Kochland is a thoroughly researched, extensive history of Koch Industries, which is a new angle in the slightly crowded genre of "how the Koch brothers fucked everything up for the rest of us," so it's worth a read if that's a subject that you're interested in. However, I found the structure very frustrating. It's constantly jumping around between topics and times, so I would get invested in learning what the outcome of a particular situation was and would then have to sit through five chapters about other stuff before finally getting the resolution, at which point I'd forgotten some of the details from the first chapter about the thing and would have to page back to look at it again. Also, Part II is almost entirely about commodities trading and although the author is trying very, very hard to make it interesting, there's only so much you can do to make that appeal to general audiences.

I was also extremely disappointed to see a book from one of the big publishers with multiple spelling errors. It may be that these were only in the ebook version, but it does feel like part of a trend of sloppily edited books that I've been noticing in the past several years, across genres and publishers. ( )

The anecdotes were fun, but the book was structured poorly and not edited well. I didn't get as good a sense of Koch Industry's driving principles as I wanted to get, or how Koch Industries fits into the overall fabric of companies in the time period. Leonard concentrated mainly on the "things that happened", but there wasn't much of a thesis, it was just like a diary. I guess thats what I signed up for though. ( )

This is a long book - the hardcover edition runs 574 pages, while the audiobook (which I listened to) is over 23 hours long. It tells the story of the rise of Koch Industries.

To tell the story of the growth of Koch Industries, the author goes into many individual tales to illustrate the turns in that growth. As someone who spent 30 years working in corporate America, in Fortune 500 manufacturing companies, there were many many things discussed that are similar to what I saw at the companies I have worked with. The fixation on Edward Deming and his quality / continuous improvement practices are part of the foundation of Lean Manufacturing which is very common throughout industry. When the company made mistakes they learned from them and modified their approach to the benefit of the corporation - for example, when early emphasis on productivity and continuous improvement led the company into quality and environmental issues that garnered negative attention and large regulatory fines, Koch shifted to a "100% compliant, 100% of the time" approach to keep the company's reputation intact and to keep regulatory issues at bay. Again not an uncommon story across industry. Even the much discussed Koch "market based management" seems to be an amalgam of America's long-running push for entrepreneurialism, coupled with reliance on activity based costing within a corporate setting, designed to make managers feel more like business owners. This approach has been quite common in corporate America since the late 70s.

What's different is Charles Koch. He kept his company private and kept the profits plowed back into the company early on to ensure growth. He emphasized growth and pursued a "trader's philosophy" of seeking out and exploiting "holes" in markets where his firm with it's private knowledge of it's own activity could leverage those opportunities. The author makes the case that Koch was an early entrant into the mergers and acquisitions game and that as a private company willing to play "the long game" they had distinct advantages in that game. All of these things set Koch Industries apart and played a role in contributing to it's success.

What's really different about Charles Koch are his corporate-libertarian beliefs, and the political power he has amassed to pursue those beliefs, which he has done with much success. This story is told at the very end of the book and the story is one of a methodical concentration of political power that is quite chilling.

While the book is clearly well researched and holds your attention throughout I gave it three stars because I think it could have been just as effective without being as long. I learned alot about Koch Industries and Charles Koch that I didn't know, and I think the book is worth reading. Just be ready to invest the time into it. ( )

¿¿¿¿Story of the Koch brothers and their business. Tells vivid stories about Paulson who does the river bend refinery negotiation for the Kochs, and a variety of corporate thugs who do the first time negotiation with a gp warehousing operation. Koch wins both events handily. ( )

I lived in Wichita, KS for three years in the late 1950s. I think I recall that Fred Koch the founder of Koch Industries had an office building on Douglas street in downtown Wichita. Fred was one of the founders of the John Birch Society. The book is about his children: Fred, Charles, William and David. Son, Charles became the CEO of the privately held, Koch Industries and very active in political action organizations such as Americans for Posterity. I enjoyed reading this 574 page book and learning about the influence of the Koch family on our country. ( )