Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy two, a young entrepreneur named Richard Branson
Speaker 1: turned his mail order record business into a brick and
Speaker 1: mortar store, which he named Virgin Records. Today, the company,
Speaker 1: which is now called Virgin Group, is much more than
Speaker 1: a record store, comprising more than forty companies that include airlines,
Speaker 1: financial services, communications, and even space travel, and Branson himself
Speaker 1: has stakes in more than four hundred companies ranging from travel, media, healthcare,
Speaker 1: and finance. Branson was knighted by Queen Elizabeth the Second
Speaker 1: in two thousand and continues to be a prominent global
Speaker 1: figure for his philanthropy and his adventure and marketing stunts.
Speaker 1: Branson was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in two thousand and
Speaker 1: continues to be a prominent global figure for his philanthropy
Speaker 1: and his adventure and marketing stunts, such as crossing the
Speaker 1: Atlantic Ocean in a hot air balloon and kite surfing
Speaker 1: across the English Channel. Branson recently sat down with Carlisle
Speaker 1: Group co founder David Rubinstein. They spoke on David Rubinstein's
Speaker 1: Bloomberg television program Peer to Peer Conversations. You've written two books,
Speaker 1: one is Losing Your Virginity and one is finding your virginity.
Speaker 1: And in those books you describe this incredible path, how
Speaker 1: you've gone from very modest meanings to this great wealth.
Speaker 1: When you started life, you were not a great um
Speaker 1: scholar as a young boy because you had a dysluxia.
Speaker 1: When did you realize you had dyslexia? And was it
Speaker 1: a problem for you early on? Ah? In conventional schooling terms,
Speaker 1: it was a big problem. I mean I would sit
Speaker 1: at the back of the class, look at the look
Speaker 1: at the blackboard, and it was just a jumble and
Speaker 1: uh and uh and you know the the you know,
Speaker 1: I was thought of as a bit lazy, a bit thick,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, or a mixture of the two.
Speaker 1: And if I was interested in something, and I generally
Speaker 1: excelled uh and And what I was interested in was
Speaker 1: what was going on in the world. So the Vietnamese
Speaker 1: War was going on. There was a general sort of
Speaker 1: sixties sort of uprising of students taking place, and um,
Speaker 1: so I decided to start a magazine to campaign against
Speaker 1: the things that I thought were wrong in the world,
Speaker 1: in particular the Vietnamese. This was when you're fifteen years old,
Speaker 1: so you dropped out of school at more or less
Speaker 1: fifteen or so, you start the magazine and as part
Speaker 1: of the magazine you get interviews with from prominent people,
Speaker 1: one of whom was Mick Jagger. Or is it hard
Speaker 1: to get an interview with Mick Jagger when you're fifteen
Speaker 1: years old? Do you know? I think in some ways
Speaker 1: if you're fifteen you have a better chance of getting
Speaker 1: interviews with people then if you're thirty or forty or fifty.
Speaker 1: And you know, I would, I would just turn up
Speaker 1: at people's houses and uh and you know doors stop them.
Speaker 1: And because I was young and and and enthusiastic, they
Speaker 1: generally took pity on me. Ultimately, you decided to start
Speaker 1: a record company. Um, where did you get that idea from?
Speaker 1: And where did the name virgin come from? Why not branch?
Speaker 1: And we were sitting, you know, fifty sixty years old.
Speaker 1: We were sitting in the basement with a bunch of
Speaker 1: girls and we were throwing out ideas and we got
Speaker 1: down to be the slip disc records because of the
Speaker 1: black vinyls that always had scratches and slipped or virgin.
Speaker 1: And one of the girls laughed and said, well, we're
Speaker 1: all virgins, and your virgin at business. Why don't you
Speaker 1: call it virgin and she get a finer's feed for
Speaker 1: that idea. I can't remember. If she's out of there,
Speaker 1: she can be delighted to give a one. But you know,
Speaker 1: but I mean, it's very fortunate because we've gone into
Speaker 1: so many different sectors, so many different businesses. We've been
Speaker 1: a virgin in all of these different sectors and slip
Speaker 1: disc air lines would not have. So you start a
Speaker 1: record company and initially it's a record as a retailer, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: we started actually initially it was a male order selling
Speaker 1: records much cheaper than anybody else had done. And then
Speaker 1: so we're the first people to sell records at a discount.
Speaker 1: And then there was a mail order strike for six
Speaker 1: weeks and so we went looking for a very very
Speaker 1: cheap music store in Oxford Street. Then you start building
Speaker 1: the virgin megastores, gigantic stores, and you had a lot
Speaker 1: of stores in UK and other places. How many did
Speaker 1: you have? At one point we had about three hundred
Speaker 1: megastores around the world, and all of all the main
Speaker 1: places like Times Square, Chanzas, Oxford Street. At the heyday
Speaker 1: of when you know, of when music was really all
Speaker 1: that young, people did before games, before mobile phones, before
Speaker 1: the other things, the younger people. The success was the virgin,
Speaker 1: name your self, promotion of it, or your shell things
Speaker 1: cheaper than other people. What was the virgin was synonymous
Speaker 1: with music credibility, so Frank Zapper or the Rolling Stones,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, so we had a very credible brand.
Speaker 1: And you know, one day there was a young artist
Speaker 1: came to me with fantastic tape and I took it
Speaker 1: to a number of record companies and none of them
Speaker 1: would put it out. So I thought, screw that, will
Speaker 1: start our own record company. And and uh and uh,
Speaker 1: and we we put it out on our own record
Speaker 1: company and and it was called Jubila Bells by Mike Oldfield,
Speaker 1: and it became a great success. So you have a
Speaker 1: record retail and company and a record production company in
Speaker 1: both called Virgin. Somebody drove drew a V for you
Speaker 1: to be your logo. We decided we needed a more
Speaker 1: a slightly hipper looking label, and somebody just came came
Speaker 1: up with this very simple signature. But then you decide, well,
Speaker 1: I need to start an airline. Um, where did the
Speaker 1: idea come from? It came from I was trying to
Speaker 1: get from Puerto Rico to the Virgin Islands. I was
Speaker 1: twenty eight years old, and I had a lovely lady
Speaker 1: waiting for me. And you went to the Virgin Islands
Speaker 1: because you liked the name Virginition exactly and actually that's true.
Speaker 1: And anyway, American Airlines bumped bumped us, and I want
Speaker 1: I had been away from this lady for three weeks.
Speaker 1: So I went to the back of the airport hard
Speaker 1: a plane. I hope my credit card wouldn't bounce, and
Speaker 1: I got a black board I wrote Virgin Airlines one
Speaker 1: ways to b B. I went to all the other
Speaker 1: people who were bumped, and I filled up my first
Speaker 1: plane and and when we landed in the b B,
Speaker 1: I the passenger next to me said, sharpen up the
Speaker 1: service a bit, and you could be in the airline business.
Speaker 1: And and I thought, okay. So the next day I
Speaker 1: rang up Boeing and said, do you have any secondhand
Speaker 1: seven four sevens for sale? We started with one second
Speaker 1: hand seven four seven against British Airways three hundred planes
Speaker 1: and pan M and t w Aree planes. British Airways
Speaker 1: launched a dirty tricks campaign against US, which and they
Speaker 1: did everything they could to drive us out of business,
Speaker 1: and we took them to court. We won the biggest
Speaker 1: damages in British history. It was Christmas time. We gave it.
Speaker 1: We distributed to all our staff equally and so we
Speaker 1: I think that every year they hope the British Airways
Speaker 1: will launch a dirty tricks campaign against us. People like
Speaker 1: the fact that you were against the establishment airline. And well,
Speaker 1: one time I read that new uh that the what's
Speaker 1: now called the Eye? I guess it's the big ferris
Speaker 1: wheel in London. The British air was supporting it, and
Speaker 1: they couldn't get it assemble and they couldn't actually get
Speaker 1: the thing to work. And you rented a sort of blimp.
Speaker 1: We actually had a little blimp company just outside London,
Speaker 1: and we scrambled the blimp and we flew over the
Speaker 1: over the Eye that was still lying flat on the ground,
Speaker 1: and they're all the world's pressed there to watch this
Speaker 1: I being erected and always said was you know, be
Speaker 1: a can't get it up on the side of the airship.
Speaker 1: So how did the newspapers were able? We we got
Speaker 1: we got we got the headlines they didn't. So it
Speaker 1: turned out pretty well and then you began building other
Speaker 1: companies and you always think that the name Virgin and
Speaker 1: your creativity could get them off the ground. Well, uh, again,
Speaker 1: the only reason we would go into a new sector
Speaker 1: is if we felt it was being badly run by
Speaker 1: other people. So the reason we went into trains was
Speaker 1: the government were running trains. British Rail was dilapidated trains,
Speaker 1: you know, a miserable service, and we just felt, you know,
Speaker 1: we could we could go in, We could get fantastic
Speaker 1: rail stock, we could motivate the staff, and we could
Speaker 1: make a big difference. And so we took over you know,
Speaker 1: the busiest line in Britain, the West Coast main Line,
Speaker 1: and we've gone from eight million passengers to nearly forty
Speaker 1: million messengers and and you know, I think transformed the
Speaker 1: experience for people. And you know, in every in every
Speaker 1: new sector that we've gone into, we we we've we've
Speaker 1: we've seen you know, a gaping gap in the market
Speaker 1: where the big guys have not been doing it very
Speaker 1: well and where we can come in and shake up
Speaker 1: an industry. How many companies have you started with the
Speaker 1: name Virgin? Is it a few hundred? By now it's
Speaker 1: it's an access of three hundred three hundred and everyone.
Speaker 1: Presumably it hasn't worked. A couple just couldn't have worked.
Speaker 1: So when you start them and they don't work, you
Speaker 1: just end them after a year or so or yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, but none of them have ever been filed
Speaker 1: for bankruptcy. We've been fortunate. We've never had a bankrupt company.
Speaker 1: And if something doesn't work out, well, you know, we'll
Speaker 1: we'll make sure that we settle all the debts and
Speaker 1: then move on to the next company. Is there something
Speaker 1: in your life you haven't achieved that you'd like to achieve.
Speaker 1: We've spent fourteen years working on on our space program
Speaker 1: and it's been tough, and and and and spaces space
Speaker 1: is tough. It is rocket starce and uh. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think we were on the verge of finally fulfilling
Speaker 1: fulfilling that dream. And you know, before the end of
Speaker 1: the year, I hope, I hope to be you know,
Speaker 1: sitting in a Virgin galactic spaceship going to space. You've
Speaker 1: got about two hundred thousand people were maybe more now
Speaker 1: that signed up. Um, are they still they're ready to go? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean actually signed up and and paid up. It's
Speaker 1: about eight hundred's a clash to pay up it's two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars, you know, I mean there are
Speaker 1: there's about fifty people watching this program would love to
Speaker 1: go to space, and there's about fifty who think that,
Speaker 1: you know, these people are mad? What on earth did
Speaker 1: they want to go to space? Four? But the market
Speaker 1: of people who want to go to space is gigantic,
Speaker 1: and and we hope to be able to, you know,
Speaker 1: to satisfy quite a few of those people. Think you
Speaker 1: can make a profit on this in the end, or
Speaker 1: is it really just a lot of doing this? So
Speaker 1: I never go into a venture with the idea of
Speaker 1: making a profit. You know, if you can create the
Speaker 1: best in its field, generally speaking, you'll find that you'll
Speaker 1: pay the bills and you'll make a profit. So the
Speaker 1: way as I understand it works, it's not like a
Speaker 1: rocket goes off. You have an airplane and attached to
Speaker 1: it as another airplane, and the one that separates goes
Speaker 1: in the outer space, is that right? The one that
Speaker 1: drops will then fire its rocket and you'll go about
Speaker 1: not to ten seconds. You'll be traveling at three thousand
Speaker 1: miles and our int into space, and then how long
Speaker 1: would you be in space under the ride that you're
Speaker 1: so the whole experience would be something like three hours.
Speaker 1: So will you be on the first flight. I'll be
Speaker 1: on the first official flight. We've got. We've got very
Speaker 1: brave um astronauts who effectually test pilots who are uh,
Speaker 1: you know, testing the craft time and time again and
Speaker 1: and ironing out anything that can go wrong before myself
Speaker 1: and members of the public going. So I'm sure it'll
Speaker 1: be shape. But one time, when you were doing hot
Speaker 1: air ballooning, you weren't sure whether you would survive with
Speaker 1: the ballooning adventures. I was doing something that that nobody
Speaker 1: had done before. I was trying to fly across the
Speaker 1: Atlantic or the Pacific, or go around the world in
Speaker 1: a in a balloon. I was flying at forty feet
Speaker 1: in the jet stream, you know, with one with one
Speaker 1: other person pay INSTRUANDU and uh and you know, the
Speaker 1: technology was completely unproven. There were we were the test pilots.
Speaker 1: That was more dangerous. Things could go wrong, and they
Speaker 1: did go right. And you said a number of Guinness
Speaker 1: World Records for that. But in hindsight, do you have
Speaker 1: any regrets about taking those risks on the hot air balloon.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. You know, my son and daughter now setting
Speaker 1: themselves big adventures every year, dragging their dad along on
Speaker 1: some of them, you know. And I think as a
Speaker 1: family we feel, you know, live life, live life to
Speaker 1: it's full and and you know you can, you can,
Speaker 1: you know you can, you can. You can die in
Speaker 1: a road accident, you can dine just a normal bike ride.
Speaker 1: And quite often when you're actually completely focused on an adventure,
Speaker 1: the it's less likely in some way that you're going
Speaker 1: to die in an adventure because you're you're you're ready
Speaker 1: and sharp and know how to deal with it. So
Speaker 1: you're very well recognized for all the things you've done
Speaker 1: around the world. Also, your hair and your gotee are
Speaker 1: probably well recognized. So did this always have you had
Speaker 1: a gotee most of your adult wife and your hair
Speaker 1: is always this length. I've I've been a hippie ever
Speaker 1: since i was uh fifty years old and uh and
Speaker 1: and I've had a beard pretty well ever since I
Speaker 1: was fifteen sixteen years old. So I shaved it off
Speaker 1: once when we launched a company called Virgin Brides, and
Speaker 1: I put my foot a bride a bridal dress on
Speaker 1: and and and anyway gave gave people a good laugh,
Speaker 1: and we found there weren't any virgin bride, so that
Speaker 1: business didn't succeed for very long. But then, or maybe
Speaker 1: it was the fact that I didn't look the most
Speaker 1: secy bride. So now you were a sir, you're knighted.
Speaker 1: Um did you ever expect to be a member of
Speaker 1: royalty and effect or knighted? We once put out a
Speaker 1: record called God Saved the Queen by the Sex Pistols
Speaker 1: on the Silver Jubilee, and and and then I found
Speaker 1: myself twenty five years later being knighted. And I was
Speaker 1: slightly nervous if she, if she had remembered the words
Speaker 1: on the record that that, you know, it would have
Speaker 1: been a slice, a slice of the head rather than
Speaker 1: a top on the shoulder. But she, she, she was,
Speaker 1: she she forgave us. Anyway. This wasn't done in the
Speaker 1: Tower of London, I guess. So fortunately it wasn't done
Speaker 1: in the Tower of London. For those that may not
Speaker 1: know about Neckar Island, so I understand it. In the
Speaker 1: late nineties seventies there was an opportunity to buy an
Speaker 1: island in the British Virgin islands. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: they wanted five billion dollars for this beautiful island. I
Speaker 1: thought I could scrape together about a hundred thousands. I
Speaker 1: offered a hundred thousand um. Nobody else, fortunately came to
Speaker 1: see the island. So yeah, later they said, if I
Speaker 1: make it a hundred and twenty thousand, we'd have an island.
Speaker 1: And I went. I went everywhere to borrow, borrow, and
Speaker 1: beg to get that hundred and twenty thousand, and and
Speaker 1: we ended up with the most beautiful island in the world.
Speaker 1: So you've built a house there, and there's also a resort.
Speaker 1: I mean, Necker has become it is our home. It's
Speaker 1: you know, a magical place, and you know, we have
Speaker 1: fantastic get together as the people, and sometimes you know
Speaker 1: conferences there where we where we try to you know,
Speaker 1: sort of sort out the problems of the world, or
Speaker 1: just people come on holiday into you know, you had
Speaker 1: booked the whole island. Barack Obama Michelle Obama managed to
Speaker 1: go to neckar Alon. He was good enough to invite
Speaker 1: me to the overall office for lunch about three months
Speaker 1: before he stepped down, and we had a lovely lunch.
Speaker 1: We're basically agree with each other on most most aspects
Speaker 1: of life. So I guess he was a nice house cash.
Speaker 1: Both of them and are abstutely delightful and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, we we had a fun
Speaker 1: competition and anyway, he beat me. He learned to kite
Speaker 1: and before I could foil board, and uh, and you
Speaker 1: know they yeah, I mean, it was a great privilege
Speaker 1: to spend time with them. And you've met a lot
Speaker 1: of great leaders. You've brought a lot of them together
Speaker 1: something called the Elders, which are people like Nelson Mandel
Speaker 1: and others who were great leaders in their time. You
Speaker 1: were very close to Nelson Mandela, very close. I was
Speaker 1: very lucky that for for ten years we we knew
Speaker 1: each other very well. And you know, so we set
Speaker 1: up the Elders, which twelve incredible men and women who
Speaker 1: go into conflicts and try to resolve conflicts. Um. And
Speaker 1: if you have, you know, conflicts, I think maybe the
Speaker 1: most important thing, because if you have a conflict, everything
Speaker 1: else breaks down. What is it that makes great leadership
Speaker 1: in your view? I think being being a really good
Speaker 1: listener is one of the key things. And I think
Speaker 1: when I when I sit around, you know, listening to
Speaker 1: the elders talk and elders meetings. UM. You know you
Speaker 1: you realize that you know why they've become elders is
Speaker 1: because you know they've spent their lifetime listening and absorbing
Speaker 1: and uh. And then you know only only speaking you know,
Speaker 1: you know, choosing their words carefully. I think, uh, loving people,
Speaker 1: I mean I think you know, a genuine love of
Speaker 1: a genuine love of everybody you know. Um. Uh and
Speaker 1: you know, looking for the best in people. I mean
Speaker 1: even you know, even if uh there there being a pain. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you can normally find the best in in
Speaker 1: pretty well anybody. So when you're a business and leader,
Speaker 1: If you're a business leader, somebody's watching this and wants
Speaker 1: to be Richard Branson for sure, Richard Branson. What is
Speaker 1: the key? Um, Surrounding yourself with great people, um, Learning
Speaker 1: to delegate early on, not trying to do everything yourself. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, making sure you've got the kind of people
Speaker 1: that are praising the team around them, not criticizing the people. Um.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh and you know, having people who are
Speaker 1: willing to um you know, to to really innovate, be
Speaker 1: bold and create something which everybody who works with the
Speaker 1: company can be really proud of now. One of the
Speaker 1: great things about your life, as you've had a terrific
Speaker 1: family life. You've been married for more than forty years.
Speaker 1: Where did you meet your wife? I met her in
Speaker 1: a recording studio called The Manner In which is the
Speaker 1: studio we had in the UK. Was it love at
Speaker 1: first sight? Er? It was from my point, It was
Speaker 1: just that she was making a cup of tea. I
Speaker 1: looked across the room and I was absolutely smitten. And
Speaker 1: then she was with with somebody else. I had to.
Speaker 1: I had to. I'm afraid, Chase said. And my nick
Speaker 1: nickname became tag Along because a friend who worked at
Speaker 1: Virgin knew her and I would ask her if I
Speaker 1: could tag along when when she was getting out to dinner.
Speaker 1: What worked out? And you have two children who you're
Speaker 1: very close to. I always think it's important if somebody
Speaker 1: successful can can do this while their parents are alive.
Speaker 1: And your father died a few years ago, but he
Speaker 1: lived to be a Uh, your mother is still alive.
Speaker 1: What was it like having your parents see your success
Speaker 1: and look at it was? It was wonderful to be
Speaker 1: able to share it with them, and my mom. You
Speaker 1: know that my first two hundred dollars that I've got
Speaker 1: to start my business. My mom found a necklace and
Speaker 1: went to the police station, handed it in and nobody
Speaker 1: claimed it, and she got to managed to set it
Speaker 1: for two hundred dollars, and that was, you know, that
Speaker 1: was the critical money that help help me start and
Speaker 1: which we've managed to sort of share. You know, this
Speaker 1: wonder wonderful life that I'd be lucky enough to lead
Speaker 1: with with them and and with my mother, we still
Speaker 1: do in the philanthropic world. What would you say is
Speaker 1: the thing you're most focused on in the philanthropic humanitarian area,
Speaker 1: were there's a little bit of a sort of serial
Speaker 1: philanthropists in the same way that you know, we just
Speaker 1: we were a serial entrepreneur, and and that I find
Speaker 1: it difficult saying no to projects that I feel are important.
Speaker 1: Did you ever think when you were growing up that
Speaker 1: you'd be wealthy enough to give away staggering some some money.
Speaker 1: I said that certainly never dreamed that that that you know,
Speaker 1: that the incredible dream of my life would would it
Speaker 1: would have actually happened, and that uh, and that that
Speaker 1: would one day be in a position to to make
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully make a difference. So many times people
Speaker 1: who become financially successful and otherwise we're well known, they
Speaker 1: seem to be unhappy for some reason. But you seem
Speaker 1: to be a very happy person, very content. Is that
Speaker 1: a fair assessment? Um, I just think it would be.
Speaker 1: I'd be a very sad person if I wasn't a
Speaker 1: very happy person. I mean, I've been blessed to have
Speaker 1: a absolutely lovely, lovely lady. Were complete opposites, but you
Speaker 1: know we get on great. Um, you know, blessed to
Speaker 1: have been together most of our lives, blessed to have
Speaker 1: wonderful children, wonderful grandchildren and h And every day I'm learning,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean I didn't I see life as
Speaker 1: the one long university education I never had. I'm learning
Speaker 1: something new from you know, getting out there, listening to people,
Speaker 1: and and you know, I've scribbled everything down and and
Speaker 1: I feel like I am a perpetual student. Let me
Speaker 1: ask you a question I've asked Bill Gates. Do you
Speaker 1: think you could have been more successful in life if
Speaker 1: you had a university degree? Obviously it couldn't be more successful.
Speaker 1: And no, I I mean the age forty, I turned
Speaker 1: to my wife and said, I think I might give
Speaker 1: everything up and go to university. And she turned to
Speaker 1: me and said, you just want to go and chat
Speaker 1: up those young ladies at the university. You go straight
Speaker 1: back to work. And it was good advice.