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This is Tim Ferris and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. I am so giddy, so excited about this episode. And it is one and a series of close to 300 episodes now where each time around, I tried to deconstruct a world class performer and share with you the stories, the habits, routines, beliefs, negotiating skills. In this particular case, that you can test and apply in your own lives. These are the skill sets that help each of these interviews become the best at what they do.
And our guest today is none other than the one and only Sir Richard Branson at Richard Branson in pretty much everything. He's Richard Branson on Twitter, Richard Branson on Facebook, our Branson on LinkedIn. And if you don't know who he is, Richard Branson is the founder and chairman of the version group. He is a world famous entrepreneur, adventurer, activist, and certainly business icon. He has launched a dozen billion dollar businesses and hundreds of other companies.
The origins are crazy, the later stories are even crazier. And his new autobiography, Finding My Virginity, and I have a long history with Richard's books, which we get into in this episode. But his new autobiography, Finding My Virginity, shares the candid details of a lifetime of triumphs and failures, both of which have been very spectacular and provides an intimate look at his quest to push boundaries, break rules, and seek new frontiers.
This episode was recorded as he was bouncing around the globe and primarily in America's or America catch, depending on how you want to pronounce it, Morocco. So the music you hear in the background is due to that. We worked very hard to get this scheduled. I loved this conversation. I've heard a lot of conversations with Richard before, including in person. I think this one really delivers the goods.
We covered a lot and got into a lot of details, talked about many things I'd never heard him talk about before, including his thoughts on clean meat. If you don't know what that means, we'll get into it. Blockchain, cryptocurrency. How he's coped with dyslexia and how his parents helped make him resilient. The behind-the-scenes stories of deal-making PR stunts, big wins, and in some cases big losses, the habits and life decisions he's used to maintain high energy levels for decades now.
How he caps or limits downside risk even though he's perceived as a risk taker. How and why he takes regular one to two months, sometimes longer, breaks from alcohol, favorite books, lessons learned from Nelson Mandela and many others and much, much more. We cover a ton. I was really nervous about this episode for a host of reasons and could not be happier without turned out. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed it and definitely find finding my originality at all fine booksellers.
You can check it out. I'm certainly going to be digging in myself and with a further ado, please enjoy my extremely wide-ranging conversation with Sir Richard Branson. Richard, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. They're nice to talk to you. I have been looking forward to this conversation for more than 20 years. All right, well, that's a lot to live up to. It is a lot to live up to. Anyway, congratulations on all you've achieved as well. Thank you. No, I appreciate it.
We've bumped into each other here and then different points around the world, but I've always wanted to sit down and very selfishly ask you a lot of questions ever since I bought your first autobiography, losing my virginity, and have carried it with me since college through starting all of my businesses since. I thought we could just begin, I suppose, with current events.
I've been following you around the planet to have this conversation, which I'm thrilled that we're able to have because you've gone through some pretty extenuating circumstances recently. Could you describe for us, I saw your Instagram post, for instance, about retreating into the wine cellar under your home or the main building, I suppose it was on Neckar Island. Where are you right now and could you describe what that experience was like?
It's a strange thing to say, but I've had proven it to be through four hurricanes before this one, and about one every 10 years in the Caribbean. A force one, force two, by and large, is magnificent. The sea throughs, the trees bend, the incredible lightning storms, and it's one of the marvels of life. Yes, there's damage. Trees come down, but generally speaking, the damage is, you can overcome that damage. This hurricane was altogether different.
You've got sort of force five, category force five hurricanes is the highest it goes. The hurricane that was coming to hit us was actually category seven. It didn't even have it in the books. You know, I was definitely going to get a stay on island because we had 60 members of our staff on the island. But I knew that it would be foolish to be up in the main house, watching nature at its worst. We had to get into a very, very, very secure area.
And so the moment it started hitting, we went down into a concrete bunker at the bottom of the house. And for five hours, I mean, it's streamed. It was the whole concrete bunker's shutted. And there were young girls as well as the guys, a couple of children in the bunker. There were a number of tears water was pouring through. But I don't think any of us feared prior lives. We knew that we were in a strong area. We felt for 600 flamingos on the lake.
We felt for the lemurs that were still outside. We felt for the people of the rest of the Caribbean and the British Virgin Islands who lived in wooden shacks and buildings that were nothing as strong as strong. And then equally suddenly it stopped. I mean, it was suddenly, it was a complete house outside. And we waited 15 minutes and we couldn't work out whether this was the end of the storm or whether we were in the eye of the storm. And we stuck our head out of the door.
And I just looked at complete utter devastation. It was as if a hurricane had hit the island. And I didn't often cry over possessions or being damaged. But yeah, definitely, I think all of us had tears in our eyes. Within five minutes, the other side of the storm hit. And we threw ourselves back into the hurricane shelter and we huddled there for another four or five hours. And when we finally came out, we surveyed the damage. And on our own island, it was pretty devastating to say the least.
Within 24 hours, we'd started going around the rest of the British Virgin Islands. And I mean, 90% of homes were destroyed or nearly destroyed. Incredible that more life wasn't lost. And incredible, the resilience of the Caribbean people. I mean, stories that they told, you know, one person told me of the house disappearing above their head with their children, their grandchildren, and then running to the neighbor's house. That then disappeared.
You know, running to a wall, the wall started collapsing. And they ended up with the whole family and a cesspit up to their knees in shit. And but they survived it. And, you know, there's a 13-year-old girl who within three days was set up a makeshift school outside teaching kids younger than her.
And so anyway, very resilient people and the last month, I just spent trying to work out ways of seeing whether the whole of the Caribbean, but the whole of the British Virgin Islands, can come back better and stronger and cleaner and see if we can get some positive things to come out of what's obviously been a sad event. I'd love to dig into your, I suppose, we could call it familiarity with what some people would look at as near-death experiences.
This is from a New Yorker profile, but you hold records. And the writer observed you might also hold the record for the number of highly publicized near-death experiences. So you, this was, this was a some time ago.
I mean, this is 10 years ago 2007, but pulled from the C5 times by helicopters once from a frozen lake during one of your attempts to circle the globe, crashed into the Algerian desert, the Chinese Air Force threatened to shoot one of your balloons out of the sky at one point, and it goes, it goes on and on when you are in circumstances like that. And you mentioned you had a lot of staff down in the, in the basement with you.
What did you say to those people if there were people there who were very, very worried or perhaps panicking in some, in some sense? What did you say or what did you do in those circumstances? I think humor is important. You know, putting on a brave, putting on a brave face, you know, cracking, cracking jokes, plenty of hugs. I mean, I think hugs are important. You know, but I think, you know, like when we were all down, all down in the bunker.
And I mean, just to try to reassure them that, you know, that the, that even 200 mile were now winds were going to bring a sort of concrete, you know, concrete bunker down. You know, with some of my other, some of the other adventures where we were, you know, in a capsule up in the, you know, flying, you know, flying around the world. And when things went wrong, you know, there were just two of us generally.
And you know, both of you have got to try to keep the spirits of the other, the other person up. And if you're going to survive, the only way you're going to survive is by keeping focused by, you know, staying positive, even if you are facing almost certain death. I mean, it's, but, you know, you're definitely, you're definitely going to die unless you stay focused and stay positive and fight to the bitter end.
And, you know, there have been circumstances where, you know, on paper, we had a, well, over 90% chance of not coming home. And, and I think by staying focused, by staying positive and, and with, you know, a, a, a big dose of good fortune, and we made it all the way back. So if we rewind the clock, then, I mean, these are some of the exploits that you're known for.
But if we rewind the clock back to childhood, I'd read that one of your headmasters had observed, or you'd said to you, actually, I predict you will either end up in prison or a millionaire. I don't know if that's true. This is, you have to be careful what you read on the internet. But if that is true, what, what do you think this headmaster saw in you or observed in you at such a young age that would, that would lead to such a statement? It is true.
It was his parting words to me as I left school, a, a, a, age, just just turning 16. And, you know, I think that, you know, I, first of all, I am dyslexic. I was dyslexic. So conventional schooling definitely passed me by. And I was somebody that, you know, felt very strongly about some of the issues in the world. The biggest issue in the world at that time was a very unjust war that he had in these war.
I mean, most wars are very unjust, but this was, you know, yet another very, very unjust war. And I, like many young people was determined to try to campaign very hard to stop the war. And I thought maybe the best way of doing it was to launch a magazine for young people that could be distributed, not just among schools, but universities as well, which would be a campaigning magazine. And it would give young people the voice that they didn't have.
You know, I started planning this magazine at school and working out the school phone box trying to sell advertising and, you know, rigging out James Bond, we're in Jean-Paul Sartre or, you know, Vanessa Regrave or any of what I felt, who, you know, Tari Kelly and, you know, Bernard, can't bend it from Germany. Anybody I felt that, you know, could contribute to a magazine, a campaigning magazine like this and getting them to contribute.
And, and surprisingly, you know, managed to get an advertising, and to cover the printing and the pay per cost of the first issue. So when the headmaster called me in and said, you know, you, you, you, you either must stay at school and stop doing this magazine idea of yours and it's a constraint on your school work or you're going to have to leave school to run your magazine. It was an easy decision for me. And, and I'm grateful to the headmaster for being such a foolish headmaster.
I mean, obviously, would be much better if I, if I could, if I could, if I could have done both and I think it would have been good for the school. But, and I met him a few years later and, you know, and, you know, he was, he was very gracious and, you know, congratulated just some of his success and so on. But, but I think, you know, I did end up in prison for a night, a few years later. And I definitely, that was before I'd become a millionaire.
So, so I think, you know, I remember the headmaster's words and I remember how unpleasant thing in prison for a night is and, and saying to myself, you know, I will never, ever, ever do anything that warrants me going into prison again. So it was, it was, it was, I think everybody should spend, spend a night in prison. So he actually got, he actually got it right on, on both, both cans. What did you do that led or what happened that led to that night in prison?
What happened was that, whilst we had the magazine, we started in the magazine, a little mail order company for people who wanted to buy music and we called this mail order company Virgin Records. Nobody had sold music cheaply before. So we, you know, we discounted it by 10, 10, 30 percent off. And we sold music that we loved.
So, you know, Frank Sapp, that had kept in B thought, rock, you know, it was rock and real music rather than the sort of anti-Williams and the mixture of, you know, rubbish that, you know, other rubbish that was out there. And so the public loved it, you know, it resonated with young people. And we had good taste and we were aiming at kids with good taste. And then one day somebody ordered some records from Belgium from us, a big group, a big large amount of records from Belgium.
And so we, you know, we got a glory and we drove across the, and rose down to Dover and across to France. And when we got to France, they said, where you take it, where you selling these records and we said in Belgium and they said, well, you're not allowed to come through France and sell them in Belgium without a car, which means that you're not going to leave them in France. So you're going to have to go back to England.
And as we were driving back to England, we realized that we had all these pieces of paper sign that said that we'd exported them. And now if we could sell them in England, we wouldn't have to pay the 35 percent tax. So foolishly, we sold them in England. And, you know, what we didn't realize was that there were other bigger retail chains doing something very similar in a much more professional way. And there was a group of customs and excise people who were investigating this idea.
And anyway, so we got busted. And fortunately, it didn't get a criminal record because they said, you can pay the fine off over three years. And as long as you pay the fine off, you won't get a criminal record. And actually, it spurred on the opening of, you know, we had to open 30 or 40 record stores in order to pay off, which it's fine and keep myself out of prison. And so very, very grateful to see customs and excise for giving us that incentive.
What did your parents say to you at that time when you got in trouble and ended up in jail and how old were you at the time if you could place us? I was 19 years old, so still a teenager, just about allowed to be naughty. I remember I was in Dover, magistrate's court, and the judge said he wanted, you know, £10,000 bail. And I said, you know, there's no way I can afford £10,000 bail. And so he said, well, you know, I'm sorry, but you'll have to go to prison and wait and wait the trial then.
And my mother stood up and said, well, what about if I pledge the family home, would you with that, but that would be all right and the judge was good enough to say that that would be fine if you pledge the family house, that would be fine. So I gave my mother a very, very big hug. And many, many years later, I mean, you know, right, right, you know, 50 years later, nearly, you know, we're now working very hard in America to try to help people who can't afford bail, get bail.
And you know, there's this awful situation in the States, for instance, where, you know, if you've got money or if you've got a house to pledge, you don't go to prison for six months, waiting, awaiting your trial. But if you're, if you're poor, often black, you know, you end up languishing in prison for a few months while waiting for your trial, even although you can be completely innocent. So obviously lots of personal experiences come back and have influenced my life later on.
I'd like to talk about influence, you mentioned your mother and in preparing for this conversation, I took a closer look at your mom and I have to say what I was going to do is not mention the last name and read this description, but your, so your mom also wrote a book called Mums of the Word, the High Flying Adventures of Eve Branson. I just have to read a few lines here to give people some context.
A classically trained ballet dancer, she appeared in Racy West End Productions, disguised herself as a boy to take glider lessons and listed in the women's Royal Navy service and then embarked on a series of harrowing adventures as a star girl, air hostess on the Ulfated British South American Airways. And it goes on and on.
This seems to potentially explain a lot and I was, I was curious to know, specifically, when you were a kid struggling with dyslexia and I'm not sure if it was even properly diagnosed at the time, but how did your, your mom respond to that? What did she tell you when you were having trouble with school or having trouble reading? How did your parents or your mother help you navigate that? What was the experience like? Yeah, first of all, I'm lucky.
I mean, I have a very extraordinary mother and a lovely father and we're very, very close in it family and that's fortunately continued with myself, my wife and children and so on, ever since. So, so that's given us a fantastic foundation as a family. When I was young, the word dyslexia, I don't think it existed. I don't think the word entrepreneur existed either except maybe in the French dictionary.
And so they, you know, they say it was just assumed that I was thick and, you know, they just got used to, you know, these dreadful marks that came back on, you know, my mass paper or my English paper and so on. And, and, and I think that made it that much easier when I actually said, you know, because I want to leave school, you know, age 15, I think, although that my dad bought me around the garden, you know, three times instead of just once, you know, by the end of the walk.
I remember him saying, you know, look, at least you know what you want to do at 15. I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was 22. I respect you for that and go give it a go and if it doesn't work out, we'll try to help you get an ed, you know, formal education again. You know, my mother, you know, she, you know, her whole approach in bringing up her children was one where she would, she would have been arrested today in those days. She could get away with it.
So, you know, at age four or five, she would, you know, shove me out of the cup, you know, two or three miles from grandmother's house and tell me to make my own way there. She would, you know, put me on a bicycle age seven or eight and tell me to ride, you know, three hundred miles on the pouring grain again to grandmother's house. And her attitude was, you know, if we survived, you know, would be the stronger for it. She wouldn't allow us to watch television, for instance.
We had to get out there and do things and, you know, so she would push us out of the house and, you know, tell us to come back in the evening and, you know, get out there and climb trees, rescue cats, you know, and I'll see you tonight. So, you know, we lived in the countryside and, you know, it was a fun upbringing and very, but a very loving upbringing. I mean, it did not sound like it. She wasn't actually trying to kill us. You did laugh us as well.
What, what would she say to you, one, for instance, it's raining out, you're in the car, would she give you any warning and what would she say to you if it was raining and she wanted you to get out and ride a bike home in the pouring rain? Was there any, any kind of lead up and any less, any less than that she would impart before that? I'm just thinking, I don't have any kids myself, but I think about parenting a lot.
What, what, can you replay for us just one of those scenes so we know how it was presented to you? I think the getting out of the pushing us out of the car was most likely. I was most likely having a little debate with my younger sister and say, it wasn't really, you know, this is going to be a life lesson. It was more, you know, shoving the brakes on pushing us out of the car. It was slamming the door and the driving off. So, yeah, we, as I say, we did survive.
And I mean, I remember just thinking when I was five on that, that very occasion, walking across the fields. And I was young enough to decide I wanted to get my own back on her. And I saw a farmhouse and I walked very slowly towards the farmhouse. So I wasn't too worried because I could see the lights of the farmhouse. But I was damned if I was going to do it quickly because I thought, she's going to have to suffer this time. And she did suffer.
And I don't think she has readily pushed me out of the car. But anyway, it's fun. I mean, I just, you know, I'm lunch, 1994 now. And I just saw her a few minutes ago. And she will never stop. I mean, she's got an idea a minute. And, you know, we've always had to run to keep up with her. And, you know, put the two of us together. It's the day to retain this conversation.
So, I think that many people have the impression of you as a fly by the sea to the pants, entrepreneur who throws caution to the wind and bets the farm on many, many things. And what I'd love to talk about is maybe the alternative to that or the complement to that. We don't have to do either or which is risk mitigation because the more I look at what you've done in many cases, not all cases, but in many cases, you seem like a master at mitigating risk and capping the downside.
So I was hoping maybe you could talk about, I believe it was, I think you are en route to clarify for me to BVI. And there was a flight cancel in Puerto Rico, but how you actually ended up in the airline business because I find it such an illustrative and helpful story if you wouldn't mind telling people a little bit about the origins. Well, I was in my 20s. I'd been away from my girlfriend for three weeks. I was coming back to see her that night. I was in Puerto Rico about six in the evening.
I was heading to the Virgin Islands and American Airlines announced that they were going to move the flight to the next morning because they didn't have enough passengers. And I was down to if I was going to wait to the next morning. My big girlfriend hadn't seen me for three weeks and I hadn't seen her for three weeks so I was determined to get there that night. So I went to the back of the airport hoping that my credit card wouldn't bounce. I rented a plane.
I borrowed a blackboard and as a joke, I wrote Virgin Airlines one way, $29 or $39 to the British Virgin Islands. And I went out amongst all the people who'd been bumped and I filled up my first plane. And as we arrived in the BVI at eight or nine o'clock that night, one of the passengers tapped me on the shoulder and said, you know, sharpen up the service a bit richer than you could be in the airline business. And so that it got me thinking, you know, airlines do bump people.
Most airlines don't look after people that the staff generally don't smile. The food was dreadful. I mean, so the next morning I was on Neck Island and I rang out Boeing and asked to talk to the sales department. And a wonderful man who I got to know very well of his called the RJ Wilson on the phone. And the call went roughly like this. I said, my name is Richard Branson. And I'm interested in buying a second hand 747. And RJ Wilson said, well, would you mind telling me what to do?
I said, I'm in the record business. I've got the roading stones. I've got the sex business. I've got Janet Jackson and lots of wonderful artists. And I could sort of feel that he was feeling that I was slightly wasting his time. But he said, and you're based in England. I said, well, our company is based in England. And so he carried on talking and subsequently I learned that he carried on talking because they were so fed up with British shareways always legging, legging, it's over there.
Because they had no competition. And they thought, you know, in the back of his head, he was thinking they've maybe that, you know, by having a competitor to British shareways, they'd be able to have a bit more leverage. So he said, look, I'll tell you what, I'll come and see you. You know, we do happen to have one second hand seven or seven. But with a name like, I've really feel you should change the name with the name like Virgin people think you're not going to get the whole way.
So I say, well, I'll thank you for your advice. And I'll think about that. So I then, you know, talked to my fellow record company team and they went into complete panic mode. You know, what's the earth, are we very strict doing, thinking of taking us into the airline business. We have the most successful independent record label in the world. We've just signed the Rolling Stones. We've got, you know, everything's going from strength to strength.
And then, you know, he's putting everything, he's going to put everything at risk by going to the airline business. And so what I said to them was, look, I promised that, you know, I'll only go into the airline business on one condition and that is, if I can persuade Boeing to let me hand the plane back at the end of the first year, I, you know, to protect the downside.
So I knew that the worst that could happen would be, you know, maybe six months of the profits of Virgin records we would lose if it didn't work out. And then Boeing agreed to it. And, you know, when the end of the first year came, instead of handing the plane back, people loved Virgin Atlantic and, you know, we had a, you know, people flocked to Britain. We had a spirit about it, which is very different from British Airways.
We ended up buying a couple of balls, seven, second and seventh or sevenths from Boeing. And, and then, you know, over the years since we bought some hundreds of planes from, you know, for a, for three or four different airlines, we set up over the years from Boeing. So, Jay Wilson, you know, certainly deserves some part of the back at Boeing, I think. So, how did you convince RJ to agree to allow you to return the plane if things didn't work out?
What was the, what was the pitch or what was the, what was the approach? Well, we liked each other, which I think is always important in, in any negotiation. And, you know, he admitted that, you know, one of the reasons they wanted to see us in business was to, you know, to enable them to have a little bit of competition with British Airways. And, you know, I think, you know, I think we showed him that we managed to build a very successful global record company.
And, you know, unlike other people, I mean, I argued that being an entertainment, actually, you know, that's important in the airline business, that most airline owners just, just, you know, see airlines as a way of transporting people from age to be. And, that actually entertaining people is, is, is important. And, if people are locked in a tin can for eight or nine hours or twelve hours, they, they
want to be entertained. And, that, you know, that I felt we could bring our entertainment skills to that, you know, when British Airways heard that we were going to go into the business, they, they dismissively said, Lord King, they misused, they said, too young to fly, too old to rock and roll. And, and followed up by saying, you know, what is an earth is somebody from the entertainment business going into the airline business for.
But, of course, that's just what British Airways didn't realise was they were not, you know, they were dumping a bit of a lump of chicken on somebody's lap. They were showing, you know, maybe one film that people were lucky on the screen to children, to grannies, to business people. You know, there was no choice. There was, you know, they had cabin crew who weren't given the cut tools to do a good job and therefore they never smiled.
And, and so it went on. And so, you know, exactly what the airline industry, what needed was an airline that could entertain people. You know, so we, when we launched Virgin Atlantic with our one plane, you know, we had stand-up bars, we had, you know, we had cabin crew who were absolutely delighted, delightful and, you know, love what they were doing. We
had humour. I mean, we'd, like, we'd show the film airplane on the first flight, you know, when we're in the cockpit, we had, you know, we, we told our passengers that they were going to see the pilots and, you know, the screen came on and there was the backs of the heads of the pilots. And, you know, if it came, if it came apparent, they had quite long hair and, you know, two famous cricketers turned around and handed each other a
split. They were the front pilots and then I took the split, I was the pilot just behind them and, and if it was deathly harsh in the plane and, just as we took off and, and, and, and, and, and then I stood up so they could see I wasn't actually in the cockpit. And, I think, we, we pre pre pre recorded that the day before and then and the whole plane, the whole plane just fell about laughing. And, you know, the journey, the journey over
the more champagne was drunk, I think, than on any, any flight before or after. And, you know, the pilot, you know, he would, you know, he'd got into the sense of humour. So, you know, he'd be flying along and he would let you have the plane slightly leaning to the right and, and then he would ask all the passengers on the right hand side of the plane, sorry, look, there's too many people passing on the right with some of you move
over to the left, please. And then he would swing the plane a bit to the left. Anyway, it was a laugh a minute that whole way. But, for anybody who's thinking, oh my God, I would never fly on this man's airline. You know, we, we've got, I got the chief technical officer, British Calladoni, and to actually run our airline, you know, obviously safety is paramount to be running an airline. And, 35 years later, you know, we have many airlines
and we're, you know, it's been, they've all been wonderfully run. But that doesn't preclude you entertaining people. That doesn't preclude humour. That doesn't preclude, you know, we're always trying to be cutting edge, you know, whether it's seatback videos, we, you know, we, we push the industry to invent a seatback video and we work five years before British Airways to seatback videos giving people a choice. And, you know, so we love trying to, you know,
cut through and do things differently and, you know, from from others. And, and I think that's why Virgin Atlantic has survived. And other airlines have done well. I mean, when, you know, when we set up with one plane, we were competing with TWA with Pan Am, with Air Florida, with Lake Arrayerways, with people with stress and so on, with hundreds, all of these, most of these airlines with hundreds of planes and we had one plane and the, the
graveyard of airlines was massive. I mean, like people who just tried to go into the airline business and failed. And over the next three or four years, pretty well, all these airlines, including a lot of others there, Europe, Dan Air, all went bankrupt, you know, and somehow this little David versus, you know, these Goliaths survived, you know, because, you know, because we offered a product and, and British Airways did not like it. I mean, they, they
were absolutely determined to drive a certain business. And, and as they had driven out business, a lot of these other airlines. And they launched something called the Dirty Tricks campaign. I mean, it wasn't publicly known as the Dirty Tricks campaign in the early days, because nobody knew what was going on. But they, you know, they set up behind closed doors, group of people who illegally tapped out computer information and they would ring
our passengers. They would pretend, for instance, to be from Virgin. And they would say, very sorry, your flight has been delayed, but we can move you on to British Airways flight. Or people going into the nightclubs that we owned in London, we had a big gay nightclub called Heaven. And they would pull through the, rustle through the, the bins outside and try to find these also anything that would, would, would, and look like the nightclub
trucks would be taken in the club. And then they would, you know, leak the stories to the news of the world, and the dots papers and try to damage us that way. Or they would have people going through my own rubbish bins, which they got caught doing. And journalists rubbish bins that, that, that, that we may be, talk to or, and they would try to spread stories about our finances. And, and in, in the end, we decided to tape them to court.
And it was Christmas time. And then we won the biggest libel down, damages and history against British Airways. And, and we distributed it to all our staff equally. And then because it was Christmas time, it became known as the British Airways Christmas bonus. And, and, and I think I'll, I'll start by hoping that British Airways will get up to their tricks again. But I mean, you know, that, that helped, it helped, anyway, keep them, keep them on signing more on us as, as the time went on.
How did you identify the dirty tricks campaign? How did it, how did it become discovered? It was generally speaking, British Airways staff that came to us. I mean, particularly one, one particular individual who actually worked in the, the lock behind the lock doors tapping our computer information, who felt very uncomfortable about it. You know, and, and others, I mean, you know, for instance, they were, they were, they had a team of people
in New York who were going up to our passengers. They got out of their limousines to board a virgin plane, again, saying, I'm sorry, but the virgin plane has been, the ladle has a problem. But I, I, I've, I've been sent here by Virgin to take you over to British Airways. And some of our passengers managed to rumble them on this one and, and, and let us know. So, you know, so it was a combination of different things. I mean, it was one person who was
just caught right handed, going, going through the rubbish bins. Yeah. So we were lucky, lucky to get it exposed. I mean, you know, one of the sad outcomes of this was they were, they were also dumping capacity on, on the few routes that we had. And that's, that's the normal trick of a, you know, big airlines against small airlines. They can afford to lose
man on a few routes to drive and competitor out of business. And then of jack the prices up once that competitor's out of business, you know, and it was beginning to cost us some money. So, so I had to make a difficult decision. We had the, you know, the most successful in the pedal record label in the world by then. And, you know, I knew that the only way of being completely sure of QV airline going and saving all the jobs for the record company
was to sell one or the other now that the airline, we could never sell. So we talked to Thorny and I and they bought, they bought the record company and, you know, it was a billion dollars. And so, you know, it should have been an happy day. But actually it was one of the saddest days of my life because selling a company is selling in full. We built this company
up from scratch. It had been tremendous fun building merchant records. But, you know, we now had the far part to be sure that the, the staff of the record companies jobs were secure, but, you know, under different ownership and, and the airline was secure. And with that billion dollars, we knew that British shareways would have to think twice before, you know, they must have, they most likely would realize that we were, we were here to stay.
Thank you for that explanation and context because it gives me a number of jumping off points. The first being, I suppose, opportunity and risk assessment. So, you strike me as a really good negotiator by, by necessity you'd have to be. If you had say, it would be entrepreneur or a university senior, someone who's about to graduate and go into the real world and you wanted, they tell you that they want to become a very good negotiator, very good deal maker.
How would you train them or what would you recommend they do or read to become a better negotiator or deal maker because you seem very, very astute and subtle and structuring things in very smart ways. What would you say to someone who wants to develop that skill set? I'm sure that there must be ways of being taught it, but in my opinion, nothing beats, beats, you know, personal experience. And my education was, you know, being thrown into the
jungle, being thrown into the real world, age 15 or 16 and having to survive. And it wasn't incredible education. And, you know, I learned about everything in life, you know, I've had a lot of met people all over the world. I had to do a lot of different obligations. You know, I think as I've got older, I've realised that one of the most important things about an negotiation is striking a deal that is fair to both sides. I also realised as I get older
that you're always come across the same people time and time again in life. And so your reputation is everything. You know, in my new book, Finding My Viginity, I talk about our dealings with Delta and how, you know, the friends, they felt that they'd leg this over in a clause in a contract and how they came to us to rectify it. And, you know, that's something I'll never forget. And most side, we'll be, you know, partners with Delta for the rest of my life because of that, you know,
that kind of approach. And, you know, so I think, you know, if you realise that your reputation is all you have and your personal reputation, the reputation of your brand, then you've got to make sure that you're negotiating a deal that you're not going to be unhappy with and that, and you think of all the things that potentially go wrong and how you can get out of it if something goes wrong, but equally important is, you know, is trying to strike a fair balance with the people you're
negotiating with. And when, when we're looking internally, you mentioned how your teammates at the record company thought you were crazy when you brought up the airline. Are there any business ideas that you're glad your co-workers or team have prevented you from doing? As you know, my nickname is Doc T. Yes. I have books like Scruitt just do it. I think, to be honest, if I want to do something, one of the advantages of owning the company is I can
normally ultimately get away with it. I'm an ultrite, obviously, to carry people with me. And I'm sure there's been one or two things, which I have fully bullied the process through, where I regret it. I've never regretted anything, but where, perhaps I should have listened more to others. But I can't think of anything that, you know, where they persuaded me not to do it. I think, most likely, you know, when it comes to decision about whether to do something or not, I'm delighted to think of my
sound as a neverlandic take. I get that's the one thing I generally get my own way. We would never have gone into space travel. We'll come to that. I'm sure later on in this talk, you know, unless I was to do things against the, against the sense of what would, you know, on paper be sensible advice
of my fellow directors. We will definitely get to space travel. What I'm curious about, because it seems if I look at many of the businesses that you've started, the positioning is often against a particular incumbent, in the case of, say, airlines, for instance, that seems to be a common element in a lot of the company or product launches. And I want to connect that with just some of your well-known adventures. And you'll see where this is going
in a second. I mean, you've driven a tank down Fifth Avenue across the English Channel in an amphibious car, took a 407-foot jump off the Palms casino resort in Las Vegas, I've gone from Morocco to Hawaii and a hot air balloon. You are very, very adept at PR stunts, getting attention for the things that you do and the companies that you do. Is there any particular best practices or a playbook that you have found to be very, or principles for that matter, helpful with
the launching of a new company or product? Thanks, I mean, I'm a great believer in trying it, if your team worked really hard to launch a new business with you or for you, the least I think I can do is make a bullet myself, make sure that that new business ends up on the front pages of the new spapers rather than an anecdote on the pages of the new spapers. So if that means having to use myself to put the new company on the map, I will do so.
And I will try to do it in a way that makes people smile and that that doesn't horribly back far on me. It's not like officially it has backfired. And I suppose it's like being a host to a party. I mean, if you're the host of the party, if you stand in the corner of the room and you sit your sherry and stand around with your fellow directors all in suits, everyone's going to have
a thoroughly dull party. And yeah, nobody will have a good time. If you're the host of the party and you're the first in the swing pool and everybody else jump into, they may be a bit cold for the rest of the evening. But they're going to have a great evening. And I think the same applies when you're launching a business, make sure that you put it on the map and just occasionally it will
back far. You mentioned space travel, which I do want to use as a touching off point to ask you, roughly 50 years after starting your first business, why, why write finding my virginity? What was the catalyst for that? Why do it? I actually think everybody should write a book about their lives. I persuaded a number of people to write books about their lives to be a process, for instance, and a number of people. But you don't have to have led a very public life. I think
everyone's led interesting lives. Your children and your grandchildren will be fascinated by the lives you lead. And so I wrote about finding, losing my virginity when I was a young man about all all the adventures. It became a bestseller and sold millions of copies. But I was I was quite a young man when I wrote it. And the last 20 years or so, I've been very full and very rich and extraordinary. So I thought I would write in a sense a sequel to losing my virginity,
which we've called finding my virginity. And if I live another 20 years, I've a virginity found as a spectacle to be my last one. But we'll see how we go. But no, but I think, I think it's important. I love reading and learning. And I think others might enjoy it. And when I write books, I try to not to make them like a, and then we did this and then we did that. Just try to make it a really good gripping read and an enjoyable read. And not try to
sort of pram in everything once done in 20 years. And hopefully people can get a few gems from it as well. I'm looking forward to reading it. Certainly, I made given how dog yearned and how worn my paperback copy of finding my virginity is. I'm losing my virginity. Yes, I'm sorry. That's I need more copy. I just had some poor tea because it's a little light on the octane. But I know exactly
where it is. It's actually kept on a bookshelf. This is just a slight digression. But there are a handful of autobiographies and biographies that have had a large impact on my life end or that I find very beautiful in many ways. And they are lined up on one shelf in my house that I can see the spines and yours is there. Open by Andre Agassi is there and they're a handful of others.
So it's very meaningful. So I'm looking forward to to reading this. And as a meta question, what are the practices if there are any practices or habits or or anything for that matter that helps you to keep your energy level as high as it is over so over so many years. I've I've seen you for instance, you seem to exercise a lot. I've seen you just go for hours and hours skiing, swimming around, necker, kiteboarding. But could you speak to what helps you to maintain such a high
level of energy and output over so long? It's really mind-boggling to me to even observe from afar. Well, looking after yourself is obviously absolutely key to everything else and everything stems from how healthy and well you are both physically, mentally and so on. I generally do it through sport. I've been very lucky that for many years I've lived on an island and so I can get up early in the morning. I'll play a very hard game of singles tennis against somebody who's better than me.
I then go kite surfing, maybe go surfing and then have breakfast and the day begins and I'll repeat that most likely later on in the day and maybe swim around the island as well. So generally, I think I stay healthy and fit. As a family, my kids are now taking my adventure streak on board. So every year they set us a challenge which we do together. So I'm so interested to give you a taste of it. Last year they set the challenge that we would start at the Matterhorn in Switzerland.
We're doing eight day hike across the mountains. We then get on a bicycle. We'd ride a hundred miles a day on the bike through the mountains all the way from the north of Italy to the southernest tip of Italy. Then we'd swim to Sicily. Then we would do another bike ride, a marathon, and then we'd end up the top of Mount Etna. It took us a month. I was shattered about halfway through it. But by the end of it, I felt like a 25-year-old and I just never felt so fit since I was in my 20s.
And obviously we'll try to raise money for good cause at the same time. But the very fact that we set ourselves these challenges, I'm now in Morocco today. Tomorrow we're about to climb Mount Tupacol, which is the highest mountain in North Africa together. A few other little things like bike rides and hikes and things thrown in. Setting ourselves challenges, doing it together
as a family, involving friends and trying to raise money for good causes. That keeps you fit and healthy and your mind good so that you can then do a lot more as a result. So speaking of doing good, which you can certainly do through nonprofits and through four profits and other vehicles, many of my listeners want to meet to ask you to expand on your reasons for investing in Memphis Meets and clean meat. So looking forward to your next 20 years of adventures,
could you talk about that decision? I mean, if you take this beautiful world we live in, you know, one of the things that make it so beautiful is things like the rain forests. And the rain forests are rapidly disappearing because of our demand for beef, basically. You know, for every hamburger we eat, the amount of land that is needed to produce it is considerable. And as we're more and more successful at bringing more and more people out of poverty
on a global basis, more and more people are starting to eat meats. So the only way of addressing this problem is either to persuade people not to eat meat, which is I don't think it's going to be you know, something that we can be successful at, or coming up with alternative forms of meat. So, you know, there's a wonderful company I think called Beyond Meat, which produces hamburgers
that taste absolutely like hamburgers, but are made of vegetables. You know, there's the other company you just mentioned that we've invested in that is literally, you know, growing, you know, taking a little tiny little bit of a live animal without killing it. And then growing it in laboratories. So, you know, so you can have beef or you can, you know, have chicken or pig or even fish they believe they'll be able to do. And you can make it even healthier
than the beef or the meat that you get from live animals. So, the challenge obviously is producing it in quantity. They believe they will be able to do that. And if they can do it, hopefully one day we won't have to cut down the rainforests and they'll kill animals in order to get our meat consumption. And I suspect, you know, when that happens, we'll actually look back at the wholesale slaughter of animals in the way that we did it. And you slightly embarrassed about it.
My main reason for this is more to do with trying to protect what's left of our beautiful Earth. And if you're looking at other areas of interest, I mean, living as I did for a long time, 17 years in Silicon Valley, the question of this sort of protein paradox or protein challenge is a very big one. So, some people are looking at insect protein. Like you mentioned, some people are growing meat in laboratories. Others are looking at vegetable options. Another really active
area of discussion is cryptocurrency or blockchain and or blockchain. How do you think about if you do cryptocurrency? I mean, when you're hearing all of the news and so on, are you engaging with that at all? Are you choosing to step back? How are you thinking about cryptocurrency? Hi, I mean, I've, I don't spend a lot of time on this. I find blockchain very exciting. I think the fact that, you know, Hernandez Soto has written some wonderful books about how do you pull people
out of poverty? And, you know, he's, say, taken Egypt as an example. The 90% of people who live in Egypt live in housing. But they built those houses just on public land. And they have no piece of paper showing that they own that land. And so if they want to start a business, they can't mortgage their home, you know, or, you know, to start a business. They can't use their asset to borrow money to send their children to school. And so blockchain, for instance, would be the perfect place.
You could get and register, you know, the millions, what billions of homes around the world that have no ownership on blockchain. And, you know, it can all be in one place. And I think it could start a revolution of wealth amongst people. You know, cryptocurrency, it's not something that I've spent a lot of time on, but I think I marvel at Bitcoin and the genius of the man who invented it and, you know, what it's achieved so far. And what it could possibly achieve
in the years to come. And a theory, and some of these other cryptocurrencies that are coming up, again, you know, hats off to these geniuses who are producing them. And, you know, but more of my energy, to be honest, is now spent on, you know, on different kinds of issues. But I mean, I'm fascinated by everything in life. And this is one of those fascinating areas. I want to be respectful of your time. I know we don't have a whole lot left. So I'd love to just
ask a few of the audience favorite rapid fire questions. And then I know you're bouncing from point to point right now around the world. So I'll let you get going. But the first question is what is the book or books you've given most as a gift and why outside, outside of your own books? Are there any particular books that you've given or recommended to others the most?
Well, climate change is something which I've spent a lot of time on. I would highly recommend a book by Tim Plannery called The Weather Make, which was one of the books that opened my eyes to the problems that we have in the world. I'm just reading Homer Deis, which I find is, you know, and I will carry on to read Sapiens is his first book or one of his first books. And I just love love, you know, love the style of his writing. And, you know, I love books where you're learning,
you're learning something from them. And rather than if I want to, if I want fiction, I'll get a good film out. So if I'm reading books, I like to read books which have got some substance, I love autobiographies or biographies as well. Do you read most of your books as text or do you listen to audio books? I'm just thinking back to the challenges you had with dyslexia as a younger person. Have you learned to cope with those and now read mostly text or is audio something that you use
much? I have largely coped with these things now and enjoy, you know, a good solid book with Harbat book. I'm just waiting, I'm just doing my own audio book for finding my virginity. It takes a long time. It takes a long time. Yeah. And so, but anyway, I know that more and more people do enjoy audio books and I'm sure it's worthwhile. In the last, let's just call it five years or so, what new belief behavior or habit has most improved your life or what habit has improved your life?
Could be any new belief behavior or habit that has markedly improved your life. If we could go back a bit further than the last five years, I think we can go back. We can go back as far as you like. Absolutely. One of the best things my parents taught me and going back a long way. If I ever said anything at all about anybody, they would sit me in front of the mirror and
for 10 minutes and in order to sort of let me know how badly it reflected on me. So, I like to think I've never spoken ill about other people and I think that's been one of the best bits of ice that I've ever given. Sorry, I've ever received and obviously didn't give. I'm not sure if we should too to who chaired the elders, which is an organisation that we've run for 10 years now. He was the epitome of the gifnest with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
in South Africa when Nelson Mandela took over par. I think just people, nations, we should all try to run based on that philosophy. I think the world would be a happier place if that happened. You mentioned Nelson Mandela. This is clearly not one of my stock rapid-fire questions, but I've heard you refer to Nelson as a mentor. Are there any key lessons or takeaways or memorable sentences or anything that come to mind when you think of your interactions with Nelson Mandela?
Well, I was lucky enough to get to know him very well over the years. Even to the extent that on July the 18th, we shared a birthday and he would ring me every single birthday to wish me a happy birthday. I remember the sadness when I didn't get that call not so many years ago. He had an absolute joy for life and he would dance, he would smile, he would embrace everybody,
but he had a tough side to him as well. I remember one lunch I had with him early on in our relationship where I'd been warned that he was always trying to extract money for good causes. So we had the first course, then we had the second course, then we had the pudding and we were on to the coffee and I thought, my god, I've got away with it. And then he turns to me and says, ah Richard, last week I had lunch with Bill Gates and he gave me $50 million for such and such a
course. And anyway, so he did not miss an opportunity. Yeah, I mean, I've not, apart from maybe archbishop Tutu, I've really never met and I haven't met anybody as extraordinary in my lifetime. When you yourself feel and maybe you don't feel this, but I'll assume for the moment that you do, when you've felt overwhelmed or unfocused or if you feel like you've temporarily lost your focus, what do you do or what have you found to help? You know, what questions do you ask yourself as
there? In those cases, what have you done historically that has been helpful? I personally believe that the majority of people who have down moments in their lives, they can actually trace it back quite often to alcohol. Perhaps the only days of my life that I feel Lephargic is, you know, instead of having two glasses at night time, I had five or six.
And if I find that's happened, you know, on more than one or two occasions, I then give up completely for, you know, a month or two and feel absolutely fantastic, of course, and realise that I'm never going to drink another touch of alcohol again until actually you do. And, and, you know,
fortunately, I'm so busy that I just can't afford to let myself down too often. But my guess is that for the vast majority of people, you know, if you can, if you can be high on life and fit and healthy and, you know, if you do find that something like alcohol is just beginning to drift, you go a bit too far, you know, being high on life is just so wonderful.
For a friend of mine, entrepreneur named Matt Mullenweg, he's been on this podcast as well. He's the CEO of a company called Automatic, which is behind WordPress, which power is around 37% of the internet right now. And he told me at one point that he had learned something long ago, which was alcohol is borrowing happiness from tomorrow. And certainly seems to be the case. I think that there's a beautiful words and they're very, very, very true words. You know, I mean,
my son's just had a year off alcohol. And, you know, look, you can tell he's just so high on life. He's just enjoying it like he's never enjoyed it before. And, you know, so like, you know, if you could do it in moderation, that's great. You know, I tell the story in the book. There was one night in when we won the Grand Prix in Melbourne. And anyway, I let my hair down to such an extent that it would have made the film hangover look like a children's film. And the next day, I woke up,
and anyway, I gave up the six months. And so it doesn't have to be too often. But I think, generally, generally, that's the one area that I think a lot of people who do, you know, run into problems in lives. It's just from slightly too much. During those periods, when you go off alcohol, do you avoid circumstances where other people
are drinking or is there something that you say to people if you are in those circumstances? How do you ensure that you don't have just that one drink that then triggers more drinks if you're trying to take time away from alcohol? My trick is simply to have cranberry and soda in a champagne glass. People don't know. I just sort of take cranberry and soda in a champagne glass. And I think, look, I think for a lot of people, especially when people first give up anything like that,
drugs, alcohol, they need to walk away, defeat me for a while. Fortunately, I haven't got in, you know, I've never let myself get to that stage. But I think that the best advice is to get together. Just say, I need to go to bed early tonight and walk away. Otherwise, it's very difficult for people to stay with it. Are you somebody you drink or not?
I don't drink a whole lot. I do enjoy wine. Fortunately, I don't feel like I've had any issues with alcohol, although genetically, my family seems to have that predisposition. Certainly have a fair amount of alcoholism in my extended family. So I think about it quite a bit. I can tell that I think I have the potential to abuse it, but I haven't up to this point. I think that you and I have such fascinating lives that that is the best way of keeping these
sorts of things in check. We just want it every day. It's so interesting that you're just not going to want to waste waste today, right? You know, letting something like that take over your life. Right. No, definitely. And just two more questions for me. This is one really intended just to give people a window into how you cope with some of the harder times. Do you have a favorite failure of yours? And what I mean by that is, how has a failure or an apparent failure set you
up for later success? Are there any particular examples that come to mind? Yeah, I mean, I think on the, on the adventure side, you know, the first time we crossed the Atlantic and about we were trying to break the record for the fastest cross of the Atlantic and getting the blue ribbon back. And, you know, and we sank. And then the next day we built another boat and we were successful.
And the British people love people who are underdogs. And it taught me that actually, you know, failing and then being successful, most likely it was better than just going out there and being successful the first time around. I mean, overcoming difficulties, the public almost preferred than someone who's just successful the first time around. Maybe, maybe not so much in America, but in Britain anyway. As those the most notable business failure that we've ever had was
taking on Coca-Cola with Virgin Cola. And for a while, it really looked like we were going to topple Coke and Pepsi. I mean, we were outselling them in the UK. The Virgin brand resonated.
You know, people loved the drink. I mean, and then, you know, we landed in Times Square with the Sherman tank and, you know, we took on Coke in their homeland in America and Coke decided to far back and they filled up DC tens full of money and hit men and hit women and they landed in the territories that we had launched and they suddenly Virgin Cola started disappearing from all these shells. And I think the lesson I learned from that was, you know, if I'm going to take on a
glider, I've got to be, we've got to be different. We've got to be much better than they are. And, you know, with a cola, you're just another cola. You're not, you can't be fundamentally different. You can be cheaper, but you can't be fundamentally different. So anything we've launched since then, we've only launched new businesses if we can make a fundamental difference. I love it. Yeah, that's so, so important to underscore. I think this is the last rapid
fire question. If you could have a giant billboard anywhere with anything on it. So, and this is metaphorically speaking. So getting a message out to millions or billions of people, what would it say and why? It could be a few words, it could be a paragraph, it could be a quote, you live your life by yours or someone else's. Does anything come to mind if you could get a message out to billions of people? What would you, what might you put on that billboard?
Trouble is, I think I'm going to sound like a model on stage. About it. About the need to bring peace to the world. And and therefore I will instead go back to the businessmen, which is, you know, I think just something like nothing ventured, nothing gained. I think I think that in life, if people, you know, try things and stick their neck out, they're going to have a lot more fun than if they sit at home watching other people do it. And so, yeah,
so I think that old quote, nothing ventured, nothing gained is important. Having said that, you know, I've been involved for 10 years now in this wonderful group called The Elders. And and Nelson Mandela set it up and it's now run by Kofi and Anne. And I really do believe that in our lifetime, I've seen so many unnecessary wars, I've seen the Vietnamese war, I've seen
the Iraq war, the Libyan war. And these were all incredibly unjust wars, which have, you know, gone on to spawn awful things like ISIS and so on, which would not have happened if it wasn't for actually the West taking it upon themselves to interfere in other countries' business and killing and meaning thousands of people. And, you know, we we we must make sure that we don't have any wars in the future. And I think it takes business people, it takes society, it takes all
of us to really make sure that our politicians never never take us down that path again. I mean, one of the saddest things I think about the invasion of Iraq was, you know, yes, there were thousands of people on the streets. There should have been hundreds and hundreds of thousands, just like the Vietnamese war, to stop such a foolish excursion. You know, all conflicts should be
able to be resolved by negotiation. And, you know, even if you don't get exactly what you want out of it, that is better than the, the, the, the, the, the, all the bludgeon that flows from, from conflict. I think that's a perfect place to wrap up because it ties in so much. I think that for people listening, whether you want to leave your mark on the world as a business person, as a philanthropist, there's actually a very common skill set when you look at the highest levels.
You need to be able to negotiate, you need to know how to deal make. And you were talking about, say, ventures, nothing ventured, nothing gained, which also ties nicely into adventure. If people look at the etymology, I mean, these are very closely related concepts. And I'm just so thrilled that we were able to find the time to jump on the phone richer and have this conversation. And certainly recommend, because I will be reading it along with everyone else, that people take a look
at finding my virginity. I can't wait to pick up where I left off in the previous installment. Is there anything else you would like to recommend to everyone listening to the millions of people hearing this, that they do or try ask themselves anything at all, any next action or anything else that you'd like to leave with as parting words? Well, I totally enjoyed talking to you. I would obviously look forward to seeing you again soon. I was just thinking on who we're talking
about alcohol. I mean, now I think the, I think the converse is true. And to what we were talking about an alcohol. And that is that, I mean, if you say, take the war on drugs, there's been going on now for 50 years. As a businessman, I would have closed down the war on drugs 49 years ago. I mean, it's been an abject failure. And I get governments have continued to perpetuate this war on drugs, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of people being put in prison,
hundreds of thousands of casualties. It's resulted in, you know, 390 billion a year going to be underworld. And yet there is a simple answer. And that is if you treat drugs as a health problem, not a criminal problem, and you help people with drug problems, countries that do that are getting on top of it. So, you know, and we as a business leaders are trying to educate governments into seeing, you know, opening their eyes and saying, look, you know, it's important to do this, say,
for heroin, take us, you, America should do the same thing. They had a massive heroin epidemic in the year 2000. And, you know, by embracing those heroin addicts and helping them become normal members of society again, they managed to solve the problem. America now has the biggest heroin epidemic in history. And yet the way they're dealing with it is the same old war on drugs. And the way to deal with it is, you know, you ask these people to come forward,
you help them with their fixes initially. You've supplied them with the products, you stop them having to break an entry into people's homes. And you make sure that when they're ready to win themselves off, that you help them win themselves off. And you make them useful members of society again. You know, I'm part of something called the Global Drug Commission. And we've got 15 people who are used to be presidents of their country, hope you announce on it. And we've
done a lot of studies on this subject. And we believe that every single drug should be regulated and taxed and warning should be very firmly put on these drugs in the same way. You have warnings on cigarettes, warnings on alcohol. But that is the way to overcome this problem, not to carry on having a war on drugs. I think this is tremendously important. And I'm really glad that you brought it up. Just having seen my best friend growing up, I grew up in rural Long Island, my best friend
a few years ago died of an opiate overdose. And it's a hugely important problem that is not being, it's being addressed in the most counterproductive of ways as you noted. And I'm actually, this is probably something we could, we could talk for a long time about. But I'm involved with supporting research at places like Johns Hopkins looking at even using certain things like safe psilocybin for the treatment of certain forms of addiction and end of life anxiety and so on.
But the important component of that are one of the components of that being looking at how to reschedule and properly supervise and regulate these compounds as opposed to immediately criminalizing them and just compounding the problem with another hundred problems that end up fixing nothing. So I very much appreciate you bringing that up. Yeah, well, thank you. I think, yeah, I mean,
it's sad and strange that yeah, that year after year goes by. And if you talk to a government to people who are in positions of power, they actually individually know what the right thing is to do. They just don't have the courage to do it. And we just need a little bit more courage, I think, with some of our politicians. Well, Richard, thank you so much for being an agent of change and also sharing your stories in such a way that you inspire other people to do the same. And I'm really
excited to see what other dense you put in the world. And for people listening, they can find you on social media, Richard Branson everywhere. Certainly they should check out finding my virginity. And to people listening, I will link to everything including the new book and the show notes at Tim.Blog forward slash podcast. And Richard, you have so many projects and so many things to keep you high on life. So I will let you get back to it. But thank you so much for taking the time to
chat today. Thanks so much, Tim. And I want to thank congratulations. All right, I'll talk to you soon. Thanks. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Fibolet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Fibolet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering
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