Kochland

The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America

By: Christopher Leonard

Narrated by: Jacques Roy

Length: 23 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

Just as Steve Coll told the story of globalization through ExxonMobil and Andrew Ross Sorkin told the story of Wall Street excess through Too Big to Fail, Christopher Leonard’s Kochland uses the extraordinary account of how the biggest private company in the world grew to be that big to tell the story of modern corporate America.

The annual revenue of Koch Industries is bigger than that of Goldman Sachs, Facebook, and US Steel combined. Koch is everywhere: from the fertilizers that make our food to the chemicals that make our pipes to the synthetics that make our carpets and diapers to the Wall Street trading in all these commodities. But few people know much about Koch Industries, and that’s because the billionaire Koch brothers want it that way.

For five decades, CEO Charles Koch has kept Koch Industries quietly operating in deepest secrecy, with a view toward very, very long-term profits. He’s a genius businessman: patient with earnings, able to learn from his mistakes, determined that his employees develop a reverence for free-market ruthlessness, and a master disrupter. These strategies have made him and his brother David together richer than Bill Gates.

But there’s another side to this story. If you want to understand how we killed the unions in this country, how we widened the income divide, stalled progress on climate change, and how our corporations bought the influence industry, all you have to do is listen to this audiobook.

Seven years in the making, Kochland comes across like a true-life thriller, with larger-than-life characters driving the battles at every moment. The audiobook tells the ambitious tale of how one private company consolidated power over half a century - and how in doing so, it helped transform capitalism into something that feels deeply alienating to many Americans today.

©2019 Christopher Leonard (P)2019 Simon & Schuster Audio

Critic reviews

"Business reporter Christopher Leonard's emphatic, decade-long investigative research has yielded an in-depth examination of the secretive privately held Wichita-based Koch Industries. Jacques Roy provides a masterful narration.... [His] low-key professorial tone eases the listener through a highly complex market-based business portrait. It would be challenging to find a clearer discussion of how dark money may wield profound influence on American politics." (AudioFile Magazine)

“Deeply and authoritatively reported...[Kochland] marshals a huge amount of information and uses it to help solve two enduring mysteries: how the Kochs got so rich, and how they used that fortune to buy off American action on climate change.” (Jane Mayer, The New Yorker)

“Superb.... Among the best books ever written about an American corporation.... Not since Andrew Ross Sorkin’s landmark Too Big to Fail (2009) have I said this about a book, but Kochland warrants it: If you’re in business, this is something you need to read.” (Bryan Burrough, The New York Times Book Review)

What lies underneath

Comprehensive review. Didn't spend much time on Frank and his wealth acquisition. Later chapters frightening. Climate change interference and Charles thinks he has a plan for society ???

Amazing!

I generally don’t write reviews but this one deserves one. It’s truly excellent and I highly recommend it. It will help you understand why we are where we are today.

deep dive into Kochland

this book is excellent and meticulously plots and analyzes how koch brothers rose to power!

Best business book in long time for me

Not a big fan of Kochland but thought book was informative balanced and thought provoking. Great overview and analysis of business in America by telling story of one company and man behind it.

exactly what I was looking for

loved it. I was expecting just an over look but it was in depth reporting.

Koch land and The Man that controls All

This book informs us of a man who took a family business and created an empire. Unlike most empire it has been developing, creating , growing in its business arms, its political ideologies and has been secretly converting America into what Charles Kock envisions it must be. You will learn of what it took to create such an empire and how it has wielded its power over American politics and converted America into Kockland …

Very well done

Not sure why this book isn’t more popular - it’s really good. Would definitely recommend it

A must read

If you want to glimpse into the machinations of large business interests and operations.. This book is a truly stunning and mind-blowing insight and accounts. The author does a fantastic job at providing the reader with clear details and the breath of a vast inter-workings of Koch industries. Investigational journalism at its best.

Very engaging history of the Koch empire

Well written and performed (listened on audible), kept me engaged throughout. The book does a good job of telling the stories from the perspective of various characters who are the very center (unseemingly so) of the history of this company. The personalities that the author has used in the book, who become the reader's eyes in this historical work, make for very interesting reading. The book also educates and navigates through the social, political, economic landscapes that prevail in the times across which the book travels. The book also maintains a balanced perspective, it's tread the line between glorifying and admonishing the Koch empire.

Must read

One of the best books I have ever read. Anyone interested in business should read this book