THE MACHINE
"A business that is not creating value for society is not a business worth running." — Charles Koch
ONE
THE FATHER'S SONS
INT. KOCH FAMILY HOME, WICHITA, KANSAS - DAY (1950)
A large, austere home. No luxury despite considerable wealth. The furniture is functional. The bookshelves are filled with engineering manuals and political tracts. FRED KOCH SR. sits at the head of the dinner table. His four sons sit in rigid postures: FREDERICK, 17, CHARLES, 15, twins DAVID and BILL, 10.
Wichita, Kansas. 1950. The Koch family. Four brothers. One empire. Twenty years of lawsuits.
FRED SR.
(cutting his steak with surgical precision)
I built refineries for Joseph Stalin. I watched what happens when government controls the economy. Slavery. Poverty. Death. The free market is the only system that produces prosperity. Remember that. The government is not your friend. It is your enemy.
YOUNG CHARLES
Yes, sir.
YOUNG BILL
(fidgeting)
Dad, can we —
FRED SR.
(sharply)
Sit still. Discipline is the foundation of success. Without discipline, you are nothing. Charles, what did you learn at school today?
YOUNG CHARLES
We studied thermodynamics. The second law — entropy always increases in a closed system. Unless energy is applied.
FRED SR.
Correct. And the same applies to business. Without constant energy, constant effort, a business decays. Never rest. Never stop improving. The moment you relax, entropy wins.
CHARLES KOCH (breaking the fourth wall)
My father was a difficult man. He was demanding, rigid, and at times cruel. He sent Charles and Frederick to boarding school because he thought Wichita was making them soft. He pitted us against each other because he believed competition bred strength. He was wrong about the competition — it bred resentment. But he was right about discipline. And he was right about free markets. Those two things — discipline and markets — became the operating system of my entire life.
INT. MIT, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS - DAY (1957)
CHARLES KOCH, 22, studies chemical engineering at MIT. He is brilliant, methodical, and deeply influenced by the Austrian economists his father introduced him to: Hayek, von Mises, Rothbard. While other students go to parties, Charles reads "The Road to Serfdom."
MIT PROFESSOR
Koch, your thesis on process optimization is exceptional. Have you considered staying in academia?
CHARLES
No. I'm going home. My father has a company that needs to be rebuilt.
MIT PROFESSOR
Rebuilt? I thought Rock Island Oil was doing well.
CHARLES
It's doing adequately. Adequately is not acceptable. There is a difference between running a company and optimizing a company. I intend to optimize it.
INT. ROCK ISLAND OIL & REFINING, WICHITA - DAY (1967)
Fred Koch Sr. has died. Charles, 32, takes control of the family company. His first act: rename it Koch Industries. His second act: systematically apply engineering principles to every aspect of the business.
1967. Charles Koch becomes CEO of Koch Industries. Revenue: approximately $250 million. He will hold the position for over fifty years.
CHARLES
(addressing his management team)
My father built a good company. I intend to build a great one. We are going to apply what I call Market-Based Management. Every decision, from refinery operations to human resources, will be driven by data, incentives, and the principles of the free market. Not hierarchy. Not tradition. Results.
MANAGER
What does that mean in practice?
CHARLES
It means the person closest to the problem makes the decision. Not me. Not a committee. The engineer on the refinery floor. The salesman with the customer. We push authority down and accountability up. Like a market.
INT. KOCH INDUSTRIES BOARD ROOM - DAY (1980)
The boardroom. Charles sits at the head of the table. Across from him: his brother BILL. The atmosphere is ice-cold. Bill has been pushing for Koch Industries to go public or pay larger dividends. Charles refuses.
BILL
Charles, we are sitting on billions of dollars of value that is locked inside this company. The shareholders — which is us, your brothers — deserve liquidity. We should take this company public.
CHARLES
Absolutely not. Going public means quarterly reporting. Analyst calls. Short-term thinking. Everything that destroys a company. Koch Industries stays private because private companies can think in decades, not quarters.
BILL
You're hoarding the family wealth inside a company you control absolutely. That's not free markets, Charles. That's a dictatorship.
CHARLES
(coldly)
It is stewardship. And if you don't like it, you can sell your shares back to the company at fair market value.
BILL
(standing)
Fair market value determined by whom? By you?
The two brothers stare at each other across the table. This is the fracture that will define the Koch family for twenty years.
CUT TO:
TWO
THE BROTHERS' WAR
INT. FEDERAL COURTHOUSE, TOPEKA, KANSAS - DAY (1985)
A courtroom. BILL KOCH and FREDERICK KOCH have sued CHARLES and DAVID, alleging that they were cheated out of their fair share of Koch Industries when they sold their stakes in 1983. The brothers sit on opposite sides of the courtroom. They do not look at each other.
Koch v. Koch. 1985-1998. One of the longest and most bitter family lawsuits in American business history.
BILL'S ATTORNEY
Your Honors, Charles and David Koch systematically undervalued the company to buy out their brothers' shares at a fraction of their true worth. Frederick and William Koch were paid $620 million for shares that were worth billions. This is fraud.
CHARLES'S ATTORNEY
The buyout was conducted at fair market value, determined by independent appraisers. Mr. William Koch agreed to the terms. He signed the documents. Buyer's remorse is not a cause of action.
Charles sits rigidly, showing no emotion. Bill seethes.
CHARLES
(V.O.)
My brother sued me. My own twin brother took me to court and accused me of cheating him. The lawsuit lasted thirteen years. It went to trial twice. We spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lawyers. And for what? Because Bill wanted more money and couldn't accept that the company was worth more under my management than it would have been under his. He wanted to tear down what I built because he couldn't have built it himself.
INT. CHARLES KOCH'S HOME, WICHITA - NIGHT (1990)
Charles sits in his study. The lawsuit is grinding on. His wife, LIZ, enters.
LIZ
Your mother called. She's devastated. She says the lawsuit is killing her.
CHARLES
(not looking up from documents)
Bill started this. Not me.
LIZ
She doesn't care who started it. She cares that her sons are destroying each other in public. She asked me to ask you: can't you settle?
CHARLES
(looking up, his voice tight)
Settling means admitting I cheated my own brother. I didn't. The valuation was fair. The process was fair. I will not pay him billions he is not owed simply to avoid discomfort. That is not how principles work.
LIZ
And what about family? Is family a principle?
A long silence. Charles has no answer for this. The engineer who optimizes everything cannot optimize his own family.
INT. FEDERAL COURTHOUSE, TOPEKA - DAY (1998)
The jury returns its verdict after thirteen years of litigation. The courtroom is packed with lawyers, reporters, and Koch family representatives.
JUDGE
The jury finds in favor of the defendants, Charles Koch and David Koch, on all counts. The plaintiffs' claims are dismissed.
Charles sits motionless. No celebration. No relief. Just the absence of a weight he has carried for thirteen years.
The jury ruled unanimously in favor of Charles and David Koch. Bill Koch said afterward: "This is not over." Further appeals were eventually exhausted. The brothers never fully reconciled.
INT. KOCH INDUSTRIES HEADQUARTERS, WICHITA - DAY (2000)
Charles walks through Koch Industries' headquarters. The company has grown enormously during the lawsuit years — revenues have multiplied tenfold. Acquisitions of Georgia-Pacific, Invista, and Molex have diversified the company far beyond oil refining.
CHARLES
(V.O.)
While my brother was suing me, I was building. That is the difference between us. He wanted to litigate. I wanted to create. Koch Industries grew from $250 million in revenue when I took over to $115 billion today. We are the largest private company in the United States. We employ 130,000 people. We make everything from paper towels to jet fuel. And we did it by staying private, thinking long-term, and applying the principles of the free market to everything we do.
Koch Industries. Revenue: $115 billion. Employees: 130,000. Products: petroleum, chemicals, paper, glass, electronics, fertilizer, polymers, fibers, and more. Still private. Still run by Charles Koch.
DISSOLVE TO:
THREE
THE NETWORK
INT. DONOR RETREAT, INDIAN WELLS, CALIFORNIA - DAY (2009)
A luxury resort in the desert. Behind closed doors, Charles Koch addresses a room of several hundred of the wealthiest conservatives in America. This is the Koch donor network — a semi-annual gathering that raises hundreds of millions of dollars for libertarian and conservative causes.
CHARLES
(at a podium, measured)
The threat to free enterprise in America has never been greater. Government spending. Regulation. The expansion of the welfare state. We have an obligation — not as Republicans, not as conservatives, but as believers in human freedom — to push back. With ideas. With institutions. With candidates who understand that the free market is not a theory. It is the only proven system for creating prosperity.
DONOR
(from the audience)
Charles, the media calls us the Koch network. They say we're buying elections.
CHARLES
The media can call us what they like. We are exercising our constitutional right to advocate for policies we believe in. Every union does it. Every environmental group does it. We are simply better organized.
The Koch donor network raised over $400 million for the 2012 election cycle. By 2016, the network's budget rivaled that of the Republican National Committee.
INT. KOCH INDUSTRIES, CHARLES'S OFFICE - DAY (2012)
Charles sits with DAVID. They are reviewing the political landscape. Their network has helped elect dozens of governors, state legislators, and members of Congress who support deregulation, tax cuts, and limited government.
DAVID
Charles, the network is working. We have governors in thirty states who support our agenda. The regulatory rollback in the energy sector alone has saved the industry —
CHARLES
(interrupting)
The regulatory rollback is a start. But I am interested in something deeper. Not just electing politicians. Changing the way people think about government. That's why we fund universities. Think tanks. Research programs. You change policy by changing minds first.
DAVID
The opposition is calling us the most dangerous men in America.
CHARLES
(unmoved)
Dangerous to whom? To the bureaucrats who want to control every aspect of American life? Good. They should feel threatened. The free market is a threat to anyone who profits from government power.
INT. CHARLES KOCH'S OFFICE - DAY (2015)
A rare quiet moment. Charles sits alone, reading. The book is "Good Profit" — his own book, a copy of the manuscript. He has written it to explain his philosophy: Market-Based Management.
CHARLES
(V.O.)
People think I am a political figure. I am not. I am an engineer. I build systems. Koch Industries is a system. The political network is a system. Market-Based Management is a system. I believe that the same principles that make a business successful — voluntary exchange, property rights, incentives, the price mechanism — can make a society successful. That is not ideology. That is engineering applied to human organization.
CHARLES KOCH (breaking the fourth wall)
Am I controversial? Obviously. But I have never sought controversy. I have sought consistency. The same principles I apply to running a refinery, I apply to politics, to philanthropy, to my personal life. Free exchange. Individual liberty. Mutual benefit. If those principles make me dangerous, then the world has a very strange definition of danger.
CUT TO:
FOUR
THE RECKONING
INT. KOCH INDUSTRIES HEADQUARTERS - DAY (2018)
Charles receives a phone call. DAVID is ill. Cancer has returned. After surviving prostate cancer decades earlier, David Koch is now facing a new battle. He steps back from the company and the political network.
CHARLES
(on the phone)
David, take the time you need. The company will be here. I will be here.
DAVID
(on phone, tired but resolute)
Charles, I've spent my life in your shadow. I don't say that as a complaint. You are the builder. I was the ambassador. We each had our role. I am proud of what we built. Both the company and the network.
CHARLES
(a rare crack in his composure)
We built it together, David.
INT. CHARLES KOCH'S HOME, WICHITA - NIGHT (AUGUST 23, 2019)
Charles sits in his study. The phone rings. David has died. He was 79.
David Koch. 1940-2019. He donated over $1.3 billion to medical research, the arts, and education during his lifetime.
Charles sets the phone down. He sits in silence for a long time. The engineer who controls everything confronts the one variable he cannot optimize: loss.
CHARLES
(V.O.)
David was my partner for fifty years. We disagreed on many things. But we never disagreed on the fundamentals: that America works best when individuals are free, that government should be limited, and that the purpose of wealth is not to consume but to create. He was a better public speaker than I was. A better fundraiser. A better socializer. I was the machine. He was the human face of the machine. Without him, the machine still works. But it is... quieter.
INT. KOCH INDUSTRIES HEADQUARTERS - DAY (2020)
Charles, 85, still comes to work every day. Still reads voraciously. Still applies Market-Based Management. He has begun, surprisingly, to moderate some positions. He now advocates for criminal justice reform. He works with liberal organizations on sentencing reform.
AIDE
Charles, the media is confused. You're working with the ACLU on criminal justice. Your base doesn't understand.
CHARLES
My base is not my concern. Principles are my concern. If the criminal justice system is unjust, it needs reform. That is consistent with liberty. A man locked in a cage for a nonviolent offense is not free. If the ACLU agrees with me on that, I will work with the ACLU. Principles do not have parties.
INT. CHARLES KOCH'S OFFICE - DAY (PRESENT)
Charles at his desk. The same desk he has sat at for fifty years. The office is spartan — engineering texts, economic treatises, no art, no extravagance. A photograph of the four Koch brothers from the 1950s, when they were still a family.
CHARLES
(V.O.)
I have built the largest private company in America. I have built a political network that changed the direction of a country. I have survived a lawsuit from my own brother that lasted thirteen years. I have lost my partner, David. And I am still here. Still working. Still applying the same principles I learned at MIT sixty years ago: optimize the system, measure the results, improve continuously.
He picks up the photograph of the four brothers. Studies it.
CHARLES
(V.O., continuing)
But there is one system I never managed to optimize. Family. Frederick, who wanted to collect art. Bill, who wanted to fight. David, who wanted to be loved. And me, who wanted to build. Four brothers. One company. And not enough room for all of us. That is the one failure I cannot engineer my way out of. And it is the one that matters most.
He sets the photograph down and returns to work. The machine continues.
FADE TO BLACK.
Charles Koch has served as CEO and chairman of Koch Industries for over fifty-five years, making him one of the longest-serving CEOs of a major company in American history. Koch Industries generates estimated annual revenues exceeding $115 billion, making it the largest privately held company in the United States by revenue. The Koch political network has spent over $1 billion on elections and policy advocacy since 2010. Charles Koch co-authored "Good Profit" and has been a leading advocate for Market-Based Management. Bill Koch won the America's Cup in 1992 and became a prominent art collector. Frederick Koch became a philanthropist focused on historic preservation. David Koch donated over $1.3 billion to cancer research, the arts (including $100 million to Lincoln Center), and MIT before his death in 2019. Charles Koch lives in the same house in Wichita, Kansas, that he has lived in for decades. He still drives himself to work.
Suggested Director: Paul Thomas Anderson. Suggested Composer: Jonny Greenwood.
THE END