Review of "Losing my Virginity" by Richard Branson
Book title: Losing My Virginity
Author: Richard Branson
Place of publication: Rainville Road, London, England
Publisher: Virgin Books; Rev Ed edition
Year of publication: June 27th 2002.
Number of pages: 672
ISBN-10: 0753506483
ISBN-13: 978-0753506486
Synopsis:
Richard Branson takes the reader on the adventure; which is his life. The author openly discusses his family, friends, sexual escapades, life threatening attempts to fly around the world in a hot air balloon; he also covers his many business endeavors ranging from Virgin Records to Virgin Galactic. Richard Branson offers us an insight into his own unique business philosophy which most of the time
…show more content…
We commend you Sir Richard!
Purpose of the book:
Branson wrote this book to demonstrate how he made Virgin the company and brand it is today. He strives to encourage people to think outside the box, take risks and go with your instincts. For many entrepreneurs young and old Branson autobiography is testament to the fact that once a person is determined and adaptable; success in business is not solely reliant on large financial backing and an academic background.
Branson recognizes that his vision has been criticized for breaking all the rules' and it is too kaleidoscopic, however many people respect and revere the Virgin Brand and how it came about. Branson wishes to offer the reader an informal non academic read about his life and business vision, in the hope to inspire other entrepreneurs to take a risk and challenge themselves whether it is in a business or personal context.
Content of the book:
When I first sat down to read Branson's autobiography I felt daunted by the number of pages (672) that lay before me. The fact that I had a preconceived notion of Richard being an arrogant, publicity hungry mogul of an overused brand, only added to my reluctance to commence reading his autobiography. Branson's autobiography opens with an account of one of his many attempts to fly around the world in a hot air balloon. This attempt
Virgin is a U.K-based company led by Sir Richard Branson and is one of the three most recognized brands in Britain. The company has a vast history of brand extensions – one of which is their launch of a wireless phone service in the USA. Dan Schulman has been appointed CEO of the Virgin
Daymond John once said, “If you don’t educate yourself, you’ll never get out of the starting block because you’ll spend all your money making foolish decisions”. There is no better way to educate yourself other than reading the story of a man who built something out of nothing. Daymond John’s The Power of Broke is an inspirational book focused on his own and others trek to financial stability. This book speaks about aspiring entrepreneurs with exotic ideas who just simply did not have the capital to begin their own full fledged business.
One issue Branson definitely has to consider is the loyalty and strong confidence of Canadians in their banks. This confidence is shown in a recent survey where 85% of Canadians expressed confidence in their banking system, 92% agreed that the strength of the large Canadian banks is critical to the health of the overall economy, and 91% are confident that their deposits are secure. Therefore, Virgin has to come up with a good overall package to convince the Canadians to commit their money to Virgin.
The concept of virginity has been used for thousands of years as a measure of woman’s value and worth, families giving away their daughters and being publicly ashamed if the gift was secondhand and spoiled. Considering that it was in a receiver’s best interest to purchase the unused good and the receiver was largely male, it is reasonable to conclude that virginity was defined and designed by those in power, male dominated institutions and societal structures. However, although intimate relationships became more a matter of an individual choice in Western societies, internalization of the guilt accompanying the loss of virginity as well as the favorable portrayal of an ethical virgin by both state and media perpetuates the utilization of
Howard Hughes has had an outstanding impact on aviation’s history. Next to his strange paranoia and wealth from countless movies, he had a lifelong passion for aviation! Although there was a film produced about his life, there is a lot that the world doesn 't know about Mr. Hughes.
On December 24, 1905, an aviation prodigy who would eventually change the entire industry was born. Howard Hughes, son of wealthy oil business owners inherited the family fortune at 18 after his parents’ untimely demise. He would go on to found several successful companies including the Hughes Aircraft Company, which would go on to create several aviation breakthroughs. I chose Howard Hughes for my report because my grandpa just retired from working at Raytheon which merged with Hughes Aircraft back in 1997.
Richard Branson is a billionaire who is creating a spaceship that is designed to take private customers up to space. . Branson has focused on his idea of taking people out into space within the last ten years. In this time frame, the company has been testing and building a spaceship that would bring six out of the 700 customers who paid for the trip out to space beforehand. These tickets started off costing 200,000 dollars, but then the price was raised to 250,000 dollars. Now, Virgin Galactic has been testing their spaceship through a series of test flights. If the tests have positive results, the spaceship would be able to be used for commercial flights.
The purpose of this report was to provide a strategic evaluation of the company Virgin Australia. The report begins by conducting a strategic analysis of Virgin, including an analysis of the external environment and an internal analysis of competitive strengths and weaknesses. The report then identifies the strategic direction and objectives of Virgin Australia, including the vision, mission, strategic objectives and stakeholders of the company. The report moves on to explore strategic choices of Virgin Australia by identifying the key broad business level and
A dropout at the age of 16, Richard Branson pursued his goals which in turn, led to the introduction of Virgin Records. From there, he has expanded his company into different ventures like Virgin Galactic, a space-tourism company, and Virgin Atlantic, an airline company, but as time did pass, he was struggling to keep his businesses financially stable so he sold Virgin Records eventually to THORN EMI. It has crushed him but he was determined to follow his dreams and continued to set up different music ventures.
For most, entrepreneurship isn’t easy neither is being a multifaceted multimedia mogul forging a dream. But for Joshua Craig taking a leap of faith wasn’t hard at all.
From an orphan to a billionaire, Howard Hughes’s life is the most mysterious, elusive and downright bizarre; yet his achievements are outstanding and they still shine till today. It started out in the early 1920s in Houston, Texas, an eighteen-year-old boy who yearned for glamorous dreams and successes. Throughout the long run, he left behind the significant legacy and died on a plane as a recluse for almost two decades. The movie “The Aviator” by Martin Scorsese was inspired and based on this man’s life; it amazingly shows an essence of the main character, but it lacks the deeper insights which made Howard Hughes’s life so much more and so much less.
Richard Branson, mainly known for his companies, has also tried to break many world records for publicity. On July 2, 1987, Per Lindstrand and Richard Branson boarded the Virgin Atlantic Flyer which now resides in the Imperial War Museum in Duxford. On July 3, Lindstrand and Branson found themselves in trouble as fog appeared over their landing site. As Lindstrand bailed out, Branson, with little experience, was forced to fly the balloon alone. Before I go any further, I would like to point out that the Virgin Atlantic Flyer was the largest hot-air balloon made so far. At around the size of a 21-story building, the Virgin Atlantic Flyer was a challenging task to fly, even for an experienced balloonist like Lindstrand, but for Branson? Well, that must have been entirely different. Forced to fly to the Irish Sea, the Flyer repeatedly dipped into
In 1992 Richard sold Virgin Music to Thorn EMI and invested the proceeds into Virgin Atlantic, improving on an already great service. In the same year we launched the first super economy service that went on to become our award winning Premium Economy. We spent most of the Nineties buying new planes, expanding our route network and generally breaking new ground in passenger service, both on the ground and in the air. In 1999 Richard sold a 49% stake in the company to Singapore Airlines valuing us at a minimum of £1.225bn. In the same year, for services to entrepreneurship Richard received a knighthood
His entrepreneurial career seemed to take off from this point. Branson’s Virgin Group has over 200
I think the corporate parent has done very well to keep the Virgin brand well maintained, it started out as being about value and I think this belief still stands. However the name Virgin also brings about images of quality and of them being trustworthy. It is absolutely vital that when a brand name is used so widely it is portrayed in the right light. Any big stories in any of Virgin's strategic business units, if it portrays Virgin in a bad way, could affect all the other companies with the name Virgin attached to it, and consumer trust in them could waver.