Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He founded the Virgin Group, which controls more than 400 companies.
You've got to take risks if you're going to succeed. I would much rather ask forgiveness than permission.
My number one rule in business, and in life, is to enjoy what you do. Running a business involves long hours and hard decisions; if you don't have the passion to keep you going, your business will more than likely fail. If you don't enjoy what you are doing, then you shouldn't be doing it.
Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.
Learning and leadership go together. Too much credit goes to me for what we have achieved at Virgin but the successes happen from working and learning with some of the world's most inspiring and inspired people.
People who think and say we more often than I are a lot more likely to succeed.
I think entrepreneurship is our natural state--a big adult word that probably boils down to something much more obvious like playfulness.
From the first days of my career as an entrepreneur, I have always used my own and my team's lack of experience to our advantage. In fact, at our first venture, Student magazine, we used our newcomer status to secure great interviews and generate publicity - people were excited about our new project and wanted to get involved. Our inexperience fed our restless enthusiasm for trying new things, which became part of our core mission.
Fun is at the core of the way I like to do business and it has been key to everything I've done from the outset.
Look, I think that when we started Virgin Atlantic 30 years ago, we had one 747 competing with the airlines that had an average of 300 planes each. Every single one of those have gone bankrupt because they didn't have customer service. They had might, but they didn't have customer service, so customer service is everything in the end.
There have been times when I could have succumbed to some form of bribe, or could have had my way by offering one. But ever since that night in Dover prison I have never been tempted to break my vow. . My Parents always drummed into me that all you have life is your reputation: you may be very rich, but if you lose your good name you'll never be happy.
Unless you dream, nothing will happen. If you dream, you might be able to make your dreams come true.
I think business leaders all over the world should not just think of how we can make lots of money, which is fine, but to take some of the problems in the world and get out there and tackle them using business. I think that if businesses do that we can get on top of these problems.
The ability to bounce back after a setback is the single most important trait an entrepreneurial venture can possess.
Life is a series of ups and clowns. Make it worth your wild!
We have a business that some people feel pollutes, and I happen to agree with them. . . . And so on the basis of trying to do good and, you know, hopefully turn a profit, what we did was we pledged that we'd put all the profits from our airline business into trying to develop clean fuels.
Records are made to be broken. It is in man's nature to continue to strive to do just that.
I make up my mind about whether I can trust someone within 60 seconds of meeting them
People do not mind people who try things and fail. If you're a good entrepreneur, you're not going to succeed in every single thing you try. You've got to try to succeed at more things than fail.
Unless you dream, you're not going to achieve anything.
If people are crazy enough to dare, impossible things happen.