Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way

by Richard Branson

  As I was going to sleep, I thought that this was almost too much for one person in their lifetime, to have such fantastic experiences, and to be so fortunate. It was only when I woke up that I realised that fortune was not going to shine on us this time and that we were going to end up landing in the Pacific rather than being the first to travel around the world in a hot-air balloon.

  The wall of bad weather that we tried to beat had got there before us. We went as high as we could to get through it; we went as low as we could to get through it. But to no avail. It was as if a solid brick wall had been built right down the coast of America to stop us.

  We were very fortunate to find winds that took us back out into the Pacific, towards the only islands for thousands of miles – Hawaii. Once we were sixty miles from them, we crashed into the sea. The balloon dragged over the waves, bouncing 300 feet each time, like the bombs in the Dambusters film. Pushing the dome on the roof open, we climbed out, hanging on for dear life. Then, finally, as the balloon hit the sea for the tenth time, we threw ourselves off, once again to be plucked out of the sea by helicopters, which just managed to reach us. No wonder Virgin sponsored London’s helicopter ambulance service!

  On Christmas Day I landed in Hawaii and decided to get to Necker Island, where all the family were. On Boxing Day I landed to find a slightly surreal thing happening when I arrived. Nobody was in the big house. All my best friends and relatives were gathered at the very far end of the island, having a children’s party. The reason it was surreal was that I’d written my will the day before I’d taken off in the balloon and in it I’d instructed that, if the balloon had gone down and my body had been recovered, I was to be buried at that end of the island. I wanted my best friends and family to be at my funeral, and I wanted to be laid for ever in this very special place. And so it was strange to be there in person, looking around and thinking, My God, what a different kind of party this could have been.

  And it was at that time that I thought, OK, I’ve had these incredible experiences; somebody has been kind to me and I’ve survived them. These exploits had helped me put Virgin on the map, put me on the map, and given me some fantastic memories to tell the grandchildren one day. But I’d pushed my luck as far as I should. Now I could see that if I could use the position in which I’d found myself – where I could pick up the phone to President Mandela or Bill Clinton or Tony Blair and get straight through – I might be able to do something worthwhile. To use that power and position to try to fulfil my original dream – from when I was fifteen, starting the magazine and writing in my first editorial – about trying to change the world. I have always tried to use my position to help charities. When Diana died I was flying back from America and, like everyone else, I was deeply affected by her death. But, as a great friend of the princess, I felt it was important that I try to find a way to make something positive come out of her death. So I decided to put together the best album ever in her memory and pledged 100 per cent of the profits to a Diana memorial fund. Eric Clapton, Sting, George Michael, Chris de Burgh and Paul McCartney all contributed willingly. But I also wanted a fantastic song that would reflect Diana’s life and which could be sung at her funeral and then go on the album.

  I knew Elton John was a friend of Diana so I asked him if he would be prepared to perform ‘Candle in the Wind’ at the funeral and if Bernie Taupin would adapt the words to make them more appropriate for the occasion. I also made it clear that I wanted the song to go on the tribute album. All of this had to be cleared not just by Diana’s family and the Queen, but also by the church. Three frantic days of negotiation followed but the Queen was minded not to allow it so I called Tony Blair and asked him if he would intervene. Fortunately he did, because Elton’s performance of ‘Candle in the Wind’ captured the imagination of the entire world and made what was already a terribly difficult occasion almost unbearably poignant.

  At the time Elton John’s career was in a lull, but imagine my surprise when, a few days later, Elton withdrew permission for the single to go on the charity album. I wrote him a long letter expressing my anger which I decided not to make public. But, as is the way of these things, someone unscrupulous found it when rummaging through Elton’s dustbins and inevitably it found its way on to the front page of the Sun. Fortunately our tribute album went on to make millions of pounds and was the biggest single contributor to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. And ‘Candle in the Wind’ ended up by being the largest-selling single in the history of music, selling some 33 million copies.

  What I’d always thought was that Virgin should be more than just a money-making machine, and that, as Virgin has the wealth of a small nation, we should use that wealth to tackle social issues more than we had in the past. Companies do have a responsibility to tackle them. Bill Gates, over the last few years, has invested enormous amounts of money trying to develop vaccines to stamp out deadly diseases. Despite the difficult time he’s had, and the bad press Microsoft has received, he’s given an awful lot back to the community. He’s a tremendous example to all other entrepreneurs.

  When I was last in South Africa, I visited some hospitals, particularly ones in Soweto. It was devastating to see the number of people whose lives have been destroyed by HIV/AIDS, including the millions of orphans who have become heads of households at the ripe old age of nine. After the launch of Mates in the UK, Virgin continued to support a number of organisations in the fight against HIV/AIDS around the world – but after this trip I vowed that we would in some way do even more to help stop this disease from wiping out entire generations.

  In Africa, I’m also a supporter of an organisation that’s trying to make sure that the 2 per cent of Africa currently set aside for wildlife is increased to 4 or 5 per cent, giving the wildlife of Africa more wild areas in which to roam – areas that are not just given over for cattle and farmers. Among my favourite animals in the world are the African wild dogs, a dying breed of animal, which I find fascinating. It would be a fantastic legacy for the next generation if twice as much land as is currently used can be fenced in for wild animals, giving them a greater chance of long-term survival.

  Another area of the world that has seen more than its fair share of trouble is Northern Ireland. Although there will always be extremists from both factions – Catholic Republicans and Protestant Unionists – by the 1990s the public were increasingly getting tired of years of sectarian bombings and killings. In May 1998 Mo Mowlam was appointed Northern Ireland Secretary – an inspired choice. Mo is a completely down-to-earth woman who could relate to the ordinary man and woman in the street (literally – as it turned out). She decided to go above the heads of the politicians and directly to The People to hold a referendum on the future of Ireland. If she won, permanent peace was a strong possibility. If she lost, the alternative was to go back to the last 30 years in which 3,500 people had been murdered. The referendum proposed that Northern Ireland would remain part of Great Britain but that, if one day the majority of citizens of Northern Ireland ever wanted a unified Ireland and they voted for it, they could have it.

  Two days before the vote the outcome looked uncertain. Mo is an old friend of mine and she rang me to ask if I would walk the streets with her. I think Mo felt that I was popular in Ireland because of my ballooning and boating adventures and that I had no political or religious associations; she may also have wanted to send the message that with peace would come prosperity in the form of investment in business.

  Either way, the next day I set out for Heathrow with one of our PR staff, Wendy, who happened to be from Northern Ireland herself. In the lounge she turned to me and said, ‘Richard, I’m sorry. I just can’t come with you. My dad will kill me if he sees me with you campaigning for this peace treaty.’ I’d never thought of her as Protestant or Catholic, just a delightful Irish girl. It brought home to me just what a difficult job Mo had ahead of her.

  In the end I persuaded Wendy to come. She bravely stayed with Mo and me for the rest of the day. By t
he end of the day Wendy was so convinced by the arguments that she decided to vote ‘yes’ and also persuaded her mother and sisters to vote ‘yes’ as well. Unfortunately, she realised her dad was a lost cause.

  That night, having walked the streets of Northern Ireland and shaken hundreds of hands, we all went back to Hillsborough Castle, the Northern Ireland Secretary’s beautiful residence, for dinner and bed to await the outcome. At least I knew my trip had secured four extra votes!

  The next day the good news came through – the ‘yes’ vote had been won. Peace finally had come to Ireland. Since it was a peace voted by the people this time it felt like it just might hold.

  In my life, I’ve come to expect the unexpected. It sounds easy enough to say, but all the things that have happened to me, to the family and to Virgin have taught me that you have to be prepared at all times to deal with surprises. You just develop a way of picking up your feet and getting on with it. But nothing I’ve ever faced made me ready for what happened on 11 September 2001.

  It was a quarter past three in the afternoon in Brussels, and I was about to stand up to address yet another European Union inquiry into competition. I’ve sat through dozens of meetings like this, and there was nothing out of the ordinary about that September day. The same grey suits, it seemed, sat there, ranged against us. I knew the strength of our position, so I was already thinking ahead of that meeting, about getting home, settling back into the routine at work after a summer break with the family on Necker. This time it was not about an airline, nor was it about the music business, retailing or the railways: it was about the incredibly ‘interesting’ subject of ‘block exemption’ for European car manufacturers. In other words, about the fact that the people who make cars rip us all off by controlling who sells them, and at what price they’re sold on to us. I was there because, as the years rolled on and the world of the Internet and call centres lowered the cost of distribution, it had become possible for Virgin to sell and deliver cars direct to the public at prices up to 25 per cent cheaper than the corner garage. In the previous year, we had sold more than six thousand.

  As I was about to launch into a withering attack on the vested interests of those who were sitting all around me in the room, someone quietly handed a note to the chairman, who looked up with an ashen face and announced to the shocked room that there had been a terrorist attack in New York, which involved a number of aircraft. He then asked me if I wished to continue. None of us there knew quite how serious things were but they did not sound good; there was also some concern that the European Union building could be a target. Nonetheless, I decided to carry on, deliver the speech, and answer questions from the members of the European Parliament, knowing full well that everyone’s mind would be on New York.

  An hour later I was about to board a Eurostar train back to HQ, when I finally managed to get through to London. ‘It looks like Middle Eastern terrorists took over four aircraft,’ Will said. ‘The Twin Towers have just come down and there could be over ten thousand dead. Reports are also coming in of other aircraft being hijacked. They’ve closed US airspace. In your absence, we turned the planes back; only three had passed the point of no return. Since then they’ve shut US airspace. I suggest we talk in more detail once you’re back and all gather tomorrow morning first thing at Holland Park.’

  As I sat on the train with the chief executive of Virgin Cars, the full horror began to sink in. There was a woman sitting opposite us who was a banker, and was frantically phoning friends in London and New York to find out what she could. She began to give us a blow-by-blow account of what she knew: that the brokers Cantor Fitzgerald had been completely wiped out; that several French and American banks may have had severe casualties. Her distress was evident and I did what I could to help her. I still had not seen any pictures, but I could tell from her tears just how awful things were.

  Only that morning, I’d run my mind over how the businesses were going. In the run-up to 11 September, Virgin Atlantic had continued its remarkable success story. Singapore Airlines had become our partners, paying a record £600 million for a 49 per cent stake in March 2000, and we had remained the only profitable airline flying across the North Atlantic in 2001. The business felt so good that year, as others struggled with out-of-control costs, unfriendly service and ageing fleets. Indeed, I felt so confident about the business that I had continued expanding by starting a new airline in Australia almost exactly a year to the day before the Twin Towers tragedy. It is called Virgin Blue and was based on the low-cost model of Southwest Airlines. Despite the weak Australian dollar and high fuel costs, it had thrived, driving airfares down and doubling the number of people flying on its routes.

  This was not the only new investment of the previous few years. We had done a lot to rationalise Virgin and its brand in the late 1990s and, by 11 September, we had a clear strategy in place, based on the concept of ‘branded venture capital’. Instead of being a conglomerate with lots of subsidiaries, Virgin had become a diverse investor. So we’d choose business sectors carefully, trying to bring more competition to sectors that would benefit the consumer. Then we’d find good partners and managers to take the businesses forward, with the eventual aim of letting them stand on their own two feet, just as companies like Virgin Records and Virgin Radio had already done.

  But we were also turning our attention to whether we could make a difference in other areas. For nearly 250 days of the year I travel around the world, trying to make Virgin the most respected brand in the world; not necessarily the biggest, but the best.

  We had also built a great management team, both at UK and international levels, that could act as our eyes and ears across all the businesses, so the new investments had come at breakneck speed over the previous couple of years. Virgin Active had become the world’s third largest health-club chain; thetrain-line.com, selling rail tickets via the Internet across all the networks, had 5 million customers by 11 September. Virgin Mobile was Europe’s fastest-growing mobile-phone company and, on the fateful day, was on the verge of doing a deal with Sprint to take our no-nonsense mobile offer to the American public.

  As part of the expansion of Mobile, we had also finally consigned the Our Price brand to the dustbin of history. Since we had bought the business from WHSmith in 1998, we had taken the decision to rebrand it as Virgin to sit alongside the successful Megastore chain. It, and Virgin’s other presence on the high street, helped Virgin Mobile to achieve nearly 2 million customers by the beginning of 2002, and now over 5 million customers.

  One of the first things I’d checked, on hearing about the terrorist attacks, was whether or not anyone we knew had been involved. Frances Farrow, who had worked for us on the airline business over here and then moved to New York to marry her fiancé only that spring, lived near the Twin Towers. She was helping out on the deal with Sprint for Virgin Mobile. We lost contact with her for three days; later, we found out that she’d been driving near the World Trade Center just as the first tower started to fall. Luckily for us, all the other relatives and friends called to let us know they were OK.

  But it wasn’t the same for so many others, and I had a taste of this when I was called by Howard Lutnick, the chairman of ‘Cantor’s’, as they were known in the city. On the Friday night, James Kyle of Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm that had lost literally hundreds of employees in the tragedy, had called Will Whitehorn. They urgently needed to fly dozens of grieving relatives to New York but, since their entire operation had been wiped out, they did not know whether they would have a business, when the markets reopened, to pay the bill. On the Saturday morning we agreed to carry as many people as they needed across the Atlantic. Whatever problems we had, it was so very much worse for them.

  Howard rang that afternoon to thank me personally. I couldn’t begin to imagine what a hellish time he was having, facing the loss of most of his close colleagues. ‘Thanks for everything you’re doing for us,’ he said. ‘It means a lot to everyone at Cantor’s.’ I felt embarras
sed that we could do only this much, especially when I learned, after his emotional and gracious phone call, that his own brother, Gary, had died in the devastating attack.

  I see from my diary entry on the computer for 12 September that all it says is ‘RB – meeting all day at Holland Park’. And it was a gloomy group of us who met in my house that morning. Present in the sitting room were Richard Bowker, Patrick McCall, Will Whitehorn, Mark Poole and Simon Wright. Ironically, nobody was there from Virgin Atlantic. Steve Ridgway – the managing director – and his senior team had already enacted their emergency procedures and begun an urgent 72-hour review of the entire business, with a view to making recommendations by the Friday of that week as to what we should do. But all of us sitting around the table in Holland Park knew we were going to have to do something fast. With transatlantic routes closed to us, and the sudden drop-off in passenger numbers, Virgin Atlantic was set to lose £1.5 million a day. That morning I had spoken to BA’s new boss – a delightful Australian called Rod Eddington – who had told me that BA could lose up to £8 million a day. I suggested that we work together in our approach to government to see what assistance we might get, once American airspace opened again. I was heartened by his straightforward reply: ‘Good on ya, mate! I’ll call you at the start of next week.’

  The fact that BA may have been in even worse trouble than we were wasn’t much consolation to the six of us sitting around my drawing-room table in the bright September sunshine. As we drew up lists of what we were up against, it was clear that we had enough cash in the various companies to see ourselves through the worst, but that the potential black hole at Virgin Atlantic needed to be plugged as quickly as possible. The other uncertainty was what was going to happen to our competitors. We knew that Sabena in Brussels and Ansett in Australia were going into administration, but would they survive?