CHARLES KOCH: [A]t MIT, I really found myself, because I wasn't good at much of anything, except I had a gift at math. And then that translated into a gift of science. And I learned at MIT with all the science I studied that it's an ordered universe. And that if you want to do well in the physical world, you needed to understand science and engineering and you needed to be able to practice it. And so I became fascinated with the philosophy of science and the scientific method, and that's a foundation of our company and our success, what we call, as you've seen in the book, “Republic of Science” and the scientific method.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Let's talk about the book and start with the title. How do you define Good Profit?
KOCH: Well, Good Profit, I define just that way, is profit -- a good profit is profit that becomes[sic] from contributing to society, from helping other people improve their lives. And for a business, this means producing products and services that your customers value more than the alternatives while more efficiently using resources and being among the safest and environmentally protective producer. And so when you do those, you create good profit. And so this was my philosophy I developed early on. That is, if you want to be successful long term -- and I don't mean make a quick buck or something -- I mean over decades, you need to start with not how do I maximize my profit, but how do I maximize the value I can create for others? And if you do that, then they will want to compensate you. Just like Lebron James when he plays -- they want to see him. So he makes a lot of money because he's creating value for others. How do I know that? Because people pay a lot of money to go see him. So it's win/win.
