I try to hire people who will challenge and have the humility to be challenged - people who have basically good values. Charles Koch More Quotes by Charles Koch More Quotes From Charles Koch We create these boom-bust cycles by manipulating the money supply and the interest rates and directing it where it went in. And that is what happened with housing: pushed into housing combination of easy money plus all the regulations, and we created this boom-bust cycle, and corruption, because corruption goes with it, because you don't have the same discipline. So we've got to stop all that. Charles Koch regulation discipline corruption In America, the first thing we have to get rid of is entitlements for the wealthy, and at the same time, open up the economy to the disadvantaged. Charles Koch entitlement america firsts You've got to learn to work with others. One of my main values is, you learn this system of mutual benefit. That is, if you shirk and you try to make the other guy do more, he's going to do that to you. Charles Koch mutual-benefit guy trying They say your genetics are going to set your direction regardless of what happens, but I think there's more to it than that. Charles Koch genetics happens thinking If you're a leader at any level and your people aren't challenging you, you've got to change that or you can't be a leader here because you're not going to be using ideas, you're not going to have innovation, you're not going to fully develop your people. And if you're working in a group and you don't challenge, then you're not really doing your job. Charles Koch jobs people ideas I learned that unless you start working, if you're frozen out of work, you will never learn the habits, the discipline, the values of cooperation and improvement unless you get a job, and that's what statistic show. It's, unless you get a job and keep it, you will not get out of poverty. If you do, you have a very good chance of working out of poverty. Charles Koch work-out discipline jobs Let's say I am a chocoholic and I eat tons of chocolate a day. A hundred thousands of tons a day. I have this craving, but I can't afford it, so I get a printing press, and I start printing money, and I print billions and billions to buy chocolate. So I create this boom in the chocolate industry, so stores are running out of chocolate. So they have demand, so chocolate makers expand. Cocoa growers expand. You create this great boom. But now the feds arrest me and shut me down. And now there is a depression in the chocolate industry. That's what happens with the monetary policy. Charles Koch printing-money chocolate running When you start attacking cronyism and peoples political interests, it gets nasty. Charles Koch attacking nasty political The government is largely influenced by people who advocate corporate welfare and advocate these policies that create this two-tiered society... Charles Koch government two people You can pay certain people more money and stuff but that's just going to be a transfer from one group to another. The only way people's wages are going to rise overall, or average median income is going to rise, is if you increase productivity. Charles Koch groups average people Corporate welfare, I think, is a disaster for this country. It's crippling our economy. It is contributing to a permanent underclass and corrupting the business community. Charles Koch community country thinking I try to build on our management philosophy. I try to understand what the threats and opportunities are for us. Uh, I try to make sure that we're driving innovation and creative destruction hard enough so we're not blindsided, and that our attitude is to, in starting any initiative, any business, is to focus on how we can create value for others, rather than how we maximize profit, because you can make money focusing on, "How do I maximize profit?" Charles Koch opportunity attitude philosophy Economy is so riddled with corporate welfare and anti-competitive regulations, anti-innovation regulations. Regulations that are destroying opportunities for the disadvantaged, which is creating this two-tiered system we're headed for which has which is destroying opportunities for the disadvantaged and creating welfare for the wealthy. Charles Koch creating opportunity two I've had the philosophy that John Adams expressed, in the kind of system that we're trying to create in this country: that this is a system for moral people. It will work for no other. Charles Koch philosophy country people Everything I give, pretty much, is public. Not every donor wants to - or is willing to get the kind of abuse and attacks that we do, or death threats, so they're not willing to have their names out. I think the other side is pushing for that because they want to intimidate people so they won't oppose it. Charles Koch names people thinking A university shouldn't be a place of comfort. It should be a place of discomfort because you want to disabuse these kids of whatever prejudices or preconceptions they have when they come. You're trying to get them to think and develop, not be a Johnny-one-note. Charles Koch trying kids thinking We oppose all corporate welfare, whether we benefit or not. You will find that our policy positions mainly hurt our profitability rather than help it. Charles Koch benefits hurt helping My philosophy, one of the biggest enemies of future success is past success, because you become complacent, you become risk averse, and that's one of the things we try to drive here, and this is fundamental to this philosophy, and that's in this component change, and also in value creation. That we need to drive creative destruction, not just incremental innovations, but innovations that will change the whole nature of the business. Charles Koch creative philosophy past My father wanted to instill the work ethic. And, because he knew if you don't learn to work to be more productive to improve your efficiency, to cooperate with other people at an early age, you may never learn those habits. Charles Koch work-ethic father people I always wanted to be different and do things differently. I was a pain in the neck. I was challenging everything you wanted me to do and challenging people in school. Charles Koch pain people school
