The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Richard Branson: How A Dyslexic Drop-out Built A Billion Dollar Empire

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Told at school that he would either be successful or in prison, with a value of over $3 BILLION and earth’s atmosphere the only thing trapping him (for now), it’s an understatement to say that Sir Richard Branson became a success. But behind the Virgin empire and its global offshoots, lies a dyslexic school leaver who never saw himself as intelligent, let alone a business person, who threw caution and conventional wisdom to the wind, transforming from business Virgin to visionary. In this invaluable conversation, Richard shares the riches of his hard won lessons and the wisdom that can only come from an exceptional life. For all fans of The Diary Of A CEO podcast, this is truly a life changing conversation. Richard: http://bit.ly/3FHqy48 http://bit.ly/3VTvAjJ Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. You do think about, is it is it worth it is it something so um sir richard branson richard branson is one of the most fun-loving and adventurous billionaires in the world he's conquered our skies, blasted off into space. The entrepreneur's entrepreneur, the marketer's marketer. In the school of business, they said focus. By the age of 33, you've got 50 different companies. You kind of break that law, it seems. If we'd stayed still and only focused on one business, we wouldn't have a business today. We're still going strong

55 years later. If you get the little details right, makes for an exceptional company over an average company. We were the first airline to introduce seatback videos in the world, sleeper seats for business class passengers. We've always been ahead of the pack. The airline's been bullied by British Airways, famously through the Dirty Tricks campaign. The best always succeeds. As if all that you'd done before wasn't enough, you decided to aim for the stars. We're going to space. Looking back at this beautiful, beautiful Earth that we live on whilst floating, it was a dream come true. You know, we're still at the early stage of space travel and there's still risks. One pilot has died after a passenger spaceship crashed.

Everything that we'd built up looked like it was crashing down. What impact does that have on you and your mission? You've got to continue. Richard, having spent the last 24 hours reading both your autobiographies but also your new HBO docu-series, it feels very relevant to start where I usually start when I have these conversations which is, can you tell me the context that I would need to understand about you in your earliest years, your home life, the age of 10, that went on to making you the man that I saw in that document series, but the man that we've also observed and been inspired by for many decades.

So I was brought up in the countryside. I love the country. And I was brought up by a mum and dad who, I suppose, were struggling after the Second World War. A mother who was a fairly extraordinary woman who was absolutely determined that we'd stand on our own two feet, wouldn't let us watch television, you know, made sure that we were outside doing things or creating things. And, you know, I've been forever grateful for that approach. And on occasion, she would maybe go a little bit far,

pushing us out of the car at age five or six and making us find our own way to Granny's house. But anyway, we survived all her approach and hopefully are the stronger for it. Throughout your docu-series, but also throughout your books and everything that I've heard you talk about Eve, your mother, she felt like a really, really extraordinarily principled and strong character. And in the docu-series, you actually say that you didn't realize how much she had influenced you on becoming the entrepreneur you are today. What was it that she was doing? Pushing you out of the car at five years old and making you walk home.

But what were those principles that underlined her approach? So, I mean, she was one of the sort of first entrepreneurs around, really. I mean, not a particularly successful one, but she was making table mats and cutting out pretty pictures from books and turning them into pictures that you then take to Harrods or Harvey Nichols. Interestingly, and I didn't realize this until I saw it in some letters that she'd written to me, you know, working from a phone box in London.

And that was her office, just like my office had been later on, working from a phone box at school um but um uh yeah but so she she would never stop she she was an idea idea a minute um always trying to uh uh you know better better our lives better and um and also always trying to create things that she could be proud of. When was she most proud of you in terms of what kind of behaviours or achievements would make her most happy when you were young? yeah she was she was um fairly uh yeah uh yeah she she was she was fairly firm when it came to you know the need for um you know being courteous um from a young age and i mean i remember uh uh in church one day i refused to go and sit sit next to somebody that she wanted me to sit next to,

who was maybe visiting our house. And when I got home, she asked my dad to spank me. And that had never happened before. And my dad takes me into the next door room and instructs me to burst into tears. And he slaps his hands together very hard six times. I come out rubbing my bum. But, and then of course she regretted having done it in the first place,

but of course it never happens. They, but, but that, you know, that, you know, she, she, you know she generally speaking it was unreserved love but she wanted us to care for other people properly you know if we ever said ill about somebody we'd be sent to the mirror and

we'd have to stand there for 10 minutes because it she felt it reflected so badly on us that we'd have to stand there for 10 minutes because it you know she felt it reflected so badly on us that we'd said ill of somebody and you know those sort of lessons I think were very very very powerful and very good later on in life when I was you know leading people always trying to look for the best in everybody. One of the threads throughout your story which shocked me surprised me and inspired me in many ways throughout the docu-series was this continual desire to move on to the next thing and make things bigger and to capture another

opportunity, which struck me as being at times like really defining character of you. You know, even when things seem to be successful by anyone's estimation, you pushed on again, and then you'd push on again and again. Do you have any idea where that instinct or that characteristic came from in you? I'm sure that came from my mum. I am son of Eve, which is my mum's name. But it's also, I think, because I was dyslexic and pretty hopeless at school, I've forever been trying to prove something to myself and prove something when she was alive to her and my dad.

And I'm inquisitive i just love i love learning about new things um uh and once i've actually absorbed everything there is to know about you know the uh the thing i've just created i'm apt to want to move on and learn something about something completely different, particularly if I feel other people are not doing it well. And so I just love diving in there and trying to, you know, shake up an industry that is badly run. Do you think she and your father, even your father, Ted, had high hopes for you?

I think that my mum definitely thought that I would be, yeah, she decided that I was going to be Prime Minister of Britain one day. And I think that, yeah, so she definitely had high hopes for me. My dad just wanted us to be happy.

I mean, he was a very lovable, content, funny, witty individual. Wanted to be an archaeologist, but ended up going into the law after the war, and would have been happy, I think, as long as we were happy. He didn't mind, he didn't really want to push us, but my mum, I think, expected more of us. You mentioned school a few moments ago. You and me both have a similarity in that we were hopeless in school. You went off to boarding school at seven years old, which in and of itself is a pretty extreme

experience for a seven-year-old. You described this as being a little bit too young in your view. And you struggled, in part because of your dyslexia. At the time, did you know what dyslexia was or what it meant? No, I had no idea what dyslexia was. I just assumed that I must be a little bit thick. I mean, I could just about add up and subtract. But when it got to more complicated stuff like algebra and geometry and the likes, I couldn't understand the reason for it. I wasn't interested in it.

I couldn't understand why we were having to learn French when nobody seemed to ever actually speak it when they left school, or Latin. And so I suppose in my head I rebelled against being taught things that I couldn't see the relevance of. And, and actually, that was a good thing, because it ended with me rebelling from actually staying at school and leaving school at 15. And, and creating some, and creating a magazine uh which um to try to sort of uh address some of the issues in the world your dyslexia um you've often highlighted that in many respects it's been a superpower it's

given you skills that have led to your success what what is that what are those skills and what is the advantage in your view of this dyslexia and how that's changed how you function and operate? I think that, well, first of all, I would like to say I'm proud of being a dyslexic thinker. And I'm delighted that dyslexic thinking is now becoming almost part of the vocabulary. And I'm pleased to, you know, talk to many dyslexic kids over the years to try to make them realize that. Do not be worried about it. Look at the areas that you enjoy and concentrate on those and the areas that you're not great at,

you know, either you'll catch up later on in life or, you know, if you're going to start a business, you can delegate and find other people who can deal with those. So I think dyslexic people really excel at the things that interest them. And I think I know a lot of business people, for instance, who are dyslexics who have gone on to do incredible things.

Your headmaster, I read the very slightly humorous, slightly shocking story of when you're at boarding school, you had a little bit of a romantic run-in with his daughter Charlotte, got expelled, staged a fake suicide, got unexpelled. And then you, as you referenced a second ago, you had this idea for the student magazine. I read that there was an ultimatum given to you by your headmaster where he said, Richard, I know you're starting this magazine. You're either got to leave school or, um, and start the magazine or stay in school and focus on your formal education. And at that point you made the decision to jump ship. Yeah. I mean, I, I don't think the headmaster was very foresighted. I think, you know, if a kid at school wants to start a national magazine for young people,

what a great education. And they should have welcomed us to stay at school and do it, you know, from school. But the headmaster wasn't going to allow me to do that. And thank God, because, you know, getting out into the real world, I achieved a lot more than I would have done if he'd been pleasant and said, you know, run the magazine from school. There was a lot going on in the world. You know, there was the Vietnamese War, there was the Biafran War, there were the provosts in Holland, there was the education system that needed students to rebel against. And so it was an exciting time in the 60s to leave school, go to London, um, and, um, try to start a magazine. I watched your, um, as I watched your docu-series yesterday in that, that theatre,

um, that we're all in, including yourself, one of the lines really struck me when, when they showed the small room that you were building this magazine in, I know sometimes it was a postbox, but sometimes there was a small room, I think at a later date, line was said which was um this was my education and for young people who are considering take taking a leap when they have very little responsibility or think you know very little to lose throwing themselves in that kind of throwing themselves in a situation where they'll fail their way to an education struck me as being so important and so underrated you don't have kids or you don't have a house or a mortgage. And it seems like that's exactly what you did. You used like failure and risk as a way to self-educate. Yeah. I mean, it's difficult for me to recommend it to everybody listening to this

program because not everyone's going to be successful. And obviously you and I have been fortunate that we have had success doing it that way. Some people, and I'm going to put my conservative hat on knowing that the parents may be listening as well. Some people will benefit from having an education degree or whatever to fall back on if they find that they just can they're they find that they're they just can't make a go of it in business um but anyway for i i think for the two of us um

i think the um uh yeah being out in the real world i mean i learned so much um and uh um and and it's held me into such good stead throughout my life. In running a magazine, of course, you're going out interviewing people, you're learning every time you interview somebody. I think being a journalist or being an editor, it's not so different from being an entrepreneur. You're out all the time meeting new people in different sectors, just learning, learning, learning. And, you know, through the magazine, a lot of people would write with problems, young

people would write with problems. So we ended up setting up a student advisory center where we would give people advice on venereal disease or gay people the gay population or or you know contraceptive advice abortion advice psychiatric advice you know and and you know just and, you know, just meeting all these people with all these different problems, suicidal mental problems, really opened my mind. It was just a fascinating, fascinating education. And throughout my life since then,

I've spent a lot of my life trying to address some of these issues, first of all, in a wider sense in London and now more on a global scale. But that education was so important. For instance, I remember when I was 15 in London, you know, somebody who was gay came to me saying that they wanted help. And, um, maybe I just turned 16. And, um, and I thought very naively that when they said they wanted help that, you know, they didn't want to be gay.

Um, of course, you know, within a month or two, I realized that, you know, that people are born gay and, uh, and, uh, and they don't have a choice in the matter. And what they desperately needed in those days was to meet other gay people because if they came from some remote place in the UK where gay people weren't accepted, they would come to London desperately seeking, seeking love or seeking friendship. And, and, and so, you know, just little things like that, I learned from just just being out there, listening and doing.

That was that magazine was your, the first sort of big notable thing that you'd done in business and throughout your story and even before i'd met you and watched the docu-series and read the book i was told by other people richard branson's are super an amazing delegator you mentioned it earlier on your your delegation skills to understand how to delegate to someone else you first as you've said need to understand your strengths and weaknesses and also their strengths and weaknesses so what is what are your strengths in your own words what is the bit of the puzzle that you're good at i think i'm good with people um i think um uh i try i can trust people i think i can surround myself with um uh you know with with with with really good people.

I think I'm able to delegate, not to second guess them all the time. Yeah, to praise, not criticize. And I think I'm quite good at, if I create something, making sure it's the best in its area so that the people who are working for Virgin are really proud of what they're doing. You know, it's really important that, you know,

if somebody's in a pub and they work for Virgin and somebody says, what do you do, that they're proud of the fact that, you know, they work for Virgin and they're happy to say it. And there are some companies that if people work for, they weren't really wanted to be able to say that they work for such and such a company. Yes, I think the people skills is the most important skill.

I think just giving things a try. Screw it, let's do it, obviously, is a phrase I made years ago, and I've used that phrase many a time. Somebody comes with an idea and I like them and yeah, just say, you know, let's give it a go. And sometimes we all fall flat on our face, sometimes it succeeds. And conversely then, what are the weaknesses that you've kind of observed in yourself or the things that you tend to delegate to other people? I actually read something which said, which was a quote of yours it said

i wanted like an iq test at eight years old i don't think i filled in anything going forward 30 or so years i was running europe's largest private group of companies but i didn't know the difference between gross and net profit but it didn't matter yes Yes, I was in a board meeting when I was about 50 years old and the director said, and I think I said, is that good news or bad news? And one of the directors said, come outside, Richard, a minute. So I came outside and he said, you don't know the difference between net and gross, do you?

So I said, no. uh he said i thought not anyway i brought a sheet of paper so he brings out this sheet of paper and he uh he has some color pens and he colors it in blue and then he puts a fishing net in the um in it and then he puts a little fish in the fishing net and he says um so the fish that are in the net that's your profit at the end of the year and the rest of the ocean that's your gross turnover and um i went i've got it and i was ever ever since then i've been name dropping net and gross to people who obviously know full well what it is. But the point of the story is it really doesn't matter. I mean, it's a good idea most likely if your chief accountant knows. But, you know, for somebody who's running a company, what matters is can you create the best company in its sector?

If you're going to create an airline, is it going to be palpably better than the rival airline? If you create a cruise company, is it going to be palpably better than the other cruise companies? If you're going to create a train company, is it going to be palpably better than the other cruise companies. If you're going to create a train company, is it going to be palpably better than what's gone before? And if it is, then at the end of the year, it's likely that more money that will come in than goes out.

And then somebody else can add up the figures. So I think to run a business, yes, it helps to add up add up the figures um uh so i think you know to be to run a to run a business you know yes it helps to add up it helps to subtract it helps to multiply um i don't even think you need to worry about division um that that's it so um uh you know so if you can if you can do those three things um uh you can run a business if you can't do those three things, you can run a business. If you can't do those three things, I wouldn't worry too much. You'll find somebody else you can, but just go out and create something that's going to make a positive difference to other people's lives.

That student magazine became kind of pivoted at the end into a mail-order music business, which is a big part of the docu-series that we watched yesterday. But then it became so many more things and it's the interesting thing is kind of how you swang from one of these business ideas to the next because you'd seen a product or service that you thought could be done better or there was an opportunity there when I you know in the school of entrepreneurship if that's like a metaphorical thing we always talk about the importance of focus now when I look at your story from 15 years old starting that magazine to starting a mail order business around i think 20 22 years old when virgin was kind of conceptualized and launched and then by the age of 33 you've got

50 different companies involving everything from filmmaking to conditioner cleaning and generating more than 10 million million in sales. I go, this is not what they told me about the need for focus in the school of business. They said focus. You kind of break that law, it seems, of focus. So I've never really thought of myself as a business person. Obviously, on paper, I am an entrepreneur or a business person. I've never really been interested in the bottom line,

despite what the docu-series seems to betray. I really have been interested in creating things I can be proud of. And a lot of those things come out of personal frustration. And I must have been frustrated quite a lot when I was young, because I um investing in you know people i met um you know you know somebody will come along and uh you know the the music business may have been um you know struggling at one stage in my career with with with the advent of the ipod and um you know a couple of guys come along and say, you know, you should do mobile phones. This is, you know, this would replace the music business. And they were great,

great, great people. And, you know, so we thought, screw it, you know, let's do it. Let's go into the mobile phone business. And so if we'd stayed still and only focused on one business, maybe let's say the record business, let's say record stores, which is one of our earlier things, we most likely wouldn't have a business today because the mega stores and record stores no longer exist because the iPod and free music really put them out of business. So by actually going against the rules of what you learn in business school,

we're still going strong 55 years later. And diversification actually saved us. I mean, during COVID, Virgin Atlantic and our very badly hit companies was saved by Virgin, I mean, being able to sell Virgin Galactic shares. So diversification is far more exciting. You learn a hell of a lot more and it can be useful in times of crisis.

It's clear that only a great delegator would be able to diversify without creating, spreading themselves too thinly per se. For sure. I guess that goes back to that skill of delegation. Your headmaster said something to you that my best friend Joe Ridgeway said to me when I was 18 years old after I dropped out of university. My best friend Joe Ridgeway from Plymouth said to me, I remember I stood in this curry shop in Rusholm. He said, you're either going to be a millionaire or in prison. Now, when I read that this morning,

when I was doing research on your headmaster, it stopped me and my breakfast halfway through my sort of chew. I thought, gosh. Now I know why he said that to me, because he knew there was a certain level of desperation in me and there was a a certain craftiness, which was could either take me, could either be used for good or evil. When you did the student magazine, that prophecy appeared to come true one day when the police raided your magazine and arrested you. And I learned about this in the docu-series last night. Your mother then puts her house on the line to get you out of jail and you choose to expand you choose to expand your way out of the problem which for you meant as it said in the docu-series opening 30 record stores

that year to be able to pay your mother back have you always chosen to expand your way out of problems? Yes, I think the answer is yes. I mean, I spent one night in prison. In those days, you had to pay tax on records if you shipped them to Europe. Sadly, with Brexit, people are going to have to do that again. And I stumbled into the fact that if you drove across the channel and drove back again, you had a piece of paper which said you'd exported the records and therefore you didn't have to pay the tax. But anyway, so we got a bad rap on the knuckles. I spent a night in prison and swore never, ever, ever to spend a second night in prison in my life.

And yes, we expanded fast in order to pay off the fine. We just needed the turnover. And it was actually a really wonderful booster to all the team at Virgin. And fortunately, we managed within three years to pay to pay it off um but um i mean i it sometimes we're expanding uh expanding just for the sheer pleasure of learning about something new and um uh and then maybe occasionally on like like on that occasion we're expanding to get ourselves out of problem out of trouble the most most, from my perspective, one of the most terrifying decisions you ever made

was to go into the airline industry. Warren Buffett's fairly famous for saying that he has once considered employing someone to sit in his office and every time he feels like investing in an airline to talk him out of it because it's such a absurd, terrifying business to get into. You were running a very successful record label and record

store business by then. You had many, many companies, many investments, and you decided to take this huge bet to start an airline. Now, there's a lot said about why. Could you tell me in your own words why? It really was out of frustration of flying on other people's airlines, having bad experiences, and feeling that we could do it better. It could be more fun. those days, you know, if you flew on, say, British Airways, it was a monopoly. They, you know, you maybe got a lump of chicken dumped in your lap. There was no entertainment. The cabin crew certainly didn't enjoy working for the company. And you really felt like you were just being herded from A to B in a cattle truck. And so I was flying all over the world to visit our record companies because we had record companies in most countries around the world and just felt that we could do it better.

Somebody came along to us with the idea of a business airline um only i didn't think that would be very exciting to run um and um uh but i thought a really really good quality airline for everybody, including business people, you know, would be something special to run. And so I ended up ringing up Boeing and having a wonderful discussion with a wonderful guy called RJ Wilson and ending up being able to lease a secondhand 747 from him. And because I do like to protect the downside, which is obviously important in business, I did a deal with him whereby I could hand the plane back at the end of 12 months if my instinct was not right. But fortunately, at the end of 12 months if you know if my instinct was not right um and um but fortunately at the end of 12 months people love flying on verge atlantic and we ended up you know getting a

second and a third plane from boeing and um and that was yeah 38 years ago and um and you know verge atlantic has um uh you know it's Atlantic has, you know, it's like roughly the same age as my daughter. You know, she's been, the airline's been bullied by British Airways, I mean, famously through the Dirty Tricks campaign. It was a really tough time. We took BA eight to court and we won the biggest libel damages in history.

She's had to go through the, I think, crashes like the 9-11 disaster, the 2008 disaster, the COVID disaster. It's the COVID disaster. And I'm sure that it's cost us more money than we've ever made from it. But it's been the flagship for Virgin. It's enabled us to launch other companies in different countries around the world on the back of the strong brand and the strong reputation it's had. And she's a daughter that I will zealously protect and as long as I can. When you look back at why that business survived, considering the fierce competition, considering what British Airways did and were ultimately found guilty of in court with their dirty tricks campaigns. The bit that really stuck out to me

yesterday was hearing that they had a staff member hack into your customer database to kind of spy on what you were doing. That went to court. You won the battle. And that acted as a real boost, I think, for Virgin because it kind of staged you as this sort of David versus Goliath situation where you were the underdog. But as you look back on that journey, many people have fallen in that industry. It's a graveyard, as you say, in the documentary. Why did Virgin win? What was it? Was it brand?

Was it customer experience? Was it just grit? I think a lot comes back to staff. I mean, we've always had a great team of people working at Virgin. They're really proud of the company. We've done things, you know, we've always been ahead of the pack in new innovations. So, you know, seat back videos, for instance, we were the first airline to introduce seat back videos in the world. The, you know, sleeper seats for business class passengers, you know, stand up bars and lounges and so on, you know, collecting money at the door, you know, for charity that Virgin was the first to do that. And now pretty well

every airline and most airports are doing it as well, this change. So I think, you know, every little detail, I think, the team have got right at Virgin. And if you get the little details right, you know, then collectively, it makes for an exceptional company over an average company. And, you know, if I'm on a Virgin plane or in any Virgin company, I'll have my notebook, I'll take notes, I'll listen to the staff, listen to the customers, you know, and then act on it when I get to the far end and then be back in touch with the people who, you know, gave me the ideas to thank them and tell them what we've done. And I think a good leader has to be a good listener.

And that's, I think, one of the most important attributes of a good leader. I grabbed my phone halfway through watching the docuseries yesterday when you mentioned the seat back videos, because in the same breath, you mentioned how every accountant would tell you not to do many of the things that you've chosen to do, but also the banks wouldn't even lend you the money to do the seat back videos. They'd give you the money, like $2 billion to do the planes, but they wouldn't give you the 10 million to do the seat back videos. You've mentioned instinct as well a few times. As a CEO of the years, I've had this battle between like instinct and the cfo you seem to tend to i think the quote you said was um you tend not to consult

finance people and accounts people when you when you have these ideas how have you found that battle between the two between your instinct and your vision and the money people going this won't work this doesn't make sense? I suspect that you're the entrepreneur and they're the CFO because you're the entrepreneur and they're the CFO. So I think you just got to believe in your instinct and go with it. And if you create something,

I mean, we're just opening a new hotel in New York. If it's the best hotel in New York, even if it's gone over budget in the building of it, which it will have done, the best always succeeds. You know, we famously during COVID launched a new cruise line, Virgin Voyages. You know, it is so much better than any other cruise line out there. You know, we've had two years where we've had to mothball the ships.

But, you know, we've stuck with it because we know that the quality is such that people will seek it out, and the feedback's been spectacular. I mean, it's virgin and its absolute best. I'm actually heading there this afternoon. It's fascinating. Each ship has 78 different nationalities working on it, you know, 1200 people. And they're just the best. And it's adults only, and it's a lot of fun.

But, you know, there were moments during COVID that we did think, you know, we definitely chosen the wrong business to launch. Virgin at its absolute best. What does that mean? What is Virgin at its best? Virgin at its best is when you launch a new company and you know that because, you know, people have experienced previous Virgin companies that they will give it a try.

You don't really have to even advertise. They know that when they went on a Virgin companies, that they will give it a try. You don't really have to even advertise. They know that when they went on a Virgin train, when we ran the network, that it was really good quality. When they went on a Virgin plane, it was good quality. When they went into Virgin Health Club, it was good quality and so on. And so, you know, that gives us a big advantage with a brand that people have tried, they've loved. And so when we launch something new, like a cruise line, that they will give it a go, and we make sure that we don't let them down. And then, you know, having them try the cruise line if we decide to do a new venture um you know we can

we can we can it's that much easier for us to launch it off the back of the cruise line you you are so synonymous with the the virgin i don't think i know a person who is as synonymous with their brand as an individual so when you think of virgin you think of richard branson you think of rich branson you think virgin um and in 1985 you start doing some pretty extreme adventures around the world which become kind of pay into the brand and give give the brand extra meaning things like crossing crossing the atlantic by boat which sunk uh it seems like a lot of the uh the trips you took either collapsed like fell out the sky into the into the the sea or the boat sank um you set so many records through that period um so you know i was reading about you going 250 miles per hour in a hot air balloon across the the pacific from japan to the

arctic and canada again breaking um existing records at the time this became a real hallmark of like the the richard branson and virgin brown these extreme adventures was that intentional when you did that first one did you was was it because of a marketing thing or was it because of the fun of doing it for yourself it started out uh as a mixture of the two but more uh we had one plane um and somebody said you know why don't we try to bring the blue ribbon back to britain for the fastest boat across the atlantic um and you know we can we can we can build this boat um and um uh but it ended up being um much more than just a marketing adventure it became it became a real adventure. I mean, it was tremendously exciting.

And I was in my very early 30s. And, you know, it was tough, but it was great fun. There were, you know, lots of moments of drama, which there always are when you're trying something that's never really been tried before, including, as you pointed out, we sang before we got the whole way across. But anyway, it makes for a good documentary series. It does. And it makes for a good book. And it did put Virgin on the map.

It made Virgin a much more sexy brand, a more adventurous brand than, say, British Airways, our rival, and other brands. I mean, Virgin Atlantic cheekily took a full-page ad when we sank in the Atlantic. The only thing that was sticking out of the Atlantic of the boat was the brand Virgin. And the ad just had the picture of the boat sticking out of the water

and the ad said, next time, Richard, take the plane. And, of course, there were people who said who said you know what have you seen what have you end up in the in the atlantic you you know no one's going to want to fly an airline where and but of course it's quite the reverse it's you know people you know uh it helped put it helped put a tiny little airline on the map more effectively than anything else we could do and much more cheaply. You mentioned that ad from your competitor there. In the moment, competition is the archenemy, you know, causing you a ton of nuisance. But as you look back on the competition you've had throughout the different industries you've been in,

has the competition actually made you stronger and better at what you've done? Yes, and I think the reverse is also true, that these big public companies or big government-run companies like British Airways have been made the better by having Virgin Atlantic innovating and them having to catch us up over the years. And I think British Airways is a better company today than it was 38 years ago when we started.

So competition is good for all of us, big and small. And the only role that governments need to play is intervening when there's unfair competition. And that's one of the most important roles a government can play is making sure that they set laws that encourage competition and don't stifle competition. And, you know, we've had, yeah, anyway, there have been books written about companies that have tried to stifle Virgin in the past, but somehow we came through.

There's this term now called personal branding, which has become very popular predominantly because of social media and everybody having a channel and they can build followers and they can try and tell the world who their company is using social media. But you were kind of the first CEO personal brand to many people because everything you did added value to the brand. it wasn't just what virgin said i think when i look at your story it teaches me that the brand is what what the people do and what the founder does becomes the brand more so than ever um and i think that's often what we lose sight of and some of the best band brands in the world like the red bulls of the world have figured out that the things you do say much more about the brand than what you say yeah and you are like the perfect example of that in the early 90s you got in a bit of a struggle because of the

broader economy and you ended up selling your record business from all accounts and from speaking to some of your current team they said that this was a very difficult moment for you that it was crushing i think the quote that i that i was told um is that accurate and why was it why was it crushing oh look i think uh um if you think of your if you think of the um uh the things that you create like children which um uh which i i do and and and I think of it like that because it is just a bunch of people. I mean, your business is yourself and a group of people. If you sell it, it's like selling, if you sell a company, it's like selling a group of children.

And that's tough all round. I needed a war chest to combat British Airways and the dirty tricks that they'd launched at Virgin. So the war chest that I thought I could best tap into was Virgin Records. The good thing was that the staff at Virgin Records still had a job, but working for another company and the staff at Virgin Atlantic were safe because we had the financial clout to deal with our competitor. So there are obviously times in life where you have to make tough decisions like that.

And yeah, and move on. Do you have any regrets about how that happened, about that phase? I always think that if anybody asks me if I ever have any regrets about about how that happened by that phase um i have i always think that if if anybody asked me if i ever have any regrets about anything it would be i'd be a very sad person to answer answer positively because you know i've had the most extraordinary life um it's been full of you know interesting twists and turns um. And I honestly really can't think of anything I regret, you know, in the past. And I think I really do think I'd be a sad person

if I had regrets. I mean, it's just been rich with, you know, adventure and people. And I'm not somebody who looks back and by and large I mean obviously an interview like this I will but um yeah and I suppose I've reached an age where you know it's important to write books and it's important to do documentaries and you know because it's important not to waste your life and it's important to share what you've learned. How did you feel yesterday watching the docu-series on your life?

I was sat just behind you, so I'd watch, I'd look at the screen and now I'd look at your reaction and I'd see you laughing sometimes. I was emotionally drained, to be honest. I mean, after the after-party, I just could not really get my work my words out for the first half an hour um uh you know i found it quite you know fairly exhausting um i mean they've it's incredible uh a really good documentary maker and chris smith is one of the best in the world i mean you know pr prides himself on his independence,

which I respect completely. And so, you know, we didn't have input into it. You know, obviously, therefore, not everything one's going to agree with and not everything, you know, in my brain would be exactly as it was. But, you know, 95%, 96% was as I see it. But just what is incredible is the archive footage they managed to find.

Considering we'd had my main house burnt down, my main house blown down in a hurricane um twice uh the fact that anything survived to be able to make such a you know such a really full quite you know really quite exciting i think um doc you know documentary series was um uh you know i have to take my hat off to them and then in the uh as i watched the last episode of the docu-series last night, I saw you once again in typical Richard Branson style, set yourself a new frontier, which was space. As if you, you know, as if all that you'd done before wasn't enough, you decided to aim for the stars. Why? So I remember many, many, many years ago when President Gorbachev was leader of Russia

and he was trying to bring perestroika to the West and trying to put out peace signs um he invited me to come to russia to be the first person to go up in a russian um spaceship um but it would have meant uh a big check um you know 60 million it would have meant a year learning Russian and being in Russia and I just didn't have the time that and already the spare money to do something like that but it did just get me thinking you know that's an inordinate amount of money to charge for somebody to go to space you know for that kind of kind of money. Why couldn't I just start building a spaceship? And so we registered Virgin Galactic Airways,

and I went around the world trying to see if we could find somebody to build us a spaceship, and then just found this genius Bert Ritter. You know, to me, you know, I've always dreamt of going to space one day. I think 50% of the people listening to this program will have dreamt or will dream of going to space. 50% will think, you know, why on earth would you want to do that? But, you know, it was the most extraordinary day of my life, my trip to space.

And, you know, looking back at this beautiful, beautiful earth that we live on, it was from space whilst floating, you know, whilst floating with a lovely group of people. Just an extraordinary experience. And to be honest, yeah, to pinch oneself moment to be doing it in a spaceship that we built. And yeah, so it was a dream come true. In that documentary, we're also reminded of the cost of all of these endeavours at a moment when there's a shot of you taking a phone call at your house,

learning that in the lead up to Virgin Galactics going to space for the first time an astronaut had died in one of the tests it's a very emotional scene but it is a reminder of of um the cost of these great endeavors to humanity that day when you received that phone call and then you you rushed yourself to the to to the site. What's on your mind? So it's happened to me twice in my life. Um, uh, you know, I was once in a cinema in, um, uh, in Europe, uh, with my kids and I, my phone just kept, uh, kept vibrating and I ignored it and ignored it. And then on the sort of third or fourth time, I decided to walk out of the cinema and check it.

And one of our trains had come off the track. And, you know, straight away, I knew that, you know, I just had to get to the scene of the accident. And, you know, there were no flights that night, so we had to drive through the night. And then, yeah, and then anyway, we got there early in the morning the next day. One lady had died and, you know, and I went to the morgue to meet the relatives

and, you know, we had a hug and, I mean, fortunately it turned out it wasn't actually a virgin's fault, but, you know, but you're still obviously responsible for the fact that it was on a virgin's fault but um you know but you're still obviously responsible for um the fact that it was on a virgin train um and um and uh and then you've got to as as owner um you know confront talk to the press and and um and but it it i think the fact that you make the fact that you make an effort and get there quickly is very important. And the same when we lost a test spaceship.

I knew straight away, based on my previous experience with the train, that I needed to be there as fast as possible. Is there a conversation about discontinuing Virgin Galactic at that moment after losing that life? Yeah, there was. I mean, you know, we, I sat down with George Whiteside and just said, you know, is it, you know, asked ourselves questions. Is it worth it? Is it worth, you know, is it worth continuing? What, what, what, what would happen if we had a second accident? You know, we would never, never, never be forgiven. I mean, it would, you know, our reputations would be destroyed.

But then we spoke with all the engineers and we spoke with many of the people who'd signed up to go to space and and we spoke with a family and um of um uh of the pilot who'd lost and with one with one voice they said you know you just gotta you've got to continue um uh and um uh and we did and and we're still, you know, we're still, you know, we're still at the early stage of space travel. There are still risks. I mean, we think that, you know, we don't, you know, we think that we're through all the big risks.

You know, we've got a, we can automatically switch off an engine if anything goes wrong with the rocket motor. And we've got astronauts actually flying our craft. But it is the early stages. But I think everybody involved are doing it with their eyes open. One of the most beautiful, heart-wrenching scenes from the docu-series is in 2021 when you are months away from your first space flight on your own spaceship, spacecraft, space plane,

whatever the terminology is. You've named it after your mother you've named the mothership after eve and then tragically um she passes away from covid before she has the chance to embark on that space journey with you which she was planning to do that phase of your life when you lose your mother when you lose eve what impact does that have on you and your mission? It, I mean, first of all, she'd lived a long life and an extraordinary life. And so it was, yeah, I mean, yeah know, I was very, very fortunate and our family were very fortunate

to have had her around so long. And the absolute last thing that she would have wanted was for the mission or any missions to be held up as a result of her death. I mean, you know, she will, you know, if there's a star up there, she'll be on it. And I'm sure that she was there and there in spirit when I went to space. And she definitely would have been smiling down at us with my dad, Ted. And so, yeah. And so I think when we lose loved ones, it's, you know, you live on, you live on through your parents and your children live on through you and your grandchildren live on through your children. And, you know, that's the sort of wonder, the wonders of life and when you came

down from that space flight um which is detailed in your your second memoir in the sort of updated version which has just been updated you wrote a letter to your mum after coming down from space you said dear mum you always told me to reach for the stars well i took my own winding road but i always knew when to follow your lead you always pushed us to our limits you were always a dreamer you urged me to strive for every opportunity i saw you told me to chase my wildest fantasies to live life to the full how you lived how you loved and how you are missed yeah i mean she um you know i think, yeah, hopefully, yeah, when people read the book, they'll think about their own mums and dads and, you know, how lucky we are to have mums and dads who sacrificed so much for us.

And as we grow up and then obviously later on in life, one can give back in looking after them as they get a little bit older. The docu-series was a bit of a punch in the face from the start because of that opening scene about your family where you're sat there ahead of your journey to space, trying to say some words to Holly, Sam and Joan, your wonderful wife and your kids, just in case you never make it back from space. This is something that you've done time and time again before you embarked on these journeys. Really, really difficult to watch. Really difficult to watch.

And took me by surprise because it was so early on in the film why why was why is it so hard to to get those words out otherwise you seem like such a composed individual but when it came to those words it seemed like you know multiple takes you got up you walked away you came back got up walked away and came back? So, first of all, I do, I cry in happy films, I cry in sad films. My kids bring a box of tissues when we go to the cinema or used to. And so that, I am, you know, even now just talking to you, I can feel tears in my eyes. So it's not surprising for me to suddenly not be able to get through my sentence sometimes. If you're reading, if you're speaking about as if you've died to your kids and your grandkids, yeah, lots of emotions go through your head at the time of speaking.

I suspect even the emotions of, my God, should I be, you know, is it worth it? And a lot of this documentary series is asking the question, is it selfish, is it worth it, is it something? Is it something that one should be doing? I remember I was just taking off to go across the Pacific in a hot air balloon and walking into this truck. And Joan Thurkett from ITN was just finishing editing my obituary in case I didn't come back. And she said, you know, Richard, do you want to sit and watch the obituary and I said why not and and you know I sat and watched the obituary and again had a couple of tears in my

eyes at the end of it but but you know but I do think that in life well you know one advantage of doing these adventures is actually you do confront the ultimate inevitability that you're not going to be here forever. And so you do think about, have I left everything in order? What am I going to say to my children? What am I going to say to my grandchildren? And a lot of people don't have that opportunity because they they die suddenly so um you know so i have written quite a few letters over the years uh in thinking that i just may not come back from this adventure

or that adventure the documentary also shone a light on joan who has clearly been this huge rock in your life over the years she's a strong tenacious um honest honest, very to the point, wonderful woman. What does she mean to you? And what has she meant to you over the last 40, 50 years? Well, I was lucky enough to meet her 45 years ago in a recording studio called uh called the manor uh walked into the kitchen and just looked across the room and she was the most uh gorgeous creature i'd ever seen in my life and it was instantaneous love from me to her and it was took me a while the other way around but she's just a fantastic down-to-earth Glaswegian, doesn't suffer fools gladly, complete opposite to me,

doesn't play tennis, doesn't run, doesn't ski, doesn't climb mountains, doesn't go adventuring. But she's the most fantastic mother for Holly and Sam and the grandkids. And she knows what matters in life. In the end, I suppose what matters is the love you can give to your children, the food on the table.

Yeah, but above everything, just unreserved love to everybody around her and everything else is sort of icing on the cake. You're a man synonymous with living a life worth living. One of the quotes from the film was about, you know, not living a life that is full of risk is not living at all. Words to that effect. If I was Sam or Holly, your kids, and I asked you, I said, Dad, what is a life worth living?

What would you say to me I think just to first of all fulfill their own fulfill their own dreams I mean I mean not not to have their father or mother push them into things they don't want to do so you know I was lucky with my my daughter wants to be a doctor and she became a doctor. She now helps us with our foundation. My son wanted to make films and he's a musician basically, which is his main love

and he does a little bit of both of those things. They're both fantastic parents and they find the time for the grandkids. So I think just to, you know, to follow whatever dream it is that you have as best you can. And, yeah, and, you know, we've been lucky that our kids have, I think, found their path in life. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest, not knowing who they are asking it for. where were you when you when you felt most vulnerable and why i think i felt most vulnerable um relatively recently um during the about six weeks into COVID when everything that we'd built up looked like it was crashing down. And interestingly, when the sort of British press, rather than being supportive, really turned on us.

But fortunately, my kids and grandkids, everybody arrived around about that same time and the team just got down and worked really hard day and night to make sure we kept as many jobs safe as possible. And I think pretty well every Virgin company got through it and pretty well every employee's jobs got protected. But that was maybe the toughest time in my life. Suddenly it just looked like your reputation and everything else was going out of the window.

But COVID was tough for so many people. But, yeah, but we felt it too. Holly and several members of your team referenced that as being your toughest moment. But the word tough is just a word if i zoomed in and if i was there what would i and i was you what would i have seen and what would i have felt when you say the word tough well i think i i think that um i i've never understood uh depression um uh and i and i think i understood a slight, you know, where people get depression from

after that experience. And it was good, you know, it's good to, you know, it's good to have gone through it myself a bit. I mean, I didn't last too long. And because I've, you know, brought up by, you know, parents who, you know'd been through the Second World War and you couldn't waste your time getting depressed. There were much far worse things than being depressed. But anyway, it taught me to understand it, which I think will hopefully make me better understand other people's depression in the years to come.

What were the symptoms of that uh it what were the symptoms of it i was very difficult to to pinpoint the symptoms but you don't look you just you just feel very sorry for yourself for a day or two and then you just have to snap out of it and and and get you know my mum my mum would have if she'd been alive um which she was but i mean if i talked to her about it mum would have, if she'd been alive, well, she was, but I mean, if I'd talked to her about it, she would have told me to pull myself together and get back to work. And I think within two or three days, you know, her words would have been ringing in my head

and I would have overcome it. And I did overcome it. But it's just a little just a taste of it anyway. Richard. Sir Richard Branson, thank you so much for your time. To me, when I started this podcast, you were the name.

You were the name that if one day I could speak to on this podcast, I think we might as well pack it up and finish. Because to me, as an entrepreneur my whole life, you've always been the North Star of entrepreneurs. And you've represented and embodied what it is to be a

entrepreneur that's striving forward to create better in everything you do i had the pleasure of researching your story again now at 30 years old and it's been a tremendous source of inspiration for me um to meet you today to get to come and watch your docu-series is one of the highlights of my entire entrepreneurial career and life and definitely this podcast. So thank you so much for that because I'm not sure you'll ever really appreciate how much of an impact you have on people like me. So I want to make sure that while I have you here, I have a chance to tell you and to thank you for that because you've definitely changed my life and I know I'm not the only person. So thank you. Your book is amazing. The docu-series was so captivating.

I stayed up till about 3 a.m. last night making sure I watched all of it and then watched the last episode again this morning and I implore everybody to go and check it out now on HBO. But yeah, the most important thing is I just wanted to say thank you. Well, thank you back

and yeah, many, many congratulations on all you've achieved and all all um you're being a young bastard all you will achieve in the years to come thank you richard Thank you.