Your company should act as a springboard for ambitious employees, not a set of shackles.

The way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers

Nobody's ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there's some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.

Screwing business as usual fundamentally recognises that doing good is good for business.

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.

We had an electrical fault about 500 miles into the trip and lost more than half our fuel. We had a fire on the roof. And missed Los Angeles by 3,500 miles at the end of the trip and ending up in the arctic in a snowstorm.

I'm hopeful that after Iraq, those in charge will think twice about taking us down that route again.