Would love to say Yes, but can’t
Branson tells 5 News that he would love to endorse Scottish independence, but the uncertainty for Scotland and the UK is too great:
The rogue in me would love to say yes but the pragmatic entrepreneur has looked at [it] and I firmly believe Scottish people should remain part of the UK but have a lot more powers devolved to them
A big risk is higher taxes choking any benefit from independent economic policies to create jobs:
There is enormous wealth pouring into Britain from overseas, a lot of great businesses setting up… and a lot of those tax benefits will not be forthcoming to Scotland. My wife is from Glasgow, my mother is from Edinburgh, they both said if we had done it 30 years ago they would have voted yes. But it’s doing it near the end of the oil flows and there’s just not enough assets for Scotland to fall back on.
Guardian interview
Branson talks to The Guardian about the failure of Virgin Cola:
When we took on Coca-Cola, we had a year in which we were really giving Coke and Pepsi a run for their money and we were very much the underdogs taking on the biggest giant in the world, and when they sent in their big tanks and to an extent crushed us, the public didn’t think any the poorer of the Virgin brand for it. In fact, I would say the Virgin brand was enhanced by the battle.
He doesn’t regret the venture:
The key thing is never to do anything which discredits the brand, like ripping off the public or doing something which you’d feel uncomfortable reading about. If you’re going to go down, go down fighting.
Branson: Stronger together
Branson says the UK provides strength against global uncertainty:
Do I think it would be the end of the world if Scotland was to leave the UK? No – people certainly won’t be losing their lives over it. But I do believe Scotland can have the best of both worlds by staying in the UK.
The referendum is in contrast with the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine:
We are very lucky that in the UK we are able to openly debate and that Scotland is able to democratically decide its future.
Branson’s wife is from Glasgow, his mother and grandparents are from Edinburgh, and he visits family in Scotland as well as Virgin’s Scottish companies:
On a personal basis I would love to see Scotland stay as part of the UK. As a businessman, considering Scotland’s economy, prosperity and security, I think it is imperative it stays in the Union.
Voting to #StayTogether means more power for Scotland, coupled with more security & strength as part of UK http://t.co/XCceQquFMa #IndyRef
— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) September 18, 2014
Launch delayed again
Branson hopes that Virgin Galactic will be ready for launch by early next year. Despite of the fact that the deadline has been delayed for close to seven years, the company’s developers are giving safety priority over deadlines. CEO George Whitesides:
Customers are eager to fly, but they know we’ll fly them when we feel ready. Obviously we want to do it as quickly as possible, but we don’t want to rush it.
Branson says on NBC’s “Today” show:
We’re now going through the final testing stages. We’ll be doing at least one flight into space before the end of the year. I’ll be going up with my son Sam ‘early-ish’ in the new year.
War on drugs is a failure
0 CommentsBranson is interviewed for CNN on drug policy:
It’s simple, rather than treating drugs as a criminal problem, it should be treated as a health problem. And it sounds so obvious. As a businessman, if I’d had a failed business for 50 years, I would have closed it down 49 years ago. But governments have gone on punishing and executing in some places in the world, people over the last 50 years. It hasn’t worked, and we’re urging governments to change tack.
There’s a difference between legal and regulated. And what we’re saying is that drugs very much should be regulated in the same way that cigarettes are regulated or alcohol is regulated. And on that basis, the interesting thing in Portugal is that they’ve taken heroin, for instance, and they’ve said, we’re not going to send people to prison for taking heroin, but what we are going to do is we’re going to have centers where people can go when they have a heroin problem. The state will supply the heroin. The state will supply the clean needles. And the people who come to get their fix must see a psychiatrist, and when they’re ready to come off, the state will supply help to get them off.
Richard Branson interview
Branson and Letterman discuss the upcoming Space trip on The Late Show with David Letterman.
You will know you are in space because when you unbuckle you can just float around.
Commission meets Ban about drug war policy
The Global Commission on Drug Policy supported by Branson meets Ban ahead of the UN’s 2016 session on drugs to lobby the group to adopt recommendations making drugs a health issue instead of a criminal one. The group including Annan, Zedillo, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Cesar Gaviria, Ruth Dreifuss, Michel Kazatchkine, Jorge Sampaio, and Thorvald Stoltenberg hopes the UN will alter ‘dated rhetoric and unrealistic goals’ set in the previous drugs session in 1998. GCDP report:
Punitive drug law enforcement fuels crime and maximizes the health risks associated with drug use, especially among the most vulnerable. Criminal drug producers and traffickers thrive in fragile, conflict-affected and underdeveloped regions, where vulnerable populations are easily exploited. The corruption, violence and instability generated by unregulated drug markets are widely recognized as a threat to both security and development.
Among other findings, it cites statistics showing that almost one in four Russian heroin users is HIV positive. Annan:
The facts speak for themselves. It is time to change course. We need drug policies informed by evidence of what actually works.
It also looks at death rates in the Mexican cartel wars. Former president Zedillo:
Decriminalization of drug consumption is certainly crucial but not sufficient. Significant legal and institutional reforms, both at the national and international levels, are needed to allow governments and societies to put in place policies to regulate the supply of drugs with rigorous medical criteria, if the engines of organized crime profiting from drug traffic are to be truly dismantled.
The recommendations are similar to drug laws that allow regulated cannabis sale points in the Netherlands, some states in the U.S., and recently introduced in Uruguay. They advocate banning crack cocaine and Krokodil, a class of Russian-invented synthetic heroin substitutes that users manufacture from red phosphorous from matchbooks, gasoline, and cough medicine containing codeine or even anaesthetic eye drops, and which cause skin necrosis and brain damage when injected.
Delegation allows for personal pursuits
0 CommentsBranson is interviewed for People Development Magazine, and says delegation is key to achieving personal goals outside of business:
I have been fortunate that over the years we have developed an incredibly strong management team to run the Virgin companies. This has allowed me to dedicate the majority of my time to Virgin Unite – the not-for-profit arm of the Virgin Group. Virgin Unite have incubated a number of organisations dedicated to tackling specific issues such as conflict resolution (The Elders), climate change (The Carbon War Room), ocean protection (Ocean Elders) and sustainability (The B Team). I would encourage anyone to try to engage with these organisations and be inspired by what they are trying to achieve. Go out and start something yourself that reflects what they stand for.
It also allows Virgin Unite and Virgin to have a strong digital presence as he is able to update his blog daily.
New York Times interview
Branson is interviewed for the New York Times magazine. On a Virgin employee who stole from him but later went on to discover Boy George:
We hire a lot of ex-convicts, and not one of them has reoffended. They’re just human. I messed up with the tax man when I was a teenager, and I was given a second chance then. If I hadn’t had that second chance, there wouldn’t be 60,000 people working for Virgin today. We wouldn’t be going to space in a few months’ time. Second chances should be allowed. But, I mean, not always.
He is not worried that the $250,000 ticket price for Galactic flights turns space travel into a luxury purchase:
Not at all. If you go back to the 1920s, when aviation started, it cost the equivalent of about $200,000 to cross the Atlantic. Over the years, the price has come down. You’ve got to start somewhere.
Wants meeting with Putin
Branson tells CNN Money that he has written an open letter to Putin and wants to meet with the president personally:
We all speak with one voice, and I must have spoken over 100 Russian businessmen, over 100 Ukrainian businessmen, and western businessmen, and every one of us are incredibly sad that the e dreams of what had happened when the Berlin Wall came down of the Russian people being able to trade merrily and go on the holiday with western peoples, with working together to sort out the bigger problems of the world, seems to be diminishing rapidly.
Intervention should be limited to sanctions:
President Putin, I think he needs to realize that Russian business people, and the people who have signed this document, you know, the biggest car manufacturer in Russia, the biggest dairy producers in Russia, the biggest supermarket chain, they are all self- made people who are very saddened and worried a about the way things are going. But the last thing that is needed is military intervention. And, you know, that should be a thing of the past. Further military intervention will result in decades, I think, of Russia being ostracized. It means that Europe won’t buy its fuel from Russia. The people of Russia will suffer, and that is not the answer.
Putin needs to regain the trust of the business community:
We need to get President Putin to feel not that Ukraine should be a part of Europe or Ukraine should be part of Russia, but that we should all be part of one world. I would be delighted to sit down with him and delighted to meet him and be delighted to see whether, you know, issues can be bridged, because they have to be bridged one day. And you know, today is better than waiting for tomorrow.
Wants diplomatic solution
Branson tells CNN that he and the leaders of 15 major companies including Unilever, PayPal, and eBay, want a diplomatic solution and to avoid a new Cold War scenario:
I just think it’s extremely sad to see in my lifetime the Berlin Wall coming down, and then a number of years later, all that hope seemingly disappearing. And I have a lot of Russian friends, a lot of Ukrainian friends, a lot of business leaders from both countries. And I’ve spoken with them, and they’re equally sad. And we felt it was important to speak out to beg our politicians to — through diplomacy to resolve this particular issue. And then, as quickly as possible, to try to get back to the normality that existed between Russia and Europe and the rest of the world after the Berlin Wall came down.
On whether the entrepreneurs will seek a meeting with Putin:
The first important thing that’s happening is that the president of Ukraine is meeting with President Putin next week, and let’s hope that something positive comes out of that. If that fails, then the group of people that we’ve put together, the group of Russian business leaders would be delighted to meet up with President Putin and see whether a compromise can be reached. The group of Ukrainian business leaders that we have onboard would be delighted to sit with the Ukrainian president. And I think we could use our negotiating skills, our entrepreneurial skills to reach a compromise.
On whether Putin is open to diplomacy:
I don’t know. I think that we would be irresponsible if we didn’t give it a try. And I think that he feels that when he got reelected, the West didn’t welcome him into office, that he was somewhat ostracized by the West. And therefore, he’s going it alone somewhat. And I think that whatever caused him to feel that, it’s up to the West, I think, to make it clear that we want Russia to be — ultimately, that we want Russia to be part of Europe, we want to be able to trust each other completely. And that’s what we’ve all got to try to work towards and try to put the last year firmly behind us and try to find a positive way forward.
Tried to persuade Saddam Hussein to resign
During a 45-minute question-and-answer Branson says that he, Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan were close to persuading Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to resign when the American bombing of Iraq began.
There had to be a better way to get rid of Saddam Hussein than having to kill and maim a lot of people. The after-effects of the Iraqi war and the fallout has been pretty horrendous for a lot of people.
Branson says his non-profit, Virgin Unite, wants to use The Elders, his group that includes Annan, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter, to bring an end to conflicts world-wide.
Obviously, everybody in the world must believe that conflict is no longer necessary in the world today. It’s up to organizations like The Elders to stop conflict from happening in the first place.
Winklevoss Radio starts
In their debut episode, the twins talk with Branson about the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur. Branson:
I think the most successful entrepreneurs are not the people who sit down and think, ‘how can I make lots of money’ … it’s the people like Larry Page who think, ‘I ought to be able to search for something. There’s no place I can do it.’ And they sit in their garage and they make a search machine.
Virgin Money lounges
Virgin Money plans to spend about 3 million pounds a year installing and maintaining lounges near its branches. The lounges don’t offer banking services but have Wifi, couches and grand pianos for Money and Northern Rock customers. The company says they increase sales at nearby Money branches by as much as 200%.
Statement on pilots
0 Comments
Branson publishes a statement about the two pilots of SpaceShipTwo. About Alsbury, the co-pilot who was killed:
Someone asked if I knew him. Sadly, I did not know him – because he worked for Scaled Composites – but I had had the privilege of shaking his hand briefly after he’d co-piloted SpaceShipTwo’s first powered flight and on that exciting morning in Mojave I had congratulated him on the achievement.
On Siebold:
I do have the privilege of knowing Pete Siebold, Scaled’s injured test pilot. Pete is Scaled’s director of flight operations and among the incredibly dedicated and talented team helping to realize so many people’s dreams of reaching space. We all wish him a speedy recovery.
Bitcoin sales
Branson confirms that Virgin Galactic has made several sales to customers paying with Bitcoin:
There are a lot of people who’ve made lots of money out of Bitcoin, we’ll accept their money and send them to space. We’ve had six or seven space tickets sold already.
He has invested in Bitcoin and supports the idea of a global currency:
I suspect if it’s not Bitcoin somebody like Square will be the people who come up with that currency.
Business can lead on gay rights
0 CommentsBranson tells USA Today that business can lead on gay rights:
For those of us in business who are not gay, it is sometimes easier for us than it is for politicians to speak up about this issue
The West is relatively gay-friendly:
What’s going on outside America in terms of the gay rights debate is far more serious than recent news about marriage legislation there. It is absolutely right to support that, but what we really need is the money that was going into the battles from the gay rights activists in the USA to now go into supporting gay rights around the rest of the world. In Uganda, for example, you risk life imprisonment for being gay or for even not reporting someone who is gay. In Russia, the treatment of gay people is abysmal.
How to start a business with $7
0 CommentsBranson answers a question for Entrepreneur from a Ugandan person looking to start a business with 18,000 Ugandan shillings, around $7:
If you’re looking to set up a stall to sell goods, the market research may be as straightforward as asking people in your community what they’d like to buy but are having trouble finding in local shops and stalls. As you prepare for launch day, you must ensure that you’re going to be nimble enough to cope with unforeseen problems and to take advantage of any valuable opportunities that arise. A stall or cart offers some advantages in terms of flexibility, because if you notice that a particular type of product is doing especially well, you can more easily transfer your energy and funds to developing that area of the business than a large company ever could. This may mean modifying your original idea.
Interview on Mandela
0 CommentsBranson tells CNN that Mandela’s family and friends can now move on:
I think everybody who knew him well is actually relieved for him and for his family, because he was having a very tough last two years. And now — now he can rest in peace and we can move forward.
Mandela wanted to make a difference and was angry when others didn’t:
So even when he stepped down from being president, and he realized that the new government weren’t addressing the problem of HIV and AIDS properly, he decided to speak out. I remember a wonderful concept, the 46664 concert where he got up on stage and told people in Africa, ‘Look, you’ve got to protect yourself. You’ve got to look after yourself.’ And he told governments, you know, you’ve got to help get anti-viral drugs, you have to save millions of people instead of letting millions of people die.
That led to The Elders:
And almost everything he touched he made the right decisions, and as far as his legacy is concerned, he did set up The Elders. He wanted — he didn’t want his life to be wasted. So he chose the 12 men and women that he felt had the greatest moral authority in the world, who could carry on his good works for many, many years to come (inaudible) that they felt strongly about and could also go in and try to address conflicts in the world. And so people like Archbishop Tutu, Kofi Annan, Mary Robinson, President Carter from America. You know, Lakhdar Brahimi is working on this Syrian crisis and so on. So an extraordinary group of people.
Accepts Bitcoin payments
Branson announces that Virgin Galactic is accepting Bitcoin:
The first ticket we sold was actually today was to a stewardess in Hawaii who made quite a a lot of money by getting into Bitcoin early on.
The company transferred the ticket price into dollars:
So there’s a fixed price … [and] we can actually pay her money back, if she changes her mind about going to space in a few months.
If Virgin Galactic didn’t have a refund policy, it might be willing to conduct a pure Bitcoin transaction.
