Howard Hughes

"Determination for what? After twenty years during which he has built the world's leading luxury group, what will be his model for the second part of his professional life? Does he see a future like Donald Trump, the American billionaire who is anxious and sensitive, to whom he has often been compared? Will he evolve like Howard Hughes, the brilliant aviator who ended his life cloistered, locked in fear and hatred of others? Or like Marcel Boussac, the man whose empire he inherited, the one he saw as a child from his father's 203, and who accumulated wealth only to lose it all in the evening of his life? At fifty-three, Bernard Arnault offers the example of total success. Decorated, adored, feared, he possesses everything, has everything and everyone at his disposal. But he still lacks the depth, the distance from himself, the tolerance, the relaxation, even the humor that are the hallmark of accomplished men. The exterminating angel still has to learn the taste of others."

"Howard Hughes developed close relationships in Washington through his role as a defense contractor. Hughes Aircraft received its initial entree to government work with the aid of Jesse Jones, a friend of Hughes’s father who was head of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation under Franklin Roosevelt.21 The president’s son, Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, also provided enthusiastic support for Hughes Aircraft’s efforts to win contracts during World War II."

"The facts, as Tex saw them after leaving Howard Hughes, were these. There was room in the market which Hughes had tapped for at least one more blue chip company similarly oriented in advanced technology, especially in electronics. Most of the smaller electronics companies that had begun rushing into the field would ultimately be eliminated or ab- sorbed; thus he must think from the beginning in terms of an enterprise capable of extremely rapid growth toward blue ribbon status. Such an enterprise could be created by the purchase of one solid, profitable company for a building block toward internal growth. Other companies could be acquired if necessary in order to buy time, which would be of the essence, but only if they were integral to Tex's master plan. A final fact of which he was certain, after his experi- ence at Ford and Hughes, was that the cream of executives, scientists, and engineers must be hired as rapidly as possible, and could be, not through high salaries but through the inducement of generous participation in responsibility, and in the fruits of potential victory via stock options. In sum, the market was there, in electronics and related technologies, with a tremendous growth potential, for a man who knew what he was doing and how to move fast."

"Gibbs discovered his favoured management technique when reading a biography of Howard Hughes, the American engineer, aviator and industrialist, who held on to great businesses and wealth while seldom venturing from his top-floor hotel suite. ‘He’d spend his time receiving detailed reports and writing notes on them,’ Gibbs says. ‘Everyone knew that Howard was watching what they were doing and that he cared.’ From his desk in London or at The Farm, Gibbs adopted the same principle, receiving regular reports from each section head and sending up to 20 faxes (and later emails) a day to key people on the team."