Description: When did Branson decide to give back?

Question: What impact does your work have on the world?

Transcript: I think that it’s maybe too soon to say, “What is Virgin beyond the Virgin brand?” I mean Virgin will mean different things to different people. You know I’d like to think we’ve transformed people’s way of traveling on planes. Before we started out 21 years ago, the experience was diabolical. I mean you were lucky enough to have a chicken dumped in your lap . . . let alone having any entertainment system to watch. And let alone having a cabin crew person who actually smiled at you. And you know I think that that’s one example where we came and we shook up an industry. And other airlines – I think apart from American carriers – have, you know, moved forward with the times and have tried to catch up. And I think we’ve done that to, you know, quite a lot of industries. And the rail industry, when we took it over 10 years ago, was . . . it was worse than India. And you know, we’ve now made it the best in Europe and something which British people can be proud of. And that’s our reason for being. We just love going into sectors where things are badly run and seeing if we can . . . seeing if we can really change them. At the same time, we have 50,000 people at Virgin who want to make a real difference. And Virgin Unite is our charitable arm, and Virgin Unite is doing some wonderful things. And I think actually Virgin one day could be better known for what we can achieve through Virgin Unite than from actually what we’ve achieved in business. And you know, but that’s for another chapter. And we’ve got 20 or 30 years to prove that point.

I mean the president of Nigeria contacted me and said we’ve got planes that crash in West Africa and we don’t have any safe airlines. Could you please come and set up a safe airline for us? Now we never expected to make a lot of money from that, but you know, it’s the right thing to do. So we’ve set up Virgin Nigeria. And you know, now people can fly on a safe airline and know that they can get from A to B safely. And it also will help the economy dramatically. And then there’s just putting our social skills to the enormous problems of Africa, and generally trying to see whether we can make a real difference there. And that’s something which we’re spending a lot of time and energy on looking at. And looking at the . . . looking at HIV and, you know, trying to see whether there’s a different way of sort of saving the millions of lives that have been lost over time. Looking at malarias . . . trying to see if there’s different ways of tackling those problems and so on.

Question: A legacy of adventurism or philanthropy?

Transcript: Well, I think my adventure side was important because . . . because it helped put the Virgin group on the map. It helped put myself on the map. It was great fun, and we were trying to do things that, you know, man had never done before, and trying to work out the technology together. Ballooned across the Atlantic and then to achieve that. Then to the Pacific and then to try get around the world. And the camaraderie of working with people. The having to deal with extremely dangerous situations and, you know, managing to cope through those. So it was . . . I think it was an important chapter in my life. But there came a time, where . . . where that helped make the Virgin group very successful. And I decided, you know, I didn’t want to waste the position we found ourselves in. And with wealth comes enormous responsibility. And capitalism has enormous faults. I’m going to say it’s the only system that seems to work, but it also throws out this enormous wealth. Tennis players, you know, tennis players enormously wealthy. Thousands of tennis players very poor. And you know basketball players, footballers the same. Rife throughout society is this extreme, extreme wealth that’s created by capitalism. So if you’re one of those lucky people who, you know, who are in that position where you get that extreme wealth, you’ve just got to make sure that wealth goes back to society in some form or another. Whether it’s creating more jobs, or whether it’s tackling the problems of the world . . . that money must not languish in a bank account and be unproductive.

Question: When did you decide to give back?

Transcript: I don’t think it was an overnight focus. I mean if I go back to the 60s . . . You know, I set up a center for young people. And when I realized that young people, you know, who maybe got pregnant, who had venereal disease, who were lonely, were suicidal had nowhere to go, that taught me that you can make it better. You can make a big difference. And you know for a relatively small amount of money, you can make a big difference to a lot of people’s lives. So over the years I think we have continued in that spirit, but we never really had the resources to really make a difference. And we never really, you know . . . I never really had the power to be able to say . . . pick up the phone to Clinton or Mandela, or whoever in the world, and get straight through and get things done. So now I’m in that position, and it would be very sad to waste that position and just to carry on trying to accumulate wealth and more and more wealth. And you know it’s important we have the Virgin machine to generate the wealth; but then it’s very important not, not . . . It’s also very important for the staff who work for Virgin to know that wealth is going to be spent in a constructive way, and that’s what we plan to do.

I mean you know, I will . . . I try to become a slightly more responsible person than perhaps I was many years ago. Let’s just think. I mean I think, you know . . . Now I’m being a bit repetitive. But I just don’t want to waste the position I’m in. And it would be easier almost just to say, you know, it’s school holiday time and I’m just gonna go off to the beach, etc., etc. But then there are . . . Well actually when the kids were growing up, you know, I did make sure I planned family time for the family. But now that the kids have grown up, I can make sure I found the time to say yes to people who have asked me to do things which will make a real difference in the world. And that’s what I plan to do.

Recorded on: 7/5/07