Richard Branson: How A Dyslexic Drop-out Build A Billion Dollar Empire!

You do think about, "Is it selfish? Is it worth it? Is it something..." So, um...

Sir Richard Branson! Richard Branson is one of the most fun-loving and adventurous billionaires in the world.

He's conquered our skies, blasted off into space. The entrepreneur's entrepreneur, the marketer's marketer.

In the school of business, they said, "Focus. By the age of 33, you've got 50 different companies." You kind of break that law, it seems.

If we'd stayed still and only focused on one business, we wouldn't have a business today. We're still going strong 55 years later. If you get the little details right, makes for an exceptional company over an average company. We were the first airline to introduce seat-back videos in the world, sleeper seats for business class passengers. We've always been ahead of the pack. The airline's been bullied by British Airways, famously through the Dirty Tricks campaign. The best always succeeds. (instrumental music plays)

As if all of, that you'd done before wasn't enough, you decided to aim for the stars.

We're going to space.

Looking back at this beautiful, beautiful Earth that we live on (laughs) whilst floating, it was a dream come true. You know, we're still at the early stage of space travel. There's still risks.

We had a problem here. One pilot has died after a passenger spaceship crashed.

Everything that we'd built up, uh, looked like it was crashing down.

What impact does that have on you and your mission?

You've gotta continue.

Before this episode starts, I have a small favor to ask from you. Two months ago, 74% of people that watch this channel didn't subscribe. We're now down to 69%. My goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know. And the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you and enjoy this episode. (instrumental music plays) Richard, having spent the last 24 hours reading both your autobiographies, but also your new HBO, um, docuseries, Eve, Your Mother, um, she f- she felt like a really, really extraordinarily principled and, um, strong character. And in the docuseries, you actually say that you didn't realize how much she had influenced y- you on becoming the entrepreneur you are today. What was it that she was doing? Uh, pushing you out the car at four, five years old and making you walk home, but what is, what was, were those principles that underlined her approach?

So, I mean, she was one of the sort of, uh, (laughs) first entrepreneurs around, really. I mean, not, uh, you know, eh, not a particularly successful one, but she was, um, making table mats and, you know, cutting out pretty pictures from books and s- make... and, and, and, and, um, turning them, t- you know, tur- turning them into, uh, pictures that she would then take to Harrods or, um, Harvey Nichols. W- um, interestingly, and I, I didn't realize this until I r- saw it, saw it in some letters, uh, that she'd written to me, um, uh, um, you know, working from a phone box in, in, in London, um, and, um, uh, and that was her office, just like my office had been later on, wor- working from a phone box at school. Um, but, um, uh, yeah, but so, she, she would never stop. She wa- she, she was an idea, idea a minute, um, al- always trying to, um, uh, uh, you know, better, beh- better our lives, m- uh, bet- and, um, um, and al- always trying to create things that she could be proud of.