The main purpose of the article was to discuss the non profit work Elizabeth is doing and how she is trying to shift and change the mindset of how people think. One of the nonprofits Elizabeth help start is Unlikely Collaborators. She was the co-founder of Unlikely Collaborators in 2019 and originated after Elizabeth herself had dealt with and obsessive compulsive disorder, a eating disorder, and actually spend time in a mental institution. The other nonprofit is Tiny Blue Dot Foundation. Both organizations have a similar purpose in terms of help people self evaluate themselves and their own biases to help them increase their own self awareness and raise their own emotional intelligence (probably not a bad thing especially since it seems like we have a polarized country and polarizing times). Elizabeth in this video describes the Perception Box as this "invisible mental box, that every human being alive lives inside that distorts their perceptions". On the Unlikely Collaborators website writes "Elizabeth R. Koch doesn't know. But she is perpetually trying to figure it out".
In terms of the how the organizations are funded if you look at Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and their Form 990 (which they have to file with the IRS) you can see in 2018 the KE 2009 Family Trust contributed about $12.6 million to the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the KE 2009 Gift Trust contributed about $14.3 million to the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation. In 2019 there were contributions made to Tiny Blue Dot Foundation from two Koch trusts. $9 million dollars was donated from the KE 2009 Family Trust and $1 million was contributed from the 2009 KE Gift Trust. Generally the year represents the year the trust was created (my educated guess is KE is Elizabeth's initials backwards as her brother Chase utilizes a trust with the initials KC that I wrote about in this post). At this time the IRS hasn't released the 2020 tax return (due to the backlog of tax returns) however Tiny Blue Dot Foundations shows $75 million of contributions made. The Tiny Blue Dot Foundation shows around $96 million of assets in the summary of the 2021 summary of their 2021 Form 990 tax return. The main purpose of the contributions are to be used for research in improving the well-being, physical, and mental health of people. There is no question that these monies came from Charles and Liz Koch however I would argue I would rather these monies spent on something possibly useful for society than it being used to buy a Ferrari (David Koch was once quoted as saying I like nice play things and I drive a Ferrari...but I don't have fifteen").
Tiny Blue Foundation will fund projects up for 3 years and a total funding amount of $900,000. The actual process to receive funding is not easy as the foundation requires studies that has empirical, statistical, and sound neuroscience related to the perception box. The foundation tries to find 10 projects based off this criteria. So if we assume that each project is granted $900,000 then the foundation roughly spends $9 million per year on research. Some of the grants have gone to Brown University, UCLA, Massachusetts General Hospital. Tiny Blue Dot has even given money to Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedlic Studies to look at research for using drugs like ecstasy and Molly. Elizabeth herself has admitted to using psychedelics even though they are currently illegal. She mentions when she took psychedelics she felt as if there were Looney Tunes coming out of her body. In addition to this, she has also experimented with ayahuasca this is a hallucinogen tea and also at one point in her life was at a nudist colony (I am sure her father Charles Koch was happy about this). When Elizabeth wrote about a relationship back in 2007 and briefly loses her boyfriend for a couple of hours she comments "I cannot go back to panic attacks and meltdowns and doctors and pharmaceuticals and terrifying my parents and staring down at dark well of nothing you do ever will be good enough you privileged waste of flesh". At that time she described herself as a "pinwheel of anxiety, a black cough of misery, critical and disgruntled to the extreme". Elizabeth admitted to taking drugs to help her overcome it. It would make sense that someone who has had struggles with their own mental health would want to try to help others who may be struggling as well.
When Elizabeth came home with her boyfriend in April 2006 she described the dinner with her parents as a PowerPoint presentation of her accomplishments add talked so much and talked so fast she didn't even allow her father to ask her questions like "Are you sure you're busy enough?". In 2009 when her father Charles Koch was in the hospital getting shoulder surgery and Elizabeth was at his bed in discussing neuroplasticity Charles asked Elizabeth "Are you sure you're busy enough?
Elizabeth is similar in some ways to her father. She mentions that on a plane trip to Shanghai she worked during the 14 hour flight which is similar to when her father Charles Koch was working on his book Market Based Management in 2006 and went on a 21 hour flight to China and worked on the book the whole trip and then admits in this video the next day he gave an incoherent presentation the next day (due to the lack of sleep). When Elizabeth was with her boyfriend in Kyoto at a train station and observes how the urban planning from her point of view didn't make any sense and remarked "What kind of fucking idiot of an urban planner would think that cramming a hotel, a fourteen-story mall, and the country's second largest train station under one roof would be a good idea?. This is a perfect example of the clusterfuck of misery that results from central-planning". Her father Charles would be proud of her.
It appears though that Elizabeth did not get along with her parents when she was younger. Elizabeth mentions in her post that she would prefer moth eaten sweaters and flea market jeans and rarely wore makeup or combed her hair and the thought of shopping made her sick. Her mother disapproved of her poor boring it and felt she could only get approval from her mother by purchasing $200 on knee socks just to make her mother happy. Elizabeth mentions in the post that she wrote in 2007 "I do not toss money around like garden fertilizer, especially not in places where anyone is likely to see me. I want people to like me, and as a small child growing up in a small town I learned that having money makes people sort of hate you on the spot, so for most of my life I have invested rates amounts of creative energy into presenting they don't have any". Over time this has changed it appears as everyone of the Koch family spent Christmas together in Las Vegas at a Steve Wynn resort.
Charles Koch in his book "Believe in People" does mention a little bit about his relationship with Elizabeth when she was younger. He mentions a time when Elizabeth was running track as a pre teenager and he noticed that Elizabeth was not giving it her all. Charles would then provide additional training to Elizabeth and would have a tendency to have her run at 5:00 AM on family vacations and also had her run during a blizzard on Christmas Eve. Elizabeth in the article confirms this rigorous schedule for track and mentions that even when they were on vacation Charles was getting Elizabeth up at 5:00 AM to run. She adds that in the winter when it would be snowing in Wichita, Kansas Charles would drive beside her in a car and be usually playing economics tapes while she was running (talk about being hardcore). When Charles noticed that Elizabeth wasn't giving her all he pushed her to find something that she was passionate about other then track in to give 100%. According to Believe in People (written by her father), Elizabeth first tried to explains she was a bohemian who didn't enjoy athletic competition but was interested in writing and painting, so she then pushed herself at writing and painting and won national painting and writing awards and also became a top student in her class that allowed her to attend Princeton University. Charles writes that although it took her many years (she is now in her late 40's) to figure out what fulfilled her he believes that Elizabeth has found her North Star. Charles mentions in an e-mail that he could not be more proud of his daughter Elizabeth and mentions that he wanted his children to discover their own gifts and apply themselves enter with to their maximum potential.
My own view is that some of Elizabeth's mental illness is somewhat of a inherited genetic trait. If you look at her father Charles Koch he was a workaholic (a type of addiction and form of mental illness when you think about it) when working at Koch Industries he would routinely work 12 hour days and work, weekends, and on vacations. Former Koch Industries President Sterling Varner said of Charles "he almost killed us, because this was his whole soul". In Sons of Wichita Daniel Shulman writes "Charles worked six , sometimes seven days a week and expected the same of his inner circle...he grew so accustomed to fielding middle of the night calls from employees operating in different time zones". It was not unusual for Charles to call meetings that ran into Saturday night. In 1968, on a Sunday night at Koch Industries Charles had a meeting that began at 4:00 PM and lasted until Sunday at midnight. According to Kochland it was not uncommon for Charles to call employees in on Sunday afternoon and ask them to come to the Koch Industries office for a meeting (in a world without cell phones/e-mail either). All this evidence from multiple difference sources points to someone who is a classic workaholic. Charles Koch is quite a reader however I am unsure if he ever read "Chained to the Desk". Also related to mental health in 1973 when Koch Industries decided to enter the super tanker business since there was strong demand for US oil imports and Charles Koch decided to place a large (one directional bet) on building a supertanker of his own and it is estimated lost $50 million on the bad bet. At the time Charles had a near mental breakdown as he kept flying back and forth to London to renegotiate the debt. Charles also in "Believe in People" writes about how he personally dealt with depression when he and his brother David Koch faced a lawsuit from his own brothers and other shareholders of Koch Industries. The lawsuit started in 1980 and did not end until 2021. Charles mentions he became completely absorbed with preparing for the trial which led him and other executives at the company to make bad business decisions. By the time the trial was over Charles mentions he was in a deep depression and could barely function even though he believed Koch Industries had done nothing wrong. He mentions that the deep depression lasted for 6 months after the trial was over. However Charles was able to recover from the depression which he says was not easy bye working hard and getting back into the company daily exercise and a supportive community from family and friends.
Even Uncle Bill Koch himself spent several years on the couch and at one point went multiple times a week (this sounds similar to Elizabeth) and talks about how unhappy he was in this 1994 Vanity Fair article and how he had a "self-destructive character" which Bill believed was from low self esteem (similar to Elizabeth). A main cause of the psychological issues Bill was having was problems working within the family business at Koch Industries. Although, he had some initial success as he joined the business in 1974 as a salesperson and brokered a complex deal that made Koch Industries $1 million, Bill would drive other people crazy with endless questions, memos, and as brother David would explain "he'd write a report that would be one-half why he loved a business, one-half why we shouldn't be in the business" (this is similar to Elizabeth and her non completed novel of 1,400 pages and 30 plot lines). After Bill was forced out at Koch Industries from 1981 to 1983 according to brother David Koch Bill Koch was in a funk and was "almost lifeless" and he couldn't get out of bed in the morning, he couldn't sleep (he even resorted to taking a sleeping pill), he would just stay at home and watch television and turned into a vegetable. Charles Koch many years ago had his own definition of mental illness is "someone who is willing and capable of dealing with the world". For even Charles Koch I don't believe he would today agree with his own statement that he made years ago. My overall point here is that other members of the Koch family (Uncle Bill) have exhibited similar traits to Elizabeth in terms of having to deal with mental health for a period of time and Bill Koch himself had an obsessive nature as well (again similar to brother Charles and Elizabeth Koch).
The Twitter universe of course blew up with comments regarding the quote from Elizabeth Koch saying how she did not want to be hated. There are also accusations that Elizabeth has given to Republican candidates however there is some confusion on this aspect as her mother shares a similar name however has a different middle name. There is a Elizabeth Koch in Cleveland, Ohio however she is both married and retired and the contributions were made over a decade ago which would not be the same Elizabeth Koch as the one that lives in California and to my knowledge has only been recently married. However facts don't seem to get and the way of sensationalized reporting and Jacob Silverman on Twitter has made this claim however it is unsubstantiated and does not pass the funny looks test. It is amazing how people make accusations and claims without any unsubstantiated facts that are then spread to other people without looking at the real evidence. This incorrect statement was then run in an article by The Nation article by author Jeet Heer. You would think this would just be basic journalism to check out the facts before reporting them.
I think the reporter from the New York Times was a little bit surprised when they met Elizabeth Koch and realized how "hippie dippie woo woo"-the title Elizabeth gives herself even by California standards. The New York Times reporter was offered a blanket by Elizabeth and the reporter said no (the reporter later regrets saying no to the blanket). Although the New York Times reporter did find Elizabeth easygoing and upbeat and even asked Elizabeth how much money she inherited in which Elizabeth had laughed at that comment. As someone who has actually watched videos of Elizabeth Koch and read her actual work she comes off as more of a therapist than someone who is actually an incredibly clear writer who has a history of working through emotional, family, and mental issues. This psychiatrist after reading the New York Times article regarding Elizabeth's approach to mental health said "Let's see".
Although I am no psychologist or psychiatrist I think this workaholism trait that Elizabeth's father (Charles) had may be associated with an inherited trait (as her Uncle Bill also exhibited these traits over his life) for a lack of balance which appears to be what Elizabeth is trying to focus on through Tiny Dot Foundation and Unlikely Collaborators to get people to reduce their anxiety increase their well-being and funding innovative strategies for mental health. As I wrote in this post John Rockefeller Jr. had mental breakdowns (starting at age 13) before he joined Standard Oil and only worked for the company for ten years. Also I don't think it is as unreasonable as people believe if they grew up in the Koch household what the changes of those same individuals having the same behavior. When Elizabeth was in sixth grade with other girls on the playground they made the comment she was a "rich bitch". Elizabeth strikes me as one of the artist, alternative kids in school, who is highly intelligent but is also on their own wavelength. What is interesting is how people judge someone based off her comment that she wanted people to like her (this viewpoint hasn't changed in almost sixteen years). Hilary Plum (a college professor) wrote 27 reasons why she wouldn't write about Elizabeth Koch (I don't find the reasons either compelling or logical-most of the arguments are on the because she is a Koch...therefore premise). Elizabeth has described herself as apolitical however it seems to be guilt by association since her last name is Koch. It would be as if people want her to dissociate herself from her own family, give up everything she has, and deny herself nearly everything because her last name is Koch. I have watched and read many things she has published and would not remotely get the vibe she is to the right of anything. Most people who aware of relationships understand that children don't have the exact same political views as their parents.
Elizabeth Koch has been consistent in her viewpoints. Back in March 2007 she wrote how she wanted for people to like her growing up as she was a small child growing up in Wichita, Kansas. didn't want to be hated and her per interview with the New York Times interview almost exactly sixteen years later makes the comment "I had so much fear people would hate me" and dedicated her life "to not be hated". Time will tell of the impact her organizations are making on society but at least she is moving in the right direction compared to where she use to be.
