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Rest In Peace. David Koch.

Kak

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David Koch died this morning.

Between the value he provided his customers, shareholders, employees; and the tremendous devotion to free market political causes... He made the world a better place.
 
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Kevin88660

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Generous sponsor of various libertarian causes.
 

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One family, overseeing 20+ companies, employing over 100,000 people and most of us use their products on a daily basis even if we don’t know it. They espouse everything that this forum is with their value first approach to business.

If you haven’t read this: Good Profit: How Creating Value for Others Built One of the World's Most Successful Companies: Charles G. Koch: 9781101904138: Amazon.com: Books



Do it now.
I read that book also ... it was excellent.
 
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Charnell

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He made the world a better place.
Care to elaborate?

EDIT: not trying to rustle any jimmies, the only information I can find on the guy was that he had a lot of money in politics and differed climate change for decades.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Care to elaborate?

EDIT: not trying to rustle any jimmies, the only information I can find on the guy was that he had a lot of money in politics and differed climate change for decades.

I'm guessing in the same way people think George Soros is the ultimate philanthropist.
 
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G-Man

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So it's a left versus right thing. Damn, that's annoying.
The way people feel about him probably is. That's almost always the case. My guess is he leaned a little more libertarian though. Right wingers don't usually get behind things like prison reform, elimination of mandatory minimums and racial inequality in policing.

Also, he and Soros made their livings in different ways as far as I can tell. Koch made products people use. Soros held banks hostage. I'll leave it to the free market crowd to debate whether that's a good thing or not. I have no idea.

Other than that, yeah, it'll be the same tired debate we always hear about rich people. If they're rich and have the same social and political alignments as I do, then they must be doing what they do out of noble altruism and in spite of their wealth. If they don't agree with me, their generosity is motivated by some nefarious purpose.

When @lowtek finishes the machine he's building in his garage that allows us to experience the consciousness of other humans, we'll have the answers to all these questions.
 

SpongeGod

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Just bought the book Good Profit. The firestorm on reddit made me more curious about the Koch brothers. Are they as bad as these anonymous redditors make them out to be? Reading David Koch's Wikipedia page didn't really give me much. Just sounds like another John D. Rochefeller to be honest. And lot's of people hated him even though he was a huge philanthropist.
 
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Azure

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Just bought the book Good Profit. The firestorm on reddit made me more curious about the Koch brothers. Are they as bad as these anonymous redditors make them out to be? Reading David Koch's Wikipedia page didn't really give me much. Just sounds like another John D. Rochefeller to be honest. And lot's of people hated him even though he was a huge philanthropist.

If there is anything the average Redditor hates more than people who are right of center, it's very rich people who are right of center.

It's a very valuable resource if used in the proper context. I can't think of a single source destination that allows you to step into the minds of literally almost any demographic segment you can think of and then some that are so niche that you wouldn't even think that it would even exist.

But the absolute worst thing anyone can do to themselves is let the negativity of the hivemind suck you into their depths of near cultlike hatred of personal self advancement, individualism and capitalism in general.
 

Davejemmolly

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I know very little about the man, or their various companies, however Tim Ferris recently interviewed Charles Koch on his podcast, which, besides being interesting (hearing self made billionaires speak is always interesting), it explains some of their philosophy regarding investment and causes.
 
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Dan_Cardone

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Just bought the book Good Profit. The firestorm on reddit made me more curious about the Koch brothers. Are they as bad as these anonymous redditors make them out to be? Reading David Koch's Wikipedia page didn't really give me much. Just sounds like another John D. Rochefeller to be honest. And lot's of people hated him even though he was a huge philanthropist.
Crabs hate anyone who escapes the bucket.

Easier to criticize others than to take responsibility for their self made prisons.
 
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Kak

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I wouldn't even call them "right" I would just call them extremely pro-freedom and anti-government in our lives.

Their political affiliation is less government.
 

Rawseed

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self made billionaires

Crabs hate anyone who escapes the bucket.

RIP to a great business man and philanthropist.

Politics aside, the man truly loved America and the American Dream.

However, he wasn’t self-made and he was never in “the bucket”.

Fred Koch, his dad, was very very very rich.
 

Kak

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RIP to a great business man and philanthropist.

Politics aside, the man truly loved America and the American Dream.

However, he wasn’t self-made and he was never in “the bucket”.

Fred Koch, his dad, was very very very rich.

Charles is really the mastermind. The company was only worth like 20-30m before Charles took over.

They almost went bankrupt once or twice in the process of the rise to billions. That is self made enough for me.

The delta between the starting point and the end point is so large that is like a Nigerian accusing all Americans of being "old money."
 
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G. Wellthy

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I know very little about the man, or their various companies, however Tim Ferris recently interviewed Charles Koch on his podcast, which, besides being interesting (hearing self made billionaires speak is always interesting), it explains some of their philosophy regarding investment and causes.
Not self-made whatsoever, not to take away from the success. If he wasn’t G2 he was G3 or G4 wealth, not G1
 

GPM

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Not self-made whatsoever
He turned a fairly mediocre business into one of the largest private enterprises in the entire world... What would you call that?
 

G. Wellthy

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He turned a fairly mediocre business into one of the largest private enterprises in the entire world... What would you call that?
Financially successful (almost beyond comprehension) through the incredible ecosystem and strong values instilled by their family. These are Charles’ words, but it’s obvious to anyone that comes from privilege that you have a leg up in life. The Kochs know they aren’t self-made. In fact, coming from privilege is part of their success story. Many in the same spot let entitlement, ego, fear, whatever get in the way of going for it.

(There wasn’t anything middling about their company when they inherited it. I believe it was approximately a $20M business in the sixties. That’s miles away from middling.)
 
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Kak

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Financially successful (almost beyond comprehension) through the incredible ecosystem and strong values instilled by their family. These are Charles’ words, but it’s obvious to anyone that comes from privilege that you have a leg up in life. The Kochs know they aren’t self-made. In fact, coming from privilege is part of their success story. Many in the same spot let entitlement, ego, fear, whatever get in the way of going for it.

(There wasn’t anything middling about their company when they inherited it. I believe it was approximately a $20M business in the sixties. That’s miles away from middling.)

Here we go again. No one can ever just be highly intelligent, successful and impressive. It has to be some outside circumstance.

"You forgot he is a white male." @Fox

If you look at the stats on "rich kids" by the way, it is pretty bleak.
 
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Davejemmolly

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I’ll rephrase. Part of the family that turned a successful, though one product company, into Koch Industries.

My bad for overstating his achievements.
 

G. Wellthy

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Here we go again. No one can ever just be highly intelligent, successful and impressive. It has to be some outside circumstance.

"You forgot he is a white male." @Fox

If you look at the stats on "rich kids" by the way, it is pretty bleak.
My career is working with rich kids. That’s why my quoted text notes that it is probably harder having the success he did from his background than coming from nothing.

If my comments discredit the personal achievements of David and Charles then I’ve either misspoken or you’ve misread. Incredible success stories. They just aren’t self made. Not even close.

Maybe we just define self made differently.
 
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FeaRxUnLeAsHeD

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Azure

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"David Koch was a villain. He and his brother worked consciously to further inequality and poverty with their greed and politicking. I won’t celebrate his death—but patronage of the arts, science, and medical research could never outweigh the damage he did."

View: https://twitter.com/JamilSmith/status/1164889245787414528?s=20

Good Lord, some of those people
"David Koch was a villain. He and his brother worked consciously to further inequality and poverty with their greed and politicking. I won’t celebrate his death—but patronage of the arts, science, and medical research could never outweigh the damage he did."

View: https://twitter.com/JamilSmith/status/1164889245787414528?s=20

Call me crazy, but I can't take anyone who uses the phrase "climate crimes" seriously.
 

Tourmaline

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But the inequality driven by climate crimes! Don't you have a heart?? @Azure

:hilarious:
 
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Champion

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One family, overseeing 20+ companies, employing over 100,000 people and most of us use their products on a daily basis even if we don’t know it. They espouse everything that this forum is with their value first approach to business.

If you haven’t read this: Good Profit: How Creating Value for Others Built One of the World's Most Successful Companies: Charles G. Koch: 9781101904138: Amazon.com: Books

View attachment 26793

Do it now.

Thanks for sharing this book, gonna read it!
 

DayIFly

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This is interesting. Personally, I stopped giving a s*it. I think it can be motivational to look up to successful people. But my cut-off point lies somewhere in the tens of millions. Multi-billionairs are always knee-deep in some shady sh*t, influencing/financing this and that, doing "philantropy," meddling in politics, law, who knows what else. I can't be bothered with them, these people are like TV personalities, they are distracting. I won't be placed inbetween agitprop groups and PR agencies. Likewise I won't take a side in the criminal vs free market hero discussion, it's cringe. I also wouldn't take their advice as gospel, it will probably lead you on the wrong path, because everything they say is rehearsed. You will never know what went on behind the scenes. I prefer real people.
 

Tourmaline

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In other words, there cannot be an honest man that's worth more than $100 million yes? @DayIFly

I wonder what led you to this belief.
 
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DayIFly

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In other words, there cannot be an honest man that's worth more than $100 million yes? @DayIFly

I wonder what led you to this belief.
It's possible, but I can't be bothered with that. I'm more interested in what Kak has to say for example, than what the Koch brothers wrote or said.
 

Tourmaline

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Do you hate Buffet and Munger too?
 

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