I learnt from an early age this need to delegate responsibility out to other team members as there is just too much for one person to do themselves. What is the point of hiring talented team members if you don't give them the freedom to make the most of the chance you have given them?

Age isn't as important so long as you are surrounded by people you love, doing things you passionately believe in.

What we are trying to do at Virgin is not to have one enormous company in one sector under one banner, but to have two hundred or even three hundred separate companies. Each company can stand on its own feet and, in that way, although we've got a brand that links them, if we were to have another tragedy such as that of 11 September - which hurt the airline industry - it would not bring the whole group crashing down.

The quickest way to become a millionaire in the airline business is to start out as a billionaire.

There's no better satisfaction than watching the people around you, who have worked day and night to get something right, realising the dream.

One of the best bits of advice I can give is, early on, when you're building a new business, try to find somebody to run it on a day-to-day basis to free yourself up to look at the bigger picture.

To be successful, you have to be out there, you have to hit the ground running