Richard Branson

I read this autobiography because I heard Branson interviewed on the Freakonomics podcast. He had made a comment that he was dyslexic and dropped out of school. He seemed to suggest that struggling students don't really need school to succeed as he did. This raised a question for me: So how do you start a company with a reading disability? The question really wasn't answered but he did surround himself in the early days with smart friends who helped first with the publication Student and show more then starting Virgin Records. It is an entertaining, sometimes enlightening read but got repetitive. show less

This man is very definitely the hero of his own story, but on the other hand he's often disarmingly honest, and he also has a lot to feel heroic about.

His ballooning escapades seem very dangerous, not least because the balloons themselves seem shoddily put together, but that's probably a reflection of how the kind of ballooning where you cross the pacific at thirty thousand feet and two hundred miles per hour is not done very much.

Before reading the book I did not appreciate that Virgin is show more involved in a staggering range of businesses. It felt like the record business and then the airline were really his true passions though. A good chunk of the book is devoted to the struggle to overcome British Airways dirty tricks campaign, and how Branson is finally vindicated by winning a huge libel settlement against Lord King and BA. I didn't much like BA before but finding out about all of this and how they did similar things to put Freddy Laker, British Midland, Air Europe and a bunch of others out of business, really put me off them.

All in all a good story which was well read, recorded by the same people who do audiobooks for the blind. show less

My father sent me this book with the accompanying message "he's (Branson) a bit of a wanker but even wankers say some useful things at times." And, so it proved.

Branson talks about his upbringing and how he decided to quit school at 16 to start a newspaper, which eventually branched out to trains, music, air travel and other more mundane investments. Besides covering British Airway's dirty tricks campaign, Branson probably offers aphorisms that anyone wanting to become extremely rich would show more take to heart. As I am not such a person, "Losing my Virginity" was enough of a time distraction when I was in Seoul, trying to avoid the new age cult I somehow got involved with. show less

A pretty bland memoir. There are some gems in it, though, and Branson is an impressive businessman. Most of the companies mentioned I'd never heard of, so it was interesting to see the range of Branson's brand venture capital investments. He presents himself as having consistent vision and values. I liked learning some of the business details behind Virgin Music and Virgin Airlines.

The problem is that it is not very cohesive. Branson himself doesn't have a long attention span, and the book show more certainly shows it. The writing is very poor, and it mostly feels like dictation. The story bounces around, from paragraph to paragraph each introducing some new subject. There's little followthrough or organization, though Branson often doubles back on himself. Branson is very self centered and not very reflective, so some of the threads—for example, an excruciatingly detailed elaboration of his libel case against British Airways—are just boring. show less