Review of Richard Branson Business Stripped Bare Hardback 2008. Softback 2009.
Not About Business, But Sniffing After Big Money. Google, Amazon? Stratospheric Ideas? Fraud Support: AIDS, Climate Change, Mandela?
This is an interesting but strange book; and it's not very easy to state what its point is. Is it to help budding entrepreneurs? I'd say no, and I'll explain why, in detail, below. Is it for entertainment, 'Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur', a rousing evangelical call to would-be entrepreneurs? There are of course entertaining passages, and the title itself is in Branson's serial policy of hinting at sex, but that cannot be the whole point of this book. Is it to pinpoint and identify business opportunities, for experienced entrepreneurs? Again, I'd say no, even more emphatically. Is it to make some money? I can find no 'fastseller' information on his book titles; he's written a few more books since, which appear to be more of the same; and it must surely be true they netted far more than most authors. But the conclusion I arrived at is that Branson is at the limit of his business powers, and is discreetly nudging at the doors of powerful political and economic interests, with the emphasis on propaganda and promotion.
[Preface: a few comments on Branson by Tom Bower (2000). This is the only hostile book on Branson I'm aware of; and none of the 250 people who 'worked closely with Sir Richard' are acknowledged, apparently on legal advice. About half Bower's books were conventional treatments of the 'Nazis', so truth can be assumed not to be his (Bauer's?) priority. I found the book oddly insubstantial; this may be because of the impenetrability of business arrangements. But we find, in no special order, Losing My Virginity (1998) was a 'volley of tripe'. The Branson family was partly entangled with Flindt, from Hamburg, who worked on the Baltic Exchange (i.e. insuring ships). Branson in pursuit of publicity spoke to 'only the most susceptible' of journalists—as though the entire Jewish media system isn't solidly rigged anyway. I was interested to see a list of writs in the index, both to and from, including one from Mike Oldfield. Bower is irritated by Virgin's one-time hippiesque policy of low wages, seemingly unaware that (if I'd read this correctly) Branson's mum gave him the run of a big house in Kensington, which could count as subsidised rent to the Student-floggers. Branson is quoted as complaining about legal costs; this may be news to Bower, but Branson was not and is not the only one! On condoms, made for Branson by a US manufacture with an eye on the UK market in 1987-ish, and 'AIDS', (p 80) Bower thought Branson's claims should have been 'more cautious'—when apocalyptic claims were official government policy. There are personal stories: (p 201) Rory McCarthy, who apparently made fortunes from a delivery company, and prawns, but all of which was used up by Branson. However, after all, McCarthy was an adult. And (p 270) Abbott's suicide apparently disappointed by both his ex and Branson. We're told Abbott held shares, and knew secrets he would not have wanted to reveal; and Branson refused to buy back shares—possibly analogously to Jews dumping their fiat paper money for real assets. An aspect of Branson on trains and aircraft, not really addressed by Bower, is the apparent over-reaction to Branson: Bower gives figures for numbers of air passengers in the late 1990s (but not their revenue) and Virgin seems small beer. The implications of being a 'private company', i.e. with only one shareholder, when operating as part of a group, aren't discussed]
Business Stripped Bare has seven principal chapters. (Branson was born in 1950, mnemonically helpful: so e.g. in the 1990s he was in his 40s). Here's a quick overview (but each chapter is a bitty mixture):
• People: find good people – set them free Anecdote about a loan for a sewing machine in Africa. Largely about Virgin Records, which started in about 1971. (I haven't seen a full list of Virgin companies; there must be many, complicated by the removal of the name when sold). Branson quotes 'my friend Jon Butcher' on capitalism. Branson has no idea about control of money itself. He says: (39) 'Asia has exploded out of poverty in my lifetime thanks to entrepreneurs'. He doesn't seem to know Victorian India had railways, and Japan was industrialised by the 1930s, and so on. Or that vast populations in for example Bangla Desh live in acute poverty, at least by white standards. Moreover he has no idea about science and technology. Anyway, the overt message of this chapter seems aimed at managers rather than entrepreneurs: get a contact, pay them, keep organisations small.
• Brand: Flying the Flag Basically this chapter is about the Virgin brand: how it started, how it's used, variations on the theme such as Virgin Blue. Since Virgin is a private company, it's about self-publicity and it's undeniable that Branson is a master at that. He says: if CNN phones for an interview, he drops everything to do it. There's a story that, when a hot-air balloon crashed, he was immediately on his mobile, explaining the near-death circumstances. He praises Jackie McQuillan, his director of Media Relations (his capitals). This means some compromise: he used to be popular with the Sun, a highly downmarket British 'newspaper', but this book is 'The No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller', whatever that means, suggesting an appeal to another sector.
We also have Virgin records and its sale to EMI 'for $1bn in 1987', mobile phones c 2000, the 9/11 towers demolition—many Australians stopped travelling abroad; followed by floating Virgin Blue on 'ASX' (Australian Stock Exchange?). Much of this is annoyingly vague: ' ... So far we've enjoyed success in [list of countries] ... ' may mean almost nothing had been achieved; what counts as 'success'?
• Delivery: Special Delivery This is a rather baffling, and long, chapter: the advice is to do what you said you would, and work hard to deliver your service. But many of Branson's examples seem incomplete successes, or just hard to assess: his Italian Pendolino tilting trains for example, surely a case for engineering assessment rather than his, and one of which crashed: too heavy for the points? In 1982, his hundred or so Virgin record stores were 'deserted in weekdays' and his Virgin Megastores were not profitable. 1995 Virgin Cola story (with Canadian company, 'world's largest supplier of retailer own-brand—Safeway, 7-11, etc—soda drinks' and Coca Cola's SWAT team—possibly very standard reactions) doesn't seem to have been successful, though, typically, Branson gives no summary of sales, costs, or result. And seems to think (in a world of precise automated chemical analysis that Coca Cola's formula is secret).
Some of this chapter looks at Branson's non-deliveries: he regrets not having had anything to do with Google; and with failing to get Britain's then-new National Lottery in 1994 (I think; possibly 2001); and at some hook-up between Virgin Direct and Norwich Union; and with the aftermath of 9/11 as applied to commercial aircraft (he doesn't mention insurance!); and costs of building mobile phone towers, of course met by others.
I was amused (p 164) with his comparison of his life with playing the board game Monopoly, because he got all the details wrong, including 'borrowing from the bank to pay for everything'. And amused by this: 'we gave Mike Oldfield his big opportunity' when surely that was a near-perfect example of mutual benefit.
• Learning from Mistakes and Setbacks: Damage Report This is mostly two parts: first half mobile phones; second part Northern Rock and subprime mortgages. And Branson's youthful indiscretion, avoiding purchase tax of the time. All the material is from Branson's own life, rather breathtakingly egotistical!
• Innovation: A Driver for Business As far as I can deduce, Branson was not an innovator; but he (perfectly legitimately) followed the expensive pathbreakers. This seems an exploratory chapter: Branson admires Google, rather than all the underlying work that made it possible. He regrets not originating Apple's iPod. He discussed human colonies on Mars, with Sergey and Larry of Google. I would guess they viewed him as a gullible goy. Anyway, they discussed 'suborbital space', 100 kilometres up I think, for which Branson thinks people will pay Virgin Galactic quite a lot of money. That's about 60 miles up, less than 1% of the diameter of the earth. Look at (say) a billiard ball to see how unimpressive this is.
Branson's claim in this chapter to innovation is the design of upper-class plane suites; some sort of bed in a plane.
Then we have 'biofuel' from fermented plant waste. Cars in the US used alcohol from 1910, says Branson; could this have been part of the reason for prohibition? Was the oil lobby involved? Anyway, Branson calls tourism an 'industry'. And it occurs to me that maybe Africa had appropriate technology, all along—kraals, spears, cattle, manioc, transport on foot? Branson likes Dragon's Den and American Inventor and similar TV things; in fact, he has his own venture capital organisation, to assess possible inventions. Most of them are rejected. I remember talking to an inventor, who told me in anguish of some official US outfit that had never, ever, paid out money to an inventor. Another, non-innovative, remark from Branson was (239) that the 'ageing of the 'baby boomer' generation ... means that people can longer expect their own national welfare systems to prop them up [sic] in terms of pensions and healthcare. ...' These are people who paid into the system all their working lives in good faith.
• Entrepreneurs and Leadership: Holding On and Letting Go Another chapter with contents ludicrously unrelated to the chapter title: the impression is yet another assortment of anecdotes and names. Thus we have: 'Virgin Media, the largest Virgin company in the world.' A summary of Rupert Murdoch, full of praise, but oblivious of the lies purveyed by that disgusting figure. 9/11, and 'transAtlantic air travel stopped..' though Branson doesn't comment on how that must have been factored in by the planners of 9/11. There's some material on Mandela, 'one important figure in my life', presumably supposed to be a leader. A naive interview by the very young Branson of James Baldwin, of The Fire Next Time: nothing about Jewish paper money being used to buy up rental accommodation, so blacks spend their lives paying rent to Jews; nothing on LBJ's social engineering, which many blacks must have sensed. Southern, and in fact all, Africa has problems, possibly insoluble. It's nice to know Branson did his bit to help 'one of South Africa's biggest health clubs'. And that just two 'whites', Peter Gabriel and Branson, were at some black celebration; possibly part of the Jewish push to destroy South Africa. And that twelve 'elders', along with 'leading conflict and dispute resolution professionals', were helping the world; we've all heard their wise words and well thought-out plans, haven't we. Haven't we? Um. And there's a 2003 'declaration of war on AIDS'. And praise for Freddy Laker, whose mini air business lasted five years, before he retired with six million of some currency.
• Social Responsibility: Just Business Here we have: 'AIDS', on almost every page. And 'Climate Change': I think he must have been found unconvincing, as actors etc continue to be wheeled out to front this fraud. I'm afraid Branson thinks an 'Environmental War Room' is called for; led by a Churchill or F D Roosevelt! There's a small mention of biochar, though not by name. There's a 2005 'Stern Review' with not much detail. There's Bill Gates at World Economic Forum in 2008. (Spare a thought for Gates, richer than almost everyone he meets: what a strain that must impose!).
What is to be made of this book? Firstly, the subtitle 'Business Stripped Bare' doesn't represent the contents accurately. Business remains very much muffled up. There are no simplifications, overviews, summaries or details, even of his own businesses. There is nothing even on simple costs: how much does cola cost, wholesale? Was Virgin Wine ('Life's too short for boring wine') hugely profitable? What's the arithmetic of a well-maintained aircraft fleet? And there's also nothing on the complications of juggling absurdly unequal power blocs: What's his recommended way to make alliances? What does he put in his exit strategies? Let's try to infer more....
The first issue of Student (1968) has photos of its undated and unpriced cover online, thanks to the wonders of Internet. The cover includes 'DOWN WITH EDUCATION but not Vanessa Redgrave'; artists including Henry Moore, David Hockney, Michael Ayrton, Gerald Scarfe, Kenneth Armitage, and Peter Blake; WHITE SLAVERY TODAY; and a John Le Carre short story. The next issue included Hugh Thomas on Spain, R D Laing ('existential psychiatrist'), Kenneth Tynan, and Bertrand Russell. In other words, pretty much nothing to do with students, but everything to do with copying Sunday newspaper colour supplements, which were about five years old then. Presumably therefore a black and white, low budget, copy of an established business. He turned up (aged 18) at Grosvenor Square, at a demonstration against the Americans in Vietnam. Or at least I presume it was: this seems to have been Jewish-controlled behind the scenes. Branson and Tariq Ali were interviewed and photographed: but of course journalists would not ask about the actual war, and politics, and Lyndon Johnson; so Branson made ideal controlled opposition. No tricky questions on atrocities, or on who was profiting. Maybe Branson found out later?
Branson's family (says Tom Bower) were connected with Flindts from Germany, suggesting the common enough pattern of Jews tangling into British upper class (I think in Branson's case legal) circles. His family background no doubt involved family trusts, legal information and advice, and tax dodging—the private company, and separate legal structures and branches doing different deals in different jurisdictions, and different types of shares and capital, must have formed part of his background, just as other families might be medical or political or council estate. Unfortunately, Branson says nothing on these topics, or nothing that I could find. Probably these legalisms helped lead him to Necker, east of Cuba, north of South America, in the British Virgin Islands. It is described as being about 1/9 square mile, say 600 yards square.
It seems likely enough his mental life is dominated by companies and management, supplemented by expert(s). Suggestions of lack of education (and innumeracy, and dyslexia) flicker around Branson; and after all his formal education never really started. Paradoxically, this could be a strength: if he was interested in music, or books, or wine he might have spent his time listening to records, reading, or whatever. Moreover such people are forced to delegate; they have no option. He used a magazine designer, his recording studio was designed by others, and so on. On the other hand, it can of course be a weakness and lead to mistakes: his guff about fuels describes coal as a hydrocarbon, for example.
Exit strategies, in contracts, are part of Branson's Modus operandi and I've read of several varieties. One is the exit strategy for a company: once it's set up, if it goes well, it can be sold, though I think he doesn't usually permit the name 'Virgin' to continue. Flotation on a stock market (e.g. 'ASX' = Australian Stock Exchange) may be needed if there's no obvious buyer. However, he seems to have exit strategies for individuals, a bit like a pre-nuptial agreement. This makes perfect sense, since things change and develop but it sounds difficult. Everything may pivot on one sentence (or one word). Branson is said to have got his wife to sign a non-disclosure agreement or something similar; and I'd guess his exit contracts include clauses not to reveal anything. Just as many job contracts debar ex-employees or partners from setting up similar businesses in similar areas. Something analogous is splitting companies: if a company has more than about 100 employees, Branson would go to the deputies, listed as deputy managing director, deputy sales manager, and deputy marketing manager, to a new company. He seems to expect 30% a year, i.e. three years before making a profit.
The exit strategy idea might usefully be applied to incompetent career civil servants, press reporters, legal prosecutors and what have you, but in practice seem to be pension schemes and golden handshakes.
Branson might have given some indication of what he looks for in a potential business: what is it that makes some activities profitable, but not others? And profitable to an 'entrepreneur', i.e. someone raising money and managing it through others? Maybe it involves technical experts: pilots, engineers, computer people, medical people or whatever, who need concentrated work without too much distraction. Mike Oldfield is a perfect example. Or an entrepreneur might be an intermediary between many customers: publishing, distribution, passengers, spectators? Or is there some ratio of one group of people to another that needs management? Anyway, I couldn't find any hint that Branson looks for things which some businesses have in common; he seems to look in an ad hoc way. Or does he see things in terms of cash flow—where others see a cinema, does he see building costs, maintenance, numbers of films per week, bums on seats, sales of ice cream? Again, I could find no sign of abstract analysis in operation.
Perhaps there's a clue in the businesses that Branson has avoided: Hairdressers? Medical services? House renovation and redesign? Microbreweries? National legal service? After-shave? Restaurant chain? Hand grenades? Utilities? Prison transport? Solar power? Intersperma sperm bank? Educational? Research? Anyway, there's no sign of types of businesses to avoid, except that Branson clearly prefers small business ('small, lean entrepreneurial businesses are the future.').
What about taxes? Arranging money to avoid tax is obviously part of his methodology, offshore taxes, companies, and so on, but he gives no helpful information. Maybe governments subsidise him in exchange for keeping quiet—who knows!
If 'innovation' is thought important, maybe Branson might have examined trends, to predict new things? Just as the invention of refrigeration led to a huge frozen meat transport industry, and airplanes led to bombs but also to mass movements of populations, and TV to the decline in cinema, and digital storage and sound sampling and sound compression to iPods, there must be scope for predicting new trends, but disappointingly this book hasn't much on this tack, apart from hopes for Virgin Galactic.
What about opportunities missed? Alcopops/ Time Out-style weekly events listings/ Matalan clothing/ IKEA furnishings/ Lloyd Webber theatrical performances/ Lidl, Aldi food on pallets and rotating hardware/ iPod, mobiles, Internet, Youtube, search engines, flat screens, sat navs were mostly missed by Branson; but most sound out of reach of one-man companies.
But some financial 'business models' are firmly omitted: Jews printing a few trillion in paper money, then hiding it away; Jews funding weapons factories for both sides in wars, then charging for rebuilding; Jews setting up national banks with new worthless currency, making a fortune from loans; 'PFI' ['Personal Finance Initiative'] loans to buy assets. Branson's material on e.g. 2008 Northern Rock bid shows no awareness of this sort of thing, no idea that Jews have been given a paper money monopoly and are immune from competition. Branson says nice things about Goldman Sachs; did he not understand that Thatcher's role was to get British assets owned by Jews?
Branson's stories seem amazingly lacking in analysis: a wild life park in Africa with high rent lodges which 'he could never bring himself to sell'; an account of a plane crash and the pilot's skill; a TV show with a barrel over Niagara Falls. ... Whether this is cunning suppression, or simple unawareness, I have no idea.
An undeniable fact about Branson is his use of himself as an advertisement. If he can promote something, draw attention to it, and save the cost of agents, advertisers, placing of ads, gaining goodwill etc, and these costs can be enormous, he could in effect exit a business to shareholders, and pocket the savings. On the face of it, it's surprising the world isn't filled with waterskiers, abseilers, people flying planes upside-down, banners placed by roads, and so on. However, they need attractiveness, and they need support from e.g. newspapers and/or TV. (Even Robert Peston of the BBC). Anyway, Branson became a flexible franchise label. I don't think he had really new ideas; he copied existing stuff, but with a novel name or irreverent image or claim that prices would drop.
Will Sir Richard Branson remain famous? He surely can't be unique: but there seem to be rather few own name labels. Ingvar Kamprad and his own brand? Maybe Dyson? Bill Gates? Surely not Paul Newman lettuce dressing. Or, earlier, Henry Ford, or Rolls and Royce, or Alfred Nobel. What about Picasso? Luther of the Lutheran Church? John Laws of the failed South Sea Bubble? Francis of Assisi? Wycliffe of his Bible?
In my revisionist view, which will escape most ordinary readers, a weakness of Branson, from the point of truth, though not necessarily money-making, is his failure to speak out about Jewish and other concealed corruptions and assumptions. He says 'communism and socialism are no longer taken seriously because they simply don't work. ... They are disastrous though well-meaning systems that have ruined hundreds of millions of lives.' Of course, 'Communism' was not well-meaning, but a Jewish system in which non-Jews were regarded as disposable; and it did in fact work, enabling Jews to wipe out non-Jews. And national socialism did work—it was, and is, attacked precisely because it worked, though the jury is still hearing evidence as to whether it worked for Jews, or Germans. Broadly, Branson supports nationalisation of banks, but not removal of Jewish privilege. Branson's public image has always been 'politically correct' and he joins a dishonourable crew—Kissinger's Peace Prize, the Iraq War young woman liar, Barry Soetero's ridiculous Peace Prize, 9/11 and Climate Change actors and liars, liars on sundry rights. His laughable praise for Obama/Soetero. The implausible projects: Prof Yunus' Grameen bank 'lifting whole communities out of poverty .. African companies poised for rapid growth.. every year 5% of Grameen borrowers move out of poverty'.
The book ends with Kipling's If; and possibly Branson genuinely can keep his head when all around are losing theirs. Compared with politicians who bomb innocent people, news sources that censor race killings, professional liars, science fraudsters, Jewish corrupters of all types, Branson seems an open-hearted, generous, friendly, and worthy person. I hope he can come up with something more stellar in future.