"Screw It, Just Do It!": Interview With Virgin Founder And Business Icon RICHARD BRANSON On His Extraordinary Career And Teaching Disruptive Entrepreneurship With MasterClass

SIR RICHARD BRANSON is the world-renowned British entrepreneur, business icon and founder of the Virgin Group - the multinational venture capital conglomerate that owns more than 400 subsidiary companies in entertainment, retail, travel, hospitality, mobile communications, banking, sports and aerospace.

With decades of entrepreneurial knowledge under his belt as one of the most prominent business leaders in the world, Branson has teamed up with the educational streaming platform MasterClass to teach classes on Disruptive Entrepreneurship. Through honest reflection and humorous storytelling, Branson authentically shares the inspirations that motivated him, the failures that he grew from and the philosophy that guides him - while also outlining tangible key learnings that members can apply to their own entrepreneurial pursuits.

GEORGINA LARA BOOTH interviewed Richard Branson about his exciting new MasterClass on Disruptive Entrepreneurship, his extraordinary life, space pursuits and career as a successful entrepreneur starting businesses from a very young age to being the founder of Virgin.

Hi Richard! How are you?

"Hi Georgina! I am extremely well, thank you!"

Belated Happy Birthday! I saw on your Instagram that you had a lot of fun at your birthday celebration!

"I was spoiled rotten! It was a really great time seeing people I actually hadn't seen for 45 years...like my first secretary, which is what they were called in those days, and my first girlfriend! It was delightful! It was a magical time."

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That's so lovely! Where are you now?

"I'm back at home on Necker Island where we have a tech conference going on, so lots of interesting learning, diving and doing the things I love - like kiting! We have had four months of just non-stop beautiful wind coming across the Atlantic and no storms, so may everybody in Europe keep sending the wind our way! Anyway, kiting is my favourite sport, so I am out every day doing that! I love all kinds of sports - including tennis and biking - but kiting is particularly lovely in the Caribbean where you have 18 mile an hour winds every day...! Where are you at the moment?

I'm in Amsterdam at the moment! Have you ever been to Amsterdam?

"Amsterdam's very nice! Well, talking about my first girlfriend...she was from Holland! She was from Zeist, near Utrecht, and I used to visit quite a lot when I was a teenager."

That is so fun to hear! Do you speak Dutch?

"Uh...Double Dutch!"

Let's talk about your MasterClass! You're teaching disruptive entrepreneurship that is accessible to everyone online. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

"Yes! I left school really young at 15, you know, and I found formal education pretty dull. I have watched a number of MasterClasses, like Sarah Blakely from SPANX, Mariah Carey, Gordon Ramsay and so on. I just found this type of education far more entertaining than formal education. I felt like I have reached an age where I have had 55 years of experience building and creating things, so it would be a waste to not share some of the things that I have learned over the years and I think MasterClass does it really well. I mean, they take the time and effort to put these programs together and they pay good money to charity as well, which is really good of them. I think that they have enabled people to learn a lot for not too high a price and it was fun spending five days with them just creating something that hopefully will be useful to people!"

What is the best advice that you would give to the many young people who are starting their entrepreneurial careers and who look up to you as a source of inspiration?

"Obviously, I spent five days working on that with MasterClass and they will get lots of great advice if they tap into that from August 4th, but you know my motto in life has always been 'Screw it, Just do it!' and I have done a lot of things instinctively. If I see something that is not being done well, I'll jump in and try to do it better and try to improve it. I'll surround myself with great people and give it a go and sometimes we'll fall flat on our face and sometimes, you know, we'll succeed. It's a lot of fun trying and there aren't many things in my life that I haven't given a go if I see that it's not being done well. I remember when I was young, people said 'you must know your onions' and to not stray...Obviously, I've broken that rule and I have gone from, you know, Student magazine to airlines, train companies, financial service companies, space companies like Virgin Galactic and, you know, a whole range of different areas. Basically, if you see that something is not being done well, and it's slightly broken, you pull a good team together and you can dive in and fix it to make it a lot better. That is why I think Virgin as a brand has done so well for so many years. I mean, if you know that we have launched a new cruise company, like Virgin Voyages, people know and expect it to be the best in the world. They will give it a go because they know that they won't be disappointed and that they'll have an absolute blast! That applies to really every Virgin company, you know, and we make sure that we deliver every single little detail right and people have a great time!"

You are a hugely successful entrepreneur and you have achieved so much success in so many different industries. Is there any industry that you haven't pursued yet where you would still like to start a new company perhaps...?

"I think that we are now starting to focus a lot more on the non-profit organizations to try to address some of the big issues in the world, but running them just like I would run a for-profit company. We've set up an organization called The Elders with Nelson Mandela and Mary Robinson that go into conflict regions and try to address conflicts. We set up a group of business leaders to try to address climate change. We set up The Global Commission on Drug Policy to try to get governments to address drug issues as a health problem and not a criminal problem. We set up an organization to try to get the death penalty abolished and we're working hard on that. We set up quite a number of other organizations, so most of my time now is not so much setting up companies for profit, but it's more setting up organizations to tackle issues."

You mentioned earlier that you started companies in the space industry like Virgin Galactic. I saw a photo view of you and Elon Musk on your Instagram. A lot of people have said that there is a "Space Race" between you and other individuals like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Would you consider yourself in a "Space Race" with them and do you ever exchange notes with each other?

"As you know, Elon was good enough to turn up to see me go to space and surprise me and so we're friends. He brought his very first Tesla car to Europe and he drove up to our house. When we were skiing, he would give us a drive in it, so we've been friends for a long time. We're both doing different things, you know, so I don't see ourselves as competitors. Rather friends than competitors. I mean, space is difficult to get to and there are so many people who want to go to space and there are so many more people than the number of spaceships that I'll be able to build in my lifetime or the number of spaceships that Jeff or Elon build in their lifetimes, so at the moment, we're not really competitors and we will remain friends."

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You have already been to space yourself, Richard. What does that feel like...?

"The most extraordinary day of my life! Every second of it was a dream come true, you know. Something that I've waited all my life to obtain...and I look forward to you trying it one day!"

Definitely! Has it always been your childhood dream to go to space and was going to space always a goal of yours to achieve?

"It was always a goal, but I never thought I'd do it on my own spaceship! I only did it on my own spaceship, because NASA wasn't building spaceships or wanted me to go to space, so we decided 'screw it, let's do it!' and 'let's build a spaceship!'"

Would you ever consider moving to space permanently?

"Yeah, I mean if am in my 90s and if there was an opportunity to live on another planet, I would hopefully be up there rather than down there. I would certainly love the experience of, you know, checking out the moon or Mars or whatever, but I most likely would want to be well into my 90s before I did that, because I'm thoroughly enjoying being back here on Earth with my grandkids."

If there's any job in the world that you could do, aside from what you're already doing, what job would that be and why?

"Right today, I would give up everything to run Russia and apologize to the world that we made a dreadful mistake and to immediately compensate all those people in Ukraine who have been maimed and killed and to compensate the families. I would tell the world that we would honour the 1994 agreement where we pledged that Ukraine would would be respected by Russia and gave up nuclear weapons. I would announce that we're turning Russia into a fully democratic country that would love to join the European Union. I would love to be able to see Russia in my lifetime join the European Union and become a fully fledged member and, as a result, I'd love to put conflicts behind us!"

Would you ever want to go into politics and consider becoming the next Prime Minister?

"I'm in a position where I am able to campaign on issues that I feel strongly about. I think I've known 11 different Prime Ministers in my life and I think that the knowledge that I've gained as an entrepreneur is enormous, but I think I can put that to better use than going into politics. If I can't end up running Russia, I don't think I'd run any other country, sorry."

Is there any general message that you would like to share with everyone who will be watching MasterClass to learn from your knowledge that you have gained from your extraordinary career?

"Yeah, to keep learning and I think that MasterClass is a wonderful way of learning. I mean, I don't believe in the sort of formal learning of schools where people cram for exams. MasterClass is the opposite of that. It just makes learning fun, interesting and entertaining and that's the best way of learning!"

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