Richard Branson is the leonine founder and chief executive of the Virgin Group, a conglomerate of more than 300 companies with 43,000 employees and global revenues reportedly of $21 billion. A dyslexic who dropped out of high school, Mr. Branson is known for making bold bets in travel (including space travel), telecommunications, health care and...
To go to outer space, Catherine Culver went to a travel agent. The first flights of the new airlines that will take tourists past the threshold of space are poised to take off in 2012, and getting a seat on one is not all that different from booking a trip someplace on Earth. You can sign up on the Web site of, say, Virgin Galactic, the most...
A new generation of daredevils is seeking to plunge through nearly seven miles of seawater to the bottom of a rocky chasm in the western Pacific that is veiled in perpetual darkness. It is the ocean's deepest spot. The forbidding place, known as the Challenger Deep, is so far removed from the warming rays of the sun that its temperature hovers near...
Sir Richard Branson (født 18. juli 1950) er en britisk virksomhedsentreprenør og verdens 236. rigeste person ifølge Forbes liste over milliardærer i 2008. Branson er bedst kendt for det succesrige varemærke Virgin, der dækker over en række forretningsmæssige organisationer, blandt andet Virgin Records, Virgin Megastore, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Atlantic Airways samt Virgin Galactic, der arbejder på at udbyde kommercielle rumflyvninger i nær fremtid.
Branson, der blev adlet i 1999 for services to entrepreneurship, er kendt som en eventyrlysten vovehals, der blandt andet har forsøgt at blive den først person til at flyve hele jorden rundt i en varmluftsballon.