WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.140 Okay, let's unpack this. If I say the words eccentric 00:00:03.140 --> 00:00:06.040 billionaire genius, who's the first person that 00:00:06.040 --> 00:00:09.060 pops into your head? Oh, today. It's probably 00:00:09.060 --> 00:00:11.179 Elon Musk, right? Right. For most people listening 00:00:11.179 --> 00:00:13.240 right now, it's probably him. Or, you know, if 00:00:13.240 --> 00:00:15.160 you're a comic book fan, maybe you're picturing 00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:19.440 Tony Stark, Iron Man. Sure. The playboy, the 00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:22.219 inventor, the guy who builds flying suits and 00:00:22.219 --> 00:00:24.859 dates movie stars. Yeah. It's an archetype we 00:00:24.859 --> 00:00:27.079 are all incredibly familiar with in pop culture. 00:00:27.260 --> 00:00:29.800 Exactly. But the thing is... When Stan Lee was 00:00:29.800 --> 00:00:31.760 creating Tony Stark, he wasn't just pulling him 00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:34.479 out of thin air. He was basing him on a very 00:00:34.479 --> 00:00:38.420 real person. A man who was, for a massive chunk 00:00:38.420 --> 00:00:41.100 of the 20th century, the most famous. And the 00:00:41.100 --> 00:00:43.060 richest. And the richest, yeah. And arguably 00:00:43.060 --> 00:00:45.799 the most mysterious man in America. We are talking, 00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:48.380 of course, about Howard Robard Hughes Jr. Howard 00:00:48.380 --> 00:00:51.270 Hughes. The name itself, it just... It has this 00:00:51.270 --> 00:00:53.490 weight to it. It really does. And usually when 00:00:53.490 --> 00:00:55.350 we think about him, the image is split right 00:00:55.350 --> 00:00:58.250 down the middle. On one side, you have the golden 00:00:58.250 --> 00:01:01.409 boy, the dashing aviator. The leather jacket, 00:01:01.530 --> 00:01:05.049 the gleaming silver plane, the guy Leonardo DiCaprio 00:01:05.049 --> 00:01:07.790 played in the aviator. That's the image. That's 00:01:07.790 --> 00:01:09.549 the one. And then on the other side, you have 00:01:09.549 --> 00:01:14.010 the shadow. The terrifying gaunt figure, long 00:01:14.010 --> 00:01:16.810 fingernails, locked in a dark room, wearing tissue 00:01:16.810 --> 00:01:20.670 boxes on his feet. The hermit. It's Iron Man 00:01:20.670 --> 00:01:23.569 versus the Recluse. And usually when people tell 00:01:23.569 --> 00:01:25.829 this story, they treat those as two totally different 00:01:25.829 --> 00:01:28.030 lives. Like there was the good Howard and then 00:01:28.030 --> 00:01:30.790 suddenly overnight he just flipped. Right. Like 00:01:30.790 --> 00:01:32.790 a switch was thrown. Yeah. But that's not really 00:01:32.790 --> 00:01:34.650 how human beings work, is it? No, absolutely 00:01:34.650 --> 00:01:36.849 not. And that is really our mission for this 00:01:36.849 --> 00:01:39.510 deep dive. We've pulled together a massive stack 00:01:39.510 --> 00:01:41.989 of biographies, flight logs, business records, 00:01:42.069 --> 00:01:45.469 and medical reports to answer one specific question. 00:01:45.709 --> 00:01:48.189 How do you go from a ticker tape parade in New 00:01:48.189 --> 00:01:51.310 York City? A hero's welcome. To dying of neglect 00:01:51.310 --> 00:01:53.950 in the back of a Learjet, weighing only 90 pounds. 00:01:54.209 --> 00:01:57.010 Because it wasn't magic. It wasn't a curse. It 00:01:57.010 --> 00:01:59.329 was a series of very specific, almost mechanical 00:01:59.329 --> 00:02:02.250 pivot points. A drill bit. a plane crash in Beverly 00:02:02.250 --> 00:02:05.909 Hills, a hotel suite in Las Vegas. We are going 00:02:05.909 --> 00:02:10.310 to trace the trajectory, the rise and the fall 00:02:10.310 --> 00:02:13.750 of the 20th century's most complex man, from 00:02:13.750 --> 00:02:15.870 the engine of his wealth to the engine of his 00:02:15.870 --> 00:02:18.090 destruction. And to understand the destruction, 00:02:18.229 --> 00:02:20.990 the movies, the planes, the madness, we have 00:02:20.990 --> 00:02:22.949 to start with the fuel. We have to talk about 00:02:22.949 --> 00:02:25.199 the money. Because Howard Hughes didn't just 00:02:25.199 --> 00:02:29.020 have rich kid money. He had like God mode money, 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:31.159 the kind of money that breaks the rules of reality. 00:02:31.379 --> 00:02:33.740 He absolutely did. And to understand where that 00:02:33.740 --> 00:02:37.780 money came from and why it was so endless, you 00:02:37.780 --> 00:02:39.919 have to understand a little bit about the geology 00:02:39.919 --> 00:02:43.740 of Texas in the early 1900s. Okay, geology. Let's 00:02:43.740 --> 00:02:45.759 do it. What's the context here? So back then, 00:02:45.860 --> 00:02:48.159 the oil boom is just kicking off. Spindletop, 00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:49.780 all of that. Everyone is trying to punch holes 00:02:49.780 --> 00:02:52.240 in the ground to get to the black gold. Right. 00:02:52.639 --> 00:02:55.620 But drilling for oil was incredibly inefficient. 00:02:56.159 --> 00:02:58.900 They used what were called fishtail bits. And 00:02:58.900 --> 00:03:00.800 you can imagine it's just a flat piece of steel 00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:03.259 shaped like a fishtail that just scraped at the 00:03:03.259 --> 00:03:05.060 dirt. Like trying to dig a hole with a shovel? 00:03:05.340 --> 00:03:07.400 Exactly. It worked fine for soft dirt or clay. 00:03:07.860 --> 00:03:11.740 But the moment you hit hard rock, granite, limestone, 00:03:11.879 --> 00:03:14.500 the really tough stuff, that fishtail bit would 00:03:14.500 --> 00:03:17.520 just grind to a halt. So it would break. You'd 00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:20.080 either ruin the bit in a matter of hours or you'd 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:22.389 have to stop. pull up hundreds of feet of pipe, 00:03:22.449 --> 00:03:24.889 and change it constantly. It was slow, it was 00:03:24.889 --> 00:03:27.590 expensive, it was infuriating. The whole industry 00:03:27.590 --> 00:03:29.469 is bottlenecked because they literally can't 00:03:29.469 --> 00:03:31.530 punch through the hard layer of the earth. Okay, 00:03:31.590 --> 00:03:33.990 so there's a problem that needs solving. Enter 00:03:33.990 --> 00:03:37.449 Howard Hughes Sr., our subject's father. He was 00:03:37.449 --> 00:03:40.250 a wildcatter, a gambler at heart, and he got 00:03:40.250 --> 00:03:43.229 frustrated. So he goes into his workshop and 00:03:43.229 --> 00:03:46.310 invents something completely different. He patents 00:03:46.310 --> 00:03:50.469 the Sharp Hughes two -cone roller bit. And mechanically, 00:03:50.530 --> 00:03:53.069 how is this different? Instead of scraping, it 00:03:53.069 --> 00:03:55.729 rolled. Imagine two rotating cones, almost like 00:03:55.729 --> 00:03:57.849 little pine cones, covered in hardened steel 00:03:57.849 --> 00:04:00.349 teeth. As the drill turned, these cones would 00:04:00.349 --> 00:04:02.590 roll over the rock and crush it. They would pulverize 00:04:02.590 --> 00:04:04.229 it. Yeah. Rather than trying to scrape it away. 00:04:04.430 --> 00:04:06.310 Oh, wow. So it's the difference between trying 00:04:06.310 --> 00:04:08.509 to scratch a hole in a brick wall with a knife 00:04:08.509 --> 00:04:11.949 versus using a heavy -duty hammer drill. Precisely. 00:04:12.250 --> 00:04:14.789 It could chew through solid rock at 10 times 00:04:14.789 --> 00:04:17.629 the speed of anything else on the market. It 00:04:17.629 --> 00:04:20.329 unlocked oil reserves that were previously impossible 00:04:20.329 --> 00:04:22.790 to reach. That's a game changer. It's a world 00:04:22.790 --> 00:04:25.509 changer. Yeah. But here is the real business 00:04:25.509 --> 00:04:28.360 genius. And this is the key takeaway for anyone 00:04:28.360 --> 00:04:30.980 interested in business models. Hugh Senior makes 00:04:30.980 --> 00:04:33.779 this incredible invention. But he makes a very 00:04:33.779 --> 00:04:36.339 specific decision. He decides he is never going 00:04:36.339 --> 00:04:38.839 to sell a single bit. He never sold them. Not 00:04:38.839 --> 00:04:41.360 one. Never. He only leased them. It was the original 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:44.240 software as a service model, but for heavy industrial 00:04:44.240 --> 00:04:46.860 hardware. So it's a subscription. It's a subscription 00:04:46.860 --> 00:04:49.740 model. If you wanted to drill for oil efficiently 00:04:49.740 --> 00:04:52.100 anywhere on planet Earth, you had to pay the 00:04:52.100 --> 00:04:54.180 Hughes Tool Company. And when the teeth wore 00:04:54.180 --> 00:04:56.430 down on the bit, You didn't buy a new one. You 00:04:56.430 --> 00:04:58.670 paid to lease another one from them. That is 00:04:58.670 --> 00:05:01.290 absolutely genius. It's a recurring revenue stream 00:05:01.290 --> 00:05:04.149 that just, it's scaled with the entire global 00:05:04.149 --> 00:05:06.850 oil industry. As long as the world needs oil, 00:05:07.189 --> 00:05:09.810 the Hughes family gets a check. It was a license 00:05:09.810 --> 00:05:12.930 to print money, a literal monopoly on a critical 00:05:12.930 --> 00:05:15.870 piece of global infrastructure. And when Hughes 00:05:15.870 --> 00:05:20.029 Sr. died suddenly, Howard Jr. inherited 75 % 00:05:20.029 --> 00:05:22.550 of this machine. And how old was he? He's only 00:05:22.550 --> 00:05:24.709 19 years old. Both his parents were dead by that 00:05:24.709 --> 00:05:27.850 point. And he suddenly controlled a fortune that 00:05:27.850 --> 00:05:31.110 replenished itself every single day. That's a 00:05:31.110 --> 00:05:33.550 dangerous amount of freedom for a teenager. I 00:05:33.550 --> 00:05:35.790 mean, most 19 -year -olds can't handle the limit 00:05:35.790 --> 00:05:37.870 on a credit card, let alone a global industrial 00:05:37.870 --> 00:05:41.050 monopoly. And the thing is, Howard wasn't interested 00:05:41.050 --> 00:05:43.550 in running a tool company. He didn't care about 00:05:43.550 --> 00:05:45.889 the board meetings or the accountants. He left 00:05:45.889 --> 00:05:49.310 all that to the suits. Howard was, at his core, 00:05:49.470 --> 00:05:51.750 an engineer. He was always a builder. Even as 00:05:51.750 --> 00:05:54.209 a kid, before the money, he was brilliant. The 00:05:54.209 --> 00:05:56.069 stories are pretty incredible. Tell me about 00:05:56.069 --> 00:05:58.790 the radio. At 11 years old, he built Houston's 00:05:58.790 --> 00:06:00.949 first wireless radio transmitter from scratch. 00:06:01.389 --> 00:06:04.370 He was ham radioing before it was cool. At 12, 00:06:04.629 --> 00:06:06.589 he was in the local newspaper because he built 00:06:06.589 --> 00:06:09.209 a motorized bicycle using parts from his father's 00:06:09.209 --> 00:06:11.569 steam engine. A motorized bike at 12, that's... 00:06:11.759 --> 00:06:14.360 That's seriously impressive. It shows that he 00:06:14.360 --> 00:06:17.019 understood mechanics intuitively. He liked systems. 00:06:17.220 --> 00:06:19.740 He liked things he could control, tune, and optimize. 00:06:20.019 --> 00:06:22.660 If you gave him a machine, he could make it sing. 00:06:22.860 --> 00:06:25.519 Which makes his move to Hollywood so fascinating. 00:06:26.100 --> 00:06:28.259 Because Hollywood is the opposite of a machine. 00:06:28.360 --> 00:06:31.180 It's chaotic. It's emotional. It's all about 00:06:31.180 --> 00:06:33.160 people. It's all about variables you can't control. 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:36.139 Right. But he takes that drill bit money, moves 00:06:36.139 --> 00:06:39.399 to Los Angeles, marries Ella Rice, they divorce 00:06:39.399 --> 00:06:41.750 four years later, and decides... I'm going to 00:06:41.750 --> 00:06:44.129 be a movie producer. And typical Hughes, he doesn't 00:06:44.129 --> 00:06:46.110 start small. He doesn't, you know, do an indie 00:06:46.110 --> 00:06:48.209 film. He goes straight for the biggest thing 00:06:48.209 --> 00:06:50.490 imaginable. He decides to make Hell's Angels. 00:06:50.629 --> 00:06:53.490 This movie is legendary. Released in 1930. It 00:06:53.490 --> 00:06:56.089 is. The production is legendary for its excess. 00:06:56.410 --> 00:07:00.129 He spent $3 .5 million on it. In today's money, 00:07:00.290 --> 00:07:03.089 that is an astronomical risk for a private individual 00:07:03.089 --> 00:07:05.649 to put up. It's a staggering amount. He wanted 00:07:05.649 --> 00:07:08.550 to make the ultimate aviation epic. So he actually 00:07:08.550 --> 00:07:11.550 bought his own private Air Force 87 vintage World 00:07:11.550 --> 00:07:14.490 War I planes. It's up with camels, Fokkers, you 00:07:14.490 --> 00:07:16.769 name it. He had more planes than most small countries. 00:07:16.990 --> 00:07:19.370 And this is where we see the first cracks of 00:07:19.370 --> 00:07:22.009 that obsession showing up. The perfectionism 00:07:22.009 --> 00:07:24.970 that goes beyond just, you know, good work and 00:07:24.970 --> 00:07:27.810 into something pathological. Oh, yeah. The cloud 00:07:27.810 --> 00:07:30.199 story is the famous one. He had all these planes, 00:07:30.379 --> 00:07:32.959 all these pilots on payroll, costing him thousands 00:07:32.959 --> 00:07:35.939 and thousands of dollars a day. And he stalled 00:07:35.939 --> 00:07:38.920 production for months. Why? Because the sky was 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:42.220 too blue. Too blue. He felt that against a perfectly 00:07:42.220 --> 00:07:45.139 blue sky, you couldn't tell how fast the planes 00:07:45.139 --> 00:07:46.939 were moving. There was no frame of reference. 00:07:47.060 --> 00:07:49.680 It looked static. So he needed something for 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:52.560 them to fly past. He needed depth. So he grounded 00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:55.240 the entire production, just burning money every 00:07:55.240 --> 00:07:57.800 single day, waiting for the right kind of clouds. 00:07:58.479 --> 00:08:00.980 ominous, fluffy cloud formations to give the 00:08:00.980 --> 00:08:03.360 shot a sense of speed and scale. He was trying 00:08:03.360 --> 00:08:06.680 to direct the weather. In a way, yes. And he 00:08:06.680 --> 00:08:08.879 was willing to put lives at risk for his vision. 00:08:09.060 --> 00:08:11.319 Three pilots actually died during the filming 00:08:11.319 --> 00:08:14.379 of Hell's Angels. That's insane. Hughes himself 00:08:14.379 --> 00:08:16.959 crashed a plane during the shoot and fractured 00:08:16.959 --> 00:08:19.459 his skull. It was a chaotic war zone, all driven 00:08:19.459 --> 00:08:21.930 by his will. But the movie was a hit. It was 00:08:21.930 --> 00:08:24.110 a massive hit. And that's the problem, isn't 00:08:24.110 --> 00:08:26.529 it? It validated him. It taught him the wrong 00:08:26.529 --> 00:08:29.569 lesson. If I spend enough money and if I obsess 00:08:29.569 --> 00:08:32.789 enough over the tiniest details, I win. And that 00:08:32.789 --> 00:08:36.289 obsession with detail, sometimes it was artistic, 00:08:36.389 --> 00:08:39.049 like the clouds, but sometimes it was just bizarre. 00:08:39.090 --> 00:08:41.929 We have to talk about The Outlaw. Ah, yes. 1943, 00:08:42.450 --> 00:08:46.129 the Jane Russell movie, famous for all the battles 00:08:46.129 --> 00:08:48.710 with the Hays Code censors. Exactly. It was all 00:08:48.710 --> 00:08:51.970 about Jane Russell's... Well, her costumes. But 00:08:51.970 --> 00:08:54.009 looking at the source material, there's an engineering 00:08:54.009 --> 00:08:56.330 story here that I find simultaneously hilarious 00:08:56.330 --> 00:09:00.049 and disturbing. The blouse memo. It is pure Howard 00:09:00.049 --> 00:09:03.220 Hughes. During production, he became fixated 00:09:03.220 --> 00:09:05.720 on a flaw in a blouse Jane Russell was wearing. 00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:08.240 He claimed the fabric bunched up along a seam 00:09:08.240 --> 00:09:10.200 in a way that, to him, made it look like her 00:09:10.200 --> 00:09:12.100 nipples were showing. And nobody else saw this. 00:09:12.179 --> 00:09:14.240 Everyone else on set looked at it and said, Howard, 00:09:14.360 --> 00:09:16.820 it's fine. It's just a seam. But Hughes couldn't 00:09:16.820 --> 00:09:18.399 let it go. It was a problem he had to solve. 00:09:18.600 --> 00:09:20.500 So he didn't just tell the costume designer to, 00:09:20.580 --> 00:09:23.059 you know, stitch it differently. No, of course 00:09:23.059 --> 00:09:26.039 not. He wrote a multi -page technical memorandum 00:09:26.039 --> 00:09:29.019 to the crew. He applied the principles of structural 00:09:29.019 --> 00:09:32.039 engineering and aerodynamics to a blouse. You're 00:09:32.039 --> 00:09:34.600 kidding me. He designed a cantilevered underwire 00:09:34.600 --> 00:09:37.919 support system, essentially a specialized heavy 00:09:37.919 --> 00:09:41.500 -duty bra to lift and separate the fabric so 00:09:41.500 --> 00:09:43.580 the scene would lay perfectly flat under tension. 00:09:44.269 --> 00:09:47.250 He drew diagrams. He is engineering a bra like 00:09:47.250 --> 00:09:49.470 it's a suspension bridge. It's that hyper focus. 00:09:49.970 --> 00:09:52.789 When he locked onto a problem, he couldn't distinguish 00:09:52.789 --> 00:09:55.110 between a major issue, like the script being 00:09:55.110 --> 00:09:58.049 bad, and a minor issue, like a seam on a dress. 00:09:58.490 --> 00:10:00.730 To him, every variable had to be controlled. 00:10:01.029 --> 00:10:03.090 So did she wear it? Jane Russell later said she 00:10:03.090 --> 00:10:05.129 never even wore the contraption. She thought 00:10:05.129 --> 00:10:07.250 it was ridiculous and uncomfortable. She just 00:10:07.250 --> 00:10:09.230 stuffed her own bra with tissue, told him it 00:10:09.230 --> 00:10:11.509 worked perfectly, and he believed her. Which 00:10:11.509 --> 00:10:13.409 proves it was never about the result. It was 00:10:13.409 --> 00:10:16.289 about the control. It was about him imposing 00:10:16.289 --> 00:10:19.350 his solution on the problem. Exactly. And that 00:10:19.350 --> 00:10:21.389 need for control works when you're building a 00:10:21.389 --> 00:10:23.669 radio at age 11. It even works when you're tweaking 00:10:23.669 --> 00:10:26.009 a trill bit. But it does not work when you're 00:10:26.009 --> 00:10:27.789 running a massive organization full of creative 00:10:27.789 --> 00:10:30.429 people. And that became painfully clear when 00:10:30.429 --> 00:10:33.570 he bought RKO. The RKO disaster is a case study 00:10:33.570 --> 00:10:38.370 in management by Paranoia. In 1948, he buys RKO 00:10:38.370 --> 00:10:40.429 Pictures. This was one of the big five studios, 00:10:40.610 --> 00:10:44.169 a massive institution. And he effectively destroys 00:10:44.169 --> 00:10:46.789 it. How bad was it, really? He fired 700 employees 00:10:46.789 --> 00:10:49.190 almost immediately. But not because of budget 00:10:49.190 --> 00:10:51.690 cuts or efficiency. This was the McCarthy era, 00:10:51.750 --> 00:10:55.370 the Red Scare. Hughes was virulently anti -communist. 00:10:55.409 --> 00:10:58.330 He shut down production for six months to personally 00:10:58.330 --> 00:11:00.710 vet the political leanings of the stagehands, 00:11:00.830 --> 00:11:03.049 the writers, the lighting guys. He turned a creative 00:11:03.049 --> 00:11:05.730 factory into a security state. Absolutely. Production 00:11:05.730 --> 00:11:07.970 just plummeted. They went from making 30 films 00:11:07.970 --> 00:11:10.929 a year to just nine. He was micromanaging everything 00:11:10.929 --> 00:11:13.230 from his hotel room, but he was also completely 00:11:13.230 --> 00:11:16.490 absent. He would disappear for weeks, leaving 00:11:16.490 --> 00:11:18.470 executives terrified to make a single decision 00:11:18.470 --> 00:11:20.669 without him. So the whole studio just ground 00:11:20.669 --> 00:11:23.960 to a halt. total paralysis he eventually became 00:11:23.960 --> 00:11:27.019 the sole owner the first person to solely own 00:11:27.019 --> 00:11:29.539 a major studio since the silent era and then 00:11:29.539 --> 00:11:32.139 he sold it amazingly he made a profit on the 00:11:32.139 --> 00:11:35.220 sale but he just wrecked the studio's legacy 00:11:35.220 --> 00:11:37.620 in the process again the drill bit money covers 00:11:37.620 --> 00:11:40.580 a multitude of sins he can run a studio into 00:11:40.580 --> 00:11:43.379 the ground and walk away richer but while he 00:11:43.379 --> 00:11:45.779 was playing tycoon in hollywood he was doing 00:11:45.779 --> 00:11:48.230 something else that he was actually undeniably 00:11:48.230 --> 00:11:51.070 good at? Aviation. He was flying. Aviation was 00:11:51.070 --> 00:11:53.409 his true love. And honestly, we have to give 00:11:53.409 --> 00:11:55.789 him his due here. He wasn't just a rich guy buying 00:11:55.789 --> 00:11:58.529 planes to look cool. He was a legitimately gifted 00:11:58.529 --> 00:12:00.830 pilot and a visionary aeronautical engineer. 00:12:01.070 --> 00:12:03.190 He founded Hughes Aircraft in a rented hangar 00:12:03.190 --> 00:12:05.450 in Glendale. And the planes he built. I mean, 00:12:05.470 --> 00:12:07.049 let's talk about the H -1 Racer. That thing is 00:12:07.049 --> 00:12:09.710 beautiful. It's a work of art. And technologically, 00:12:09.789 --> 00:12:11.970 it was years ahead of its time. He insisted on 00:12:11.970 --> 00:12:14.429 flush rivets, smoothing out every single bump 00:12:14.429 --> 00:12:17.070 on the wings to reduce drag. Every detail. He 00:12:17.070 --> 00:12:19.330 introduced retractable landing gear when most 00:12:19.330 --> 00:12:22.509 planes were still fixed gear biplanes. In 1935, 00:12:22.789 --> 00:12:25.230 he flew that plane to a new world speed record, 00:12:25.429 --> 00:12:29.950 352 miles per hour. And then, the big one, the 00:12:29.950 --> 00:12:33.289 round -the -world flight in 1938. This was his 00:12:33.289 --> 00:12:36.409 moment. That was his apex. He flew a Lockheed 00:12:36.409 --> 00:12:40.149 Super Electra around the globe in 91 hours. And 00:12:40.149 --> 00:12:41.850 he didn't just beat the record, he smashed it. 00:12:41.990 --> 00:12:44.809 The previous record was nearly eight days. Hughes 00:12:44.809 --> 00:12:47.129 did it in less than four. Imagine the stamina 00:12:47.129 --> 00:12:49.210 required for that. Just sitting in a vibrating, 00:12:49.389 --> 00:12:53.090 loud cockpit for four days straight with minimal 00:12:53.090 --> 00:12:56.230 sleep. It was grueling. But he came back a national 00:12:56.230 --> 00:12:58.629 hero. Ticker tape parade in the Candy of Heroes 00:12:58.629 --> 00:13:00.889 in New York City. He was the Lindbergh of his 00:13:00.889 --> 00:13:03.909 day, but richer, more dashing, and less controversial, 00:13:04.210 --> 00:13:06.250 at least at that point. He won all the awards, 00:13:06.409 --> 00:13:08.870 the Harmon Trophy, the Collier Trophy. The Congressional 00:13:08.870 --> 00:13:10.870 Gold Medal. But even then, at the height of all 00:13:10.870 --> 00:13:12.789 the applause, he was pulling away. He didn't 00:13:12.789 --> 00:13:14.529 even go to the White House to collect the medal. 00:13:14.710 --> 00:13:16.789 No, he didn't. He was already deeply uncomfortable 00:13:16.789 --> 00:13:19.429 with the public eye. But the real turning point, 00:13:19.549 --> 00:13:22.509 the moment that broke him physically and arguably 00:13:22.509 --> 00:13:25.289 started the real mental decline. was the crash. 00:13:25.570 --> 00:13:29.509 The XF -11. July 7, 1946. This is the moment 00:13:29.509 --> 00:13:31.809 the golden boy dies and the reckless is born. 00:13:32.009 --> 00:13:34.009 Set the scene for us. What happened that day? 00:13:34.230 --> 00:13:37.169 He's flying a prototype spy plane, the XF -11, 00:13:37.429 --> 00:13:41.830 over Los Angeles. It's a massive aircraft with 00:13:41.830 --> 00:13:45.169 these huge experimental counter -rotating propellers. 00:13:45.250 --> 00:13:48.549 It's fast. It's powerful. It's dangerous. And 00:13:48.549 --> 00:13:51.029 typical Hughes. He stays in the air too long. 00:13:51.480 --> 00:13:53.759 He's pushing the equipment, ignoring the flight 00:13:53.759 --> 00:13:56.779 plan, just feeling the machine out and then the 00:13:56.779 --> 00:13:59.960 machine fails. What went wrong? An oil leak causes 00:13:59.960 --> 00:14:02.139 the rear propeller on the right engine to reverse 00:14:02.139 --> 00:14:04.539 its pitch. Now, for the non -pilots listening, 00:14:04.700 --> 00:14:07.399 imagine you're driving a car at 100 miles an 00:14:07.399 --> 00:14:09.639 hour and suddenly the wheels on the right side 00:14:09.639 --> 00:14:11.960 start spinning backward at full power. It would 00:14:11.960 --> 00:14:14.340 just wrench you sideways. The drag is immense. 00:14:14.679 --> 00:14:17.440 The plane yaws violently to the right. He's dropping 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:19.340 out of the sky. And he's over Beverly Hills. 00:14:19.399 --> 00:14:21.460 This isn't an open field. He tries to aim for 00:14:21.460 --> 00:14:23.720 the Los Angeles Country Club golf course, but 00:14:23.720 --> 00:14:26.600 he's losing altitude too fast. He clips the roof 00:14:26.600 --> 00:14:28.700 of one house. He slices right through a second 00:14:28.700 --> 00:14:31.720 house. And finally, he crashes into a third and 00:14:31.720 --> 00:14:34.299 the fuel tanks explode. The entire neighborhood 00:14:34.299 --> 00:14:37.200 is in flames. It's a miracle he survived. A Marine 00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:39.200 sergeant actually pulled him out of the fire, 00:14:39.240 --> 00:14:40.779 right? Yeah. With a guy named William Durkin. 00:14:40.899 --> 00:14:44.139 Yes. But the injuries were horrific. I mean, 00:14:44.159 --> 00:14:46.860 just catastrophic. Yeah. His collarbone was crushed, 00:14:47.039 --> 00:14:50.600 multiple cracked ribs, his left lung collapsed. 00:14:51.080 --> 00:14:54.259 The impact was so severe that his heart was literally 00:14:54.259 --> 00:14:56.639 shifted to the right side of his chest cavity. 00:14:56.940 --> 00:14:59.720 Unbelievable. And crucially, he had third -degree 00:14:59.720 --> 00:15:02.960 burns over a huge percentage of his body. And 00:15:02.960 --> 00:15:04.779 this is where the pain comes in. This is where 00:15:04.779 --> 00:15:07.240 the chemistry changes forever. The opiates. This 00:15:07.240 --> 00:15:10.480 is the pivotal moment. To manage the excruciating 00:15:10.480 --> 00:15:13.659 pain of the burns and the broken bones, the doctors 00:15:13.659 --> 00:15:16.860 gave him codeine, lots of it, administered by 00:15:16.860 --> 00:15:19.639 injection. And frankly, he never stopped taking 00:15:19.639 --> 00:15:21.840 it. This is the beginning of a lifelong debilitating 00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:24.200 addiction. A pain never really went away. The 00:15:24.200 --> 00:15:26.279 pain never went away, and the drugs became his 00:15:26.279 --> 00:15:28.500 only way of coping with it. But even in the hospital, 00:15:28.679 --> 00:15:31.039 smashed up and burned, the engineer brain was 00:15:31.039 --> 00:15:33.600 still working. I love this detail. He didn't 00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:35.889 like... The hospital bed. No, he found it uncomfortable. 00:15:36.370 --> 00:15:38.549 The standard issue springs were putting pressure 00:15:38.549 --> 00:15:41.210 on his burns. So while lying there in critical 00:15:41.210 --> 00:15:43.490 condition, he calls in his plant engineers from 00:15:43.490 --> 00:15:46.049 Hughes Aircraft. He designed the bed. Of course 00:15:46.049 --> 00:15:49.370 he did. A burn bed, he called it. It was equipped 00:15:49.370 --> 00:15:52.029 with 30 separate electric motors and push -button 00:15:52.029 --> 00:15:54.129 adjustments to distribute his weight perfectly 00:15:54.129 --> 00:15:56.889 and alleviate the pressure points. He wanted 00:15:56.889 --> 00:15:59.129 to articulate it in sections. Did he ever use 00:15:59.129 --> 00:16:01.889 it? No. By the time they booked the prototype, 00:16:02.149 --> 00:16:04.659 he was already recovering. But it shows his coping 00:16:04.659 --> 00:16:07.139 mechanism for everything, even physical agony, 00:16:07.320 --> 00:16:10.740 was engineering. I can build a better dead. I 00:16:10.740 --> 00:16:12.899 can build a way out of this pain. And speaking 00:16:12.899 --> 00:16:15.259 of building things, we can't talk about Hughes 00:16:15.259 --> 00:16:18.519 without talking about the spruce goose, the H4 00:16:18.519 --> 00:16:21.360 Hercules. The biggest plane ever built at the 00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:24.720 time. A flying boat with a wingspan larger than 00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:26.419 a football field. And it wasn't even made of 00:16:26.419 --> 00:16:29.580 spruce. No, it was birch. But the birch goose 00:16:29.580 --> 00:16:31.669 doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? It 00:16:31.669 --> 00:16:33.450 was designed to carry troops and equipment over 00:16:33.450 --> 00:16:36.129 U -boat infested waters in World War II. But 00:16:36.129 --> 00:16:38.450 the war ended before it was finished. So everyone 00:16:38.450 --> 00:16:41.309 called it Hughes Folly. They said it was a boondoggle, 00:16:41.350 --> 00:16:43.750 a waste of taxpayer money. The Senate even held 00:16:43.750 --> 00:16:46.470 hearings. They said it wouldn't fly. So Hughes, 00:16:46.669 --> 00:16:48.629 to prove them wrong, takes it out into Long Beach 00:16:48.629 --> 00:16:52.149 Harbor, November 2nd, 1947. And he's just supposed 00:16:52.149 --> 00:16:54.429 to taxi it, just test the engines on the water. 00:16:54.610 --> 00:16:57.610 That was the plan. But Hughes, being Hughes, 00:16:57.769 --> 00:17:00.340 with... Reporters and senators watching from 00:17:00.340 --> 00:17:02.960 the shore. He throttles up. He lifts it off the 00:17:02.960 --> 00:17:05.660 water. It flew for one mile, about 70 feet in 00:17:05.660 --> 00:17:07.900 the air. Just to say, I told you so. Essentially. 00:17:08.079 --> 00:17:10.700 He proved the concept. It flew once and then 00:17:10.700 --> 00:17:14.460 nothing. He put it in a massive climate -controlled 00:17:14.460 --> 00:17:16.839 hangar. He paid millions of dollars a year to 00:17:16.839 --> 00:17:19.400 keep it pristine. He kept a full crew on payroll 00:17:19.400 --> 00:17:22.119 to maintain the engines, just waiting for orders 00:17:22.119 --> 00:17:24.640 that never came. It just sat there for decades. 00:17:24.940 --> 00:17:27.160 Control. He couldn't let it go. Exactly. It's 00:17:27.160 --> 00:17:30.220 hoarding. Just on a gigantic industrial scale. 00:17:30.420 --> 00:17:32.180 Now, while he's building these one -off marvels, 00:17:32.180 --> 00:17:34.660 he's also dominating the commercial skies. This 00:17:34.660 --> 00:17:38.000 is part four, the TWA era. Right. He quietly 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:41.500 bought up stock until he owned 78 % of TWA. He 00:17:41.500 --> 00:17:43.819 effectively owned the airline. And he used it 00:17:43.819 --> 00:17:46.599 to push for the Lockheed constellation, the Connie. 00:17:46.759 --> 00:17:48.579 The most beautiful airliner ever built, maybe. 00:17:48.799 --> 00:17:52.420 It's gorgeous. If you picture a glamorous 1950s 00:17:52.420 --> 00:17:54.980 airliner... With the triple tail and the dolphin 00:17:54.980 --> 00:17:57.779 -shaped fuselage, you were picturing the Constellation. 00:17:58.539 --> 00:18:02.519 Hughes dictated the specs. He made TWA a global 00:18:02.519 --> 00:18:05.180 competitor to Pan Am. But then the Gen Age hits, 00:18:05.420 --> 00:18:08.400 Boeing comes out with the 707, and Hughes... 00:18:08.890 --> 00:18:12.269 He freezes. He hesitated. He was obsessed with 00:18:12.269 --> 00:18:14.329 the idea that he could build a better jet himself 00:18:14.329 --> 00:18:16.950 at Hughes Aircraft. Or he wanted to negotiate 00:18:16.950 --> 00:18:19.490 better terms from the manufacturers. He just 00:18:19.490 --> 00:18:22.470 waited too long. And TWA needed jets to compete. 00:18:22.789 --> 00:18:23.990 They were getting killed by the competition. 00:18:24.410 --> 00:18:27.630 And Hughes wouldn't sign the checks. He eventually 00:18:27.630 --> 00:18:29.549 ordered some, but then he didn't have the cash 00:18:29.549 --> 00:18:31.349 on hand to pay for them because he refused to 00:18:31.349 --> 00:18:33.809 sell any of his TWA stock to raise the capital. 00:18:33.950 --> 00:18:36.470 It's that indecision, the OCD, making it impossible 00:18:36.470 --> 00:18:39.009 to pull the trigger on a big decision. The banks 00:18:39.009 --> 00:18:41.569 finally had enough. They sued him. They forced 00:18:41.569 --> 00:18:44.190 him out of management in 1960. It was a huge, 00:18:44.269 --> 00:18:47.690 drawn -out legal battle. And in 1966, he was 00:18:47.690 --> 00:18:49.930 forced by the courts to sell his shares. But 00:18:49.930 --> 00:18:52.430 this failure resulted in one of the biggest paydays 00:18:52.430 --> 00:18:55.170 in history. Oh, absolutely. Because the stock 00:18:55.170 --> 00:18:57.880 market was booming, He walked away with a check 00:18:57.880 --> 00:19:02.819 for roughly $546 million. In cash? In cash. In 00:19:02.819 --> 00:19:06.819 1966. That is an unimaginable amount of liquid 00:19:06.819 --> 00:19:10.059 cash. It's like having tens of billions in your 00:19:10.059 --> 00:19:12.640 checking account today. And he takes that money 00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:15.420 and he goes to the one place in America where 00:19:15.420 --> 00:19:17.940 an eccentric guy with half a billion in his pocket 00:19:17.940 --> 00:19:21.759 fits right in. Las Vegas. Part 5. The Penthouse 00:19:21.759 --> 00:19:24.470 Hermit. He arrives on a train. Yeah, in a private 00:19:24.470 --> 00:19:28.230 rail car on Thanksgiving Day, 1966. He moves 00:19:28.230 --> 00:19:30.509 into the Desert Inn. He takes over the entire 00:19:30.509 --> 00:19:33.150 top two floors. And the hotel is happy at first. 00:19:33.329 --> 00:19:35.230 I mean, who wouldn't be? But then New Year's 00:19:35.230 --> 00:19:36.970 Eve is coming up. Right. They need those suites. 00:19:36.990 --> 00:19:38.829 They want those high roller suites back for the 00:19:38.829 --> 00:19:40.970 whales, the big gamblers. So they ask him to 00:19:40.970 --> 00:19:43.740 leave. And he says. No, I'm not leaving. The 00:19:43.740 --> 00:19:46.420 insist? And he just refuses. So finally he calls 00:19:46.420 --> 00:19:49.799 the owner, Moe Dalitz, a famous former mobster, 00:19:49.839 --> 00:19:51.819 and he just buys the hotel. I'll just buy the 00:19:51.819 --> 00:19:54.420 hotel. That is the ultimate power move. And he 00:19:54.420 --> 00:19:56.599 didn't stop there. He looked out the window of 00:19:56.599 --> 00:19:59.619 his penthouse and saw the sands. So he bought 00:19:59.619 --> 00:20:02.140 the sands. Then the frontier, the castaways, 00:20:02.200 --> 00:20:05.059 the silver slipper, the landmark. He went on 00:20:05.059 --> 00:20:07.900 a buying spree. He effectively bought the Las 00:20:07.900 --> 00:20:10.319 Vegas Strip. And he had this vision, right? He 00:20:10.319 --> 00:20:12.539 wanted to change Vegas. He did. He wanted to 00:20:12.539 --> 00:20:15.960 get the mob out. He saw Vegas not as this gritty 00:20:15.960 --> 00:20:19.779 mob -run gambling den, but as a cosmopolitan 00:20:19.779 --> 00:20:22.700 metropolis, a place for the well -dressed man 00:20:22.700 --> 00:20:26.019 in a dinner jacket, as he put it. And in a way, 00:20:26.039 --> 00:20:28.299 he really did start the corporatization of Las 00:20:28.299 --> 00:20:30.579 Vegas that we see today. But while he's buying 00:20:30.579 --> 00:20:33.059 the town, he's disappearing. He's surrounded 00:20:33.059 --> 00:20:35.440 by this group of aides called the Mormon Mafia. 00:20:35.460 --> 00:20:37.640 What was that about? Well, it wasn't a criminal 00:20:37.640 --> 00:20:40.200 mafia, of course. Yeah. It was his inner circle 00:20:40.200 --> 00:20:42.519 of personal aides, and almost all of them were 00:20:42.519 --> 00:20:44.400 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter 00:20:44.400 --> 00:20:46.960 -day Saints. Why them specifically? Jews preferred 00:20:46.960 --> 00:20:48.980 them because they didn't drink, they didn't smoke, 00:20:49.180 --> 00:20:51.680 and they were culturally raised to respect authority 00:20:51.680 --> 00:20:54.450 and privacy. They were known for being trustworthy 00:20:54.450 --> 00:20:57.150 and absolutely loyal. They controlled all access 00:20:57.150 --> 00:20:59.210 to him. They were the gatekeepers to the void. 00:20:59.369 --> 00:21:02.730 And they had to deal with some insane requests. 00:21:03.069 --> 00:21:04.809 The ice cream story is my favorite because it 00:21:04.809 --> 00:21:07.430 just sums up the absurdity of his life at that 00:21:07.430 --> 00:21:10.490 point. It's a classic. Hughes decided he loved 00:21:10.490 --> 00:21:13.109 Baskin -Robbins banana nut ice cream. That was 00:21:13.109 --> 00:21:15.410 his flavor. He had to have it every single day. 00:21:15.569 --> 00:21:18.230 So his aides find out that Baskin -Robbins has 00:21:18.230 --> 00:21:21.039 discontinued it. Panic ensues. Naturally. You 00:21:21.039 --> 00:21:23.039 can't tell the billionaire, no, it's out of stock. 00:21:23.200 --> 00:21:25.559 Exactly. So they contact Baskin -Robbins corporate. 00:21:25.720 --> 00:21:28.259 They negotiate a special production run. But 00:21:28.259 --> 00:21:31.880 the minimum order is 350 gallons. That is a lot 00:21:31.880 --> 00:21:34.240 of ice cream. They ship it from L .A. to Vegas 00:21:34.240 --> 00:21:37.119 in special refrigerated trucks. They clear out 00:21:37.119 --> 00:21:40.049 the walk -in freezers at the Desert Inn. They 00:21:40.049 --> 00:21:42.289 are ready to serve Howard Hughes banana nut for 00:21:42.289 --> 00:21:44.390 the rest of his life. And then? And the very 00:21:44.390 --> 00:21:47.150 next day, a memo comes out from Hughes. I'm tired 00:21:47.150 --> 00:21:49.630 of banana nut. From now on, I only want French 00:21:49.630 --> 00:21:52.430 vanilla. Oh, man. So the hotel staff is eating 00:21:52.430 --> 00:21:54.710 free banana nut for a year. They had to give 00:21:54.710 --> 00:21:56.769 it away to guests for free just to get rid of 00:21:56.769 --> 00:21:59.789 it. But it shows the capriciousness. His whims 00:21:59.789 --> 00:22:02.430 were law. There was no feedback loop, no one 00:22:02.430 --> 00:22:04.940 to say, Howard, that's crazy. He also tried to 00:22:04.940 --> 00:22:06.900 stop the government from testing nukes, right? 00:22:07.059 --> 00:22:09.720 He did. The Nevada test site was nearby. When 00:22:09.720 --> 00:22:12.559 they set off an underground nuclear test, the 00:22:12.559 --> 00:22:15.420 shockwaves would shake the desert in. It rattled 00:22:15.420 --> 00:22:17.799 his windows. It disturbed his solitude. You didn't 00:22:17.799 --> 00:22:20.599 like that. So he tried to bribe both President 00:22:20.599 --> 00:22:24.240 Lyndon Johnson and then President Nixon. He authorized 00:22:24.240 --> 00:22:27.619 his aides to offer them $1 million each in cash 00:22:27.619 --> 00:22:30.289 to stop the testing. He thought he could bribe 00:22:30.289 --> 00:22:32.190 the President of the United States to stop the 00:22:32.190 --> 00:22:34.789 Cold War because his windows were rattling. When 00:22:34.789 --> 00:22:37.470 you have never heard the word no for 40 years, 00:22:37.670 --> 00:22:39.930 you start to believe everything has a price. 00:22:40.109 --> 00:22:42.769 You completely lose touch with reality. Speaking 00:22:42.769 --> 00:22:45.009 of the Cold War, this leads us to one of the 00:22:45.009 --> 00:22:47.269 wildest chapters in this whole story. The CIA, 00:22:47.589 --> 00:22:50.829 part six. This sounds like a Tom Clancy novel. 00:22:51.049 --> 00:22:53.750 It really does. In 1968, a Soviet submarine, 00:22:53.990 --> 00:22:57.150 the K -129, sank in the Pacific Ocean. It had 00:22:57.150 --> 00:22:59.329 nuclear missiles and, more importantly, code 00:22:59.329 --> 00:23:02.170 books on board. The CIA found it, but it was 00:23:02.170 --> 00:23:04.630 three miles deep. Way too deep for any normal 00:23:04.630 --> 00:23:07.769 salvage operation. Right. They needed a way to 00:23:07.769 --> 00:23:10.089 build a massive one -of -a -kind salvage ship 00:23:10.089 --> 00:23:13.190 and bring the sub up without the Russians knowing 00:23:13.190 --> 00:23:15.069 what they were doing. So they need a cover story, 00:23:15.349 --> 00:23:18.210 a plausible reason for a gigantic ship to be 00:23:18.210 --> 00:23:20.009 sitting in the middle of the ocean doing something. 00:23:20.130 --> 00:23:23.609 Exactly. And who is the only person on Earth? 00:23:24.220 --> 00:23:27.519 crazy enough and rich enough to plausibly fund 00:23:27.519 --> 00:23:30.980 a multi -billion dollar deep sea mining expedition 00:23:30.980 --> 00:23:34.880 for manganese nodules, a resource that might 00:23:34.880 --> 00:23:37.259 not even be valuable. Howard Hughes. Howard Hughes. 00:23:37.319 --> 00:23:39.359 It was the perfect disguise. Oh, it's just Hughes 00:23:39.359 --> 00:23:42.279 doing another weird project. Precisely. The CIA 00:23:42.279 --> 00:23:45.720 built the ship, the Glomar Explorer. Hughes lent 00:23:45.720 --> 00:23:47.759 his name to the project to give it legitimacy. 00:23:48.299 --> 00:23:50.720 He wasn't actually running the operation, but 00:23:50.720 --> 00:23:53.380 his reputation for eccentric, massive projects 00:23:53.380 --> 00:23:56.119 provided the perfect cloak of invisibility. And 00:23:56.119 --> 00:23:58.039 it worked. They actually recovered part of the 00:23:58.039 --> 00:23:59.940 sub because the Russians bought the story. They 00:23:59.940 --> 00:24:01.839 thought, it's just that crazy American billionaire 00:24:01.839 --> 00:24:04.819 again. His insanity became a strategic asset 00:24:04.819 --> 00:24:07.640 for national security. That is a profound way 00:24:07.640 --> 00:24:10.519 to put it, yes. His madness was the perfect camouflage. 00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:13.900 But while the CIA is using his name, the man 00:24:13.900 --> 00:24:18.779 himself, he's fading. Part 7. The tragic decline. 00:24:19.559 --> 00:24:21.880 We need to go into the dark room now. This is 00:24:21.880 --> 00:24:24.299 the hard part. The OCD we saw with the blouse 00:24:24.299 --> 00:24:27.480 memo in the 40s. By the late 60s and 70s, it 00:24:27.480 --> 00:24:29.640 had completely consumed him. He was pathologically 00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:31.980 terrified of germs. What did that look like day 00:24:31.980 --> 00:24:34.359 to day? He had these incredibly elaborate rituals. 00:24:34.480 --> 00:24:37.039 He would eat the same dinner every night. A specific 00:24:37.039 --> 00:24:39.839 cut of steak, a salad, and peas. But he would 00:24:39.839 --> 00:24:42.819 spend hours sorting the peas by size with a fork. 00:24:42.980 --> 00:24:45.299 He wouldn't eat the large pea. Sorting peas for 00:24:45.299 --> 00:24:48.039 hours. He also stored his urine in glass bottles 00:24:48.039 --> 00:24:51.180 and jars, stacking them in his room. Why? It's 00:24:51.180 --> 00:24:53.680 a hoarding compulsion. A fear of letting anything 00:24:53.680 --> 00:24:56.920 of himself go, perhaps. Or simply the inability 00:24:56.920 --> 00:24:59.630 to make the decision to dispose of it. And of 00:24:59.630 --> 00:25:01.349 course, he stopped cutting his hair and fingernails. 00:25:01.390 --> 00:25:03.309 And this wasn't just laziness. This goes back 00:25:03.309 --> 00:25:06.809 to the crash, right? The pain. Yes. Medical experts 00:25:06.809 --> 00:25:09.569 believe he suffered from allodynia, a condition 00:25:09.569 --> 00:25:12.849 where normal touch, even light touch, causes 00:25:12.849 --> 00:25:16.369 severe pain. This was likely nerve damage from 00:25:16.369 --> 00:25:19.470 the crash and the burns. So cutting his fingernails 00:25:19.470 --> 00:25:23.390 hurt. Wearing clothes hurt. So he just sat naked. 00:25:23.470 --> 00:25:25.890 He sat naked, often in the dark, watching movies 00:25:25.890 --> 00:25:28.869 on a loop. There was the famous screening room 00:25:28.869 --> 00:25:32.690 incident in 1957, even before Vegas. He went 00:25:32.690 --> 00:25:34.230 into a screening room and didn't come out for 00:25:34.230 --> 00:25:36.609 four months. Four months. Eating only chocolate 00:25:36.609 --> 00:25:39.109 and chicken, drinking only milk, and he was surrounded 00:25:39.109 --> 00:25:41.509 by stacks of Kleenex boxes. The Kleenex boxes. 00:25:41.589 --> 00:25:43.549 That's the iconic image. He used them to touch 00:25:43.549 --> 00:25:46.130 things. Yes. Insulation. He wouldn't touch a 00:25:46.130 --> 00:25:48.049 doorknob or a spoon without using a tissue as 00:25:48.049 --> 00:25:50.210 a barrier. He was trying to insulate himself 00:25:50.210 --> 00:25:52.069 from a world he viewed as dirty and dangerous. 00:25:52.740 --> 00:25:55.259 Meanwhile, he was injecting codeine intramuscularly 00:25:55.259 --> 00:25:58.119 all day. And because of the constant needle usage. 00:25:58.420 --> 00:26:00.539 When they did the autopsy later, they found broken 00:26:00.539 --> 00:26:03.079 hypodermic needles embedded in his arms. The 00:26:03.079 --> 00:26:05.119 glass syringes would break or the needles would 00:26:05.119 --> 00:26:07.000 snap off because his hands were shaking or his 00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:08.700 vision was bad. He would just leave them there. 00:26:08.920 --> 00:26:11.599 That is horrific. It's a level of self -neglect 00:26:11.599 --> 00:26:14.160 that is hard to reconcile with the man who built 00:26:14.160 --> 00:26:16.900 the constellation. And while he's in this state, 00:26:16.980 --> 00:26:18.480 people start trying to take advantage of the 00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:22.750 autobiography hoax. Clifford Irving. In 1972, 00:26:23.130 --> 00:26:26.029 this author, Irving, claimed he was co -writing 00:26:26.029 --> 00:26:29.250 Hughes's authorized autobiography. He produced 00:26:29.250 --> 00:26:31.650 handwritten letters from Hughes. The publishing 00:26:31.650 --> 00:26:33.710 world went nuts. Everyone believed it because 00:26:33.710 --> 00:26:35.730 Hughes had been silent for so long. But Hughes 00:26:35.730 --> 00:26:38.329 was listening. He was. And it forced him to break 00:26:38.329 --> 00:26:40.910 his silence. He arranged a teleconference with 00:26:40.910 --> 00:26:42.829 seven reporters he had known from the old days. 00:26:43.109 --> 00:26:45.670 And they broadcast his voice. He denounced Irving. 00:26:45.710 --> 00:26:47.809 He said, I don't know this man. It was a voice 00:26:47.809 --> 00:26:49.349 from the void. It was the last time the public 00:26:49.349 --> 00:26:51.779 really heard from him. And then? The end comes. 00:26:52.200 --> 00:26:57.019 Part 8, April 5, 1976. He is on a Learjet, flying 00:26:57.019 --> 00:26:59.619 from his penthouse in Acapulco to Houston for 00:26:59.619 --> 00:27:01.700 medical treatment. He dies mid -flight. And the 00:27:01.700 --> 00:27:03.559 description of his body, it's just heartbreaking. 00:27:03.900 --> 00:27:07.200 It's tragic. He weighed 90 pounds. He was 6 '4". 00:27:07.200 --> 00:27:10.500 He was completely unrecognizable. The FBI had 00:27:10.500 --> 00:27:12.220 to use fingerprints from his pilot's license 00:27:12.220 --> 00:27:15.019 application in the 1940s to officially identify 00:27:15.019 --> 00:27:18.380 him because his face had changed so much from 00:27:18.380 --> 00:27:20.660 malnutrition and neglect. And the cause of death. 00:27:20.880 --> 00:27:23.559 Kidney failure. His body just gave up. In typical 00:27:23.559 --> 00:27:26.720 Hughes, even his death was chaotic. No will. 00:27:26.900 --> 00:27:30.359 He died intestate, which for a billionaire is 00:27:30.359 --> 00:27:32.519 an absolute disaster. It triggered a circus. 00:27:32.920 --> 00:27:36.140 Dozens of wills popped up. The most famous was 00:27:36.140 --> 00:27:39.150 the Mormon will, which was found on a desk. in 00:27:39.150 --> 00:27:41.609 an LDS church office. This is the one that left 00:27:41.609 --> 00:27:43.769 money to the gas station attendant. Right. It 00:27:43.769 --> 00:27:45.670 left millions to a gas station attendant named 00:27:45.670 --> 00:27:48.309 Melvin Dumar, who claimed he once gave a hitchhiking 00:27:48.309 --> 00:27:50.690 Howard Hughes a ride in the Nevada desert. Which 00:27:50.690 --> 00:27:53.069 turned out to be a forgery. It was ruled a forgery, 00:27:53.170 --> 00:27:55.670 yes. The estate was eventually split among 22 00:27:55.670 --> 00:27:58.029 cousins he'd never met. But the real legacy, 00:27:58.309 --> 00:28:00.490 and this is the ultimate irony, is the Howard 00:28:00.490 --> 00:28:04.170 Hughes Medical Institute. HHI. They are huge 00:28:04.170 --> 00:28:07.470 today. A giant in medical research. They are 00:28:07.470 --> 00:28:10.299 a titan. But Hughes created the Institute in 00:28:10.299 --> 00:28:13.779 1953 primarily as a tax shelter. He gave all 00:28:13.779 --> 00:28:16.140 his Hughes Aircraft stock to the Institute to 00:28:16.140 --> 00:28:18.779 avoid paying capital gains taxes on it. He parked 00:28:18.779 --> 00:28:20.180 his money there to keep the government away. 00:28:20.380 --> 00:28:22.900 So he did it to stiff the IRS. Yeah, he did. 00:28:23.160 --> 00:28:26.299 But that tax shelter held onto the stock. And 00:28:26.299 --> 00:28:28.240 when Hughes Aircraft was sold to General Motors 00:28:28.240 --> 00:28:31.759 in 1985, the Institute got a check for $5 .2 00:28:31.759 --> 00:28:35.329 billion. It instantly became the largest private 00:28:35.329 --> 00:28:37.150 endowment for medical research in the world. 00:28:37.269 --> 00:28:39.789 So the man who died of self -neglect with broken 00:28:39.789 --> 00:28:43.309 needles in his arms, terrified of germs, inadvertently 00:28:43.309 --> 00:28:45.849 funded the research that cures diseases and saves 00:28:45.849 --> 00:28:48.150 millions of lives. That is the ultimate paradox 00:28:48.150 --> 00:28:50.349 of Howard Hughes. So what does this all mean? 00:28:50.450 --> 00:28:52.769 When we look at the drill bit, the planes, the 00:28:52.769 --> 00:28:56.390 movies, the Kleenex boxes, what's the big takeaway 00:28:56.390 --> 00:28:58.890 from this life? I think if we connect this to 00:28:58.890 --> 00:29:00.710 the bigger picture, it's a story about control. 00:29:01.279 --> 00:29:03.180 Howard Hughes spent his entire life trying to 00:29:03.180 --> 00:29:04.980 control everything, the airflow over a wing, 00:29:05.099 --> 00:29:07.420 the seams on a blouse, the skyline of Las Vegas. 00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:10.299 But he completely and utterly lost control of 00:29:10.299 --> 00:29:12.299 his own mind and his own body. It's like the 00:29:12.299 --> 00:29:14.759 money from the drill bit removed all the guardrails, 00:29:14.759 --> 00:29:18.059 all the feedback. Exactly. Most of us have boundaries. 00:29:18.619 --> 00:29:20.460 We run out of money, or our friends intervene, 00:29:20.680 --> 00:29:23.019 or we have to go to work in the morning. Hughes 00:29:23.019 --> 00:29:26.019 had infinite resources. The drill bit money allowed 00:29:26.019 --> 00:29:28.359 him to live without boundaries. And living without 00:29:28.359 --> 00:29:30.579 boundaries ultimately meant there was no one 00:29:30.579 --> 00:29:33.119 to stop his self -destruction. He could afford 00:29:33.119 --> 00:29:36.279 to indulge every paranoia until it consumed him 00:29:36.279 --> 00:29:39.539 entirely. It's a tragic lesson. Limitless freedom 00:29:39.539 --> 00:29:42.759 can become the tightest prison. And here's a 00:29:42.759 --> 00:29:44.779 final provocative thought for you to chew on. 00:29:45.099 --> 00:29:48.539 Hughes died a recluse, seen by almost no one 00:29:48.539 --> 00:29:51.900 for decades, a man who fled from the world. But 00:29:51.900 --> 00:29:54.000 today, if you take a certain life -saving medication, 00:29:54.200 --> 00:29:56.299 or if you benefit from a breakthrough in genetics, 00:29:56.559 --> 00:29:58.539 there's a very good chance that the fundamental 00:29:58.539 --> 00:30:01.359 research was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical 00:30:01.359 --> 00:30:04.380 Institute. So was his greatest contribution to 00:30:04.380 --> 00:30:07.339 humanity the one thing he did just to avoid paying 00:30:07.339 --> 00:30:09.539 his taxes? That is something to think about. 00:30:09.980 --> 00:30:12.460 From the spruce goose to the microscope. Thanks 00:30:12.460 --> 00:30:14.559 for listening to this deep dive into the life 00:30:14.559 --> 00:30:16.599 of Howard Hughes. We'll see you next time.