David Koch, philanthropist, businessman and patriot, died today at the age of 79. A guiding light of the American Libertarian movement, he was detested by Barrack Obama, Harry Reid, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren alike. The Koch Brothers are no more. Long live the Koch Brothers!
The significance of David's generosity is best captured in the words of Adam Smith, who wrote, "to indulge our benevolent affections constitutes the perfection of human nature"
Charles Koch
He donated more than $1.3 billion of his fortune to charity, including gifts to the State Theater of New York at Lincoln Center—renamed the David H. Koch Theater—New York-Presbyterian Hospital and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, all in Manhattan....Over decades, Mr. Koch funneled some of his largest donations to cancer research, most notably to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan and to his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., for the founding of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
In speaking of his philanthropy, Mr. Koch described himself in interviews with The Wall Street Journal as a “sugar daddy” for charitable causes with a “moral obligation” to give. He preferred to donate his money to outstanding institutions rather than “use it on buying a bigger house or a $150 million painting,” he said. “I really want to put my money to work making the world a better place.”
He attributed his philanthropy to a near-death experience in 1991, when an airplane he was in collided with another at Los Angeles International Airport. Mr. Koch was able to escape the smoke-filled plane, while more than 30 others were killed in the collision.
Speaking about the crash in a 2014 television interview, Mr. Koch said, “I felt that the good Lord was sitting on my shoulder and that he helped save my life because he wanted me to do good works and become a good citizen.”
Wall Street Journal