Is Charles Koch a Workaholic?

Since I have been covering Charles Koch, Koch Industries, and Koch family for many years one of the things I have wondered is whether or not Charles Koch is a workaholic. In going through a workaholic assessment trying to answer the questions as Charles Koch wood he would get a score of around 68 on the WART which is a workaholic assessment test. A score between 67-100 suggests that someone is considered a highly workaholic. The caveat of course is even though I have followed Charles Koch for over a decade I still can't answer the questions exactly as Charles Koch would. 

According to Sons of Wichita, former Koch Industries President Sterling Varner would remark on Charles "He almost killed us, because this was his whole soul". Sterling pointed out that Charles worked long hours, weekends, holidays in his early years. "Charles worked six, sometimes seven days a week and expect the same of his inner circle... He grew so accustomed to feeling 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 Sunday night at Koch Industries headquarters in Wichita Charles had a meeting that started at 4:00 PM and lasted 8 hours until midnight on a Sunday night. As I wrote in my analysis of Koch Industries ABKO deal with Chrysler the Koch Industries board back in November 1982 approved the deal on Saturday. Finally when Charles got married to Liz he initially stopped working on weekends which delighted some Koch Industries employees. The company legend is in 1972 when Charles proposed to Liz it was over the phone while paging through his calendar to find an open date. According to Kochland it was not uncommon for Charles to call employees in on a Sunday afternoon and ask them to come up to the Wichita office for a meeting. Also remember this was before the days of cell phones, e-mail, and instant communication. People would literally have to go into the office to get work done. Behavior like that these days would have people questioning the "work/life balance" of their company. From this 1982 Fortune article it states that Charles at the time was working 10 hours a day. From a 1997 Fortune/CNNMoney article reports that Charles would work 12 hour days at the office, then spent more hours working at home. Charles expected executives at Koch Industries to work Saturday morning and sometimes called meetings that ran into Saturday night. This type behavior is a classic of a workaholic. Some habits never change however. 

In more recent times Charles is still putting in a number of hours to his work. Charles wrote in "Good Profit" at the age of 79 was still putting in 9 hour days, leaving to go home early to work out, have dinner, and then put more time into working. Jane Mayer in 2018 reported that Charles arrived at Koch Industries headquarters earlier than many other employees (remember he has been working for Koch Industries since 1961-over 60 years with one company!). The same article mentions a business associate mentions Charles is a workaholic and it looks like he's going to be still working into his 90's. In this November 2020 interview with Axios Charles admits to waking up around 5:45 A.M. and he gets to the office by 7 A.M. to get organized, do administrative work, and catch up from what came in overnight. Charles mentioned in this interview he would call employees and leave voicemails and messages night and day and drive everyone nuts. In the same interview he also mentions working on Saturday and Sunday is more fun than anything else. The former CFO of Koch Industries Steve Feilmeier would say that it's okay to say that you don't know the answer to a question, however if Charles is asking a question you better have the answer back in a couple of hours

Charles in this video reflects on when he first had children he wondered what father would he be given he was working all the time. When his children were young Charles was in charge of taking care of them on Saturdays. He would bring them to the office on Saturdays (as Charles says "when we use to work on Saturday mornings") and the kids would bring things into the office to play with while their father was working. After Charles was done he would treat the kids to lunch at Wendy's. To me that is an interesting picture to see Charles who at the time probably had a net worth of a couple hundred million dollars, earning millions of dollars (the dividend payment from Koch Industries for Charles back in 1980 were $3.7 million per year in addition to his salary) working on a Saturday morning in the 1980's, taking his children to Wendy's for lunch. 

Speaking of lunch up until late 1993 Koch Industries limited employees lunch to 30 minutes (however extended it to 45 minutes). The interesting thing though is some groups within Koch were competitive saying they could get lunch within 20 minutes. At a large company it would seem as if it would take a while just to order your lunch, then sit down and eat it would take at least 20 minutes. 

Not only does Charles Koch work hard he also plays hard too and would do things for fun that most people would consider work. Dan Schulman in his book "Sons of Wichita" mentioned that "To say Charles was a workaholic underplayed the depth of his addiction". Charles would read at least 2 hours a day after putting in so many hours at the office. The learning would not stop with just reading after work though. He would want to use every minute to his advantage. Given his car commute was only 10-15 minutes long he would listen to books on tape and estimates he listen to over a dozen books per year. . Charles remarks "there is so much to learn, so much you need to know that there is not enough time". He enjoys reading so much you can see the books in his bathroom here , the books in his Koch Industries office here, and his home office here. On Sunday afternoons for fun he would have his briefcase in his lap with work papers spread out in the living room while watching NFL games.  

Also in recent years he has a disciplined diet as well and does 90 minute workouts (1/3 Pilates, 1/3 aerobics, and 1/3 weight lifting). From a 1974 Forbes article Charles mentions he would run 2-3 miles several times a week and his objective "is to get the most exercise in the shortest time possible". Upon reflection in 2012 Charles commented he would run 30 miles a week which he claims was stupid since he was pushing himself too hard and his knees gave out. When he was coaching his daughter Elizabeth on running Charles would overdo it by waking up at 5 A.M. on family vacations and practice even in blizzard on Christmas Eve. When Charles was at MIT he played flag football with such intensity and "It was like he was playing the Super Bowl" according to someone who referred the game. Former executive president of Koch Industries Richard Fink mentioned he never had seen someone who is so intense in living every minute that "the one thing you don't want to do is waste Charles's time". He points out in this interview with Ryan Holiday that he tells his employees "bring me into a meeting if you think I can help. If I can't help don't bring me to the meeting". During a three week tour of the Orient in 1983 Charles had planned for every minute of the trip and while others were relaxing at the hotel pool Charles went on an sightseeing excursion and then talked about the excursion throughout dinner. In 1992, he took the family to the Summer Olympics in Spain and Charles wanted to see 4-5 events a day which drove his children crazy. His children swore this would be the last family they would take together. 

Charles over the years has been known for perfectionist tendencies which can be evidence of workaholic tendencies. In 2006 he was rewriting Market Based Management for the 20th time and within the twenty one hour flight from Wichita to China and was so excited with new ideas that he didn't sleep on the whole trip and continued to work. He arrived to China at 1:30 A.M. local time and only slept a few hours as he had to give a four and half hour presentation. Charles was dizzy from not getting enough sleep, fumbling through the slides, and it ended up not being a great presentation. His wife Liz mentions he is a perfectionist about everything. Liz misused a word on market-based management (which Charles created) and she said "he practically went hysterical on me". 

My own views is that Charles Koch has been a work acholic since he started working for Koch Industries in the early 1960's. There is a difference between working hard and wanting to do a good job and working so hard that leaves very little time for relationship, recreation, and rest. During the 1980's it was probably more acceptable to ask people to come in on Saturday or a weekend for that matter to work but if a boss called an employee to come in on a Sunday to the office these days that would be frowned upon given how more people care more about a work life balance. Spending every waking moment consuming information and knowledge is taxing and it is perfectly healthy to just relax and veg out. The brain is a muscle and the analogy would be someone working out their brain 15 hours a day which isn't healthy. 

Charles would say that he enjoys what he does and wants to create value for society which is a good thing, however family members and friends can be hurt in this process. He likes to say "I'm going to ride my bicycle until I fall off"...I mean I don't want to play golf every day, and I can't read all the time". In this WSJ article from 2013 when Charles is asked why he likes working he replies "I like to stay alive, that's one thing". He has said "neither accumulating material goods nor amassing a big pile of money has ever been an incentive for me to work". He is someone who gets excited over ideas and concepts rather than money. A former Koch Industries management consultant mentioned "he's most excited when they've solved some problem". Charles likes the integration of different things for example when Koch bought a shipping terminal and started producing product and which allowed Koch Industries to have an international distribution network that they didn't have before are puzzles he likes to solve. Although Charles's family and friends may have suffered from his workaholic tendencies society is actually much better off because of him being a workaholic.