In 1898 was head of the Stribeck Physical metallurgy department of the Technical Institute and director of the private military-industrial laboratory Zentralstelle für wissenschaftlich-technische Untersuchungen [de] (Center for Scientific-Technical Research) in Neubabelsberg.
From 1908 Stribeck worked for the Friedrich Krupp AG in Essen in 1919 at the Robert Bosch GmbH in Stuttgart.
Stribeck was a college friend of the industrialist Robert Bosch, with whom he remained for a joint study at the Royal Wuerttemberg in Stuttgart Polytechnic lifelong allegiance.
Richard Stribeck carried out studies in the field of tribology, focusing on friction in lubricated sliding contacts, such as journal bearings.
[1] On Tim Allen's sitcom Last Man Standing, on ABC, Allen's wife attempts to prove there are no ghosts at work by explaining how frictional contact mechanics caused a cold glass to slide spontaneously across a counter, finishing with the statement that "it's your basic Stribeck curve".