Two Generations.
One Framework for Progress.

By the time Charles graduated from high school, he had attended eight schools (“but only got kicked out of one”). Despite earning three engineering degrees from MIT, he claims he is “a lousy engineer” but excels at making mistakes—“lots and lots of them.” By learning from those mistakes and implementing a principle-based framework, the company he leads has grown 9,000-fold since 1960. Utterly rejecting retirement, even at the age of ninety, Charles continues to push for a principle-based approach to life, business and society. His wife of fifty-plus years and their two children are on board with this passion, and his three grandchildren are well on their way.

As a child, Chase was an average student who slept through his father’s Sunday afternoon philosophy lessons. He is the only Koch executive to ever fire himself from a role as president of a Koch company. But after discovering his strengths as a builder rather than an operator, he founded Koch Disruptive Technologies to invest in companies that are helping Koch transform. KDT gave rise to “Koch Labs”—an application of the Republic of Science principle—accelerating the company’s transformations. His role has expanded to include building partnerships that will help Koch endure. Today, his North Star is uniting and empowering people to create disruptive solutions, which he applies to business, social change and even music.