David Koch's reclusive nephew is next in line to inherit the family legacy, and he may be planning a shift away from conservative politics

Chase graduated from Texas A&M in the early 2000s with a degree in marketing, unlike his father, uncle, and grandfather, the dynasty-builder Fred Koch, who all studied engineering at MIT. After graduation, Chase remained in Austin, Texas, playing Led Zeppelin covers with a garage band.

As the first child of the Koch brothers to join the family business, Chase took lead of Koch Disruptive Technologies after years of avoiding Koch Industries as a career option, because he was "too proud to tap into the Koch network" right away, The Seattle Times reports Chase told a meeting of the Wichita Rotary Club earlier this month.

Chase and his sister grew up in Wichita, where Politico reports his father taught them via audiobooks from great economic thinkers who embraced libertarian ideals.

While he may have nodded off listening to Austrian economist F.A. Hayek at age 12, Chase returned to Wichita after his years in Austin and worked a number of high-level positions in Koch Industries, including mergers and acquisitions, tax structuring, agronomics, and trading, The Seattle Times reports, which led him to where he is now.

At a retreat Chase held for two dozen wealthy young professionals in Vail, Colorado last May, the Koch heir shifted away from the usual Koch network attire of suits and loafers, preferring wool and trendy sneakers, Politico Magazine reported.

Chase also strayed from talking about conservative politics and policy, as Koch summits and workshops tend to do, and focused instead on broader libertarian ideals of personal transformation and "North Stars," or driving passions that encouraged the retreat's attendees to focus in on helping solve problems through nonprofits and advocacy work.

"Market-based Management" is one of the key principles that has allowed the Koch family to become one of the most influential forces in American politics and business. Chase has used the same mindset to apply growth-based tactics to social justice causes, some of which wouldn't typically jive with GOP principles.

Barron's reports that Chase, along with Koch Disruptive Technologies, has invested in criminal justice reform initiatives, including getting companies to hire former convicts. KDT has worked with a Dallas restaurant that trains and hires juvenile offenders.

Read more: How the billionaire Koch brothers became 2 of the most influential political donors in America

In July, Chase told Barron's that KDT had just opened an Israel office because of the country's tech scene and emerging entrepreneurs. KDT is on its second year of operation, and one of its major partnerships has been with Insightec, an Israeli company that pioneered MRI-guided focused ultrasound technology that avoids making incisions.

The Koch Industries' various arms focus on more than just crude-oil gathering and refining, which is what allowed Fred Koch to build his family's fortune and sphere of influence. The Koch family owns about 84 percent of the company's $139 billion, which grew from the $21 million worth it had in 1961, when Chase's father first joined.

Chase told Politico Magazine that it was his first job ever, saying, "it was kind of like a 'Welcome to Koch, here's a shovel' sort of thing.'" Like his father before him, Chase has taken on an extremely active role in his children's education, with him and his wife Annie founding a Montessori-style school for their two kids in Wichita.

The private school, which is called "Wonder," and operates on the Wichita State University campus, opened up 35 slots for students last fall and received over 500 interested applicants. There are plans for it to expand into a high school.

Before David Koch's death, he once ran for Vice President on the Libertarian ticket, only receiving a little over 1 percent of the vote in 1979. Two years prior, he and Charles Koch seeded the Cato Institue, a fiercely free-market guided think tank, which grew into a massive GOP-minded political force.

Now, the Koch network faces a "shift" away from Tea Party ideals and has attracted new donors through its social justice initiatives, like former NFL star Deion Sanders and Urban Specialists founder Omar Jahwar, whose non-profit recruits former gang members in Dallas to work as mentors in unsafe neighborhoods.

Politico Magazine reported that two months after Chase's Viall retreat gathering, a more traditional meet-up of the Koch network organized in Colorado Springs. During one of its final presentations, a photo of North Dakota GOP Senate candidate Kevin Cramer was projected on the screen, with Koch officials denouncing his protectionist stance on trade.

The meeting issued a message to the GOP, which has benefitted immensely from the work done by the Koch brothers to shape American public perception of Tea Party ideals and Republican candidates: the Koch Industries will not blindly support all GOP members going into the future.

The public has only gained a few glimpses into the life of Chase Koch, but that is likely to change following his uncle's death.

As Politico Magazine reported, Chase convened his group of wealthy young professionals again in 2018, before the midterms, to tour the Wonder campus in Wichita. With a focus on social justice, education, and emerging technologies, Chase appears poised to thrust his family's legacy into the future.