We pride ourselves here at the library among other things on the timeliness and the relevance of our signature programming. Whether were holding forums on local issues or addressing emerging or hot button national topics. He didnt intend on the particular timeliness of tonights presentation. Christopher leonard was a busy man at the end of last week. Taking reporters calls and wrote a coup of oped articles after the death of david koch. Chris spent eight near in the the kochland, the place and the title of his book, pulling back the curtain on the extraordinary Business Empire and the potent Political Network that was put toth by the david koch and his older brother, charles, from their base three hours down the road in wichita. Anybody here had a chance to read the book yet . So, you wont understand but youll knee immediately when you get into it, as you get into it, what im talking about. Its daunting when you pick it up. Its 574 pages and thats before you get to the noteses appendix and acknowledgments. But chris has written a 574 bethpage, page turner. As formle journalist im awed, ago inspired, by how deeply researched this book is. By the degree of detail that he has packed into it. Despite his limited access to company executives, including Koch Industries master mind, charles koch. And yet its so accessibly written. Its fascinating, dramatic in places and at the very top of the journalistic checklist, its fair. Maybe more than some people would like. New york times said in its review, quote, it ranks among the best books ever written about an american corporation. Kochland was relead to weeks ago today, and immediately cracked the times top ten list of nonfiction best sellers. Chris was born and raid near kansas city, grew up in brookside area, went to college at mu and got hooked on journalism there. He worked his first job after graduation at the columbia daily tribune. A Business Reporter there. And he has been one ever since. Went on to the arkansas democrat gazette and the Associated Press in st. Louis. While he was at the tribune in columbia he worked a story on tyson foods, and with that he became intrigued with the issue of Corporate Power, which has brought us to tonight. Chris is here for the second time. He spoke at the Central Library in 2014 on his book the meat market, the secret takeover of americas food business, how a handful of companies cornered the u. S. Antisemite money. Joining him on stage will he shawn welock who has collaborated on a couple of books including sly james biography and he was terrific if you were here interview thing former mayor in july about that book. Were honored to have both with us tonight. Welcome sean and christopher leonard. [applause] good evening, everyone. Thank you for being here. This is a kansas city native one more time. [applause] chris is kansas citian and theyre mainly kansas citians and midwesterners. We know what people on the east and west coast dont know, theres tremendous wealth in this part of the country. Were guilty of not fulling understanding and your book illuminates this, theres tremendous power in this part of the country, namely wichita, kansas. Thats rate. What attractedded to me how powerful and influential this industry is, Koch Industries ind how little is known and soak credit tim its not secretive in the james bond villain sense. This is an institution that doesnt want the rest of the world to do what theyre doing, its baked into what they do and how much they make so much money. So you have a massively powerful institution that affect everybodys lives. The special any kinds of businesses that unpin kissing. The stuff you cant boycott or live without. They rye fine the gasoline people use to drive to work. The make the Building Materials in this building, insulated wall panels, structures, make carpeting, the northwesterly our clothing, nylon, spandex. One of the worlds largermakers nitrogen fertilizer which is something most people dome think they beau bait it little bedrock of our food system. So Koch Industries isen gamed in businesses quitely bee quietly beneath the surface, earning stunning profits the annual figures are bigger than facebook, goldman sack and u. S. Steel combined and you never encounter the koch brand name. Never know youre engaging wives the cue. That true me it to along with the fact that when you write about this company, i feel like youre writing about the entire american economy, and even our entire political system because kochs to diverse is this story is the story of blue collar manufacturing works who might belong to a labor union but havent got an pay raise in 20 years, writing bought highflying finance year teams, earns millions trades deer rifftives and futures contracts. Write ought private equity dealmaker outs at koch whos looking for other companies to buy, they use dote buy and then pressure them to boost productivity and profits, and finally writing about one therefore he largest corporate lobbying operation nets country, unrivaled in terms of corporate lobbyist. So taken together the story of the company over the last 50 years really is a portrait of Corporate Power in our country, and it helps us explore a lot of questions about what is going on in our economy today. Very early the book you talk but 1988, when the federal government, through thank you Indian Bureau affairs, United States governmental department, finds out about Koch Industries and what you illuminate theirs is 1988, million billion dollar corporation. Congress had no idea who they were. Some both thought they were part of cocacola and senting investigators to atlanta. Some people thought was pronounced kkoch. And in the insider of the insider that they war not known to the general public, they werent nope to the United States congress. Thats why i started at that point. The book opens with an fbi agent hiding behind cows surveilling the koch oil employee, and these senate investigators, when they started investigating this huge issue of theft of oil off of indian lands that the same reaction, who are these people . All of a sudden they come to realize the companies the Largest Crude Oil gathering operation in the United States and nobody has ever heard of it, and im remind of an interview i did with one of the very early executives of coke, roger williams, on a plane with charles koch in the late 60s, and to back up, we can taught bow the koch family, charles koch, but suffice to say, chivas come took over the Family Company in 1967 when their fair passed away and they were trying to figure out what to name the form and chose the name koch because it was the family name and also completely without character, hard to remember, and without description. They were not a Consumer Oriented Company that wanted to develop a brand name. They were a company that wanted to avoid scrutiny. Largely because they were in the oil business, and the theory of the oil business this opposite of the old saying, what guess for the General Motors company is good for the United States. Americans felt very differently any oil cries of the 1970s when oil prices shot up and companies were getting massive profits and coming at the expense of ordinary people. So the idea was, when youre in businesses like this, you sort of stay in the background. You say behind the curtain. And just quietly make a fortune. Charles koch is the second born brother but really they patriarch. Early in the book you talk about a visit, and this cuts both ways no matter how people in the room view charles koch. This cuts both ways. Wall street financiers and lawyers visit him and have the big pitch of taking Koch Industries public and heels not hes not interested. In your book its brilliant. He im putting you dub. You dont have to read it but if you could please buy the book i would appreciate that. Early on, and charles koch sends them away. And on the one hand you think, you know, good for my fellow kansan. Sends the new york guys packing. The other side of that is, theres an ulterior motive. Its they dont want to publicly report things and have sec scrutiny and want to be behold together anybody outside of the koch family. Yes. If i could back up for a second. And talk but the family. This company Koch Industries was founded by fred koch who lived in wichita, kansas and the 1960s he owned this wide assortment of assets, cattle ranches, oil refineries, pipeline networks. He died of a heart attack in november of 1967. His son, charles, was the president of the company and just 32 years old at the time. And thats when charles koch assumed control of this firm. From the beginning, this guy, charles koch, who has been ceo every instance that time charles koch became ceo when Lyndon Johnson was president. His been in crowell for 50 years, i know a november other corporation in the america which has been so shaped by a Single Person and a zillionle permit and he had a very clear idea of Hour Corporation ought to be run, and one of the key elements of the dna is longterm Strategic Thinking. This is an organization that thinks on a horizon of two, five, ten years out. And at the same time, they operate with secrecy and we can talk about that when we talk but the whole theory of trading, but charles koch knew he wanted to remain private, wanted to retain control, and he wanted to be able to sing not only in terms of quarter to quarter to quarter as so many corporations do today, he wanted to be ail to sink more longterm and the bangers came to wichita in 1981 from jp morgan and said take the company public. Youll have access to company and you will get 25 million tonight personally. A nobrainer and he sent them packing and i got the memo they wrote when they got home. Its like they were banging their head against the desk. Said charles koch does not want this cash and one of the fascinating things he told them was, if we go public, not only will he be answer theme shareholders after three amongst but people will know how much money or commodities traders make, and if they know how much money our movement trader makes they wont do business with us anymore. Thats very important to me. And if we could talk for a moment about trading, because it is at the heart of this organization. Its at the heart of what they do, i its at the hart how the think both in the corporation and politically, and the thing that really changed how i see the world was interviewing the traders. So, from then 1970s, Koch Industries has been one of the largest traders of Energy Supplies in the world, buying and selling super tankers full of crude ail, barrels of crude oil, shipping the stuff. Then they began trading these abstract futures contracts and derivatives based on actual oil supplies. So to succeed in life as a trader you want to know more about the world than anybody else. You want to know what oil is actually really worth today in the real world better than anybody else knows. So if somebody is willing to sell you a oil of bill for 50 you may know that oil is worth 352 so youll buy all you can at 50. Then wait for the world to wake up to the reality its worth 52 and youll sell everything you own. So, for this reason, koch realizes think be ons the most important resource they deal with isnt crude owl or coal or natural gas. Its information data and knowledge about the world. They were in a particularly good position to have knowledge about Energy Market because they ran huge chunks of the system. They would ship the oil into the coast of the gulf coast of the United States and therefore they could make a bet awe of the knowledge that a shipment was about to come in to the coast. At the same time they were very agrees sniff getting as much data and information what was going on in the world as possible. Lets do up to the year 2000. Koch hired away the bet meteorologist from the weather channel, brought them inhouse, to create internal secret weather forecasts for koch that were better than the public forecast, so koch could anticipate energy demand. Koch would tap into these databases of snowfall in california barks snowfall is an early predictor of reservoir levels and an early predictor or hide electricity. They take the dat and analyze it and use it to make trades out in the real world. So when this is your line of work, you dont want other people to know what you know, you dont want other people to know what youre about to do, and that is why theres such a wall of secrecy around what they do. Its strategic. The Company Built their current Headquarters Building in 19 2 and its a giant black granite welding with opaque windows. Its a black cube on the northern side of wichita, kansas, and they dont want you to know what theyre doing. This is the polar opposite of trump under a midtown manhattan. Lets say there are philosophical dances and permanent differences between donald trump and charles koch for sure. The term Koch Brothers this american lexicon if not the world lexicon. Theyre actually four, and its almost shakespearean the interplay with the brothers and i think naturally because hes the patriarch and has been the ceo since you said 32yearold charles, the oldest brother fred wanted nothing to do with the company, and then the two younger e, david who peaced and enand bill, twins, and bill wound up suing and in a long legal fight with his brothers and quite nasty. I think its a really sad story. The four Koch Brothers, the oldest leaves, charles is in charge and then hey that the younger twins and as you point out, the younger brother, bill koch, was never content with this idea his older brother charles would run the firm and they had an actual deep dispute over how to run the business. Charles wanted to plow 90 of the profits back. In bill koch kind wanted to live like a rich person and take money out of the company and buy big houses and have helicopter which he eventually did but the fought over hour to do this, bill tried to take over the company, get his brother fired. It failed. They had 20 years of litigation. Ugly, ugly fight. Bill koch hired detectives to dig through Charles Kochs trash, pose as reporters to plant negative sistered but this brother, and it created i think a real feeling of being embattled inside the company. Kind of a siege mentality inside the Koch Industries. In the 1990s. David koch everybody in the room knows passed away last week. Bill maher on hi show said and its been picked up by all sides of the media and im going to try in give a direct quote. Im glad hes dead and i hope the end was painful. The vitriol that bill ma her put and he is proudly hard core from the left but the vitriol, didnt said that when former president bush passed e. Outside of donald trump i dont know bill maher would say that about anyone but comes from in the whole idea that at least from certain perspective that the Koch Brothers are the absolute enemy of the environment, everything starting with Global Warming. I see that a lot. And it has made my job exceedingly difficult to report on this company because there is an atmosphere of texasicity and hostility and bad faith and distrust in and all the rhys of it that makes people inside the company extremely hesitant to share their story and extremely hesitant to talk. Thats one reason the book took so long to report, and i suppose as a reporter in general, i think its extremely unhelpful for our general underring of how things two, have such vitriolic rhetoric become such a commonplace thing, and i need to own my own role in this somewhat. I mean, very kind in the introduction to talk i wrote two else says when david koch passed away, one for cnn business talking about the Business Empire. The other essay was very critical of david koch and his role politically in delaying any efforts to regulate Greenhouse Gas emission asks i truly do think will become a large part of his legacy the world. On a human level, i think thats an awful thing to do to criticize somebody on the very day they pass away. And as a reporter, however, there was one hot moment when the world really wanted to learn beaut david koch and as it happened ive been spending years interviewing people who know david koch, looking at the Business Empire that made hitch rich, the political operation that he oversaw, and i felt like i had something to tell people both positive critical, and the timing was, as a person, not great, i woke up saturday feeling like garbage if im being honest but as a reporter your job is to tell people the truth, and tell people what is going on here, and the truth of what Koch Industries and the family has done politically is often obscured again intentionally because the political operations have imitated and grope from the business operations. I mean, theyre taken from the exact same blueprint, the sackett same playbook. What koch does not our politic ises just as obscure what trier dying in derivatives markets and its important to tell people this is what happened, categorically and a black and white way over the last 20 years and its very important. I i dont think theres any social issue more important in many ways than Global Warming. A cost we all have to contend with over the next 30, 40 years or longer. Charles and david koch really you uncovered this, bit of really sincere Investigative Journalism and youre the first