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The Music Industry Is A Strange Combination Of Having Real And Intangible Assets: Pop Bands Are Brand Names In Themselves, And At A Given Stage In Their Careers Their Name Alone Can Practically Gaurantee Hit Records.

-Richard Branson

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The Music Industry Is

Richard Branson

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The Music Industry Is A Strange Combination Of Having Real And Intangible Assets: Pop Bands Are Brand Names In Themselves, And At A Given Stage In Their Careers Their Name Alone Can Practically Gaurantee Hit Records.

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I Was Dyslexic, I Had No Understanding Of Schoolwork Whatsoever. I Certainly Would Have Failed Iq Tests. And It Was One Of The Reasons I Left School When I Was 15 Years Old. And If I - If I'm Not Interested In Something, I Don't Grasp It.

If You Don't Succeed At First, There's No Need For The F Word (failure). Pick Yourself Up And Try, Try Again.

About 40 Percent Of My Time Is Spent On Social Issues And Building New Organizations, More For The Benefit Of The Climate Or Health Issues.

Money Is A Poor Indicator Of Success.

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We Always Enter Markets Where The Leaders Are Not Doing A Great Job, So We Can Go In And Disrupt Them By Offering Better Quality Services.

The Years I Would Have Spent At University, I Spent Building Student Magazine And Virgin Records. For Me That Was Far More Fun And Satisfying. I Have Treated Everyday As The University Education I Never Had And Think I Learnt More About Business And Life Than I Would Have At University In The Process.

I Never Get The Accountants In Before I Start Up A Business. It's Done On Gut Feeling, Especially If I Can See That They Are Taking The Mickey Out Of The Consumer.

If Something Can't Be Explained On The Back Of An Envelope, It's Rubbish.

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Communicate Your Passion Clearly, Concisely And With Genuine Conviction.

I'm Hopeful That After Iraq, Those In Charge Will Think Twice About Taking Us Down That Route Again.

If You're Lucky Enough To Have A Few Hundred Thousand Dollars In The Bank Account, That Should Be Sufficient For Your Own Personal Needs, And Anything More Than That You've Got To Put To Good Use.

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The Virgin Brand Is Not A Product Like Coca-cola Or Famous Grouse Whisky. It's An Attitude And A Way Of Life To Many. That Attitude Is About Giving Customers A Better Time And Better Value In A Fun Way That Embraces Life And Seeks To Give The Customers Something New.

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If A Chairman Of A Company Visits Seattle, That Chairman Should Take All The Staff Out In The Evening And Have A Few Drinks Together, Talk Together And Party Together And Not Be Embarrassed About The Staff Seeing The Weaker Side Of You.

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There's No Better Satisfaction Than Watching The People Around You, Who Have Worked Day And Night To Get Something Right, Realising The Dream.

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People Are No Different From Flowers. If You Water Them, They Flourish. If You Are Not Nice To Them, They Shrivel Up

We Must Rapidly Wean Ourselves Off Our Dependence On Coal And Fossil Fuels.

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I Have Enjoyed Life A Lot More By Saying "yes" Than By Sayings "no".

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The Music Industry Is A Strange Combination Of Having Real And Intangible Assets: Pop Bands Are Brand Names In Themselves, And At A Given Stage In Their Careers Their Name Alone Can Practically Gaurantee Hit Records.

Because I Don't See Virgin As A Company But As A Way Of Life And I Fully Enjoy It, I Don't Think I'll Ever Retire.

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I Think Bands Will Actually Make More Money Without Record Companies; A Much Bigger Share Of The Money Will Go To The Bands. You Won't Have Record Shops Taking 40 Percent Of The Money. You Won't Have Record Labels Taking 40 Percent Of The Money. So They Don't Have To Sell As Many Albums As They Used To In The Past. So It's Not Necessarily A Bad Thing If Record Companies Disappear.

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If You're Hurt, Lick Your Wounds And Get Up Again. If You've Given It Your Absolute Best, It's Time To Move Forward.

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The Risk Is Worth It. Mike Would Have Been The First To Say That.

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I Believe In Goals. It's Never A Bad Thing To Have A Dream. If Something Is Really What You Want To Do, Just Do It. Whatever Your Goal.

People Flourish If They’re Praised.

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If You Love What You Do And If You Believe In What You Do, Others Will Share Your Enthusiasm. Passionate People Find Their Way To The Virgin Group, And When They Do, We Snap Them Up And Try To Keep Them Within The Family.

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. More Than Any Other Element, Fun Is The Secret Of Virgin's Success. I Am Aware That The Ideas Of Business As Being Fun And Creative Goes Right Against The Grain Of Convention, And It's Certainly Not How The They Teach It At Some Of Those Business Schools, Where Business Means Hard Grind And Lots Of 'discounted Cash Flows' And Net' Present Values'.

What Does The Name Virgin Mean? We Are A Company That Likes To Take On The Giants. In Too Many Businesses, These Giants Have Had Things Their Own Way. We Are Going To Have Fun Competing With Them.

... Our First Priority Should Be The People Who Work For The Companies, Then The Customers, Then The Shareholders. Because If The Staff Are Motivated Then The Customers Will Be Happy, And The Shareholders Will Then Benefit Through The Company's Success.

Throughout My Business Life I Have Always Tried To Keep On Top Of Costs And Protect The Downside Risk As Much Possible. The Virgin Group Has Survived Only Because We Have Always Kept Tight Control Of Our Cash. But, Likewise, I Also Know That Sometimes It Is Essential To Break These Rules And Spend Lavishly.

Screw It, Let's Do It - Just Get On With It And Do It

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Be The Best At What You Do

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Business Is The Force Of Change. Business Is Essential To Solving The Climate Crisis, Because This Is What Business Is Best At: Innovating, Changing, Addressing Risks, Searching For Opportunities. There Is No More Vital Task

All Of Us Have Just Got To Find That Time To Look After Our Bodies. That Helps Us Make Sure That Our Mind Is Sharp. I Know That When I'm Feeling Great And Really Fit, I Can Get In Three Or Four Hours More Of Really Productive Work.

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Fun Is One Of The Most Important - And Underrated - Ingredients In Any Successful Venture. If You're Not Having Fun, Then It's Probably Time To Call It Quits And Try Something Else.

All Successful People - Not Just Entrepreneurs - Have Got Things Wrong Over And Over Again Before Finding The Right Solution.

I Was Fortunate Enough, After Many Visits To Many Wonderful, Weird People To Come Across Burt Rutan, Who Is A Genius In The Mojave Desert. And Spaceshipone Was Born And Had Three Flights Into Space That Won Something Called The X Prize. And From There, We're Building Spaceshiptwo, Which Is ... A Beautiful Spaceship That Is Very, Very, Very Nearly Completed And Will Be Ready From About Next Christmas Onwards To Start Taking People Into Space.

Being Dyslexic Can Actually Help In The Outside World. I See Some Things Clearer Than Other People Do Because I Have To Simplify Things To Help Me And That Has Helped Others.

Early On In Your Career, Find Someone Better Than Yourself To Run The Business On A Day-to-day Basis. Remove Yourself, Maybe Even From The Building, And From The Nitty-gritty. That Way, You're Going To Be Able To See The Bigger Picture And Think Of New Areas To Go Into.

Two Bricklayers Work Side By Side. The First Lays Bricks. The Second Builds Magnificent Cathedrals. Think Small Vs. Think Big.

Do Not Be Embarrassed By Your Failures, Learn From Them And Start Again.

We'll Go Into Orbit. We'll Go To The Moon. This Business Has No Limits.

My Interest In Life Comes From Setting Myself Huge, Apparently Unachievable Challenges And Trying To Rise Above Them.

We Will Be Producing Supersonic Planes Which Will Go Far, Far Faster Than Concordes. New York To Tokyo Could Be Less Than An Hour. You Could Be Traveling At 19,000 Miles An Hour Orbitally.

I Also Know, As An Entrepreneur Myself, You Face New Obstacles Every Day And You Need To Have The Perseverance To See Them Through.

Perhaps My Early Problems With Dyslexia Made Me More Intuitive: When Someone Sends Me A Written Proposal, Rather Than Dwelling On Detailed Facts And Figures I Find That My Imagination Grasps And Expands On What I Read.

The Jet Stream Is A Very Strong Force And Pushing A Balloon Into It Is Like Pushing Up Against A Brick Wall, But Once We Got Into It, We Found That, Remarkably, The Balloon Went Whatever Speed The Wind Went.

Tough Times Are Inevitable In Life And In Business. But How You Compose Yourself During Those Times Defines Your Spirit And Will Define Your Future.

You Know I Think If The People Who Work For A Business Are Proud Of The Business They Work For, They'll Work That Much Harder, And Therefore, I Think Turning Your Business Into A Real Force For Good Is Good Business Sense As Well.

Find Somebody Else To Run Your Business On A Day-to-day Basis.

Travel The World And Meet People. I've Been Fortunate Enough To See So Much Of The World, And Being Able To Do So Has Brought Me So Many Wonderful Friends And Experiences. There Is No Better Way To Learn Than Exploring New Places.

Our Generation Has Inherited An Incredibly Beautiful World From Our Parents And They From Their Parents. It Is In Our Hands Whether Our Children And Their Children Inherit The Same World. We Must Not Be The Generation Responsible For Irreversibly Damaging The Environment.

It Is Important To Remember That Life Is Not A Dress Rehearsal And That None Of Us Should Waste Our Time On Doing Things That Don’t Spark Fires Within Us. My Golden Rule For Business And Life Is: We Should All Enjoy What We Do And Do What We Enjoy.

Not Enough People Realize The Satisfaction You Can Get From Really Pushing Yourself To The Limits.

If You Run A Business, Put On Top Your Employees, Then Your Consumers, And Then Your Shareholders.

Don't Bother Doing Something Unless You're Radically Different From The Competition.

Good Customer Service Begins At The Top. If Your Senior People Don't Get It, Even The Strongest Links Further Down The Line Can Become Compromised.

Breaking The Rules And Challenging Convention Is In The Dna Of Every Successful Entrepreneur. Doing Things Differently And Solving Problems With New, Innovative And Fresh Approaches Are The Very Reason Many Start-ups Are Able To Compete And Sometimes Outpace The Established Market Leaders.

Please Be Polite. Nothing In Life Should Erode The Habit Of Saying Thank You To People Or Praising Them.

If You Don't Make Bold Moves, The World Doesn't Move Forward.

Sometimes Miracles Come In Pairs.

Good Brands Reflect The Histories Of The Time And The Group Of People That Made Them. They Can Not Be Copied. They Can Not Be Recycled.

You Can't Run A Business Without Taking Risks. The Brave May Not Live Forever - But The Cautious Do Not Live At All!

Ideally, Since 80 Percent Of Your Life Is Spent Working, You Should Start Your Business Around Something That Is A Passion Of Yours

In Times Of Recession There Are Massive Opportunities And Fortunes To Be Made, So For New Up And Coming Entrepreneurs, This Is The Time To Go And Start A Business.

Space Is Hard - But Worth It. We Will Persevere And Move Forward Together.

If You Offer People A Decent Service, If You Give Them You Know Internet Access, If Their Phones Are Not Cut Off On The Trains, You Know If You Have Plugs Where They Can Plug In Their Computers, And If You Have A Smiling, Cheerful Staff; And If You Can Travel Really Quickly, Then You Can Make A Success Out Of The Rail Business.

Internet Access

Consider Getting Smaller In Order To Get Bigger.

To Be Successful, You Have To Be Out There, You Have To Hit The Ground Running, And If You Have A Good Team Around You And More Than A Fair Share Of Luck, You Might Make Something Happen. But You Certainly Can't Guarantee It Just By Following Someone Else's Formula.

A Good Idea For A New Business Tends Not To Occur In Isolation, And Often The Window Of Opportunity Is Very Small. So Speed Is Of The Essence.

You Don't Have To Be One Of The Elders. You Don't Have To Be Well Known. You Just Have To Be Determined To Care About People. That's All It Takes.

The Best Lessons Are Usually Learned From Failure. You Musn't Beat Yourself Up If You Fail - Just Pick Yourself Up, Learn As Much As You Can From The Experience And Get On With The Next Challenge...the Brave May Not Live Forever, But The Cautious Never Live At All.

Smoking Marijuana, As Long As You Leave The Nicotine Out Of It, Is Certainly No More Damaging Than Having A Drink, And I Suspect Better For You Than Having A Drink.

You Shouldn’t Blindly Accept A Leader’s Advice. You’ve Got To Question Leaders On Occasion.

Drive, Determination, Passion And Hard Work Are All Free And More Valuable Than A Pot Of Cash.

Half The Art Of Ballooning Is To Make Your Crashes So Gentle That You Can Fool Yourself Into Calling Them Landings.

I Have Always Believed That Business Should Be A Force For Good.

When You're First Thinking Through An Idea, It's Important Not To Get Bogged Down In Complexity. Thinking Simply And Clearly Is Hard To Do.

Every Aspect Of Life Is Magnificent And Wonderful. It's So Important To Keep Fit And Healthy.

Money Is For Making Things Happen.

We Went All The Way Down The Himalayan Chain For A Day And A Half. That Was Magnificent, Except The Chinese Told Us They Were Going To Shoot Us Down If We Came Out The Far End. So I Spent A Lot Of My Time Contacting Former Prime Minister Tony Blair Begging Him To Tell The Chinese We Were Coming In This Direction By Mistake And Could He Please Say We Have No Nasty Motives For Flying Into Their Territory.

Always Think, 'what's The Worst That Can Happen' And Have Some Kind Of Strategy To Deal With It

Self Improvement

If You Can Run One Company, You Can Run Another. Running Companies Are About Inspiring And Driving The Best Out Of People.

Ideas Are The Lifeblood Of Business. Capture Every Fleeting Idea And Drive For Change.

With The Casino And The Beds, Our Passengers Will Have At Least Two Ways To Get Lucky On One Of Our Flights.

Most Skills Can Be Learned, But It Is Difficult To Train People On Their Personality.

The Brands That Will Thrive In The Coming Years Are The Ones That Have A Purpose Beyond Profit.

As An Adventurer...i Try To Protect Against The Downside. I Make Sure I Have Covered As Many Eventualities As I Can. In The End, You Have To Take Calculated Risks; Otherwise You're Going To Sit In Mothballs All Day And Do Nothing.

Talent Comes From Experience And Failure

Self Improvement

I Want Virgin To Be As Well-known Around The World As Coca-cola.

I Never Set Out To Be A Businessman

And In The Process, We Have Come Up With Fuels - Algae-based Fuels, Isobutanol-based Fuels And Other Fuels - That We Think Will Power The Planes In The Future So That, You Know, By 2020 I Hope That Our Planes Will Be Powered On Fuels That Are Clean Fuels And Are Not Polluting The Environment So That We'll Have A Green Airline And An Airline That Actually Has Fuels That Will Be Hopefully Cheaper Than The Dirty Fuels Of The Past. So [we're] Doing Good And Also Turning A Profit At The Same Time.

If You Create Something That Makes A Difference In People's Lives, You Are Likely To Become A Business Success As Well

Self Improvement

Entrepreneurial Business Favours The Open Mind. It Favours People Whose Optimism Drives Them To Prepare For Many Possible Futures, Pretty Much Purely For The Joy Of Doing So.

Everyone Needs Something To Aim For. You Can Call It A Challenge, Or You Can Call It A Goal. It Is What Makes Us Human. It Was Challenges That Took Us From Being Cavemen To Reaching For The Stars.

"i Think The Most Important Thing Is That In The Last Seven Days We've Just Had The Greatest Adventure Of Our Lifetimes." "i'm Inquisitive ... And I Love A New Challenge... And If I Feel That We Can Do It Better Than It's Been Done By Other People, We'll Have A Go."

I Am No Stranger To Healthy Competition-wor King Hard And Playing Hard

I Have Always Been A Huge Believer In The Inestimable Value Good Mentoring Can Contribute To Any Nascent Business

I Rely Far More On Gut Instinct Than Researching Huge Amounts Of Statistics.

When Something Doesn't Go Exactly To Plan, Money Is Tight Or A Business Is Struggling - See It As A Challenge Rather Than A Failure. Look Outside The Box And Try And Find A Solution - You'll Be Surprised How Many Great Opportunities And Possibilities Arise When Things Look Bad. You've Just Got To Open Your Mind And Not Be Afraid Of Sticking Your Neck Out!

To Me, Business Isn't About Wearing Suits Or Pleasing Stockholders. It's About Being True To Yourself, Your Ideas And Focusing On The Essentials.

The Best Advice I Got From My Dad? Wear A Condom.

I Just Love Life. I Mean, You Know, I Love Every Second Of It. I Love People.

It Is The Satisfaction Of Doing It For Yourself And Motivating Others To Work With You In Bringing It About. It Is About The Fun, Innovation, Creativity With The Rewards Being Far Greater Than Purely Financial.

It's All About Finding And Hiring People Smarter Than You. Getting Them To Join Your Business. And Giving Them Good Work. Then Getting Out Of Their Way. And Trusting Them. You Have To Get Out Of The Way So You Can Focus On The Bigger Vision. That's Important. And Here's The Main Thing....you Must Make Them See Their Work As A Mission.

I Love Creating Things, And As An Entrepreneur, I've Taken On Quite A Lot Of Major Corporations And Done Well. Capitalism Is The Only System That Works, But It Has Its Flaws; For One, It Brings Great Wealth To Only A Few People. That Wealth Obviously Brings Extreme Responsibility.

I Have Had Fun Running All Of The Virgin Businesses, So I Never See A Setback As A Bad Experience; It Is Just A Learning Curve.

As A Leader Of People, You Have To Be A Great Listener, A Great Motivator, Be Very Good At Praising And Bringing Out The Best In People.

I Learnt From An Early Age This Need To Delegate Responsibility Out To Other Team Members As There Is Just Too Much For One Person To Do Themselves. What Is The Point Of Hiring Talented Team Members If You Don't Give Them The Freedom To Make The Most Of The Chance You Have Given Them?

And From, You Know, Small Ideas, Bigger Ideas Emerge. So We're Starting With Suborbital Space Flights And We'll Then Go Into Orbital Space Flights And, You Know, Maybe One Day We'll Send People On A One-way Voyage Into The Depths Of Space As Per The Science Fiction Trips.

I Think In Life The Key Thing Is Just To Fight Really Hard To Make Sure Something Survives. If It Looks Like You've Done Everything You Can To Avoid Failure, Just Move Forward, Move On And Learn From It.

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