What Ruined the World's first Billionaire, Howard Hughes?

On December 24, 1905, in the city of Houston, Texas, a boy was born and named Howard. Howard Robard Hughes. Howard's father wasn't a moderate man, he would do anything to make money. One day in Houston, while passing by a random place, he saw a black liquid gushing out from the ground. Although it was 1901 and most people didn't recognize oil, Howard's father did and realized it was oil. So he quickly approached the landowner and said, I want to buy a piece of land here. Is it for sale? The owner asked, how much land do you want? He said, eight hectares in that area. And he bought the land for under $20 per hectare. A land from which oil was gushing out. Howard's father's knowledge of oil at that time enabled him to acquire a valuable land and quit the odd jobs he used to do. He established a small oil company on this land and started selling crude oil. Selling crude oil back then wasn't like today, requiring facilities and such. People would come and buy a gallon of oil. And the various simple refineries that existed would come and buy the crude oil, converting it into kerosene. In short, Howard's situation improved, and he met a beautiful woman named Aline Gano and got married very quickly. Aline had a hidden illness, severe obsessive compulsive disorder, especially regarding cleanliness. In any case, Aline became pregnant and their first son, Howard Hughes Jr. was born. When little Howard turned three in 1908, his father, Big Howard, succeeded in making a great invention that is still used in various forms today. The Hughes Tool Bit. It was an invention that revolutionized drilling, making it easier and providing access to more reservoirs. This seemingly small invention made the Howard Hughes family millionaires. Not ordinary millionaires. You should know that at the time, there were no billionaires because it was 1908, and someone with $100 million was among the highest in the world. So it seems that little Howard Hughes was growing up in a very wealthy family that had left behind their past poverty. As Howard grew older and entered school, his teachers always complained, and whenever they saw his parents, they would say this child is extremely nerve-wracking and never listens to anything. Little Howard didn't care about school at all. He wouldn't do any assignments given to him. Not that he couldn't understand. He was actually very intelligent, but he simply didn't care. He was so gifted at that age that at 11, he managed to build a radio for himself from scratch with nothing. This accomplishment of Howard's caused his picture to be published in the Houston Newspaper. A few months later, Howard's picture appeared in the Houston Newspaper again, this time for building a motorized bicycle. Note that he was still 11 years old. In short, Howard was a strange boy. He didn't care about school at all, and his father didn't insist on him taking school seriously either, because he understood that this child's mind was working beyond school. At 14, Howard's father took his son to a boat racing competition between two prestigious American universities, Yale and Harvard. Howard told his son, I want Harvard to win. If Harvard wins today, I'll give you anything you want. At the end of the day, Harvard was declared the winner. When Harvard won, little Howard went to his father, and his father said, well, what do The father thought, well, that was cheap, and gave him five dollars. Now, what did he want the five dollars for? It was because there was a seaplane further down the river that would take people for a ride for five dollars. He paid the five dollars and boarded this seaplane. When Howard's father saw his son wanted to board the plane, he said, I'll also pay five dollars and get on. They boarded, and the plane took off. When this plane took off, little Howard's thoughts changed forever, and he was 100% focused on airplanes. He no longer thought about bicycles or radios, only airplanes. After getting off the plane, little Howard wasn't the same little Howard. He thought to himself, flying gives the highest pleasure to humans. I need to be able to build something that allows me to fly alone. Howard even wrote in his memoirs that the happiest hours of his life were the times he was flying alone. In short, Howard's happiness didn't last long because only two years later, when Howard was 16, his mother, who was pregnant, died during childbirth, along with the baby. And before this grief had subsided, just two years later, when Howard was 18, his father, Big Howard, passed away due to a heart attack. Millions of dollars and a large oil company all fell into the hands of the 18-year-old Howard Hughes, who knew nothing about oil. Therefore, he quickly hired a man knowledgeable about oil as the CEO of Texaco Oil Company, a person named Noah Dietrich. Although Howard was young, he was attentive and realized after a few months that the company was operating correctly and his choice was right. In short, a lot of money was in Howard's hands, but he had no interest in progressing in the oil industry, making inventions, or being innovative. He was only focused on airplanes. He decided to first learn how to fly and then become more professional in airplanes. At that time, there were no flight schools, so you had to find someone who knew how to fly and teach you. So he went to the airport, found someone with a plane, and convinced them to teach him how to fly and let him practice with their plane for $100. Very soon, Howard Hughes became an expert pilot. It was strange that although Howard was very shy when he was around airplanes and with people who were knowledgeable about aviation, he transformed into a mountain of self-confidence. And you couldn't stop him. You wouldn't even believe this was the same shy person. He was very upset about being shy in places other than aviation, so he decided to solve this issue He went to Hollywood, visited film studios, and said, How much do you charge to teach me acting? He said, If I learn acting, my shyness will go away. After learning some acting, not only did his shyness disappear, but he even acted in a film called Two Arabian Nights released in 1927. In short, he learned to fly, cured his shyness, became an actor, acted in a film. But he was still focused on airplanes and said, When can I quit these useless things and get to airplanes? At that time, he thought, Well, I'll kill two birds with one stone, and started making the very first film about airplanes, a film called Hell's Angels. Howard's goal with this film was to make airplanes more famous and introduce them to more people around the world. So when making this film, he didn't care about profitability and just kept spending. In a way, an obsessive trait manifested in Howard, the same obsessive disorder that had paralyzed his mother. But in Howard, it was still very mild. For example, during filming, if an airplane was slightly tilted for five seconds, he would say, This movie is trash. Get the planes ready. We'll reshoot tomorrow. Even though it wasn't a major issue and could have been easily fixed. Some days, he would suddenly stop filming, saying, The clouds are irregularly shaped, and the movie won't look good. In short, a filming that was supposed to take 15 days would take a year. But the crew wasn't upset because he paid everyone's salaries in full. They were very happy to be working on a two-week job for a year. And after a year, when the film was ready, it was precisely the time when silent cinema had died out, and microphones had been invented that could record sound and make talkies. Howard Hughes saw that the film was done, but had become an old silent one. So he said, Throw that film away. We'll reshoot it. This time, we'll film with sound. The crew said, Oh no, we're stuck for another year. In short, it was 1930, and a single dollar had a lot of value. Nevertheless, Howard had spent two million dollars on this film until he finally agreed to release it for screening. This film was so awesome for that era that everyone said they had to go see it. As a result, it grossed $4 million and covered all of Howard's two-year expenses, plus an additional $2 million profit, and Howard achieved his goal. This film introduced millions of people to airplanes and made them familiar with what they were. Howard Hughes was also a good filmmaker, because after this film, he wrote a screenplay about the life of Al Capone, who was alive at the time and a very famous gangster, and he named it Scarface, the same nickname given to Al Capone because his face was scarred from a knife wound, which we will soon make a video for you. Howard Hughes made the film Scarface, and it was ready for release in 1932, but Hollywood did not allow it to be shown because there was no censorship in this film. It was full of shooting, bloodshed, and violence. Howard Hughes went to sue Hollywood, saying that there should be freedom in America, and that he could make any film he wanted, and the court ruled in his favor, allowing the film to be shown everywhere. This film was met with great enthusiasm, and these two films by Howard Hughes caused a revolution in Hollywood. Those who mocked Howard Hughes for spending too much realized that spending paid off. They were no longer afraid to spend millions on a film, because if they produced a good film, it would return several times over, and from then on, Hollywood films surpassed those of Europe and Asia. Howard Hughes, with the revolution he started in Hollywood filmmaking, said, now let's start a revolution in aviation, so he returned to the aircraft industry. At the same time, he registered a company called Hughes Aircraft Company. His company's goal was to build the world's fastest aircraft. He built an aircraft called the H-1, which was ready after a year. The H-1 succeeded in flying at a speed of 566 kmh that year. You notice it was 1935, right? When Hughes returned to his workshop, he said, we've built the world's fastest aircraft, now we want to build an aircraft that can circle the globe in the shortest time possible, so they got to work. Howard thought to himself, if we want to build these aircraft from scratch, it will take a lot of time, let's buy a good aircraft and modify it for such a task. So they went and bought one of the good aircraft of the day, the Lockheed 14, and started modifying it to be able to take off from New York, circle the globe, and return to New York. It could land and refuel at certain places, but time was essential, and it had to be done in the shortest time possible. Howard's modified aircraft took off from New York, and after 16 hours, it arrived in Paris, which was the fastest at that time. They had to quickly refuel in Paris to take off again for Moscow. Reaching Moscow and refueling again, this time, it took off for central Siberia to land and refuel at a small airport. Then from Siberia to Tokyo, from Tokyo to Alaska, and from Alaska back to New York. This circumnavigation of the globe took 3 days and 19 hours, which was a very big deal at that time. Howard Hughes was seen as a prodigy genius back then, which he truly was. By 1940, World War II had started in Europe, and America was rapidly producing weapons to sell to the Europeans, but also for itself to be prepared. For this reason, Howard Hughes' company was told that they needed to design military aircraft for them. Howard loved these kinds of tasks. He said, sure, and started designing military aircraft from the morning. As we know, he thought ahead of his time, so the designs he made were mostly for aircraft that would sit on the water like a naval ship and take off whenever they wanted. He had designed some interesting ideas, but they didn't work with the technology of the day. He had even designed a submarine that would come out of the water and fly, something that still hasn't been built. Howard's age was slowly approaching 40, and this increase in age caused the obsessive gene within him to become stronger. As Howard's age increased, this gene became stronger. Howard was a busy man, with several sensitive companies that he thought about, and in his aircraft company, every aircraft that was built, he would say, I have to test it myself because others can't properly identify its flaws. All these responsibilities increased his stress, and as you know, stress fuels other troubles, so his obsession became stronger and stronger. We come to July 7, 1946, when an XF-11 aircraft was ready, and Howard Hughes wanted to test it himself. He took off alone with this aircraft, flying for 45 minutes without any trouble, but suddenly, the aircraft's engine went out. He was an experienced pilot, so he didn't panic and tried to restart the engine. On one side, Howard was trying to start the engine, while on the other side, the aircraft was descending lower and lower. In any case, he couldn't restart it, and since he couldn't find a suitable place to land it, he crashed into a sports building, and the aircraft immediately caught fire. Luckily, there were a lot of people there who helped pull Howard Hughes out, and since he was unconscious, they quickly took him to the hospital. In this accident, Howard had suffered a brain injury and a neck injury, and he was discharged from the hospital with a sore neck and severe headaches, and they only gave him three types of painkillers, codeine, valium, and empirin, three highly addictive pills. But at that time, it wasn't important, and they were a type of painkiller that people were given like water. You may not believe it, but these pills that Howard was supposed to take for a few weeks and then stop, he never stopped taking them until the end of his life. These pills not only ruined Howard's body, but also paralyzed his mind and fueled the fire of his obsessive disorder. He washed his hands with soap so much that they bled, but he still said, No, they're still not clean. It was during this period, when the percentage of his illness was surpassing the percentage of his genius, that he was turning from a genius into a madman. Of course, his employees said much earlier that he had gone crazy, and since he had no wife or children, no one could really help him. Of course, if you told him, You need help. He would say, No, everything is fine. Why would I need help? Howard Hughes was no ordinary man. He even had contracts with the US military, so they couldn't just abandon him. The FBI was watching him from a distance, and everyone said the same thing about him. They said he had become paranoid, suspicious of everything. He had many girlfriends, mostly from his Hollywood days, but none of them could tolerate him. As soon as they saw him, they wanted to run away, so his loneliness added to his problems. His life became more and more bizarre. For example, he would go to Hollywood, rent a cinema to watch different films, and not leave that cinema for four months, doing all his work there, and since he paid the rent on time, they didn't kick him out. Throughout these four months, he didn't even look for food, and the only things he ate were water, milk, and chocolate, which he barely ate. It was very strange for a man who washed his hands with soap for hours until they bled, to not wash his hands, take a shower, shave his beard, or trim his nails for four months in that cinema, nothing. Finally, he left the cinema, but he didn't go home. He went to Beverly Hills and rented a room in a hotel, and then went back to his obsessions on the other side. Meaning, he would shower for hours, and whenever he wanted to wash his hands, he would wash them for hours. During this time, he was taking those three painkiller pills. When Howard reached 60 years of age, those pills no longer satisfied him, so he not only took those pills, but also injected morphine. At this time, there was an airline called Trans World Airlines, in which Howard Hughes had a large stake. This company was the largest airline in the world at that time, but its owner was not paying any attention to what he owned. In any case, while he was at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 1966, they called him and said, And long story short, they bought his stake for $1 billion over the phone. A lot of money. $1 billion at that time was money that no one had. So Howard Hughes became the world's first billionaire. You might say, what about billionaire families like the Rothschilds or Waltons? You should know that they are families, but this was one person, like Elon Musk. There are many billionaire families whose wealth is higher than everyone else's, but among individuals, currently Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. And at that time, Howard Hughes had that title. Anyway, he took this $1 billion, went straight to Las Vegas. But don't think wrong, he didn't go there to gamble. Despite being ill and having various ailments, he was mindful of his money. So, he invested this money in various parts of Las Vegas. He mostly bought hotels. And interestingly, he bought a modest hotel called the Desert Inn and said, He lived in this hotel for a few years, but then he suddenly disappeared. They thought he was kidnapped. But after a few days, the news came that no, he had bought a hotel in London and wanted to live in a secluded hotel there. At the age of 67, because he had been using those harmful pills for 30 years, he could no longer walk. Three more years passed, and his condition worsened and worsened. When Howard reached 70, he felt the urge to return to his birthplace, Houston, Texas, to see a doctor and get treatment. He boarded a plane for Houston. The plane arrived in Houston. He got off. But after a few hours, he passed away due to kidney failure. A sad ending for an unparalleled genius. He had no wife or children. So who did this wealth go to? He had drawn up a will that stated, Give $1,560,000,000 of my money to charity for research on various diseases. He had bequeathed $470,000,000 of his wealth to the managers of his companies, those who had worked faithfully for him for decades. He had willed $150,000,000 to his cousin, with whom he was friendly. He had also given $156,000,000 to the rest of his cousins. $150,000,000 of his wealth remained, and he willed it to be given to an elderly gas station attendant in Las Vegas named Melvin Dummer. Now, was he his friend? No, he wasn't his friend. One day, Howard Hughes' car broke down in the Las Vegas desert, and this old man, Mr. Melvin, stopped to help him. Seeing that the car couldn't be fixed, he towed it for over 200 kilometers to Las Vegas. When they arrived in Las Vegas, Howard asked Melvin, How much should I pay you for this, he said. Nothing, it was on my way, and I brought you along. Howard replied, Thank you, but I'll make it up to you one day. And this $150,000,000 was compensation for the old man's deed. Now, in your opinion, was Howard Hughes truly a mad genius? Because that's what they called him. Please comment, and if you liked the video, please like and subscribe.