What is Jim Koch's Net Worth?
Jim Koch is an American businessman who has a net worth of $1.5 billion. Jim Koch best known for co-founding and chairing the Boston Beer Company. Because of his creation of the company, which produces the popular Samuel Adams Boston Lager, he is widely regarded as the father of the American craft brewing movement. Koch is also the author of the book "Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned Over a Beer or Two," which chronicles his start in the brewing world.
Jim founded the Boston Beer Company in 1984, giving up a lucrative salary at a stable job in the process. When he first launched the company, his goal was to sell $1 million worth of beer within six years. He paid himself a salary of $60,000. Six years later the company had sold $21 million worth of beer. A decade after launching, the company was selling over $128 million worth of beer every year. In 2013 the company's revenue topped $530 million, with profits of over $100 million. The company is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the appropriate ticker symbol "SAM". As of this writing, the company has a market cap of $3.8 billion. Thanks to his 1/3 ownership stake, Jim Cook became a billionaire on paper for the first time in September 2013.
Early Life and Education
Jim Koch was born as Charles James Koch on May 27, 1949 in Cincinnati, Ohio as one of four children of German-American parents Dorothy and Charles. His father was a fifth-generation brewer. For his higher education, Koch went to Harvard University as both an undergraduate and graduate student. From the school, he earned Bachelor of Arts, Juris Doctor, and Master of Business Administration degrees.
Career Beginnings
Koch began his career as a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm founded in 1963. He also worked as an instructor for the outdoor education organization Outward Bound.
Boston Beer Company
In 1984, Koch entered the brewing industry when he co-founded the Boston Beer Company with Rhonda Kallman. To start the company, he invested $100,000 of his own money and raised additional funds from family members, friends, investors, and colleagues from the Boston Consulting Group. Following in his family's brewing footsteps, Koch used the original family recipe, called "Louis Koch Lager." The recipe became the basis for Samuel Adams Boston Lager, the first beer offered by the Boston Beer Company in 1985. Six weeks after its debut, the brew was voted Best Beer in America at the Great American Beer Festival. Koch initially brewed the beer at the Pittsburgh Brewing Company, and as sales increased began brewing at other facilities such as Portland's Blitz-Weinhard brewery and Cincinnati's Hudepohl-Schoenling brewery. The latter was acquired by the Boston Beer Company in 1997. The company continued to expand exponentially over the years, launching such lines as Hardcore Cider, Twisted Tea, and Angry Orchard, and acquiring the Delaware-based Dogfish Head Brewery.
The Boston Beer Company brews a plethora of beers in addition to its signature Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Among its most popular are Samuel Adams Rebel IPA and its various seasonal offerings, including its Summer Ale, Porch Rocker, and Marzen. In some states, the company offers Samuel Adams Utopias, once marketed as the strongest commercial beer in the world with an ABV of 24%. The Boston Beer Company also briefly offered a beer called Infinium, which was made in collaboration with the historic German brewery Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan. Around 15,000 cases of the beer were released in North America in late 2010 in time for New Year's Eve. Overall, Koch owns a 26% stake in the Boston Beer Company.
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Philanthropy
Koch has been involved in some philanthropic endeavors through the Boston Beer Company. In 2008, he launched the Brewing the American Dream program, which helps fund fledgling entrepreneurs. Along with its lending partner Accion, the program has made over 400 loans totaling more than $400 million.
In other acts of philanthropy, Koch and the Boston Beer Company hold the Samuel Adams LongShot American Homebrew Competition, an annual contest for amateur home-brewers. The home-brewers are invited to submit their brews, which are then evaluated to determine their viability for larger-scale production. Winning brews are sold as part of a Samuel Adams mixed six-pack the following year.
Books
In 2016, Koch published his book "Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned Over a Beer or Two." In it, he talks about how he left his management consulting career to establish the Boston Beer Company using his family's recipe.
Personal Life
Koch was previously married to a woman named Susan, whom he divorced around the time he launched the Boston Beer Company. He wed his second wife, entrepreneur Cynthia Fisher, in 1994. The couple resides in Newton, Massachusetts. Koch has two children from his first marriage and two more from his second.
