Sir Richard Branson was born on July 18, 1950, in London, England. Although speech came to him at an early age, he was slow in acquiring written language, confessing in an interview with The Times, London, “At school I was dyslexic and a dunce.” His academic performance was poor and when he decided to leave school at age 16, the headmaster of Stowe School, Robert Drayson, presciently observed, “You will either end up in prison, or become a millionaire.” With his flamboyant personality and intensity of purpose, Branson flirted with both possibilities; he served an overnight stay in jail for tax evasion in 1971, but ultimately moved away from the former and toward the latter with increasing vigor.
Branson’s eagerness to confront risk has been evident throughout his storied life. In 1984, he was booked on a flight from Puerto Rico to the British Virgin Islands where he was to meet with his future wife Joan Templeman. When the flight was canceled, he and several hundred passengers were stranded in the small island airport. Perceiving an opportunity, he scouted by telephone for a charter flight and paid the total cost up front. He then canvassed the stranded passengers, offering them tickets to the British Virgin Islands for $39 each. This covered his costs and sowed the seeds for the creation of Virgin Atlantic Airlines a few months later.
Such was the risk-taking approach that characterized Branson’s many ventures, culminating in an empire of companies under the umbrella called the Virgin Group. His motto was, “You’ve got to take risks if you’re going to succeed. I would much rather ask forgiveness than permission.” This approach brought him fame and a net worth of $4.6B qualifying him as 589th wealthiest billionaire in the Forbes’ 2021 ranking of the richest people in the world.
On March 30, 2000, Richard Branson was knighted “for services to entrepreneurship” by Prince Charles and became Sir Richard Branson. As the model of a swashbuckling entrepreneur with an insatiable appetite for risk and an insistence on marching to his own tune, he has been an inspiration to many who have not excelled in academics, but do wish to succeed in business. Branson once observed, “Education doesn’t just take place in stuffy classrooms and university buildings, it can happen everywhere, every day to every person.”
