A company is people … employees want to know… am I being listened to or am I a cog in the wheel? People really need to feel wanted.

I have always looked on my businesses not just as money-making machines, but as adventures that can, I hope, make people better off.

You've got to take risks if you're going to succeed. I would much rather ask forgiveness than permission.

You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.

We've always had a pretty competitive and pretty ferocious battle with British Airways... It's lasted now about 14 years, and we're very pleased to have survived it.

We should all seek to innovate, or be curious about innovation. Innovation truly is one of our greatest gifts.

When I was 15, I left school to start a magazine, and it became a success because I wouldn't take no for an answer. I remember banging on James Baldwin's door to ask for an interview when he came to England. Then I got Jean-Paul Sartre's home phone number and asked him to contribute. If I'd been 30, he might have said no, but I was a 15-year-old with passion and he was charmed. Making money was always just a side product of having a good time and creating things nobody'd seen before.