Richard Branson has the weight of the world on his shoulders, but he carries it as if it’s draped casually over one shoulder—befitting a man whose workday is punctuated by tennis and kite surfing on Necker, his private Caribbean island. And he will temporarily shrug off that weight when he and his children, Holly and Sam, are thrust into zero gravity at the edge of space during the inaugural launch of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo this year—making them the first private space-bound passengers in history.
After a series of delays, the press-fueled pressure is on. Such are the unpleasant side effects of trying to conquer this world and the next—from climate change to banking monopolies. “The program has taken longer than we’d expected,” the Virgin Group CEO admits dryly, “but it is rocket science, and rocket science, as we’ve discovered, is difficult.” It’s a challenge Branson is happy to take on—even for a mere 30 seconds of bobbing around in 4.5 g loads—as the long-term ramifications are vast.
Clearly, others are willing to do whatever it takes to hitch the ultimate ride as well—wheelchair-confined physicist Stephen Hawking chief among them. “[The space flight] is going to be challenging for him and for the people who go up with him,” says Branson. Environmental scientist and author James Lovelock will face his own set of hurdles going into space at 95. “He’s keeping himself as fit as he can to make sure he can enjoy it.” The list of luminaries who’ve paid the extravagant $250,000 ticket price for a chance to follow in Branson’s free-floating footsteps reads like the table of contents of an issue of Vanity Fair, which has added to the media scrutiny.
The British entrepreneur dismisses the notion that Virgin Galactic’s flights will merely be joy rides for billionaires, citing the history of the first transatlantic flights. “It cost the equivalent of $250,000 in the 1920s to fly across the Atlantic,” he says, “It was those people who could afford it who were the pioneers and enabled hundreds of millions of people to fly across the Atlantic in the years since.” The roughly 800 individuals who have bought Virgin Galactic tickets so far, concedes Branson, are “all wealthy people, but without them our program would never have gotten off the ground.” Besides which, he is already brainstorming a way in which thousands of everyday people, “cleaners, dustbin drivers, coal miners or whatever, will have a chance to go to space.” The modest goal: “to democratize space travel.”
For decades, space tourism has been positioned as the next big thing in travel—from journeys to the moon to space station hotels. Although Branson doesn’t yet have any plans to launch a trendy five star in the stars, Virgin Galactic’s Spaceport America in New Mexico, designed by British starchitect Norman Foster and his team, certainly looks the part. And that’s not all: “We will be building a very sexy spaceport hotel in New Mexico next to our spaceport,” Branson divulges.
In the meantime, a bit closer to home, Virgin will launch its first branded hotel in the United States in the historic Dearborn Bank Building in Chicago this fall (to be followed by properties in San Francisco and New York in the next two years). “It’s something that Virgin should have done years ago,” says Branson, noting that his brand’s stylish way of doing business, coupled with its experience with preexisting properties, make it an obvious hotel sector contender. Built in 2005, Virgin’s Moroccan hideaway in the Atlas Mountains, the Kasbah Tamadot luxury hotel, has garnered its share of upmarket buzz, while the whole of Necker Island can be rented out exclusively for $62,000 a night or partially, at lower rates, during “celebration weeks.”
When conversation turns to Necker, it becomes clear that the 75-acre island—where Branson spends half the year when he’s not traveling—is the center of his rather big world. “We’ve created a paradise here, and it’s where our kids grew up to a very large extent,” he says. Necker Island is also at the heart of Branson’s beloved environmental endeavors. He uses it as a shelter for endangered animals such as lemurs, flamingos, and scarlet and white ibises. It also serves as a demonstration island for his new eco project with Carbon War Room, Branson’s NGO that emphasizes the business benefits of becoming sustainable.
The goal of the Ten Island Renewable Challenge is to transition the islands in Branson’s Caribbean backyard off fossil fuels and onto producing their own renewable energy, all the while drawing investment in their infrastructures. In February, several Caribbean heads of state from islands such as St. Lucia and Turks & Caicos met on Necker Island to collaborate on environmental efficiency and renewable energy projects. The island regularly hosts such environmental powwows: “It’s a great place for inspiration; it’s a great place to work out some of the issues the world faces,” Branson says.
Fortune 500 energy company NRG is currently helping Necker run on renewable fuels, using it as a demonstration site for other islands trying to rid themselves of fossil fuel reliance. “We want to be able to show the other Caribbean islands that you can do this—be clean but also save money as well.” In this sense, he takes the weight of the world home—a home that faced its own life-threatening trial when his family’s “Great House” burned to the ground in 2011. The fire, precipitated by a lightning storm, made headlines—not the least of which for its harrowing movie-worthy tale of actress Kate Winslet carrying Branson’s nonagenarian mother out of the wreckage. The family home had to be completely rebuilt.
Still, the seemingly unflappable Branson is always the optimist. “We’ve done lots to the island that we wouldn’t have done if we hadn’t had the fire, so out of the ashes can come things which are even better,” he says, describing the rebuilding process as “the old house on steroids.”
Richard Branson has famously spent much of his work and leisure time taking big risks—in hot air balloons and tricky business sectors. “I used to live on a boat and that sank, and I lost a lot of personal things. I’ve had a couple of fires in my life,” he says. However, he says, the Great House blaze put things in perspective: “You find that things are not that important in life. What matters are friends and family.”
The year after the fire, Branson was close to losing another battle, this time to retain Virgin Trains’ contract to operate long-distance services through Britain’s InterCity West Coast franchise. Although he ultimately succeeded in obtaining an extension through November 8 of this year, he says the company was “quite bruised with the process on the West Coast mainline, even though we won in the end.” Virgin still has a 51 percent stake in the line, but has reduced its investment in the East Coast mainline to 10 percent. Branson has nevertheless maintained his faith in what publications such as Wired have called “the future of transportation.” “From an environmental point of view, the more investment in trains, the better,” he says. “Obviously, an investment in high-speed trains will bring it up another notch.”
Speed is a driving force in Branson’s entrepreneurial dreams, which also include picking up where the Concorde left off to commandeer the supersonic commercial long-haul aviation sector (e.g., London to Sydney in 2.5 hours). “I think it can become a reality,” says Branson of his vision of bringing 18,000-mph flights to the public with orbital journeys above the Earth’s atmosphere, with the added benefit of increased environmental friendliness. “Concorde was actually profitable and then they got rid of it. It was very sad,” Branson says, adding that with Virgin Galactic’s technology he hopes to carry the torch for high-speed intercontinental travel. He shares his vision: “Imagine flying orbitally in space with these enormous windows so that you could actually look back on the Earth. It would be the ride of a lifetime.”
Branson’s casual yet trailblazing approach to entrepreneurship, coupled with the cool cachet of the Virgin brand, are the antithesis of the traditional realm of stuffy bankers and “money men,” yet he has a stake in that world, too, via Virgin Money. The financial services brand turned a major corner in 2012 when it acquired nationalized British bank Northern Rock—putting Virgin Money in the game to compete against just four big banks that lord over the majority of mortgage loans in the United Kingdom.
Nevertheless, Branson—an unabashed Google fan—seems more in his element when discussing the visionary Silicon Valley take on business and capital. He raves, “This generation of entrepreneurs is mind-bogglingly exciting.” Taking his cue from such coder creativity, he and his team are integrating an opt-in app that will enable businesspeople on Virgin America or Virgin Atlantic flights to connect and network with each other.
And, last year, Branson announced that Virgin Galactic would begin accepting the volatile and contentious Bitcoin global digital currency—a clever PR move, as well, that once again aligned the Virgin brand with daredevil innovation. “It was a genius who set [Bitcoin] up,” says Branson, while admitting its flaws—lack of transparency among them. “It may not be the perfect global currency of the future yet, but it’s the pioneer of a global currency.”
Instead, he predicts that a successful unifying form of digital money will come from the likes of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey—now CEO of the debit and credit card payment processing mobile service Square, one of Branson’s investments. “He’s the kind that’s more likely to come up with the currency of the future that would be completely transparent,” Branson says, hinting under his breath, “Maybe using the Virgin Money brand.” Should Branson manage the ultimate feat of rebranding the very thing that makes the world go round—money itself—he would truly be master of his own universe.
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