Entrepreneur interview
Branson tells Entrepreneur that Virgin Galactic is a new experience after previous ventures focused on industries that were already established:
First we’re taking people to suborbital space travel, then orbital, and then we’ll be able to put satellites into space at a fraction of the price it currently costs. One day, maybe even hotels in space–who’s to know? Whatever happens, it’s going to be ridiculously exciting. It’s the start of a whole new era.
Like other Virgin ventures, Galactic grew out of consumer frustration:
I thought when I saw the moon landing all those years ago that one day NASA would be able to fly me into space … soon it became apparent that government-run companies don’t have any interest in worrying about you or me going to space. They have other things on their minds.
He is spending more time focusing on causes like those promoted through The Elders group led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu:
A lot of my entrepreneurial skills now are spent in setting up not-for-profit organizations. We’re a little more secure now, so we do things a bit differently … I enjoy life too much to become complacent. I was on the phone this morning with the president of the Maldives–there’s been a coup there, and I’m trying to see if I can help him not get arrested. I’m in a position where I can make a difference and think I shouldn’t waste that. Life is far too much fun and interesting not to throw myself wholeheartedly into it, and I suspect I’ll keep doing so until I drop.
Globe & Mail interview
Branson tells the Globe and Mail that he wants brothels to be legalized, licensed and taxed, and an end to the practice of slicing the fins off sharks for shark soup and discarding the fish to die. He hopes marijuana sales will be legalized and taxed to fund social programs such as treatment centres for hard-drug users, and sees Portugal’s drug laws as an example:
In the last 10 years, they have not sent one person to prison for taking drugs and HIV infections have dropped by 50 per cent. They give out clean needles, they build treatment centres, marijuana use among young people has declined and society has saved a lot of money
San Francisco airport lounge
0 CommentsSan Francisco International Airport opens a yoga room as part of its upgrade of Terminal 2, which serves Virgin America and American Airlines passengers. The ‘Zen Room’ is said to be the first of its kind in an airport.
Hires ex-convicts
0 CommentsBranson encourages Virgin Group companies to hire ex-convicts, including inmates who are working towards release:
A lot of people end up in there [prison] because they’ve had a lot of bad luck in their lives.
At the invitation of Comic Relief creator Jane Tewson, he spends a day in a maximum security facility in Melbourne and meets representatives from the Australian transport company Toll, which has employed about 460 ex-prisoners over the past decade with no known reoffences:
As soon as I got back to England, I contacted the MDs of Virgin companies and said to them that we must do the same; to try to take on as many ex-convicts as possible … For people coming out of prison it’s a vicious circle. If they can’t get a job, the only thing they can do is reoffend. From society’s point of view that can be very painful.
Necker house fire
Branson’s house on Necker Island burns down in a fire as the area is hit by Hurricane Irene. Winslet is among the guests, and carries Branson’s 90-year-old mother, Eve, to safety after his son Sam alerts them to the blaze. Branson:
Around 20 people were in the house and they all managed to get out and they are all fine … We had a really bad tropical storm with winds up to 90mph. A big lightning storm came around 4am and hit the house. It took hold incredibly quickly, with flames 100ft high. It ripped through the house very quickly. Sam heard explosions in the main house and raised the alarm. He and my nephew Jack rushed to the house and helped get everyone out.
Kate Winslet, her boyfriend and her family were there and Holly and some of her friends were also staying. My mother was there and they managed to get her out and she is fine. The main house is completely destroyed and the fire is not yet completely out. My office was based in the house and I have lost thousands of photographs and my notebooks, which is very sad. But all family and friends are well – which in the end is all that really matters.
Joe Polish interview
ILoveMarketing.com podcast creator Joe Polish interviews Branson:
I’m not sure that somebody would know they’re an entrepreneur from the beginning, they’ll have a desire a difference to other people’s lives and they’ll see that something’s frustrating them, there’s a gap in the market and they’ll believe they can do it better themselves, and they’ll fill that gap in the market.
Ted Branson dies
0 0 reuben reuben2014-09-30 01:06:562014-09-30 01:06:56Ted Branson diesVirgin avoids dictatorships
0 CommentsBranson is interviewed for CNN on doing business with Egypt:
Business needs to stand up and be counted and, you know, start, actually start and you know trading with countries that are democracies and put our forces for good … As a business, we have no dealings in Egypt, so, you know, so it was just a — just to make that absolutely clear.
On the group that he promotes to allow Tutu, Mandela and others to address global conflicts:
I think that through the organization of The Elders that we’re involved in, they have spoken out against dictatorships and repressive leaderships over the last 10 years.
Business has a role:
I actually believe that business leaders should also play a part and — and we shouldn’t leave it to politicians to speak out … it is much better, I think, for business to trade in a democracy than it is under a dictatorship.
Virgin has stayed away from other repressive regimes:
South Africa is a good example. We had many opportunities offered us in South Africa under apartheid. We turned those down. The moment apartheid was abolished, we moved in with our airline. We moved in with financial service companies. We moved in with mobile phone companies. And I’m sitting in a beautiful game reserve and other ventures. And I think that if if business can support democracies, especially fledgling democracies like Egypt, when it opens up and becomes a true democracy, that will show other countries that democracy works.
Time interview
Branson answers questions from Time readers, including one on running an airline while promoting environmental causes:
I think it’s because I own an airline and I’m running a dirty business that I decided to do something about it. I could either sell the airline to somebody else and those planes would keep on flying, and emitting, damaging the environment, or I could pledge 100% of the profit of the airlines, which I have done, and which will amount to about $3 billion over the next few years, into developing new, clean fuels.
Tells SBS media are fair
0 CommentsNegus interviews Branson for SBS Dateline during a visit to announce Virgin’s Sydney-LA route. He says media have usually been balanced:
I think journalists have been pretty fair with me over the years and I can’t complain. I think we’ve built, hopefully, one of the most respected brands in the world and I think I’ve been treated fairly. Obviously, there are occasions when people write things I don’t like and I normally shoot off a letter and get it off my chest and then move on … I’ve never sued anybody yet, though there have been one or two occasions I’ve wanted to strangle one or two people.
His dyslexia and lack of formal education shape his business skills:
Yes, I mean, I – being dyslexic, you just have to do things perhaps differently than a normal businessperson, and I rely much more on gut feeling than I suspect most businesspeople. I mean, for instance, if I’m starting a new business I don’t bring in the accountants. I just decide, you know, that this particular business has been run dreadfully by other people and I feel I can do it better. And if I can do it better and create something very special hopefully we can pay the bills at the end of it.
He spends 60%-70% of his time on philanthropy:
I think the thing about capitalism is it’s an evil necessity, capitalism. Communism has been tried and failed, and socialism, that doesn’t work very well. Capitalism works, but the problem about capitalism is it does mean that a few individuals become very wealthy. Therefore, I think those individuals have enormous responsibility to redistribute that wealth either by creating new businesses or creating new jobs and making sure that money just doesn’t lie in a bank account for future generations.
Discusses Elders vision in O magazine
0 CommentsOprah interviews Branson for O magazine. On his philanthropy:
I’ve taken on quite a lot of major corporations and done well. Capitalism is the only system that works, but it has its flaws; for one, it brings great wealth to only a few people. That wealth obviously brings extreme responsibility … To sleep well at night, those of us who are in a position to help must address these [terrible] situations.
His parents helped develop his drive:
[Eve] spends a lot of time with the Berbers in Morocco, teaching them English … My parents travel with me wherever I go. They were with me at the first Elders conference in South Africa.
The Elders delegated Mandela to persuade Saddam Hussein to step down and live in Libya or Saudi Arabia, similarly to Ugandan dictator Idi Amin:
I talked to him, and he agreed to see Saddam if Kofi Annan [former secretary-general of the United Nations] would go with him and if South African president Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki gave his blessing. A week later, both agreed, but that same week, the bombing began. So the conversation between Hussein and Mandela never took place.
He hopes the group will continue to act:
I’d love for the Elders to still be around in a thousand years’ time. I want to see the group build credibility in the world. I’d also like them to address other major issues, like global warming, dwindling fish stocks, and the horror of unnecessary disease. For instance, AIDS should never have gotten out of control in Africa; it’s unforgivable that the world community allowed it to get out of hand.
O Magazine Interview
Branson gives his thoughts on founding Virgin Airlines:
I was young and inexperienced. At first I wasn’t even allowed to register the business name because the word virgin was thought to be rude. I had to sit down and, in my best 15-year-old penmanship, write a letter to the registry office that began, Surely the word virgin is anything but rude; it’s the opposite of rude. They eventually relented.
Discusses Virgin Records sale, energy, moon hotel
Beck hosts Branson on Honest Questions. They discuss the sale of Records to save Atlantic:
It must have been very strange for anyone to see me, because I was running down the street. And I just signed the Rolling Stones, just signed Janet Jackson. I just said good-bye to my staff and had a billion dollars in my pocket and I had tears streaming down my face. And I passed the Evening Standard sign on the side of the road, ‘Branson sells for a billion’ or ‘Branson makes a billion’.
Whether relying on oil is dangerous for airlines with alternative fuels yet to be developed:
Well, I’ve, in a sense, been in a dangerous business for 21 years. And we’ve obviously been through September the 11th. We’ve been through, you know, a tripling of fuel prices, and we just had to deal with these problems. And it is very important, I think, for all of us, not just airlines, but for the security of Americans, security of Europe, that we don`t just have this complete reliance on the Middle East fuel, that we actually — you know, that as soon as possible, that 50 percent, at least 50 percent of our fuel is alternative fuel. And that will not only help global warming, it will help farmers, it will — it helps everything.
Necker is planned to run entirely on alternative energy:
I mean, I’m very lucky enough to have a little island in the Caribbean. We’re in the process, within six months from now, it will be completely carbon-neutral. It will be powered from the sun and from the wind and from battery storage. And so it is important that, if you talk about things like global warming issues, that you do get your own house in order, and so I try to balance my books.
Galactic profits will be reinvested:
The money that we make from that, we`re putting into research into suborbital flights. And one day, we plan to have a Virgin hotel which will be just off-set of the moon, and we’ll have little two-man spaceships, which you’ll be able to go off for a day trip around the moon. And then we can program them so they’ll fly about 50 foot above the moon.
Life At 30,000 Feet
Branson speaks with Chris Anderson of TED about running businesses:
I think I learned early on that if you can run one company, you can really run any companies. I mean, companies are all about finding the right people, inspiring those people, you know, drawing out the best in people.
Virgin Airlines nearly took down the entire business empire:
I think that there’s a very thin dividing line between success and failure. And I think if you start a business without financial backing, you’re likely to go the wrong side of that dividing line. We had — we were being attacked by British Airways. They were trying to put our airline out of business, and they launched what’s become known as the dirty tricks campaign. And I realized that the whole empire was likely to come crashing down unless I chipped in a chip. And in order to protect the jobs of the people who worked for the airline, and protect the jobs of the people who worked for the record company, I had to sell the family jewelry to protect the airline.
At the time of the interview, Virgin has about $25 billion dollars total revenue and 55,000 employees.
London Business School interview
Branson answers a question on making meaning in a modern business world:
If you don’t survive you can’t make a difference in the world so for a number of years you shouldn’t worry about sorting out the world’s problems.
Anderson Cooper interview
Cooper interviews Branson for a segment on how disabilities can create success by developing different ways of processing information:
I was as a child dyslexic, not badly dyslexic but dyslexic had quite a lot of problems in school … The reason that I think people who are dyslexic seem to exceed quite well in life, having had hell at school, is that you do simplify things … Anything urgent I write on the back of the hand, so I keep everything pretty simple…Obviously someone who’s dyslexic you’ve got to try to get them as much help as they can from, you know, the people at the schools and other people who are specializing in dyslexia. But, you know, in the end I think, you know, the chances are that they may well excel in other areas.
Branson asked me to sing at Diana’s funeral
John tells Larry King Live that he was first asked to sing at Diana’s funeral by Branson:
Well, when I was initially approached to play at the funeral, which is, you know, kind of like a first at one of these state occasions — usually they’re very, they’re very meticulous in what they have as far as music. And it’s usually classical music, and sacred music, which it should be. And the music chosen for her funeral was beautiful. But when I was asked — approached by Richard Branson, if I would be interested in singing at her funeral, I said yes, but what? Should I write something new? Should I — I didn’t know what to do.
This led to the new version of Candle In The Wind:
And having watched the news and seeing the people lining up outside Saint James’ Palace, signing the books of condolence and then writing passages from the original song, Candle in the Wind, we came up with the idea of maybe … writing a completely different lyric, which would — appertaining to her, instead of using the Marilyn Monroe homage, which would have been completely inappropriate, obviously. So we decided to, as quick as we can, or as quick as we could, rewrite Candle in the Wind.
Wifeswapping destroyed marriage
0 CommentsBranson says in Losing My Virginity that his first wife, Kristen, left him due to experiments with open marriage. Branson and Kristen have dinner on his houseboat with Soft Machine band member Kevin Ayers and Ayers’s wife:
We soon found ourselves chatting on two separate sofas and then kissing. Then Kevin and Kristen went off to his bedroom while his wife and I stayed on the sofa. Kristen was successful. It was clear something amazing happened between her and Kevin that night. But I failed miserably with Kevin’s wife.
Ayers and Kristen start a relationship and move to Greece:
What had started as a harmless bit of fun ended in Kristen leaving me and moving in with Kevin.
Sexiest businessman
0 Comments
People features Branson as its sexiest businessman. His first wife, Kristen Tomassi:
[He] isn’t a ‘candles in the bathroom romantic.’ He’s more of an outrageous romantic.
He describes his second wife:
With Joan, I was searching for someone down-to-earth.
He says sex on Virgin Atlantic flights will be possible in five years:
[Virgin planes] are going to have Jacuzzis, showers and double beds
