81. The secret to big leaps, w/Sir Richard Branson

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arrived in Vegas

And I was taken to the Palms Hotel.

Which is a very high Hotel.

And I was told I was going to jump into the party below from the top of the roof.

And normally I'm game for anything but as we went up the lift, you know, I was just thinking it's very windy outside.

It was blowing about 40 or 50 miles an hour. Is this

That's virgin founder and incorrigible thrill-seeker Sir Richard Branson. And that question is this sensible is what he's asked himself time and time again often with the same

answer screw it let's do it

and it's the answer he gave on that Windswept rooftop 400 feet above Las Vegas. It was 2007 and Sir Richard was there to publicize the launch of his new Airline Virgin America far below a crowd filled with see

Birdies and press waited in anticipation the chant began jump jump jump.

So when I got off onto the roof people said it's not that windy and there were walls all the way around the roof so we couldn't feel the wind.

And I buckled into a bungee jump.

And jumped off the roof.

And as I came down the side of the building, I hit the side of the building with my arse. Well, the wind blew me into it ours is classical English for one's posterior rump or back side and I ended up at the bottom dangling with Bluster repeat than to this party that was taking place below and I felt like a rather foolish Ragdoll. It definitely hadn't gone according to plans. But anyway, I was still

Life,

although is dignity was bruised. It was a publicity Triumph and another win for brain sends

screw it. Let's do it

script Let's do an ethos. And this ethos has got Sir Richard in other scrapes that range from dangerous too bizarre to just go will during saying screw it. Let's do it is how Richard is started many of virgins most legendary Ventures. It's even the title of one of his many books screw fits perfectly in with my metaphor for

entrepreneurship that it's like jumping off a cliff and then building the airplane as you fall. Of course, this is just a metaphor unless you're Sir Richard Branson who literally does jump off all manner of tall structures and literally does build flying machines and the Prelude to each of these bold jumps is the refrain what if why not

That's why I believe you should never stop asking what if and why not take those daring notion. Seriously and go all in on The Bold leaps. They will keep you innovating. You got to have incredible Talent at every position. There are fires burning when you're going home.

There are so many easy

ways. So so it's do I have no idea

what sorry we made a

mistake. Would you have to time it right?

Ten years later. We have it baby. Just how you do it.

This is masters of scale.

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I'm Reid Hoffman co founder of LinkedIn partner Greylock and your host and I believe you should never stop asking what if and why not take those daring Notions seriously and go all in on The Bold leaps. They will keep you innovating. It may surprise you to learn that. I've never shot myself out of a cannon jumped a motorcycle through burning Hoops or walk the tightrope over a tank of underfed piranhas. We describe the people who pull off these kinds of stunts as Daredevils and we often

Think of these kinds of people as Reckless impulsive and perhaps not long for this world, but the successful Daredevils are quite the opposite. They aren't doing these stunts on a whim or taking them lightly if they did. Well, they wouldn't achieve the status of Daredevil. They'd be Prana food long before anyone ever heard of them instead. They spend countless hours preparing their methodical and they often have a team of people helping them. They make what they do look easy but its not this is why

when you see this kind of stunt on TV announcer is likely to intone. Don't try this at home.

Sir Richard Branson is not only a daredevil but a hugely successful serial founder who started a staggering number of scale businesses under his virgin Grand and like a daredevil is found a way that lets him take death-defying entrepreneurial leaps again, and again in a new markets and industries at a rate that makes him one of the most prolific and successful Founders in the Masters of scale Pantheon.

Although Richard is willing to jump into unknown territory with Nary a glance and a wink once he's in he's fully committed and he won't back down. So how does he manage this Sir? Richard has refined an approach that is let him scale up his urge to throw caution to the wind and try new things. It is let him scale virgin from a hip little record store in the early 70s London to a global brand that is included Airlines music publishing Adventure experiences and even Cola

Sir Richard's approach begins with him asking himself what if and why not and often ends with him somewhere unexpected. That's what happened with his first Venture a student

magazine. The Vietnamese War was going on like a lot of young people. We thought it was a travesty of Justice horrendous horrendous horrendous mistake. And so I decided actually to start a magazine to campaign against it

like most schoolboys Richard lacked an office and

Cuz this was the late 60s. He didn't have his own phone, which he needed to sell advertising and conduct interviews. He found his solution and a classic British icon a red telephone box, but the amount of time he was spending his three foot by three foot office started causing

problems. I saw a seat on the magazine from the school phone books and 15. The Headmaster said to me that I either had to stay at school and do my school work or leave school and do the magazine. And so I said goodbye to him.

And the magazine became quite successful and then we sold about a hundred thousand copies an issue

this set the template for a long line of screw it let's do it moment that would define Sir Richard and virgin.

But this wasn't the luck of youthful recklessness. Even at this point Richard had learned a lesson. That would say is The Unsung secret to just why he has been able to say screw it. Let's do it. So many times through his

career when I started I was 15. I was dyslexic and I needed people better than me to be around. One of the advantages of being dyslexic is I became a great delegator and when I talked to various people who'd starting up in business the most important thing I can.

Tell them is delegate time. Somebody better than yourself to do the day-to-day running make sure that you can find time to think about the bigger picture. Make sure you can find time to firefight with the various companies that have problems and other people have scared of delegating. They're scared that somebody else will take their job. They want to hang on to everything themselves. But by delegating we've been able to build many many different organizations over the

years realizing this early allowed Richard to make

Time to constantly be asking what if why not and then taking the leap because he knows he's got the best possible people helping rebuild that airplane balloon or spaceship on the way down. The magazine was the launch pad for Sir. Richard's next more famous Venture the spark came as it so often does with Richard when someone made an offhand

comment one day somebody said to me music is horrendously expensive and why don't you consider starting a music company and so we

Started Virgin

Records, it should probably go without saying but I'll say it. Anyway that this was in the days before digital music. The Walkman was still a few years away CDs were a futuristic gleam on the horizon. Vinyl was King. There was only one problem for Richards fledgling record store, but it was a pretty big

one. We didn't have any records. But once the orders came in we then went and bought them from record shops and tried to get a discount and handed leaflets.

Outside concerts and because we didn't buy the records up front. We got the cash flow to fund it in that way and Virgin Records Was Born

that's right Richard took the orders and the money before he had the stock or even knew if you'd be able to get it at the price. He was offering his customers. There are a few things. I love about this story The Audacity Of Starting a record store without any records is one of them, but I also love that their lack of cash flow led directly to their advantage.

You turn his team had no choice, but to negotiate those steep discounts because they had already made the sales.

Richard's fast growing reputation as someone who did things differently in a quick Cavalier manner was attractive to lots of people not least of all musicians

a young artist came to me with the tape and he was only 15 years old himself and I found the tape hauntingly beautiful. We didn't have a record company. So we went to the eighth record companies to try to get somebody to put it out. None of them would put it out

here. It comes another moment when Richard decides to go all in on a

During

notion. So we decided to start a record company and Tubular Bells was the name of the album and Mike Oldfield was the artist and it sold millions of copies.

Even if the name doesn't ring any bells tubular. Otherwise, you would be very likely to recognize the music. The album's opening track was used as a theme for the movie The Exorcist

and on the back of that we were able to build the largest Independent Record Company in the world and ultimately to sign people like the Rolling Stones.

And Janet Jackson and Genesis and Peter Gabriel and the sex pistols and and so on and so on. So it was a lot of fun

note that Virgin Records wasn't offering a disruptive new business model. This was the Golden Era of the record company and virgin was just one of many. However, there was a freshness they came directly out of Richard's screw it let's do it ethos as the old song goes. It ain't what you do. It's the way that you do

it. I think a lot of artists came to us because they knew that we were good at

Kidding and we had a great team of people all under 20 years old who had a lot of fun in their marketing campaigns didn't take themselves too. Seriously and somehow we managed to put these artists on the map.

I put it to Sir Richard that the same Spirit of fun was the key to his next big success. Some of my earliest memories of you and virgin is that youthfulness that Vitality that playfulness in being bold in the marketing.

But then of course it reflects also boldness in the business Geico pick software because in many ways it's easy and valuable and I try to do the easiest thing and valuable you have a boldness of jumping into hard businesses. The airline business is really difficult and yet you can like okay we've done this amazing music business the creation of a young energetic vibrant new brand by being bold and different. What made you then go? Okay. Now I'm going to do an airline.

Well, it's originated out of her.

Station 35 years ago when we started it. The big carriers were Dreadful. You were lucky if you had a lump of chicken dumped in your lap, and there was no entertainment and very very Surly Surly crew generally and on one of those flights coming to the Virgin Islands. I got bumped which is sort of typical thing that Airlines did in those days and so I had to play in and filled it up with all the people who had been bumped and called it Virgin Airlines as a

joke. However, the joke very quickly had Richard ask him.

Self seriously the question what if why not

and we arrived in the BBI and during that flight. I just thought Airlines do bump people. Maybe I should bring up Boeing the next day which I did and asked if they had any second. I'm 747s for

sale turns out they did there's not much of a bigger example of going all in on a do daring notion then buying a 747 even if it is second-hand.

But Richard knew there was far more to running an airline than owning a plane. He was about to take another daring leap off the side of a cliff and he wanted the best people with him and the best advice guiding him. So he turned to Freddie Laker founder of UK's Laker Airlines, which had recently been crushed by established. Giant British Airways.

He said you've got one plane. They've got 250 planes, you know, if you're going to get the airline on the map, you've got to use yourself get yourself on the front page and not an anecdote on the back.

Paige what I love about this story is that Freddie Laker didn't pour cold water and Richards skirt. Let's do it approach instead. He showed him how to double down and make it work by doing something that played very much in a Richard strengths.

I love a challenge. I love going into new industries that I know little about I pretty well knew everything that didn't like about the airline industry. I was 28 years old. I traveled a lot on other people's

planes British Airways was then run by a gentleman by the name of John Leonard King.

NG Baron of Wharton Abby this was long before Sir Richard's own Knighthood back. Then he was seen as a reckless upstart not fit to even spit polish the riding boots of the right honorable

Baron. I remember load King our rival said when I announced I was going to go and Airline business. He said far too old now to rock and roll far too young to fly. And what's an entertainment person going into the airline business

the baron king of warden Abby sneeringly saw Sir Richard's Outsider status as a weakness.

But it was actually Richards biggest strength along with his screw it let's do it attitude.

And of course what be I didn't realize was that she people like to be entertained. They like to have a wonderful experience. They like to be in a company where the owner takes the interest and all the details, you know, like a private restaurant.

I got to thinking about this out loud after my interview with Sir Richard and what they do is they chart out every step.

Up, it works much better in physical world, but like every step and they go okay, you decide you're going to travel today. What do you do at home? How do you get to the airport? What happens when you get to the airport? What happens at the airport? What happens when you get on a plane? What do you sit down on the plane? What is the first greeting look like what is the next literally that's part of the reason why for example among other things that Virgin Atlantic was the first one to innovate on the safety video because they literally looking at every single little micro step across the whole thing because their Theory basically

Is that actually in fact 10 little micro steps that are improved lead to possibly magic across the whole thing. Yes, when you get a big step that's really valuable. But even micro changes as it goes through. So for example, they're looking at the safety video and I go what can we do about the safety video like everyone hate and watching the safety video they're boring and they're like these PSAs that are like, we've got you locked in jail and you have to watch this.

As we prepare for

departure the seat belt buckle should be fastened whenever the

fasten seat belt is illuminated when the light is switched to the off position and should you be seated and not on rude to the

lavatory? We employ you to keep your seatbelt fastened at all times during this flight to fasten your

seat belt one must reach down with the right hand.

I like okay. Well, can we make it fun? Right and it was like we how we can make it fun. We can have odd people read the script and because I realize that most of you probably know how to put on your safety belt and if you don't seek help, but here's how you do it. If you're being entertaining, right, you know that kind of thing. And so that's the thing that they do the whole way through Richard wasn't just focused on entertainment. He knew exactly which parts the business had to be taken seriously and that he would need to build an extra team to build them out doing this would let him scale his dad.

Move to start an airline.

If you ain't going to the airline business make sure that the people running it are going to make sure it's a very safe Airline and you get the best technical people on board. But then on the planes themselves, you don't need the cabin crew spent 20 or 30 years flying on other people's their lines. Go look for people who are really excited about the job and train them and make sure that they perform in a fun way and because they're proud of the company, they'll excel at what they're doing

Virgin Atlantic shook up the stayed.

Airline industry and the passengers loved it with its massages on board bars in-flight entertainment and general attitude of fun. The upstart airline wowed its customers and showed up the complacency of British Airways and Richard had no qualms about reminding them again. And again with a series of cheeky publicity stunts a particular memorable one was in 1999 when the London Eye The Landmark 120 meter diameter observation wheel

Being erected in the British Capital the event was being sponsored by British Airways.

I go to Cole at 5 a.m. One morning to be told that they couldn't get the wheel up say we scrambled an Airship and it flew over the wheel and over the couple of hundred press and photographers and TV cameras waiting for it to go up and the Airship simply said be a can't get it up and we got the headlines and they didn't so I think it's just fun things where you pull the tail of the bigger competitor you

Do it hopefully to make people smile. It didn't necessarily make British Airways smile on some of these things. But anyway, it helped put virgin on the map

stunts like these helped him dear virgin to the public Richard was Robin Hood thumbing his nose at The Establishment. But this Purdon firmly NBA's Firing Line.

They turned the guns onto US I mean there was a big fat book called dirty tricks.

It's not just a turn of phrase a book with that title exist. In fact

To hear Sir Richard listing them dirty is too soft of a

phrase for instance. One of that detectives was caught going through rubbish bins of journalists that had written about Virgin and British Airways. They went through my rubbish bins. They had a unit that he illegally accessed our computer information and then they would ring up Virgin passengers pretending to be from Virgin telling the passengers their flight was delayed and then switching them to British Airways and thanks to the Lord.

He of our customers we did survive it.

These dirty tricks had a very real impact on virgins bottom line and it forced Richard to make a difficult

decision. It got so bad that I felt that in order to save all the jobs that the airline and to save the jobs at the record company that something would have to give and so I decided to sell the record company which protected all the jobs in both the record company and the airline and it also sent a message to British Airways, you know, he's just sold for a billion dollars lay off and it was

Adam and we had literally just signed the Rolling Stones. We just signed Janet Jackson, but I sort of pulled myself together when I ran past a headline of a newspaper on a stand in the street, which said Branson sells for a billion and I just realized I was crying at the time and I thought if anybody if anybody could see this headline and me crying, they would be rather baffled. So I pulled myself together and then use the money to create lots of new things. So it was great lots of happy memories. Anyway, if you're smaller

You know when the big guys try to drive you out of business, the only thing that you've got going for you is the Loyalty of your customers and your passengers. And so the dirty-tricks campaign that be a launched against us we had to fight tooth and nail to survive and we took them to court. We won the biggest damages in British history.

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We're back before the break Sir Richard's refusal to stop asking what if and why not had led him to take on British Airways. It was a battle in which Sir Richard learned that you need to go all in on your daring Notions. Otherwise you risk being crushed before you even get off the ground but on a lighter note the fight between virgin and be a also showcase another side of Sir Richard's character his love for a daysius and fun publicity stunts. It's another area in which sure.

Should goes all in on his daring Notions and does so very publicly. I asked him to share a few with me

trying to be the fastest across the Atlantic in a boat and ending up the boat breaking up and thinking trying to be the first to cross the Atlantic and a hot air balloon ending up crashing into the lossy.

Crossing the Pacific in a balloon from Japan and everything that could go wrong went wrong.

Trying to sort of see can abloom fly at thirty-five forty thousand feet could a balloon go 200 miles an hour in the jet stream without breaking up.

We built a UFO as you do we've drifted across London and all the radio stations were lit up about the UFO. The police had scrambled to police forces. They scrambled the army.

We had our Airship company filming the Super Bowl for MBC but they made it very clear that Super Bowl advertising is the most expensive in the world and that they couldn't put their cameras up onto that fly Virgin Atlantic logo on the side of the balloon. So we unfurled a banner outside the back of the Airship which said NBC cameraman the best looking guys in America and we got lots and lots and lots of cameras coming up to the Airship and it's made I think I autobiographies a lot.

Fun to read than if it was just success after success that we've had lots of ups and downs and so better stories to tell the

grandkids. It's true. These are all great stories and not just for the grandkids like any enthralling fairy tale. They are full of magic and Whimsy and spring from asking what if and why not

What if I so these magic beans why not? Follow that White Rabbit climb that Beanstalk? Unfortunately, there are times when you're unstoppable urge to follow the next airing notion is going to run into an immovable Force.

It's 1994 and Sir Richard Branson is about to take another leap into unfamiliar territory.

Somebody brought me a can of this Cola and said I'm going to do a blind test on you. They did a blind test and I chose this particular: and then I took it to my kids school and we did blind tests and all the kids and the vast majority went for this Cola. So, you know the Virgin brand resonated in those days particularly in Europe. So again, we thought screw it.

Let's launch virgin Cola. Let's take on Coke and Pepsi and for about 18 months. We were out selling them people were very excited by it.

It was a hit in the UK, but then Sir Richard tried to Stage an invasion of the US

market. I arrived in Times Square with the Sherman British Sherman tank. We crushed all these Coke cans and Pepsi cans and so Cola was flying everywhere and code were not amused and normal Pepsi

Coca-Cola didn't respond with

Dirty tricks like ba. They staged a full-on

assault. They got a DC-10 on the Atlanta Runway. They filled it up with squat teams and cash and this private DC-10 arrived in the UK and very quickly the Virgin Cola just disappeared from the shelves. And yeah, they sort of me captors and the lesson to learn from that was we weren't different enough. When be a tried to do that to us with Virgin Atlantic we had the

T Edge on them with a can of cola it can't be radically better than Coke or Pepsi but I don't think it damaged the Virgin brand trying things like this and people identified with people who try things and don't necessarily succeed and then try again and so on with other

things after this interview one of my producers asked me my thoughts on why virgin Cola got crushed by its competitors. Well, I think there were two reasons the most Central one is the product really wasn't that differentiated, right?

So because the product wasn't differentiated he couldn't muster a defense line. So yes British Airways tried to crush him, but they're trying to crush him in courts and dial access and he could survive through demand example of his product was really differentiated. You would have a consumers gone. Why is it not here? Right? Like I want it. First of all, I was kind of fun. But okay fine. You got Coke, I'll take go. Oh God pep Celtic Pepsi and he identified that I think that was actually true because it's like look I've got

50 sugar water to know the second condition though is that if Coke and Pepsi hadn't responded vigorously then maybe he could have built up a place where it was in a Following over time where people just said, okay my preference just like some people have a preference for Coke and some people have a preference for Pepsi and a third people have a preference for Virgin Cola, but they responded early and the way they responded was to go around to all the places that would distribute virgin Cola and say we'll pay you

Ooh money not to carry virgin. Right and why would the retailer take the money because they're like well actually in fact, I don't think virgin Cola being here is increasing my net Cola sales, right and you're just giving me some more money. It's not my problem. Great. I got an extra profitability for it and they were willing to do that because they didn't have people coming and going where the fuck is my Virgin Cola right? And so I think that was part of the problem on the cola side. This is the risk of going for things. Sometimes they flat out don't

But the upside is that there are so many more daring ideas to try. Well, I

was in Japan sitting on one of those wonderful Japanese fast trains into Tokyo and I came back to England and thought British Rail which was run by government was abysmal iRun and maybe I could persuade the government to allow virgin to operate on the British rails track. Well initially, I got the head of British Rail to my house and you may have to edit the next bit a bit.

But as he was leaving the house the microphone was on the door and we heard him say it broadcast all over the house. I'm not going to let that go Branson get his hands for my train set and that made us all the more determined obviously

virgin trains was eventually awarded a contract from the UK government to

operate we got fantastic new high-speed trains called pendolino knows and it turned into one of the most successful businesses we had

up until now Sir Richard had proven that you can keep asking.

What if y naught T. Hugely improve existing products and services and reach massive scale? But what about when it's a product that doesn't exist yet Sir. Richard was set on course to find out with an idea that came from an unlikely place the last ever leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail

Gorbachev. I was offered by Gorbachev a ride to be actually the first citizen to go into space on one of his spaceships. I mean he rang me up to offer me that and then

people rank back and told me the price and I remember thinking, you know, 450 million dollars for a ticket to space and you know to be tied up in Russia for 18 months

Richard being Richard his next thought was automatic

one day. Maybe we could start our own space line. And once I thought we had the wherewithal to start our own space line, I remember going to the registry office and registering Virgin Galactic Airways also registered virgin Intergalactic Airways, just because I'm an optimist and then

Traveled around the world meeting brilliant engineers and came across but route are who's the best in that area? And he was already coming up with the idea of spaceship one to win the X prize. And basically we agreed to set up a space company. I thought it would take six to eight years to achieve. It's nearly 18 years later. We've had our Downs we've had our ups, but we're on the verge. I think of being able to bring a lot of people's dreams to reality and I think if you can

Create a company that brings people's dreams to reality. It's likely to be successful

commercial spaceflight remains Uncharted Territory today, but almost two decades ago sure richer was already imagining how you could put the Virgin spin on the

experience rocket science is difficult and it's certainly taken us longer than we thought but you know, we got 800 wonderful Engineers working on it and we're very pleased where it's going. What's incredible is how few people have ever been to space. I think it you know 550 people.

I have been to space throughout the world to date and when I talked to a group of people, I would say 75% would love to go to space the other 25% think those people who want to go to space or absolutely mad, but there's a lot of people if they could afford it and if we could guarantee them a return ticket would love to go to space and so what we've been working on is creating a space line that is safe that in time will become relatively affordable and which will

Give people the experience of a lifetime,

you know, our Galactic Adventures may seem a far cry from that student magazine that started the Virgin story. But this range of interests is key to version

success. I'm a great believer in diversification diversification has saved us on many occasions in the 55 years since I've been in business if we were still in record shops, we would have been bust we were still in record companies. We may well have been bussed and so by evolving all the time that's

The Virgin brand alive and well and healthy

the strength of this diversity has come in a full Focus during the covid

pandemic covid-19. Wondered why we chose in the particular Industries to diversify into suddenly six months ago because whether it was fitness clubs, they were closed down hotels. They were closed down Banks were suffering Financial Services Airlines Cruise companies, etc. Etc. So we had particularly bad luck as to what industries we were.

In

this is where Richard's willingness to delegate has come into its own

and so six months ago. We just had to sit down because I'd been a good delegator. I had six months on Necker Island Necker Island a virgin branded island in the British Virgin Islands owned by Sir Richard Branson where I could really concentrate on making sure that all those businesses survived and working with our wonderful team on that as well and they all have survived.

I think some of them will come out stronger from it. We've lost some very good people in some of the businesses which is a horrible thing to have to do. Hopefully we'll get them back again someday

and virgin has been saved by Richards most ambitious of Daring leaps

interestingly. I've been able to cash in some chips on our space companies which help the rest of the group. So one of the two companies that were going well, which was Virgin Galactic inversion orbit of Innocence help bail out the rest of the Virgin industry.

But these sorts of challenges companies they're going to have in a 55 year span and I think it proves whether your team of tough and resilient and can deal with it. And I think they've done a really good job.

This is one of the concrete benefit of Richards screw. It just do it approach that has allowed him to launch so many successful in a few unsuccessful companies his willingness to constantly ask what if why not is the very reason he can keep on asking it and bring

Whimsical Focus to burn more and more projects even space exploration after this interview one of my producers asked me my thoughts about the Virgin story. That's how he's done it all under the same brand. I think the thing he's brilliant out and I've learned from and I would have done differently in my own entrepreneurial career. I was a student of Entrepreneurship is until Canali people don't do this at all, which is hold on a brand imagine if I for example and setting up LinkedIn had said, okay the whole website linkedin.com

Mom is linkedin's but a LinkedIn brand to do Airlines or to do hotels or do business conferences or lat. That's mine. Like anything else like any other use is mine. Probably my VCS where I said fine, we'll take 50 thousand dollars off the net present value of the asset were investing in because it doesn't really matter and we'll do that and then you could build up a brand. I think that is a more common pattern in the UK and I think it's smart and one of things the Silicon Valley doesn't do and that there is real brand value there because once one of these things hits to escalation