Passion, Power & Prescience

How enigmatic entrepreneur Howard Hughes blazed a trail for today’s business tycoons

- By Keith Gordon

Throughout American history, larger-than-life business leaders have come to exemplify, and often define, the eras in which they lived. Try imagining an America devoid of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s railroad and shipping empire of the 19th century, which not only opened the American West but helped create the very geographic layout of the nation we live in to day. What would America’s story look like if not for the role of Andrew Carnegie’s Carnegie Steel or John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil? Would Wall Street be the global center of commerce if not for pioneers like J.P. Morgan?

Howard Hughes holds a similar place in the American narrative, albeit one that has less in common with the business titans of yesteryear than with those who would inherit his legacy of entrepreneurship in the 21st century. While he is rightfully remembered for his impact on the airline industry with his purchase and development of Trans World Airlines (TWA), his activities extended to numerous other industries ranging from engineering to entertainment, corporate holdings to hospitality. When he died in 1976 he was worth nearly $11 billion in today’s dollars.

With Leonardo DiCaprio in the role of the eccentric billionaire, Martin Scorsese’s 2004 film The Aviator brought awareness of Hughes’ story to new generations of Americans. But perhaps underappreciated by the viewing public were the ways in which Hughes’ story was essentially a modern American tale, with striking similarities to the entrepreneurs and visionaries of today’s world.