Charles Koch calls Market-Based Management 'a way for business to create a harmony of interest with society.' The question Kochland raises is whether this 'harmony of interest' results in a place where anyone without a few billion to spare would actually want to live. it’s Leonard’s depictions of Market-Based Management in action that are most illuminating here, and the light they give off is chilling. Even Charles Koch doesn’t make much of an impression he seems less charismatic in Kochland than methodical and deliberate - like the engineer he was trained to be. Memorable stories are usually buoyed by memorable characters, but with few exceptions the Koch employees who talked to Leonard have imbibed the company culture and sound remarkably alike. Leonard doesn’t have much by way of rich narrative material to work with. Telling this story as well as Kochland does is harder than it looks, and not just for the obvious reasons. Kochland is a corporate history, lucidly told. Not since Andrew Ross Sorkin’s landmark Too Big to Fail.have I said this about a book, but Kochland warrants it: If you’re in business, this is something you need to read. Each story illustrates one corner of a vast corporate empire. He does it by unspooling a series of granular set pieces and micronarratives, telling the stories of dozens of men and women inside and outside the company. But to a degree I’ve rarely seen, Leonard actually turns this lack of access into a strength. kochland review how the kochs bought america and trashed it. writing the history of a private company without full access is akin to scaling El Capitan without handholds. times for their favorite novels like this Kochland Pdf, but end up in harmful downloads.

Tackling the biography of a secretive private company like Koch, which has little need to open itself to scrutiny, is a task of herculean difficulty. He appears to have had only limited access to Koch executives, including, it appears, a single interview with Charles Koch. Īlmost as notable, from a journalist’s point of view, is the degree to which Leonard succeeds without the kind of cooperation all authors seek. Leonard does not judge the Kochs he explains them. But what’s most impressive is its refreshing balance and evenhandedness. This is a massive, and massively reported, book.

Kochland review