Sir Richard Branson Q&A With Yanik Silver

Yanik Silver interviews Sir Richard Branson on a wide variety of business and life topics before the Maverick ‘Myths & Legends’ Party on Necker.

https://vimeo.com/124775083

Video Password: Maverick

Yanik: Alright. Thank you guys for coming out. It’s a bit of a haul and there’s never an easy to get here but I absolutely love this place and its well worth the journey to get here and Richard is always an amazing, gracious host and yeah. You could tell he puts himself full out I mean he’s part of the Amazing Race day. He’s in the sessions, I just appreciate it a lot, so much. I’ve come here now, I’ve been here for seven years in a row it’s an amazing tradition, my family has been here for five years in a row and you know, it just gets better every single time. And I’ve been seeing like this evolution take place around the people that come, around the conversations that we have you know, I see it with the you know, even books that you write and script business as usual and a new one. What’s still drives you in business right now?

Richard: Yeah, I said to him I’m not sure that I’ll be able to stop drinking and listen to any serious talk tonight. So, we’re going to keep it not too serious.

Richard: Oh. I have been in business for fifty years I started when I was fifteen and you know, I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I think one of the fun things that about working for Virgin is the variety and so we do everything from you know, when people are young and like what would it like be their lives. So, I’m learning all the time. I spend much more time now starting not-for-profit ventures than for-profits, and I’m having just as much fun doing that as I was building for-profits. I can afford to do that I’m like a lucky, lucky boy to do that. So, still have a blast in script work and continue until I drop it.

Yanik: So, you said something interesting a couple of years back I remember you said about that the first part of your life was all about earning and the second part is about giving. Do you see a shift that entrepreneur can right now give and at the same time start learning?

Richard: Definitely, definitely. I think that when you’re starting a business the word survival in its principle because there’s a very thin line, dividing line between success and failure but at the same time I think that what one of the ways that you can survive is by creating a business that is more than just a money making machine and because your staff will be much more motivated and proud of the company they work with if there’s a greater purpose to it. So, I think the DNA of every company should have a great purpose written into it. The purpose of actually making a difference to other people’s lives in the business that you’re creating that is a big purpose but I think you can go one step further.

Yanik: Sorry, actually I forgot to ask you who the hell are you dressed as?

[Laughs]

Yanik: You’re just going to get away with that being a legend himself.

Richard: I was not trying to do that I promise you. I don’t know why with my wife, she’s the one who has the costume, key to the costume drawers but I’m happy to put on any sort of clothes of anybody here. I like dressing up if you girls go and take off yours first.

Yanik: What’s the best costume party you’ve ever had here?

Richard: I think tonight’s going to be the one. The only thing is I think guys don’t you think I didn’t invite enough girls I mean you know you girls are going to have to work overtime tonight.

Yanik: Duly noted for next year

Richard: I’ve said it to them about ten times, I think they got the message.

Yanik: You know, you and I share this love for adventure. I have a pretty long life list I guess, I call it my ultimate life list of things I want to do and I’ve accomplished a lot of them it’s been amazing. Why do you care about adventures? What drives you for that? Is there a connection between entrepreneurship with adventures in some way?

Richard: I think there is. I think the kinds of people who like to try to achieve things as an adventurer you’re trying to achieve something that’s never been achieved before and so you’ve got to overcome the technological problems, you’ve got to train for it, overcome the physical problems, work as a team, and it’s great fun and sometimes it’s highly risky but it’s great fun. In survivor you know, you’ve got some stories to tell your grandchildren when they’re born you know, I’ve stuck my neck out on some adventures you know, which may be in retrospect slightly foolish but…

Yanik: You don’t regret anything from that do you?

Richard: No, if you survive them. And some adventures will turn into potential businesses as well and some of our adventures hopefully will change the world but we’ll see how it goes.

Yanik: Yeah, I want to talk about some sort of the adventure part, it’s interesting. So, I think Missy has a lot of some short dealing with  Joan because she’s the more of the conservative one she’s not into the adventure and the risk. I bet your kids has that, have you consciously rub that part off on them, or it just happened?

Richard: Myself and my wife are a complete opposites. I think a bit like you do which is good because you want your wife to be around in case something happens to you. If you’ll have kids have at least one. Not in front of the kids. So, with my children they had a mother who is very loving, wonderful mom and she put in a lot in for me to take risk. And then she had a father who when mom’s out doing something makes sure the kids, she did take a few risk and it did take a few details and my kids grew for good or for bad they taken up around, can you hear me? For good or for bad they’ve taken up with myself and mom so we’ve gone wonderful adventures together, we’ve tried sailing together, last year we did a wonderful adventure across Europe my son climbed the massive one at the end of it, and it’s great to be able to go with your children and do incredible adventures. And I would say that you know we have crossed the English Channel together and I would say that somebody’s adventures they would say that they were the happiest days of their lives and talk more about those almost any other day. You know, we ran the marathon together there’s a junk hazard bitter of myself as a butterfly and 32 of all the time together not with my kids but anyway so I hope one day that your kids want to do some wonderful fun things with you. I’ll keep a busy one for you…

Yanik: I know that family is incredibly important for you and one thing you said a couple years back I remember is that one of the reason you love this place is that you’ve created a place that your kids come they bring their friends, and it’s contained, and spend this amazing time with them. I just had the privilege to spend some time with the original boss who’s the founder of Amway and he brought this amazing, crazy gun just for that ritual one of the reasons. It’s to bring his family there and they all run with their friends inside that contained place. What do you think about those kind of family rituals, or traditions?

Richard: Well, I think it’s you know, we’ve been very, very fortunate, we’ve been together nearly forty years, steady love and it’s worked, and I think one of the reasons it’s worked is that we’ve been able to have a wonderful group of friends that we spend time out and I’m sure having the survivor it’s helped, it’s a wonderful magnet to bring friends, to bring family to you know, make sure your kids come to us on holiday time and not to other friends house on holidays. So, it’s good to have a little bit of a nice drive after…

Yanik: You’ve always worked, you work in your house, you had the kids around you in your trips. How important do you think that is to have that combination of work life?

Richard: Yeah, I’ve always worked from home so when kids were born I lived and worked in the house and that’s really small and so the kids will be crawling around the room while I was having my business meeting, we’re going changing nappies with tons of people in the middle of business discussion with and it was our way of life, and generally I’ve always worked from home ever since. And in this day and age it’s even easier to work from home you don’t need to work from an office anymore and we encourage people to work first if they want to work from home and they should be able to do so, if they want to spend full time with their families, they want to take their Fridays or Mondays at home and don’t want to work in the office that’s fine. Flexibility in work is working we’re really trying to encourage. We’ve introduce unlimited holidays approaches so that the people feel that it is important that they take two months holiday if they can do it and they still get paid the same and we find that people that use it they’ll make sure that the ten months they’re at work they get the job done.

Yanik: So let’s take a different direction here, let’s talk about space. First of all random Richard question do you believe in aliens?

Richard: Do I believe in aliens? I’m absolutely certain there are many other civilizations in the universe, they’re not exactly like us but I suspect there is billions upon the civilizations out there. We’re talking about trillions, and trillions, and trillions, and trillions, and trillions of galaxies and stars out there and statistically it’s impossible there aren’t, I don’t believe any of them has made it as far as… It’ll be wonderful if and they did and I’m keeping my eyes open every time.

Yanik: So Virgin Galactic I know that’s one of your favourite companies, I think. I don’t have to even say that, like children. There are 301 moving parts, maybe not but so, Virgin Galactic I know is near and dear to your heart and this will lead to some lot of ticket holder and it’s that all notion of going into space. Is that always been something that fascinated you?

Richard: Yes. I think that 90% of people on earth are fascinated by the idea of going into space. I mean it’s very rare that you find somebody that if they have the opportunity to go to space wouldn’t want go to space. So, I think it’s the exception to the rule maybe your wife won’t, maybe my wife won’t but I think, who would like to go to space one day?

Yanik: Keeps your hands up this is the free throws, we have 4 spots available. The price has gone up actually.

Richard: Yeah so a number of years ago President Gorbachev many years ago quickly invited me to fly with a Russian spacecraft and I’m going to have the chance to be the first person on the Russian spacecraft into space and I declined because I thought spending that kind of money you know, it just wouldn’t look right and so we decided to see if we could probably build our own spacecraft.

Yanik: I think you’re an entrepreneur.

Richard: And it’s been far, far, far tougher that we thought and it is rocket science and rocket science it’s tough and also everybody knows we had a horrendous set back few months ago.

Yanik: Yeah I want to talk about that sort a while. How many of you has read about Virgin Galactic crash? So I was literally… Missy texted me it was Halloween and I was sitting with Barbara Marx Hubbard, she’s a conscious evolutionary expert. She’s an amazing 80-some-year-old woman and when I heard about it and I kept playing my phone. It kept texting, kept texting and I usually don’t answer my phone and once I looked at it and what’s going on? I’m like, “Oh wow” and I literally just felt sick to my stomach and not because “oh boo hoo, it takes Yanik longer to go to space,” but the idea of that this commercial and viable product and space and we’re going to go out what does that lead to what’s next and what happens. And I literally cried and then you had to deal with that. How do you deal with a crisis like that?

Richard: We’ll I’ve been through it once before we have a train company and I was in Switzerland with my children and my phone kept ringing in my pocket and it doesn’t at that time of night ring completely as often and just I thought something sent alarm bells ringing. And our train have gone off the tracks and the tracks had been broken and the you know, the first rule is if something like that happens is you know get to the scene, be with your staff and if it turns out to be has gone make sure you take precaution and apologize profusely. As it turned out on that occasion that railway have gone completely over track in a bit by being there you know if someone who needed water, if there’s someone you know, an elder lady who died and met her family in the mortuary, it’s not a pleasant thing to do, we had big hugs and some tears together. Then went to all the press I’m the sort of person who cries in happy films, sad films my kids brings a box of Kleenex to the cinema and I was terrified that I was going to end up crying fortunately held us up together. So, I think I learned from that. I was told on my son on the phone when I got the news he was training he was in Centrifuge in Philadelphia for his space flight and I just got a message that there’s been a disaster and you know again I just got on a plane as quickly as possible and went there. And had got all 350 engineers together spoke with them had the biggest hug and just give hugs and you know, told them that as long as what had happen was not our fault and as long as it wasn’t insurmountable, I promised them that we would keep the program on the road, all their jobs would be secure, and we would move forward. And fortunately as it turned out, it wasn’t a fundamental flaw. The team just got on and worked 24 hours a day ever since, and we’re few months off now from being back on track.

Yanik: Yeah, stuff like that really rallies people together and we showed off as a real person. I had a couple of friends that ask me, “Are you going to sell your ticket?” “No,” absolutely not. I’m committed and even more so now it’s like to me I wouldn’t do.

Richard: I mean it was people yourself that set back that kept us going. I mean there are 800 people who bought tickets 20 decided not to continue. On the very day of the crash we had people like the prime minister’s wife of Iceland buy a ticket.

Yanik: To show their support.

Richard: We have the prime minister’s wife of Saudi Arabia buy a ticket. I mean a whole mixture of people just bought tickets in support which on that base I just thought that it’s understood for us to carry on.

Yanik: One other thing I want to ask you about space actually you shared it with me the other night about what got to do with satellites and new innovations just talk about that and the why?

Richard: Well I think today we talked about the improvements of connectivity. The world still doesn’t have internet access, WiFi access, or mobile phones and we really can’t participate in the world today, you can’t setup your businesses on. So, we’re putting up a massive array of satellites around the earth, more satellites, well potentially more satellites in there all currently in the sky went in space. And that would bring internet and WiFi access to and some like 3 billion people who don’t have it at the moment and after make it affordable first one aside of things. Any other thing the team are very excited about is point to point travel at tremendous speed.

Yanik: What do you think that might be useful? That’s going up like you’re going to go from New York to Sydney you’d be going up higher than 80,000 ft or 60,000?

Richard: It would be higher than 80,000 ft. So over a hundred thousand feet and potentially we’ll send people to Australia orbitally at eighteen and a half thousand miles an hour the amount of time in the air will be a lot less the amount of time airport.

Yanik: You just had grandkids.

Richard: I’ve just had them, 3 wonderful grandkids and yes I spend a couple of weeks with them and learned about changing nappies. What I haven’t done is learn how to burp kids very well. We’re looking for someone a burp machine. Especially when you got twins there’s a lot of burping it does go on between feeding, a lot of tapping, its hard work we’ve been done splitting the time we’re talking about it anyway.

Yanik: Do your grandkids does that make you think even more about your legacy?

Richard: It’s hard when people ask about legacy you think am I getting that old? Yeah, you know what I think your legacy is your family again I mean life really is your closest friends, your family and you know, a little bit, a little bit more than that but it’s absolutely, it’s so important family, family and friends and not to underestimate them.

Yanik: That’s good we’re going to wrap up there. Thank you!