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Howard Hughes

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18

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2019-02-11

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2019-02-11

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1

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1. “Emotions or like the opinions of other humans. They just don't seem to really exist to him. And maybe if you think what exacerbated that, not only do I think it's some kind of mental illness, which people don't choose to have that. So I can't really, I'm not saying blame, but some of this decision just seems to be like a selfish spoiled kid, you know? So I don't know how much of that was under his control or how much was not, but to the extent that it is under your control, like this is not behavior that, you know, you want to emulate in any sense in any fashion. Okay, so this is him starting out in the movie business and he's He has like a vindictive”

   2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “When Hughes neither arrived in Houston nor telephoned, Ella sent telegrams several dozen of them, each one more desperate than the last, attempting to understand how their honeymoon had dissolved into first separate bedrooms and then separate states. When he refused to accept her telephone calls, she wired. I cannot understand why I have not heard from you, so eventually get divorced. He just basically just ignores her, stops talking to her completely. And then he's cheating on her constantly when he's in California too. So he does not seem to accept a...”

   2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “He moves to California because I forget this, I'm at it. I'm out of Texas, and then he lets his wife, they live together for a little bit, but then he just sends her back to Houston and ignores her. So this is what I mean about like, we're going to see a lot of personality traits are just, I'm sharing them with you so you understand who the person was, but it's not like this is like, he just didn't seem to care, and we'll see in a minute. Like, I don't know if tools is the right word. It's just like they were like actors in this play where he was at center stage and he would just dismiss them at his pleasures. So this example.”

   2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “He starts doing that really early. So who knows? We can't really psychoanalyze this guy, but that sounds like some kind of childhood trauma or who knows what it was actually. Okay, so at this time he realizes that he was really good understanding the necessary appearances, even though he was very manipulative. So he convinced this 19-year-old woman Ella Rice to marry him, even though she didn't really want to, but at the time in Houston it was common for arranged marriages based on your family's financial situation or socioeconomic status, I guess. And so her mom made her Mary Howard and then Howard just basically”

   2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “He topped a small piece of paper with Things I Want to Be. He wrote golfer in the world. Number two, the best pilot and number three the most famous producer of moving pictures And this is going to give you So a little insight into his bizarre personality. And despite a history of joyful holiday celebrations spent with his family, the New Hughes, this is what he was asking to be called at the time, the adult Hughes celebrated none ever again.”

   2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Falls dead on the floor. And this is the transition now for Howard Hughes Jr. With the death of his father, Sonny Hughes made the transition from boy to man with the instinct of a survivor and the sorrow of an orphan. His world went from a life where days slid beyond themselves into weeks without distinction to minutes that lasted for hours with an ache that saw no joy. The man who was his hero, the man he only wanted to please, died without warning or an opportunity to say goodbye.”

   2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “So right before he turns 18, he's in high school, and he's not really going that much. But this gives you an idea to the degree which Howard Hughes Jr. was spoiled. His allowance was $5,000 a month at a time when $5,000 represented the median annual income for the average family of four. So what would that be equivalent today? I think the average annual income in America for a family of four is something in the range of like $50,000, maybe a little higher. So that'd be the equivalent of paying your 16-year-old $50,000 a month or whatever that actual number is. So this is how his mom is already passed away at this time a year or two later. His dad does too. His dad's in his office talking about all these exciting plans for future. He's in a meeting and then all of a sudden he clutches his chest and collapses.”

   2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “He starts to do a lot of reading after that flight, and he just becomes completely obsessed with the idea of aviation. So he said he had begun to read about a pair of British flyers who had won a challenge in London as the first pilots to fly across the Atlantic. To Sunny, it was more than an adventurous exploit. It was fascination, exploration, and fantasy in an arena that had yet to be tapped. It became his arena. It became his dream. School was relatively unimportant considering he had made up his mind about flying. Algebra and spelling did not fit into that picture. As a result, Sonny had poor grades and erratic classroom attendance. So we're going to jump right into an example of an idea I just don't think is really smart, which is really spoiling your child.”

   2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “By the sensation of flying, and he knew he had found his calling in life So now this is a little description of what his childhood was like. He was really bad in school. Didn't care about it, but he would make things. He'd do it make his own radios. I guess like the precursor to CB radios. I don't know exactly what they're called. And he would tinker with engines and internal combustion engines and all this other stuff. So he actually makes something. He said he spent most of his days alone in his bedroom or in his garage workshop where he fashioned a motor and starter onto his bike, turning it into a primitive motorcycle. Words spread quickly that there was a”

   2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “So he does something his dad wants him to do. Let me just jump into the story. He said, he put out his hand and requested a $5 bill. $5, that's it. His father questioned, shaking his head in excitement, Sonny, so that's what they called when his parents were alive. He wasn't called Howard. He was called Sonny. And then he changes his name from Sonny to Howard and then at least asking people to call him Howard and then eventually just tells people to call him Hughes. So he says, Chicken's had an excitement. Sonny took the $5 as he pointed to the seaplane anchored in the harbor and the sign overhead. Five dollars a ride. The plane was part of a local sightseeing and tourist attraction. Although Big Howard had never himself been in an airplane and had little faith in their safety, he joined his son in the seaplane. The ten minute flight was agreeably short for the Elder Hughes, who felt sick from the ride. As for his son, he was exhilarated and inspired.”

    2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “Okay, so now we're going to start talking about how Ruges Jr., and in this case he finds this is the example of him finding his life's passion, which is aviation, and then starting his first tiny, tiny business when he's a kid. Because he's very, he definitely was a smart person. He definitely was a tinkerer. He was interested in mechanical machines. He was interested in science. He was just interested in experiments, but he just didn't care about the oil business at all. And so that was kind of bequeathed to him by his father, which led to what he was able to do.”

    2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “There's tons of books written about Howard Hughes, tons of information about Howard Hughes Jr. that is. But I couldn't help but think that the book that I really wanted to read, the person that I think is overlooked who is extremely important because he built one of the most successful companies ever is his father. Howard Hughes, senior, I guess that would be. So that's where I'm going to start the book. We're going to learn a little bit about Howard's dad. And so how they're referencing the book right now is Howard Hughes Sr. So it says Howard was not a student. Howard was mechanical. While he had no patience to sit at a desk and learn, this sounds fairly familiar to people that have listened to a bunch of these podcasts. He could spend hours at a workbench tinkering with clocks and motors.”

    2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “We're learning on this podcast the power of putting a customer first, of thinking from first principles, of building a product that is so great that people want to give you money for, that can benefit their lives. And a lot of what Howard Hughes did was not that. And a lot of the running of his companies isn't even basically, I mean, Noah Dietrich, for all intents and purposes, was the person running, he was actually who Howard Hughes was. So I just want to have that. I just want to set that out at the beginning so you understand my perspective on this because there's going to be a lot in this book that is just not behavior that I think we should replicate. But at the same time, we should understand that it's out there. It's tons of humans. Hilbert Hughes wasn't the first person to act like this. He's not going to be the last. So I do think it gives us an understanding of the reality that we operate in. So with that, what all I could think about is, and I looked for books.”

    2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “is whiter. He was widely beloved mainly in some cases deservedly so where he's first person to fly around the world. He has all these interesting aviation world records at the time. And that's what made him world world famous based on what I was reading. He's one of the most famous people in the 1930s all across the world. But I can't say. Based on how he treated other people, he wasn't a good person, and a lot of the stuff he did in business is not, you know”

    2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “Old. So I will say that a lot of times on this podcast, like we're learning a lot of good ideas from people based on their experiences. You know, you go back and listen to all the founders episodes and we benefit it greatly from somebody else documenting the lives of these company builders because we understand their personalities, their philosophy on business. They readily share the ideas that they gain through experience. And the reason I'm doing this podcast is because I think those ideas are invaluable to anybody that wants to get better at what they're doing, whether you're running a company, want to run a company, whether you're a freelancer, whether you work in a large company. You can use these ideas yourself and you don't have to go through 70 years of experience before you have these realizations. Today is going to be different. Today we're going to learn a lot more about what not to do, the kind of person not to be. I don't think based on the other research I've done is I think I've come across another entrepreneur that the gap of the actual person they were and the mythology”

    2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “In the sun for like 30 years, and they found a bunch of broken off needles. I think in his autopsy there's like five or seven different needles placed anywhere from his groin to all over his body because he would be taking so much drugs that the veins would give out. So that's really hard to read about. It's not pleasant. I'm not going to talk much about that on the podcast. I'm going to focus on his early life because I think that's important because up until about time he's from 19 when he takes over his father's company to about 40, he's certainly eccentric, but something happens, and I think it's the multiple plane crashes he was in. And obviously, I think after reading this, like he probably had mental illness his whole life. But then he just, the last 30, 30 years of his life is just a descendant of madness. So today we're going to focus mainly on the beginning and up until about 40 years.”

    2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “Happen with other extremely rich people. And when they're paying, when you're being paid tons and tons of money by the world's richest person, you kind of unfortunately look the other way and you don't put the care of your patient first. And that's exactly what happened, Howard Hughes. So the first book, probably I read probably 60% of it is all about his descent into madness, which is really hard to read, actually. And that cultivates with him having a lot of yes men around that only were not looking out for him, that were only basically doing whatever he told them to do. And so when he winds up dying in the 1970s, I think he was 70 years old, he was six foot three, but he weighed like 80 pounds. He had been a drug addict on codeine and all other kind of opiates for over a quarter century. And he's basically just skin and bones hadn't been”

    2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “If you really think about what we're doing here, well, first of all, if this is your first time listening to founders, welcome. My name is David. The concept of this podcast is extremely straightforward. Every week I read a biography or an autobiography or a book about somebody that's built a company and just try to understand the person behind it, pull out ideas that we can use in our own lives. I don't really think I could document the history of entrepreneurship without talking about Howard Hughes. So I gave it another crack. I read this book. This one was a little bit more palatable because it spent less time talking about what seems to be very clear that Howard Hughes suffered, especially later on in his life from severe mental illness. So he was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, but he basically wouldn't open himself up to being diagnosed further. And he had his own private set of doctors, as we've seen.”

    2019-02-11 · Founders · #59 Howard Hughes: The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source