After making the comment that William Koch had learned
nothing after 13 years and getting three degrees from MIT including a PhD in
chemical engineering I did some research to learn more about his school
days. I found this
profile from his high school Culver Military Academy where he graduated in
1958. It should be pointed out that Charles Koch also went to Culver Military
Academy but was
expelled after drinking on a train. Even though students go to places like
Culver before college it has more of a college schedule with Wednesday being
the busiest day with activities from 8:20 a.m. to 11 p.m. There is no surprise that
99%
of the graduates matriculate into colleges. It is interesting the classes are ranked by
how much time it takes students on homework. So for example a Level A class
will take less than 30 minutes in homework per class while a Level E class will
take more than 90 minutes per class of homework.
William seemed pretty
busy when he as at Culver. He was on cross country, basketball, track, football,
baseball, boxing, volleyball, softball, and graduated cum laude. According to
the June 1994 edition of Vanity Fair from an article called Wild Bill Koch’s
Grand Desires by Bryan Burrough, William as a kid was “nerdy, awkward kid”. He
also like to start mischief when he was six he swallowed a hog ring which lead
to a hospital visit where they had to pump it out. He was also competitive and
didn’t like to lose. The Koch family had a pool growing up and William got
upset pretty easily and sometimes would go crazy. In one instance his twin
brother David Koch was hit with a polo mallet and David fought back. In a very
dangerous fight William got a butcher knife but finally put it down after he
realized he could kill his own twin brother. During middle school at the age of
13 Bill almost failed out (interesting for someone who later got a PhD in
chemical engineering) and says he was clinically depressed. William went to
M.I.T. like his older brother Charles and all joined Beta Theta Phi, where
William was the house “humorist”. William was also a pretty decent athlete
making the basketball team at M.I.T. his freshman year. Twins David and Bill
both got their master’s degrees in chemical engineering by 1963 however they
both took different paths. David went to go out in the real work and work while
William spent the next eight years at M.I.T. getting his PhD. David claims his
twin brother William had a country club attitude when it came to school, and just
“lazy years, full of days tinkering in university labs, playing rugby, and
chasing women”. Perhaps spending a total of 13 years in school was a way for
William to avoid having to work in the real world which makes his comment about
never really learning anything even more interesting.
As people say it really isn’t where you start out in life it
where you end up. William Koch seems like he has gone through many different
things in his life time (depression, various lawsuits, and marriages). However,
today he is waking up everyday going to work in charge of Oxbow Corporation and
worth $4 billion. If you read he was on the verge of flunking out of middle
school you might not have guessed he would have been a billionaire or ever got
a PhD.
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