Finding My Virginity summary

Richard Branson was one of the first Britons to use a cellular phone back when they were the size of your head. And though few then would have guessed they’d eventually be the preferred method of communication, by the turn of the century it was clear they were here to stay.

But how did Branson get involved in the mobile phone market? It all came down to one expensive telephone bill.

Richard Branson gets ideas pitched to him all the time. Many don’t fit the Virgin brand, but sometimes they’re just perfect, like the time he was pitched the idea for Virgin Active.

Gym membership is another service that people often complain about but essentially accept: the equipment is old, the locker rooms are tiny, and the sign-up fees and membership prices are ridiculous. In other words, it’s the perfect market for Virgin to enter and improve, but it almost didn’t happen thanks to a disastrous beginning.

Just like British Airways, many services in England were traditionally run by the government. For phones, you had British Telecom, and for trains you had British Rail. This is on top of British Gas, British Steel and British Coal.

But Richard Branson was set to change this for rail, ever since he’d experienced the famous bullet train ride from Tokyo to Kyoto in 1991. When the Department of Transportation privatized British Rail and invited businesses to bid to run parts of the system, Virgin Trains was ready.

One of Richard Branson’s dearest friends was Nelson Mandela, a rare sort of person who could walk into a room, transform its energy and bring a smile to everyone’s face.

After Mandela died in 2013, it was difficult for Branson to adjust to a life without this tremendous force for good, but he’s forever grateful that he got to work alongside him as part of Virgin Unite.

Sometimes you have to sell one concern to keep another going. This was the case in 1992 when Richard Branson sold Virgin Records to support Virgin Atlantic, and in 1999 when he sold 49 percent of Virgin Atlantic to kickstart the Virgin Active gyms.

But one sale really hurt: the Virgin America airline, which began in 2004.

What do you do when one of the worst businesses in town asks you to partner up?

This was the predicament Richard Branson faced when Simon Duffy, the CEO of NTL, the international cable communications giant, approached him about joining Virgin Media. NTL was commonly referred to by customers as “NT Hell” and ranked at the bottom of every customer service survey.

As time has passed, the Virgin brand has become clearer for customers and Branson himself. Nowadays, most of what Virgin offers falls into one of four categories: travel and leisure, telecom and media, music and entertainment, and health and wellness. But there’s a fifth category that ties all these together: money. And that’s where Virgin Money comes in.

If you had told the 19-year-old, spliff-smoking Branson, who had just started Virgin Records as a mail order service in the back of a magazine, that one day he’d be a banker, he might have asked you what you were smoking.

Many dream of being an astronaut when they are young, but few people are as dedicated to making that dream come true as Richard Branson.

For a long time, Branson thought this dream might remain a fanciful wish until he accidentally ran into aerospace engineer Burt Rutan at a hangar in the Mojave desert and heard his plan for SpaceShipOne.

Unlike the SpaceX program being developed by entrepreneur Elon Musk, Branson’s Virgin Galactic isn’t aimed at reaching Mars. Branson wants to take people to space so they can see earth from a new perspective, which is an experience they’ll carry with them for the rest of their lives.

You can already make a reservation to be one of the first astronauts, and Branson is hopeful that commercial trips will soon take place.

While helping the public see the wonders of space is certainly a big project, Branson still finds time to help out fellow entrepreneurs.

One of the projects he’s most passionate about is Virgin Startup, which was created to help innovative people get the money they need to turn their ideas into reality.

Richard Branson is the first to admit that he sometimes has a hard time staying neutral, especially when people are spreading falsehoods and misinformation about topics that are close to his heart, like climate change, prison reform, HIV/AIDS prevention and human rights.

It’s no secret that he can cause a stir. Branson has spent a lot of time in South Africa trying to provide access to HIV/AIDS medication and slow the spread of this preventable disease. So it angered Branson in 2014, when the South African health minister publicly stated that a mixture of beetroot, potatoes, garlic and lemon was a fine treatment.