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Losing My Virginity: The Autobiography, by Sir Richard Branson
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This fully updated edition of Sir Richard Branson's bestselling autobiography features his latest intrepid ventures in the areas of health, environment, media and, of course, exploration. Discover new details about Sir Richard's commitment to the future, through the Virgin Health Bank and its contribution to regenerative medicine, Virgin Fuels' pledge of 200 million to renewable energy projects, and his charitable body Virgin Unite. Sir Richard also discusses the earth-based launch of Virgin Media, and the progress toward the literal 'launch' of Virgin Galactic and a new era of commercial space travel. Featuring many new insights into his family life, "Losing My Virginity" is an amazing memoir, a definitive business guide and an inspirational story that reveals Sir Richard's unique philosophy on business, the Virgin brand and life.
- Sales Rank: #3429423 in Books
- Published on: 2007-08-09
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.01" h x 1.65" w x 4.29" l, 1.10 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 624 pages
Amazon.com Review
In this autobiography, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson says one of his prime business criteria is "fun." Fun made Branson a billionaire, and few business memoirs are one-billionth as fun as Branson's, nor as niftily written. Not only does it relate his side of near-death corporate experiences, it tells how the chairman literally cheated death by gun, shipwreck, and balloon crash.
Branson's empire--now encompassing interests in an airline, pop music, soda pop, e-commerce, and financial services--began when the dyslexic 16-year-old dropped out of school in 1968 to found the British magazine Student. His headmaster said, "I predict that you will either go to prison or become a millionaire." Briefly imprisoned for dodging customs selling records, Branson got his first million by releasing Tubular Bells, a maverick recording all the stuffy executives rejected. (1998's Tubular Bells III puts the series' sales over 20 million.)
Despite wild tales of Branson's wife-swapping and Keith Richards fleeing naked from Branson's studio at gunpoint with another man's woman, the most shocking parts of the memoir concern British Airways' James Bond-like "dirty tricks" campaign against Virgin Atlantic, resulting in the biggest award for damages in English history.
Though it's filled with famous names, witty quotes, and pulse-pounding accounts of lunatic balloon adventures, it is as a business thriller that the book really scores. His instinctive bet-the-ranch tactics could cost him all, or earn another billion. Either way, Branson will likely remain the most entertaining entrepreneur in Europe. --Tim Appelo
Review
"'Branson has a list of achievements unmatched by any other UK businessman. For anyone burning with entrepreneurial zeal, his reminiscences are akin to a sacred text', Mail on Sunday 'Grabs you on page one and never lets go... a rollercoaster ride... read what makes this brilliant and hardworking man tick', Spectator 'Candid and humorous', The Times 'An incredible man, and this is an incredible autobiography... a great read - sex, balloons, intrigue and money', Sunday Business 'Branson bares his soul - and everything else - in a non-fiction blockbuster... a must-read', Business Age"
From the Inside Flap
"Oh, screw it, let's do it."
That's the philosophy that has allowed Richard Branson, in slightly more than twenty-five years, to spawn so many successful ventures. From the airline business (Virgin Atlantic Airways), to music (Virgin Records and V2), to cola (Virgin Cola), to retail (Virgin Megastores), and nearly a hundred others, ranging from financial services to bridal wear, Branson has a track record second to none.
Losing My Virginity is the unusual, frequently outrageous autobiography of one of the great business geniuses of our time. When Richard Branson started his first business, he and his friends decided that "since we're complete virgins at business, let's call it just that: Virgin." Since then, Branson has written his own "rules" for success, creating a group of companies with a global presence, but no central headquarters, no management hierarchy, and minimal bureaucracy.
Many of Richard Branson's companies--airlines, retailing, and cola are good examples--were started in the face of entrenched competition. The experts said, "Don't do it." But Branson found golden opportunities in markets in which customers have been ripped off or underserved, where confusion reigns, and the competition is complacent.
And in this stressed-out, overworked age, Richard Branson gives us a new model: a dynamic, hardworking, successful entrepreneur who lives life to the fullest. Family, friends, fun, and adventure are equally important as business in Branson's life. Losing My Virginity is a portrait of a productive, sane, balanced life, filled with rich and colorful stories:
Crash-landing his hot-air balloon in the Algerian desert, yet remaining determined to have another go at being the first to circle the globe
Signing the Sex Pistols, Janet Jackson, the Rolling Stones, Boy George, and Phil Collins
Fighting back when British Airways took on Virgin Atlantic and successfully suing this pillar of the British business establishment
Swimming two miles to safety during a violent storm off the coast of Mexico
Selling Virgin Records to save Virgin Atlantic
Staging a rescue flight into Baghdad before the start of the Gulf War . . .
And much more. Losing My Virginity is the ultimate tale of personal and business survival from a man who combines the business prowess of Bill Gates and the promotional instincts of P. T. Barnum.
Also available in the UK from Virgin Publishing, and in Canada from General Publishing,
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Branson writes much like he conducts business
By Amazon Customer
Who among us has not craned our necks to gawk at a sprawling mansion and wondered, "Wow, what do THEY do for a living? I wonder if I could do that?"
Well, I've never cruised past Necker Island (one of the homes owned by the author), but I appreciate Richard Branson's candid answers to these old, nagging questions that we would all ask.
Branson has provided a simple, mostly chronological narrative about his spectacular failures in business - at age 14 and 15 - as well as his first success in starting a school newspaper at age 16.
His transition from the newspaper to Virgin Records HAS to be a business school classic, and his pattern of parlaying the earnings of one business to launch another has been repeated throughout his life. Now it would seem that he cannot go out for coffee without accidentally starting another Virgin brand subsidiary.
Branson writes much like he conducts business: he just dives right in and holds nothing back. He tells us all about his life and loves as well as his adrenaline-junkie airborne adventures.
The reader will have to forgive him for all the bragging. After all, "It ain't bragging if you really done it." It is, after all, an autobiography. And we DID ask the questions, or we would have if our boat went past Necker Island.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Best Biography Book
By Amazon Customer
Felt humiliated with the challenges I had to go through with my business after reading what Sir Richard had gone through! This book will inspire you! Push you through tough times and to start dreaming of your own legacy! A legacy not for your own but for your childres as well.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
An Unconventional Approach to Business!
By O. Halabieh
Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful:
1- "There was a great sense of teamwork within our family. Whenever we were within Mum's orbit we had to be busy. If we tried to escape by saying that we had something else to do, we were firmly told we were selfish. As a result we grew up with a clear priority of putting other people first."
2- "Later, it became apparent to me that business could be a creative enterprise in itself. If you publish a magazine, you're trying to create something that is original, that stands out from the crowd, that will last and, hopefully, serve some useful purpose. Above all, you want to create something you are proud of. That has always been my philosophy of business. I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money. If that is the sole motive then I believe you are better off not doing it. A business has to be involving; it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts."
3- "In the many different business worlds I have inhabited since that night in prison, there have been times when I could have succumbed to some form of bribe, or could have had my way by offering one. But ever since that night in Dover prison I have never been tempted to break my vow. My parents had always drummed into me that all you have in life is your reputation: you may be very rich, but if you lose your good name you'll never be happy. Th( The thought will always lurk at the back of your mind that people don't trust you. I had never really focused on what a good name truly meant before, but that night in prison made me understand."
4- "It is always difficult to admit to a failure, but the one positive thing about the Event episode was that I realized how important it was to separate the various Virgin companies so that, if one failed, it would not threaten the rest of the Virgin Group. Event was a disaster, but it was a contained disaster. Every successful businessman has failed at some ventures. and most entrepreneurs who run their own companies have been declared bankrupt at least once. Rather than defaulting on our debts, we paid them up and shut down the magazine."
5- "It was one of our early acquisitions, and it gave us first-hand experience of all the pain that comes with laying off staff in order to turn a company round. It also demonstrated the benefits of growing a company from scratch, when you employ exactly those people you want, and really f establish the kind of atmosphere you want."
6- "In the same way that I tend to make up my mind about people within thirty seconds of meeting them, I also make up my mind about whether a business proposal excites me within about thirty seconds of looking at it. I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics. This might be because, due to my dyslexia, I distrust numbers, which I feel can be twisted to prove anything."
7- "As well as the constrictions of having to report to nonexecutive directors and shareholders, one of my main i frustrations with being a public company quoted on the stock market was the short-term view which investors took. We were under pressure to produce instant results, and unless we paid out a large dividend our share price would suffer. Japanese investors do) not invest with the dividend payment in mind; they look almost exclusively for capital growth. And, given that it can take a long time for investments to pay off. Japanese share prices are very high in comparison i with the company's earnings."
8- "It sometimes seems to me that I have spent all my life trying to persuade bankers to extend their loans. Given that Virgin's policy has always been to reinvest our surplus cash back into the business, our profit and loss accounts understate the underlying value of the businesses. This policy has worked over the long term. but whenever there is a crisis it disguises the real picture and means that the banks worry about our short-term profits and ability to pay our immediate interest."
9- "Obstinate as I am, I recognized that there is a time to back down. 'Live for the present -' I heard my parents' old maxim in the back of my head '- and the future will look after itself.'"
10- "You just need to look at where Virgin is now to see that business is a fluid, changing substance. As far as I'm concerned, the company will never stand still. It has always been a mutating, indefinable thing and the past few years have demonstrated that."
11- "My vision for Virgin has never been rigid and changes constantly, like the company itself. I have always lived my life by making lists: lists of people to call, lists of ideas, lists of companies to set up, lists of people who can make things happen. Each day I work through these lists, and it is that sequence of calls which propels me forward."
12- "In some ways it all boils down to convention. As you might have noticed, I do not set much store by such so-called wisdom. Conventionally, you concentrate on what you are doing and never stray beyond fairly narrow boundaries when running a company. Not only lo I find that restrictive, I also think that it's dangerous. If you only run record shops and refuse to embrace change, when something new like the Internet is launched you will lose your sales to the person who makes use of the new medium. It's far better to set up your own Internet operation to which your record shops lose business than lose it to somebody else's Internet operation."
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