Good people have always been at the heart of the Virgin business, and that's largely because we have tried to keep our business small, and our management teams tight-knit. I feel that small, compact companies, are better run. That is partly because people feel more connected in small companies.

If you want to stand out from the crowd, give people a reason not to forget you

One night, I was chatting with a group of 16-year-old girls over a few drinks about a name for the record store ... A bunch of ideas were bounced around, then, as we were all new to business, someone suggested Virgin. It smacked of new and fresh and at the time the word was still slightly risqué, so, thinking it would be an attention-grabber, we went with it.

Exploration is a wonderful way to open our eyes to the world, & to truly see that impossible is just a word.

We hope to create thousands of astronauts over the next few years and bring alive their dream of seeing the majestic beauty of our planet from above, the stars in all their glory and the amazing sensations of weightlessness and space flight.

Seek out strategic alliances; they are essential to growth and provide resistance to bigger competition.

If people are jumping down people's throats all the time, in the end, they'll just shrivel up like a flower shrivels up that's not watered.