Playboy Interview: Richard Branson
January, 2009
The economic crisis of 2008 was unprecedented. Fonnerly stalwart companies, including A1G, Lehman lirothers and Washington Mutual, disappeared or needed government funds to stay afloat. The prices of stocks, oil and gas fluctuated u'ililly. The worldwide credit crunch choked businesses and individuals. This hasn V been a time for fainthearted businessmen, yet Richard Branson, the founder and chief of one of the i'.K.'s largest private groups of companies. Virgin Group, continued to run his $23 billion travel, leisure, telecom and finance conglomerate as if it were a start-up. Branson's an unconventional chief executive who nws Virgin's more than 200 businesses without flmvchtirts or meetings. Though he has a pool oj secret/tries, he keeps his appointments in a dog-eared paper diaiy and scribbles ideas and phone numbers on his hand. He spends an enonnous amount of time talking to and sometimes even hanging out with his employees.
Branson's \'irgin is unlike any other company in the worltl because the Ixiss is unlike any other. His companies—a bevy of I irgins that includes Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Drinks, Virgin Megastores, Virgin Mobile and the newly launched Virgin America airline—do eivrything from marrying people and selling them vodka and phones to putting them up on a piwite island and massaging them as they fly across oceans. Perhaps most unusual for a modern CEO, Branson seems to be having fun. Rarely does a day go by without a Virgin-related party or some publicity stunt, such as when he
startled passengers on a 747 by appearing in a stewardess's uniform or slogged down another jet's aisle, wearing a wet suit, mask and snorkel. His widely read business books have titles like Business Stripped Bare and Screii' It, Iwt's Do It.
Branson's personal wealth totals at least $5 billion, and Virgin is expanding seemingly daily into new businesses, including recent U.S. additions like Virgin Money, a jinancial-sennces company, and Virgin Charter, an online marketplace for private jets. In the past 20 years he has taken over the failing British railway system, presided over the opening of a hundred Virgin Megastores, opened dozens oj Virgin Active health clubs, launched V2, a neiv music label, and expanded Virgin Atlantic's international sen'ices. Branson has also fulfilled a dream to start a L'.S. airline. \'irgin America is a year old and has already been named best domestic airline try Travel if Leisure magazine.
It all began with a magazine for students that Branson founded when he was 16. To keep the literary venture afloat, Branson started a mailorder discount records business, which led to a record store, the first Virgin. Branson soon had a goal: to cover the earth in everything I'irgin, his ubiquitous brand of travel, entertainment and almost eveiy other type of goods conceivable. Now the earth is no longer a limitation. Branson plans to move into space with Virgin Calactic, which will offer tourist flights into the upper atmosphere and, eventually, a space hotel.
In addition to his businesses and stunts, Branson is known for being an adventurer who has broken world records in liallooningaiul sailing. He made four attempts to circumnavigate the globe in a hot-air balloon. In one of them, his Imlloon plummeted out of control in the Algerian desert; the previous lime he almost died mm the ocean. With his two children Branson recently set out to break the record for a transatlantic crossing between Nev York and England on the Virgin Money, a 99-foot yacht. They failed.
Contributing Editor David Sheff, u 'ho last interviewed Daniel Craig, cornered the tycoon for an unusual conversation. "I've interviewed many billionaires and business titans," Sheff reports, "and have come to expect that CEOs and other extremely successful businessmen tend to be short-tempered and even tyrannical bosses. But Branson's employees praise him as a genuinely nice guy who inspires rather t/ian berates his staff. We discussed a wide range of issues, from the economic crisis to his burgeoning empire and his business philosophy, to the energy crisis and the ailing airline industry. He also predicted a first: space sex."
PLAYBOY: This year has arguably been the most traumatic for the world economy since the Great Depression. How has Virgin held up?
BRANSON: About two years ago we began to sense problems with the banks related to credit. As far as we were concerned, those
problems were a warning that things could ricochet throughout the whole system. At the lime, we sold all our public shares of non-Virgin companies. As a result we weren't invested in the stock markets, and Virgin was in a better position than most companies when things began to unravel. Our companies are extremely well funded. We have strong cash positions. Virgin Atlantic alone has $1.5 billion in cash. PLAYBOY: On what do you ultimately blame l he crisis?
BRANSON: Greed and a lack of regulation. It's stunning to think that the combination could bring the world to a precipice. It's unbelievable that the institutions gambled to such an extent. It's not sur-
prising they lost the gamble. PLAYBOY: When banks like Washington Mutual, brokerages like Lehman and insurance companies like AIC> began going under, were you surprised? BRANSON: No one realized the problem was as widespread and fundamental as it was. I didn't know the degree to which regulators had no checks and balances on banks. Also, I didn't know the greed had gotten completely and utterly out of hand. PLAYBOY: Did you support government intervention? BRANSON: Something had to be (lone, though I hate the idea of bailing out the people who got us into the mess. Those people certainly didn't bail out the individuals and small businesses that got into trouble and couldn't pay back their loans. On the other hand, those companies put so many jobs at risk that something had to be done. They put the world at risk, so a bailout was necessary. I just hope we learn. If nothing had been done, we would have been talking about a 1929-like crash. Even with a bailout, things remain uncertain. Some banks never got caught up in speculation and risk.
I"hey were conservative and didn't get drawn in. In England, Lloyds
I SB didn't. It had been criticized
tor conservative, steady profits but became the biggest bank in Kngland by taking over 11 B( )S. which did get carried away. PLAYBOY: What happens next? BRANSON: Of course we don't know. A recession is quite possible. We'll see. I don't envy the new president having to sort it out. Hopefully, we'll learn so nothing like this ever happens again. Hope-lully, the regulations will be in place. PLAYBOY: How vulnerable is Virgin to a recession?
BRANSON: We're pretty strong. Compared with many companies, we're in a good position to weather it. PLAYBOY: But won't people travel less and spend less on everything you sell? BRANSON: Yes. but other things will shift.
If there's less demand, the price of oil comes down, for example. It's a natural hedge that can help us as a company to balance expenses if fewer people are traveling. We've been through 9/1 1 and other global crises before and never had a company go bankrupt. There may be less business out there, but there's also going to be less competition. 1 think we'll be all right. That's not to say we won't be affected. We're all connected. Everyone will be alfected to some degree. PLAYBOY: You just launched a bank in the U.S. (liven the specific problems with the American banking and financial systems, why would you start a bank now? BRANSON: Virgin Money aims to help people find alternative sources of lending.
especially during this adverse credit climate. It facilitates lending among friends and family, thus keeping wealth in the family. It beats out the banks and mortgage companies that are quite expensive and difficult to gel loans from, especially now. We want to help people borrow. So I think it's a worthwhile business lo make it easier for people to borrow money to start up their own business or pay for college tuition, which is a huge problem now that private loan options are shrinking. PLAYBOY: Banking isn't the only troubled business you're entering in the U.S. Given the price of fuel, isn't this a crazy time lo expand your airlines? The industry is in utter disarray. BRANSON: Which is exactly why there's
great opportunity. Over the years a lot of airlines have gone into Chapter 1 1 or gone bankrupt. Some ol the really big airlines that are left could topple. At least one may topple soon. PLAYBOY: Which airline? BRANSON: 11 doesn't take much imagination to guess. But one of the two giants is likely to go. When airlines are struggling it is quite a good lime to come in and set up a good-quality product. People seek out quality. That hasn't changed. We've got brand-new planes, unlike big airlines like United. Our cost basis is much better than theirs. We don't burn as much fuel. PLAYBOY: How arc you able to burn less fuel? BRANSON: We have newer, much more fuel-
efficient planes, brand-new Airbus A32()s, which are SO percent more fuel efficient than the average fleet of the other airlines. They don'l need maintenance so much. They're much more reliable, so we don't have cancellations and don't have to pay out lots of compensation. Also, our overhead is less because we haven't had years and years of working with unions sticking guns at our heads. PIAYBOY: Are you against unions? BRANSON: L'nions have to prove .1 point and be useful, so they often create rancor. It happens a lot with many of the big airlines. We don't have unions. The reason I hope we won't ever need to have them is they're a barrier between the company and the stafl. PLAYBOY: Many people would say unions protect workers. BRANSON: It's up to us to make sure we look after our people well enough so (hey don't feel they need a union. One never knows, though. We could mess up sometime and end up getting one. We'll just have to hope we can run the company in such a way that we don't have that happen. If the people who work for us are happy, there's no need. PLAYBOY: To lighten its jets and save fuel, Air Canada's Jazz has
just announced it is removing life vests from Ms planes. Will you? BRANSON: [Laughs] On Virgin, if we happen lo land on water, we'll still give you a life vest. I'm always amused the Civil Aviation Authority insists that when we advertise for flight attendants, we have to include "Must be able to swim." I might be able to understand it for long-haul flights across the Atlantic I'm not sure if it's quite so relevant domestically, but there we go. PLAYBOY: Given your well-public i/ed concerns about the use of fossil fuels and their impact on global warming, is it rcs|x>n-siblc lo expand your airline empire? BRANSON: It's true we're in a number of dirty industries, one of which is our airlines. Airlines do use a lot of' fossil fuel and
emit a lot of CO,. What can we do about it? We could sell the airline and get out of the business. If we did, though, somebody else would come in and take up the slack; someone else would be emitting all that carbon. One alternative is to aggressively work to change things so the industry becomes part of the solution to the global-warming problem. That's what we're doing. As I said, first of all we have planes diat burn less fuel. Next, we're taking 100 percent of all the profits from the Virgin Group's transportation companies—including Virgin Trains, Virgin Blue in Australia, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin America, our Brussels airline and our Nigerian airline—and plowing diem into efforts to come up widi alternative, clean energy, whether solar, wind or somediing else. We've had breakthroughs already. The biggest is dirough a company called Solyndra that we invested in. It's producing the most efficient solar panels ever made. Over the next two to three years we hope to get the cost of producing electricity on die grid down to a level where it's actually cheaper to use solar than coal. We're doing other things, too. We set up a $25 million Virgin Earth Challenge for anybody who can extract the existing carbon from the atmosphere. We're also setting up a global war room to encourage people to come up with geoen-gineering ideas. We're doing these things at die same time we're doing whatever we can at Virgin Adantic and the other airlines, including Virgin America. PLAYBOY: What went wrong with the American airline industry? BRANSON: It hasn't really changed its spots in years and years. It's just remarkable how these companies have remained below average. The Goliaths haven't been able to change when it comes to quality. I think the consumer's worst enemy is the American government bailing out the airlines time and time again and not letting them go bankrupt. In a forest, when trees become cumbersome, the old die and young trees sprout up. JetBlue is the young tree diat sprouted up to die enormous benefit of die American public. Soudiwest is still doing a pretty good job, at least compared widi most of die airlines. But the others are generally terrible. PLAYBOY: Isn't it true that 9/11 devastated the airline industry? BRANSON: Yes, and I diink it was right that the U.S. government helped the airlines after 9/11. Interestingly, diough, die British government didn't do die same for us, and we were competing on many of the same routes and had to face die same problems. But for them to carry on subsidizing die airlines was just ridiculous. Continuing after diey go into Chapter 11 is part of die problem: It enables inefficient airlines to get anodier round of financing and carry on in die same inefficient way. It's much better if, when you're inefficient, you go bankrupt and disappear. I doubt Chapter 11 in America will ever be repealed, but it's not good from die consumer's point of view. It means
you have diese big inefficient carriers continuing to charge exorbitant rates because of the overhead that has built up over decades. At some stage one of these big guys will go, I hope sooner rather than later. PLAYBOY: You mentioned Southwest and JetBlue. How does Virgin differ from them? BRANSON: Were better than they are. Southwest is now more than 30 years old. It has been tough for them to keep the spirit they had in the beginning. It's still a good airline but not an exceptional one. JetBlue has a more youthful vision. We have the advantage of being the newest kid on the block, with all the latest toys. We're delivering. PLAYBOY: Airline employees often seem frustrated and overwhelmed. Can you keep Virgin employees happier? BRANSON: You have to give them the tools to do a good job so they can be proud of the job they're doing. Often on other airlines the staff is frustrated because the food has run out, the seats are broken, the lighting or entertainment system isn't working, baggage is lost or diere are delays. Something's gone wrong, and they're on the front lines. You must give them the right tools to do their job. Also you must appreciate them. If you take care of people properly, diey'U keep their spirits up and perform and
deliver. The challenge is to make sure you never lose that as rime goes on. We do that at the airline and, I hope, at our other companies, whether it's Virgin Mobile or the other new businesses in the U.S., such as Virgin Money and Virgin Charters. PLAYBOY: What about the cell-phone company? Don't we have enough of those in the U.S.?
BRANSON: We'll come into any business we think we can perform in better than others, to provide something to customers. It has gone very well. We were one of the fastest companies in America to reach a billion-dollar turnover. We haven't yet got the value of Google. We're working on that. We're just launching into the postpaid market. Virgin Mobile launched some good music festivals in America, which is about keeping the brand young and fresh. Virgin Mobile in the U.S. was one of the fastest-growing companies in the history of corporate America. It was the first national product we broke in the States, though we had bands like Genesis, Lenny Kravitz and Janet Jackson break in America, which helped build the brand. PLAYBOY: There have been some notable Virgin failures. What happened with Virgin Cola?
BRANSON: We launched Virgin Cola in England, and it was fantastically successful for a period of time. I met a lady who worked for Coke in Atlanta. She was English. She said she watched the success of Virgin Cola in England and went to the board of Coke in Atlanta and basically said, "We have to crush Virgin Cola. You've got to take it seriously as a brand that could catch fire and take over the world. It'll be the only brand in the world that could really take Coke on." She said she was put in charge of a SWAT team and sent to England. Basically they just lavished discounts anywhere we were in stock. They threatened to withdraw fridges from small retailers. They did to us what British Airlines had done to us as an airline some time before. Coke just had enormous clout. People had to stock Coca-Cola because it was a generic name for soft drinks. They damaged us quite badly. Having said diat, we're now set up in about 20 countries around the world. We're a very profitable company. We're even the number one cola in Bangladesh, of all places. PLAYBOY: Is there anything you wouldn't attach the Virgin name to? BRANSON: Cigarettes. I've got nothing against adults killing themselves in whatever way they wish—boating, cigarette smoking, whatever—but I think it would be wrong for us to encourage people to smoke. PLAYBOY: Some people say a company has to be known for one thing; otherwise it dilutes its expertise.
BRANSON: I personally think that's a load of bollocks. However, if you look at the top 20 brands in the world—which I think maybe Virgin just scrapes in there—the other 19 all specialize in one area, as Microsoft, Coca-Cola and Nike do. But Virgin is a way-of-life brand. As such, we can move from music companies to airlines, from airlines to mobile phones, from mobile phones to train companies, from train companies to health clubs, from health clubs to banking and so on fairly seamlessly—as long as every new venture we do enhances the brand and we make a real difference. PLAYBOY: What about the famous stories of companies that flounder when they fail to stick to their knitting and branch out into unrelated fields? BRANSON: When we went from music, with Virgin Records, into the airline business, people thought we were completely mad. How could somebody running a record company know anything about the airline business? The people fretting about that were meanwhile running the airline business into the ground. They had forgotten that entertaining people in the air is very important. We moved into the airline business and brought with us our experience in the music business. With the music company and airline company, we knew our goal was the same: to entertain people, give them a good experience. The keys are the same in any business.
PLAYBOY: Keys such as------
BRANSON: Hiring great people and keeping them happy. If your stall" is inspired
and enjoying their work, they'll do what it takes to make the company succeed. In a nutshell, that's it. As a result we bring our experience and expertise into every new venture that comes along that interests us, whenever we want to shake up an industry. Life has been far more rewarding and interesting by our going into a lot of different sectors. We try to make sure those industries are never the same again because of Virgin's attack on them. Virgin's approach is to look after you throughout your life as much as possible. Hopefully, you'll be able to come across a Virgin company to satisfy your needs in quite a few different areas. But I knew nothing about the airline business. Enancial-services industry, soft-drink business—any of them—until I started. PLAYBOY: Is your business philosophy all self-taught?
BRANSON: I never took a course in management. I've been fortunate to learn by experience, by making mistakes, by trying. I've learned every day by doing things different and new. Having so many different businesses has kept it fascinating. Every one of them helps me with the previous one, from the record business to
the airline business and banking—learning, learning, learning, learning. PLAYBOY: Is there an overall lesson on how to keep a company vital? BRANSON: It all comes down to people. Nothing else comes close. Motivating people, bringing in the best. You assume every switchboard operator will excel, and they will. Often people make mistakes, but you allow for diat, too. Praise people—like plants, they must be nurtured—and make it fun. Value them and give them the opportunity to contribute in ways that excite them. The kinds of people we employ are not afraid to take risks. If someone mucks up, they don't get a bollocking from me. They know diey've mucked up, and they redouble their efforts. We're lucky because of the variety of places to go at Virgin: No one gets stagnant. When our people see an air hostess become the managing director of her own business, there is motivation. Keep it vibrant. Everything comes back to people. Nothing else. You get loyalty, enthusiasm and great service for your customers. PLAYBOY: You still travel with a notebook made of paper, not a notebook computer. BRANSON: Old habits die hard. My notebook
suits me. My whole life has been ruled by my notebook. Everything 1 do I write down in my notebook or scribble on my hand if I don't have my notebook handy. PLAYBOY: You've talked a lot about business in terms of fun and social responsibility, but isn't business really about the bottom line—making money for shareholders? BRANSON: I wrote a lot about this in my new book, Business Stripped Bare. I've tried to get across my philosophy as much as I can. Basically, if any company actually thinks about putting shareholders first and is concerned just with profits and the bottom line, it's likely to fail. Company after company lost its way when it came down to it. When you go into business you're taking a blank canvas and filling it. You have to make it the most perfect painting ever. If you're creating a new airline or anything else, you've got to make it the best. Otherwise, why bother? If you can get everything right—if you have the perfect painting—your staff will believe 100 percent in your company. They'll believe your company will deliver the most fantastic experience for people. Then you get a commitment from them. You get a commitment from customers. Ultimately your company will become profitable. Then you'll be able to reinvest that money into another challenge where you feel you can make a difference. But that shouldn't be the reason you do it. It should be to create something you're proud of. PLAYBOY: You've tried to make a difference in politics as well as in business. At one point you tried to intervene and stop the war in Iraq. What exacdy happened? BRANSON: We had Nelson Mandela standing by in South Africa with a private jet to fly him to see Saddam Hussein. We needed to find a way Saddam Hussein could have bowed out, his head held high, and avoided war. We might have been able to do that. Mandela wanted South African president Thabo Mbeki's blessing, which he got It was coming, but before Mbeki finally said yes, the Americans started bombing Baghdad. PLAYBOY: Do you think you could actually have prevented the war? BRANSON: We'll never know, will we? It did teach me that the world needs a group of elders, the most respected people in the world. So we started a group called the Elders. Mandela and Graca Machel, the women's rights advocate, were the founding elders. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President Carter, microcredit pioneer Muhammad Yunus, former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, the activist Ela Bhatt from India, President Cardoso from Brazil and a few others are part of the Elders team. The group's basic reason for being is to go into a conflict situation and use its moral authority to try to address whatever is happening. They'll meet people on their own terms and help work with them to resolve issues. One of their best successes was in 2007 in Kenya. The leaders of the opposition felt they had been cheated in the election. There was horrific bloodshed on the streets. Graca Machel,
Kofi Annan and Archbishop Tutu went in and took the president and the leader of the opposition aside. They went to a game reserve. They worked there and came out with a coalition government, bringing peace back to Kenya. It's a remarkable example of how it can work. Now the Elders are looking at other conflicts. They've been to Darfur and Sudan to see what they can do there and have recently completed a successful mission to Cyprus. They're looking at Palestine and Iran. They have no ax to grind. They're not affiliated with any government. They can just try. They have enormous moral courage and an agenda that is only about humanity. PLAYBOY: Have you considered gathering a group of business elders—you and your peers Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and the like— to take on the world financial crisis? BRANSON: We'll see what happens. If Congress completely fucks up, it may be something we would try to push through. PLAYBOY: Do you sometimes make decisions that are not necessarily the best for business but rather to make a political or social point? BRANSON: In general, yes. Fortunately, we can do that. As a private company, we can stick our neck out and do things we feel strongly about. If it's more appropriate, we can do things with our foundation, which tries to find new ways to help social problems.
PLAYBOY: In the U.K. Virgin has a strong brand and reputation. In the U.S., though, you have a long way to go. BRANSON: It's something like 80 percent in the major cities but drops off dramatically in Middle America. We have Virgin Megastores in many major cities. They may have heard of us through Virgin Atlantic. It's growing with Virgin Mobile and Virgin America. Maybe they have heard of us through my boating and ballooning activities or jumping off buildings and stupid things like that. I always get a warm welcome when I'm in America. PLAYBOY: Speaking of your boating and ballooning, in 2007 your friend Steve Fossett, with whom you collaborated and competed, disappeared in a small plane. What went wrong? He was an experienced pilot. BRANSON: I have no idea what happened. All I can say is he led a life he can be proud of. He lived the most full-on life of anyone I know. He was the greatest adventurer ever. What's extraordinary is he didn't start his adventuring until he was 55, and he achieved unbelievable things. He had 130 world records in about 20 different sectors. He had no experience in each field and still became the best in each. PLAYBOY: He beat you in your push for an around-the-world ballooning record. BRANSON: Yes. On our try we hit bad weather, and he managed to get the right weather. If there's anybody in the world I would want to be beaten by, he's the one. Steve's life was just pure adventure—just trying to achieve any aeronautical feat that hadn't been accomplished.
PLAYBOY: Does his accident make you think twice about some of your adventures and the risks you take? BRANSON: The interesting thing is he didn't die doing anything risky. It's like Lawrence of Arabia dying on a motorcycle when he came back to England after spending years fighting in Arabia. PLAYBOY: But are your adventures worth the risk?
BRANSON: I enjoy life too much to do anything too foolhardy. I recently turned down a chance to go after the land speed record because I just felt it was too much like tossing a coin—heads you die, tails you live—and that's unacceptable. I love life and love living it to the fullest. I want the richest life possible. It's all part of it: building companies, being pulled out of the water four times by helicopters. PLAYBOY: Are near-fatal crashes part of the fun?
BRANSON: The moments when things go horribly wrong are some of the worst moments of my life. I remember a Pacific crossing about a few hours into the trip. We dropped an empty fuel tank, and with it went two thirds of our full fuel tanks.
We calculated that we had little chance of crossing the Pacific unless we could get up to speeds of 180 miles an hour. Somebody was very kind to us. The balloon sped along; we were very fortunate to cross. But those can be lonely moments, ones when you ask what on earth has made you decide to be up there. Having said that, I'll say it's also incredible. I generally forget the awful moments and remember the good ones. I may swear never to do it again, but a week or two later I'm zesting for more. It's a bad streak in me. PLAYBOY: Were you sobered when your family nearly died in a car crash in 1994? BRANSON: It was much worse, since it wasn't just me. It was terrible. We were very lucky.
PLAYBOY: What records would you still like to beat?
BRANSON: My kids came on the most recent one: an attempt for a record in a transatlantic crossing in a single-hulled sailboat. We had to wait for the right weather. I hadn't done an event for 10 years. It was lovely to be back doing something like this, especially lovely to be doing it with my children. PLAYBOY: Your wealth allows you to do pretty much whatever you want. Do a
billionaire's eyes ever wander over the prices on a menu?
BRANSON: I remember when I was on my houseboat and somebody said to me, "Have you bought The Independent yet?" and I said, "No, I haven't. I didn't actually know it was for sale." He said, "No, I meant have you bought a copy of The Independent." But I have a pretty good, balanced life. I play hard and work hard. PLAYBOY: You're creating another business built on adventure: Virgin Galactic, which will offer rides into space. Is it a realistic venture?
BRANSON: It's completely realistic, and it may be the most exciting new company of all. We're doing a lot of work to prepare. We've developed a spaceship. It's remarkable. We spent a lot of time thinking about what sort of experience people will want to have. PLAYBOY: What will people want? BRANSON: They'll want to have big windows so they can look out and enjoy the space experience. They'll want to experience weightlessness. They won't want to be sick. You have to think of every single little detail. We'll do about a year of extensive test flights before we take passengers on board. The mother ship was unveiled two months ago, and it will be flying next month. The spaceship will be ready to test in about 12 to 15 months. PLAYBOY: Are you convinced there's enough interest in space travel to build a business? BRANSON: About 60,000 people have already inquired. A couple of hundred have already paid the full price up front. PLAYBOY: How much will a trip to space cost?
BRANSON: Two hundred diousand dollars. PLAYBOY: W'hat will the experience be like? BRANSON: We're planning about a three-hour trip total. The spacecraft will have five passenger seats. Each passenger will have a really good window. You'll go up in the spaceship, attached to the mother ship, to 60,000 feet, then the spaceship will be dropped off. At three times the speed of sound you'll shoot your way into space. Then you experience weightlessness and have a spectacular view of Earth. The ship will drift back into Earth's atmosphere like a shutdecock; it won't have to blast its way back through. That takes away all die risks associated with reentry—it's far safer than what the Russians or NASA has done. Safety obviously is critical if one is going to have a successful business in space tourism. Also, this being a Virgin spacecraft, we'll make you as comfortable and the trip as fun as we can. Three years from now I hope to be on the first flight. People like Stephen Hawking and James Lovelock, the environmentalist—he's 89 years old— are coming as well. That will be just the beginning. Our ultimate dream is to have a Virgin Hotel up in space. PLAYBOY: Do you have plans for one? BRANSON: We've got drawings. It has lovely see-through bubbles that you can go into. Say two of you could go into
these bubbles outside the hotel; instead of sitting on a balcony, you could be floating around in these bubbles, looking at the world and watching Argentina pass between your legs.
PLAYBOY: When do you foresee the grand opening?
BRANSON: I would hope it would happen in my lifetime. It may take longer, but at least we're starting down the road. We'll provide an incredibly life-changing experience for people. I wonder what nationality you would be if you were born in space? I wonder who will be the first couple to have sex in space? Weightless sex could be something, right? I mean, somebody must have done it weightless. PLAYBOY: What inspired you to get into the condom business? BRANSON: No one was talking about condoms in Britain, even during the worst of the AIDS epidemic. We launched our company, Mates, in order to promote condom use and to stop the spread of not just HIV but also cervical cancer and other STDs and to control unwanted pregnancy. We set it up as a charitable foundation. We ran it for a couple of years and then handed it over to another company, which pays money to a healdi-care foundation. When we started we wanted to give Durex some competition. It owned 90 percent of the condom market in Britain and therefore had no incentive to advertise. We made a lot of really good advertorials. We got the BBC to run them, and it never runs ads. The funniest ad was a trip into a shop by a young man. He's in front of this beautiful girl who is serving him. He's buying everything—tissues, anydiing he can think of-—but he doesn't quite have die courage to ask for condoms. Finally she asks, "Is there anything else, sir?" and he whispers back, "A package of Mates condoms." To the person who gets them for her, she yells out, "A package of Mates condoms!" It was very funny. So Mates gave Durex some competition. It has about 25 percent of the market now. It achieved what it set out to achieve.
PLAYBOY: Of all the names for companies, why did you choose Virgin? BRANSON: I was 15 and inexperienced in business. It has been quite an appropriate name because we're new to all the businesses we start: It's always virgin territory. PLAYBOY: Have you been able to look back and understand what it is about your personality that has led to your success as an entrepreneur? BRANSON: I never aspired to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to be an editor. I started Student magazine when I was 16 and became an entrepreneur by mistake. In order to keep the magazine going, I had to worry about the printers, the paper manufacturers and the advertising. I've never been interested in business or making money. I've just been interested in doing things I can be proud of. Later I didn't go into the airline business to make money. I was fed up with the quality of air travel on other people's airlines and
felt I could do it better. I started with one 747. I got the kind of people I enjoyed being with to work that airline and created something we're really proud of. Twenty-one years later that airline is one of the most profitable in the world, and it's become very valuable. But thai is only because we had a zest to create something special. As I said, if people actually set out to make money per se in business, chances are they won't be successful. Ideally, I think people need to fulfill their dreams. Everything else follows. PLAYBOY: Did something specific in your childhood lead to your business success? BRANSON: My mother never let us watch people playing football; we had to be out there playing football. When I was about six, we were on our way to my grandparents' house, and about three miles before we got there she pushed me out of the car and told me to find my own way there. Which is something, you know. I think people get arrested for doing that to their children today, I'm afraid. They were very determined to make us stand on our own two feet and prove what we were capable of. So I suspect that had something to do with it. I was also dyslexic. I wasn't great at schoolwork and sort of turned my attention to other things, which ended up serving me. PLAYBOY: You were knighted. Did it mean a lot to you?
BRANSON: Twenty years before I was knighted I released the Sex Pistols' "God Save die Queen," so when she brought die sword down over my head I wasn't sure wheuSer she would be slicing it or tapping the sword gently on my shoulder. Time mends, and I was forgiven for that, I suppose. It's a very pleasant English honor. PLAYBOY: When you retire, will your children take over the business? BRANSON: My daughter is a doctor, so she probably won't be joining me in the business. My son's quite keen on business. There's always a possibility that one day he'll come in. We have a great team at Virgin, so if I get run over, the company's well set up to continue without me. PLAYBOY: You're 58. Whether or not you live to see the Virgin Hotel in space, at some point do you plan to step down from running Virgin? BRANSON: I don't think I would ever retire as long as I'm healthy and fit. I enjoy what I'm doing too much and still have lots to achieve. To be perfectly honest, I don't feel any different today than I did when I was 24. Maybe I just try to make a slightly bigger effort to keep fit and healthy, which I'm doing. PLAYBOY: How do you keep fit and healthy?
BRANSON: I like keeping fit, and I'm into extreme sports, things like kite surfing, skiing, ballooning, surfing—any kind of sport. I play tennis. I relax by doing mad things like starting new businesses.
A candid conversation with the world's happiest billionaire about surviving tough economic times, cheating death and becoming very rich in the process
Old habits die hard. My notebook suits me. My whole
life has been ruled by my notebook. Everything I do I write down in my notebook
or scribble on my hand.
We've developed a spaceship. It's remarkable. It's completely realistic, and it may be the most exciting new company of all. We're doing a lot of work to prepare.
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