I agree. His books are a good read and very inspirational. When he started his business, all hippy-like with long hair you can imagine what the (at the time) stuffy establishment thought of him. If anyone on here wants an inspirational read, I'd recommend Losing My Virginity. Read some of the other books on him too to realise that whilst he is 'cool' he's also quite ruthless, which you probably need to be to get where he has
Agreed - one of the first businesses he started was effectively a pyramid scheme (he wrote a newspaper in college to sell to other students in bulk, who would then make money by selling the copies to individuals at a profit. Of course, the newspaper itself wasn't any good, and so it was hard to sell, which means that no-one but him made any money. I know of this story because one of my dad's college friends bought some of his newspapers, and predictably failed to sell any).
Also, his first 'real' business was Virgin Records, which made it big off the back of Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells'. However, Branson made Oldfield sign an almost usurious contract (http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2008/03/03/tubular-bells/), and didn't pay him any of the royalties on the recording for several years as he built up the company (until Oldfield, who considered Branson a personal friend, sued).
A great business man he may be, but I don't think he's a genuinely nice guy.
Interesting - got a recommendation for a book that deals more with his tactics or the ruthless side? I admire people who are ruthless without hurting others, breaking the law, or otherwise being bad people. You can even learn from people who might go too far - I just ordered "Titan" about John Rockefeller from Amazon, along with "Taiko" about 1600's Sengoku Japan. Some ruthless men in those books - I try to understand and internalize the drive while spotting potential Tony Montana style pitfalls in advance.
