for freedom. If you understand those four things, I think you could understand David Koch.
Those qualities would continue to serve him well, as, in the late 1980s and 1990s, Koch Industries was confronting various legal challenges, and David was faced with life-threatening ones.
In May 1996, David married Julia Flesher, with whom he had three children: David Jr., Mary Julia, and John. Buoyed by a lifelong appreciation for arts and culture instilled by his mother, Mary, David, along with Julia, made many other donations, including major gifts to the Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. David and Julia also contributed to the construction of the Mary R. Koch Arts Center in Wichita.
Today, KES employs more than 5,000 people in multiple businesses, including Koch-Glitsch; John Zink Hamworthy Combustion; Optimized Process Designs; Koch Membrane Systems; Koch Heat Transfer; and Genesis Robotics.
As of June 2019, Koch was ranked as the 11th-richest person in the world (tied with his brother Charles), with a fortune of $50.5 billion. Despite various criticisms and long-lasting impressions, David’s philanthropic dedication to education, the arts, and cancer research will have a lasting impact on innumerable lives.
Road to Success
From political groups like Americans for Prosperity to academic communities like Public Broadcasting Service and Smithsonian Institution in Washington, he donated millions of dollars for the upliftment of these institutions. Both the Koch brothers played an active part in the enhancement and extended their full cooperation. Koch even funded his alma mater Deerfield Academy, with $68 million for the Centre for mathematics, and a separate center for science and technology. As an honorarium, the Centre was later named Koch Centre for Mathematics, Science, and Technology.
He is a firm supporter of various government acts to commercialize the concept of liberty and free-market principles. His firm stands on stem-cell research and gay marriages are one of his boldest moves. Koch strongly disapproved of Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, Consumer Protection Act, and Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. His veto further extends to the Iraq war considering the loss of life and resources.
Charles wrote in Good Profit, “It stands to reason that David—born with an engineer’s mind—would care deeply about the search for the best tools and technologies to fight this vicious disease". David’s largest donations have been to create medical research centers and patient facilities, many of which bear his name, including MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, which has helped launch approximately 80 companies to date, saving many lives today and in the future, as well as Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Other major recipients included Johns Hopkins, Stanford University Hospital, the Mount Sinai Medical Center, and the Hospital for Special Surgery.
Koch’s political views were often mirrored by the party he once represented when he ran for president. He was a vocal backer of free-market policies and a reduction in government spending. He was also a noninterventionist, calling for the United States to have limited involvement in wars around the world.
While these ideologies often led to the brothers backing Republican candidates for public office, they clashed with presidents from both sides of the aisle, including former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump.
He also gave $100 million to the New York State Theatre at Lincoln Centre, now known as the David H. Koch Theatre, and donated $65 million to renovate the plaza at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Challenges
Although the company, because of the efforts of these two brothers, made a significant mark in the business market had its share of different speculations and accusations. It was investigated for Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act. Despite many accusations and criticism, the company was never made to refrain from making the sales and emerging as a leader in the current arena. Koch stands as the fourth richest American in the US. The Koch brothers are known as the ‘richest siblings’ on the globe.
On February 1, 1991, David was aboard a USAir flight when it collided with a SkyWest plane upon landing at Los Angeles International Airport. Altogether, 35 people died, and 29 were injured. David survived. Surrounded by smoke and fire, he barely escaped the burning cabin through a galley door at the front of the plane. Following that revelation, he became tremendously philanthropic, and he intended to continue being very philanthropic the rest of his life. A year after surviving the plane disaster, David learned that he had prostate cancer. Despite many treatments, the cancer was never completely cured.
For all his wealth, personal, and business accomplishments, David was most proud of his dedication to helping others. He was especially committed to personally ensuring that those with a serious illness who asked for his help got the best care. Over the years they numbered in the thousands.
He was touched by all those who reached out to thank him for his part in saving their lives. One such letter that was particularly meaningful to him was from Niels Jorgensen, a firefighter who contracted hairy cell leukemia from the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre. He told David that the world should know all the good he has done.
David and Charles, colloquially known as the infamous “Koch Brothers", poured money into causes like climate change denial to ensure their fossil fuel empire remained profitable for as long as possible. They went after public education, throwing their cash behind voucher programs in states like Arizona, which ranked 47 in the nation for its public schools last year. They went after unions through proxies like former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. They targeted Social Security for privatization. According to one report, they even tried to hamper cleanup efforts after Hurricane Katrina.
Koch Industries' competitors include Chevron Corporation, Mosaic North America, Lubrizol, Handy & Harman, and Tecumseh Products. Koch Industries ranks 1st in Overall Culture Score on Comparably vs its competitors.
It was this legacy of helping others that mattered most to David. During his interview with Barbara Walters, the accomplished businessman, engineer, and philanthropist summed up what he hoped might appear on his epitaph: “I’d like it to say that David Koch did his best to make the world a better place and that he hopes his wealth will help people long after he has passed away.”
Failures
He survived a 1991 plane crash that killed 34 people at Los Angeles International Airport. He broke down in tears on a witness stand in Kansas during a civil trial that nearly tore his family apart over money. And for years, he and Charles faced, and denied, accusations of having exploited libertarian principles for self-serving purposes.
They insisted that they adhered to a traditional belief in the liberty of the individual, and in free trade, free markets, and freedom from what they called government “intrusions,” including taxes, military drafts, compulsory education, business regulations, welfare programs, and laws that criminalized homosexuality, prostitution, and drug use.
Critics accused the Koch’s of buying influence and using their political machine to manipulate elections and government policies under a guise of patriotism and freedom. Those efforts, the critics said, cloaked an agenda to cut taxes and federal regulations governing business, the environment, and other interests, primarily to benefit the Koch family and its enterprises.
Koch money also funded initiatives to undercut climate science and to counter efforts to address climate change. As Ms. Mayer put it in her book, “The Koch’s vehemently opposed the government taking any action on climate change that would hurt their fossil fuel profits.”
In a series of lawsuits that dragged on for years, William and Frederick claimed that Charles and David had cheated them out of $2 billion in a 1983 settlement that paid $1.1 billion for their 5.5 million shares of Koch Industries. Accusations of instability, greed, and nefarious conduct peppered the trial, and at one point David sobbed as he testified of family tensions so bitter that private investigators had been hired to pilfer trash and bribe janitors to dig up dirt.
In 1998, a federal jury in Topeka, Kan., finally ruled that the plaintiffs were owed nothing more, and in 2001 Charles, David and William reconciled, signing a settlement whose terms were not disclosed. They shared a meal for the first time in nearly two decades.
He learned he had prostate cancer in 1992. He had surgery and radiation and hormone treatments that kept the disease in check for decades. All his brothers had prostate cancer and were said to have been cured.
Mr. Koch stepped away from his political and business interests in June 2018. In a letter to employees of Koch Industries announcing his brother’s retirement, Charles Koch said that David's deteriorating health had made it impossible for him to continue working. The letter did not disclose the nature of his illness. David’s presence in social and political circles, which once ran at the highest levels, had been declining for several years
Along with a 42 percent stake in Koch Industries, David inherited what could be described as a pathological distaste for the government from his father, a founding member of the far-right John Birch Society and a man who reportedly once built an oil refinery for Nazi Germany. Together with his brother Charles, David would use both to reshape America for the worse.
Achievements
In 2004, he received the prestigious Corporate Citizenship Award from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.|He was honored with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center's Excellence in Corporate Leadership award in 2005.|He was also the recipient of Americans for Prosperity Foundation’s George Washington Award for Principled Leadership (2007).
Quotes
- I'm basically a libertarian, and I'm a conservative on economic matters, and I'm a social liberal.
- I think to balance the budget, probably every federal department has to take cuts in my opinion.