Accumulate Profit Margin Invest Destroy

So I picked up Richard Branson’s book at the train station on my way back from the UK as a final token of “something British”. Branson, of course, is an English entrepreneur who became highly successful with his record label “Virgin Records” that had their first hit with Mike Oldfield in the early 1970s. Bands like Sex Pistols, Human League, Simple Minds and Genesis followed, making Virgin a huge success.

The book was released in 2006 and updated in 2007 with new chapters on “Gaia Capitalism” (environmentally friendly business).

The subtitle reads “Lessons in Life and Business” and the book delivers on that promise by being just that: The story how Branson became the super-rich industrialist that owns a record label, several airlines, a humanitarian organization and other companies, amongst which there even is an enterprise that wants to bring people cheaply into space (and back).

How he became that person is roughly described in the book and I want to share some things I found interesting while reading it.

First of all, that book is very inspiring. The recurring theme is “Let’s do it!” and it paints a picture of a typical entrepreneur as someone who makes things happen. It contains childhood stories that tell the story of a kid that was very competitive from the beginning. In one story he is dared to learn how to swim, in another he plants Christmas trees at a very young age after having made the math that these trees will make him rich when he will be 18 years old.

Later the reader learns how Branson started a student newspaper in his teens that made him quite wealthy for the first time. By the time he was in his 20s this guy was already a big success. I also enjoyed the anecdote how “Virgin Atlantic”, the airline, first was thought of. Being stranded at an airport with many other people after a flight was cancelled, he chartered a plane and asked everyone to contribute a little to pay for the charter. Good example of a problem and a solution. The chapters on his competition with British Airways are rather funny and make the CEO of BA look like a tight-ass, albeit a quite entertaining one. This fits with another thing Branson says about Business: It should be fun.

Depending on whether you enjoy such stories you will like or dislike the large portions on different “extreme” challenges Branson participated in. Those include sailing around the world in boats, flying around the world in a Balloon or trying to fly out Saddam Hussein out of Iraq shortly before Bush gave the order to invade it in an attempt to prevent the second American Iraq war. The most recurring sentence in those parts of the book is “I thought we were going to die.”

Altogether it is an interesting, quick and inspiring read that won’t make you a better businessperson, but perhaps infect you a little bit with a more positive attitude towards risk-taking and, well, just doing it. Also, you learn that you can probably make this guy do anything just by daring him to do it.

Check out “Screw it, Let’s do it” reviews at the Amazon