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Glenn Beck

Honest Questions with Sir Richard Branson

Aired August 31, 2007 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): He may be the world`s coolest capitalist.

RICHARD BRANSON, CEO, VIRGIN AIRLINES: He`s already very shy (ph).

BECK: Whether he`s taking a flight in a hot air balloon or racing across the Atlantic, Sir Richard Branson is always up for an unconventional challenge.

Now he`s single-handedly trying to rid the world of CO2 emissions.

BRANSON: We`re talking about tens of millions of tons of CO2 saved around the world.

BECK: Oh, yes, and in his spare time, he`s planning a little vacation. In space.

Brave, bold and worth billions. Virgin mogul Sir Richard Branson joins me for a full hour of honest questions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: Hello, America. And welcome to the program.

I think this is first time that we`ve had a knight on the program, Sir Richard Branson.

Do you get a cape with that or a sword or...

BRANSON: I think the queen might have sliced my head off with -- after them, we did have the Sex Pistols. They were the ones.

BECK: I have to tell you, it must have been weird to be knighted. We`re going to be -- later on the program, we`ll talk a little bit about childhood and where you came from and everything else. But did you ever see that in your future?

BRANSON: Of course not. In Britain it`s -- it`s a very nice honor to have. It`s quite old-fashioned, I think.

BECK: Do you get discounts at anything, discounts at movies or anything with that?

BRANSON: No, I don`t -- maybe we should set up a knight sort of union where we...

BECK: Got to get something out of it. So you just started Virgin Atlantic...

BRANSON: Virgin America.

BECK: I`m sorry, Virgin America here in the United States. You intrigued me because, now everybody else would look at airlines and say this is the last thing that I want to do especially in America. You`re taking it on. Why?

BRANSON: Well, Virgin only goes into new businesses where we think we can make a difference and where we think that the businesses are not being run that well, that we`re going to compete with.

And it`s strange because America is brilliant. You`ve got some of the best restaurants in the world here. You`ve got some of the best hotels in the world. You`ve got very customer-orientated people in America, but for some reason or other, the big airlines in the states have never really been that consumer focused. They never wanted to entertain their passengers. They never really wanted to do anything but get their passengers from "a" to "b."

BECK: Don`t you think that`s because we used to, but now we don`t let people fail. Now we -- now e stop people from failing.

BRANSON: Yes, I think one of the biggest problems in America is Chapter 11. I think that, you know, if you got an oak tree and the oak tree comes to the end of its life and it`s dying, you let it die and you plant a new tree.

In America, what happens is these chaps, Continentals and Deltas and Americas, et cetera, they get to, they get into a bad state and not really offering the consumer much, they get too old and don`t go into Chapter 11. They just get rid of all their debtors and the same airline limps on and ultimately, that`s not in the interests of the consumer.

It doesn`t leave room for new, young, you know, better quality airlines to step into their shoes. Whereas overseas, if, you know, an airline goes bankrupt, then a new young carrier`s set up with new, fresh ideas, and the traveling public benefits.

BECK: You know, it`s amazing; a good friend of mine is David Neeleman, and brilliant airline. JetBlue is a brilliant airline, and it is that kind of idea of, let`s not make the mistakes of all the -- all the old airlines. Let`s start something new.

So, what`s new with you? What`s new with...

BRANSON: There are two good airlines in America. I believe JetBlue and Southwest Airlines. Virgin America has the advantage that it`s absolutely brand-new so we`re going to have the youngest fleet flying in America. I`ve had...

BECK: Airbus or Boeing.

BRANSON: Airbus because they`re wider planes so you could -- you actually -- they`re much nicer planes to go on than the equivalent Boeing plane in this -- in this area.

We`ve had years of experience at -- we were the first people to put seatback videos in our Virgin Atlantic planes five years before everybody else. So we`ve got the most cutting-edge entertainment technology on board. You know, we`re going to be offering the two latest films. We`re offering the 25 latest. We`ll be offering games for children.

We`ll be -- you know, if somebody wants to talk to somebody else, if your children are sitting in the back, you can have a, you`ve got chat rooms on board, which is a lot of fun. You want to pick somebody up. You might want to chat to the pretty lady at the back.

You know, if you want to play chess or poker or, you know -- so great entertainment, beautiful leather seats for everybody. We`re reintroducing first class, which is a sort of a dying -- a dying thing in America.

So, basically, you`ll now have three -- three airlines in America that are, I think, better than the old sort of flag carriers.

BECK: So what class would you, because it doesn`t sound like Southwest, JetBlue is still a discount airline, but it`s, you know, it`s not Southwest. It`s not flying Southwest. Who are you competing against? How would you describe -- who`s your customer?

BRANSON: We`re trying to be the best airline, best domestic airline flying. I mean, Virgin Atlantic, when we set up 21 years ago, we were flying against 12 American carriers. And we had, you know, one plane. And all of those 12 carriers have disappeared. They`ve all literally not only gone into bankruptcy, but -- Chapter 11 and then into bankruptcy. They`ve all disappeared.

And -- and you know, I think Virgin America, you know, we will be the best airline flying in the states. We will appeal, I think, to grandmothers, to the business people and to students and to young people. So, there`s no reason why you can`t appeal to a complete -- complete range of people.

BECK: You`re such a forward thinker. You`re a guy who -- I mean, you`re just ahead of the curve. That`s why you`re worth almost $8 billion. What does the future look like for airlines with just the problems that we have with oil, the problems we have with the environment? What is -- what do you -- if you said, this is what airline travel`s going to be like in 25 years, what would it be?

BRANSON: Well, I -- if you`re talking about international airline travel, if our space program is as successful as I think it will be, I think we`ll be transporting you from New York to Australia in half an hour. We`ll be popping you out of the earth`s atmosphere and popping you straight back down again. It might take a little bit longer at the airport to get through -- through check-ins and out, but in 25 years from now, I`m pretty sure that you`ll be flying on a Virgin Galactic spaceship.

BECK: You say go from New York to Australia in half an hour?

BRANSON: Yes, half an hour`s flying time.

BECK: Right.

BRANSON: And we`ve still got airports to deal with. But -- and I think -- I think that the ticket prices needn`t be that much more than they are today by then.

You know, initially -- initially they`re going to be more expensive, but we think that we can -- we can -- we will have a fuel by then which will be benign environmentally and -- AND, which we`ll have plenty of supply of it. So if we can actually produce a fuel that is not costing us too much to produce, then I think we can be competitive on ticket price, as well.

BECK: You know, the -- I find it ironic. Let me just say this. I -- I think you are going to be my favorite environmentalist, because you care about the environment, but you`re not trying to penalize people. You`re trying to find a capitalist why through it and out of it.

And I`ve said to environmentalists after environmentalist after environmentalist, what the hell are we doing? I want us out of oil because we`re slaves to this oil, and it`s just causing all kinds of problems. You want us out because of the environment. Great. Let`s find a business way out of this.

And I think you`re the guy that is -- is leading the charge on that. Do you at all find it ironic that you are putting these giant planes into the sky, and your carbon footprint is just enormous and, yet, you believe in global warming?

Branson: Well, I`d love to -- I`d love not to believe in global warming. Then I could sleep well at night and not feel guilty.

BECK: Sure.

BRANSON: But I think that -- you know, I`ve met enough scientists now to believe that global warming is a reality and that it is -- it is caused by mankind as well as other things.

So -- so, what we`ve pledged is to put 100 percent of all the profits we make from our dirty businesses into trying to dumb up with an alternative fuel, a clean fuel.

And -- and we`re excited. I think next year, we will fulfill our pledge of being able to plane, a jet plane, a 747, on clean fuel without any -- any carbon damage output whatsoever. We`ll start with one engine before moving on to other engines, but I think we will do that.

BECK: I want to come -- I want to come back to that here in just a few minutes and when we go back into global warming, I want to ask you specifically about that on -- because I asked David Neeleman about a couple of things. And I said, why don`t we try this or this or this?

And he said, "You don`t experiment with passenger planes. You just can`t do it."

BRANSON: There certainly won`t be any passengers on board, initially.

BECK: Right.

We`ll be back in just a second. We`ll find out how Richard Branson went from a guy who dropped out of high school to a billionaire. Back in a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Back with rebel billionaire, Richard Branson.

Your high school principal or your headmaster said to you -- correct me if I`m wrong -- "You`re either going to end up in jail or you`re going to be a billionaire." Why?

BRANSON: I think maybe he saw a little bit of a rebel in me, and I suspect that`s why he said it.

BECK: What were you like? What were you like as a...

BRANSON: I mean, I -- I was hopeless at school. I mean, I had no interests at all in conventional education. I didn`t like the way that we were being taught at school. I thought there must be a better way -- a better way of teaching people, that schooling should be more interesting. So I questioned -- I questioned a lot about the way things were being done.

And, in fact, ended up, age 15, deciding to leave school to start a magazine to question -- you know, to have young people sort of questioning the way they were taught and question the Vietnamese War and the other things that were going on at that time.

BECK: Did you -- did your parents think you were hopeless, or did they think you were a genius? Did anybody think you were a genius?

BRANSON: My parents definitely -- my parents were my parents. They definitely never thought I was hopeless, and they were incredibly supportive.

I mean, at 15, I remember walking around the garden literally about ten times with my dad, you know, explaining to him why I decided to leave school and set up this magazine. And the end of the walk, he said, "Look, you know, at least you know what you want to do. I didn`t know what I wanted to do when I was 22. Give it a go, and if it doesn`t work out, we`ll try to get you a conventional education again."

BECK: Do you have kids?

BRANSON: I`ve got two.

BECK: Do you home school them? Or...

BRANSON: No, no. They`ve been through the regular mill -- you know, as their choice. My daughter`s a doctor now and -- as of three weeks ago. Proud dad.

BECK: Congratulations.

BRANSON: And my son is a musician. So he hasn`t actually gone to university, and -- and he`s doing what he -- what interests him.

BECK: And unlucky for him, you don`t have a record company anymore.

BRANSON: I think that would have been embarrassing for my son.

BECK: You back in, what, 1970 started Virgin Records?

BRANSON: Yes, we started, I formed a record company around a musician who couldn`t find a record deal from anybody else. And I loved his music and the rest of us -- the rest of us loved his music. And it was just no - - no vocals, just instrumentation and it was Mike Oldfield`s "Tubular Bells".

BECK: Which became "The Exorcist" theme.

BRANSON: Yes. It was actually -- became a very big success before "The Exorcist" being -- but obviously, the -- bizarrely, this beautiful music in "The Exorcist". But that obviously capped it, as far as America was concerned.

BECK: Sold five million copies, and was that really what turned everything?

BRANSON: That -- that gave me the chance to make a few mistakes, basically. We obviously then signed a number of bands that weren`t quite so successful. And then we took a risk with the Sex Pistols where all the other record labels were dropping them. They were slightly outrageous, and that I think propelled Virgin into becoming quite well off.

BECK: You know -- you know, I`ve never understood the name Virgin. And when I started doing the research on you, I found out why you named it, and I found it so fascinating.

I -- in my company, I don`t hire a single person that has experience in that field because they`re always taught to day no, you have to do it this way. And when I hire those people, they always screw it up. And you -- the name "Virgin" comes from...

BRANSON: Well, I mean, I was -- I was inexperienced in business. I was inexperienced generally. I was about 16 years old, and -- and felt that, you know, that we would go into businesses that we didn`t know a lot about, businesses that -- where we felt that the big guys were not doing it very well and try to shake them up.

And so Virgin has been an appropriate name. Almost every industry we`ve gone into we`ve gone into from scratch and...

BECK: You were virgins at it.

BRANSON: We were virgins at it. And as you say, we also, you know, if we start a new airline somewhere in the world, we`ll try to take on cabin crew, not pilots, if you please note, cabin crew who haven`t necessarily worked for other airlines before. So they`ve come with -- we train them and they come with a fresher approach.

BECK: How do you -- how do you go from "Tubular Bells" to, "I want to run an airline"?

BRANSON: I was in Puerto Rico one day, and we -- I got bumped off -- off an airline. And I was desperate to get to the Virgin Islands. And I went backstage and got out, sort of, can I hire a plane. And I got a blackboard, and I wrote, "$39 one way to Puerto Rico."

And I went back out, and all the people there bought a one-way ticket to Puerto Rico, and Virgin was born. And there were lots of happy customers. And we actually made -- I don`t think I divided the number of passengers quite rightly, so we made about $39 on the trip.

And -- and also, I flew all over the world on other people`s airlines because of our record labels, which were set up around the world. And I hated the experience. I mean, you got a lump of chicken, if you were lucky, dumped into your lap. There was no entertainment. The crews didn`t seem to be very happy.

And so I thought, you know, we`re going to -- I`m going to ring up Boeing and see if I can buy a 747 off them and see if we can start an airline. And so I rang -- rang Boeing and said, "This is Richard Branson."

They said, "What`s the name of your company?"

And I said, Virgin, and I explained I wanted to start an airline. And I take my hat off to them, because they just said, well, look, as long as you go further than your name suggests, we`ll give you a 747.

BECK: The -- the thing that I find interesting is you are so spread out. You have over 200 companies now. At what point did you find -- at what point did you say, I`m successful? Was there a point?

I read -- I read your value is $7.8 billion. We broke it down. This hour alone, just on interest, you`re going to make about $711,000. And that`s -- that`s a sweet hourly wage for doing this show.

We have to take a break. Hang on. When I come back, answer the question, was there a point when you said, "Wow, I`m successful"?

Back in a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: We just -- we`re back with Sir Richard Branson, the head of the Virgin Group and Virgin America, the new airline here in America. And we went into the break and I looked at -- I looked at him and I said, "You`re uncomfortable with the question of, when did you think you were a success. And, gosh, you`re going to make about $75,000 just sitting here, just in interests." And I said, "You`re uncomfortable, aren`t you?"

And you responded...

BRANSON: I was just saying, I think the sort of pounds, shillings and pence or the dollars and cents discussion of success is slightly more an American approach. In Britain, we try not to talk about these things.

BECK: You`re more discreet.

BRANSON: We`re more discreet.

BECK: We don`t run into billionaires every day.

BRANSON: I mean, on a serious note, I mean, I think success comes from the satisfaction of having said to somebody, fly on one of your planes and come off and say, you know, "That was absolutely wonderful." Or traveling on with a friend.

BECK: What was the moment -- great answer. What was the moment that you said, yes?

BRANSON: I mean, for years, again, success is also, there`s a very thin dividing line between success and failure. And for years, because we didn`t have any financial backing, I could have gone either side of that dividing line.

And I think it was only when I sadly had to sell my record company and actually had a billion-dollar check in my pocket...

BECK: And you -- you really screwed you up. You had a billion-dollar check and, yet, you were sad.

BRANSON: It must have been very strange for anyone to see me, because I was running down the street. And I just signed the Rolling Stones, just signed Janet Jackson. I just said good-bye to my staff and had a billion dollars in my pocket and I had tears streaming down my face.

And I passed the "Evening Standard" sign on the side of the road, "Branson sells for a billion" or "Branson makes a billion".

And -- but I think in a sense that perspective of money -- it puts money in perspective. I mean, you know, you only can afford lunch, dinner and breakfast, though not cost that much money, the satisfaction people get from life is doing things well. Money enables you to do things well.

But what had happened was British Airways were trying to drive us out of business and we -- and the airline out of business, and we needed the money from the record company to survive.

BECK: Do you -- money -- money allows you also to do the things that you find fun and what you find fun a lot of people find nuts. I mean, you have, in a hot air balloon, crossed the Atlantic. You have done so many, so many things. Why? What -- is it the risk? Is it the -- nobody does it?

What does your key man insurance costs? Good heavens. How does -- how does your -- how does your group -- your company allow you to do some of these things?

BRANSON: It`s a good question. If I was a public company I suspect they wouldn`t. I remember when we first attempted to win the blue ribbon back from America for Britain. That was to be the fastest crossing the Atlantic by boat. Somebody said, well, want if the body sinks?

And then about three days later, when we were just about 300 miles off the British shore, we came down on a particular heavy wave, and the boat broke in two. And we were rescued by a banana boat.

And I remember looking back at the Virgin sign sticking out of the water, thinking, "Oh, dear, this is maybe not good for an airline owner." But as it turned out, it went around the world and I think we survived.

BECK: We have to take another break. We`ll be back in just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Welcome back. Richard Branson is here. He has launched his airline, Virgin America, what was it, a few weeks back here in America. Right now, only serving New York to San Francisco, but soon you`re planning on being in 30 cities all across America.

BRANSON: Yes.

BECK: Also, you are a huge environmentalist. You believe in global warming. You didn`t always believe in global warming. We`ll get to that here in a second. My problem with the global warming movement is not that I don`t believe the global is warming, but I think that it has turned into politics and power and money, and you let capitalists solve it, not government. They always screw it up.

You`re offering a $25 million reward if someone can come up with a fuel, right, that can help correct this problem, is that what it is? I`m trying to -- I need the instructions so I can start to work on it.

BRANSON: We`re doing two things. One is we`re putting $3 billion into trying to develop alternative fuels. In case we`re not successful there, we`ve also offered a $25 million prize to anybody who can sequestrate carbon out of the Earth`s atmosphere. So if we`ve gone beyond the tipping point, if there`s so much carbon out there that we can`t actually reverse the problem...

BECK: Well, even the carbon that`s out there right now is going to be there for a hundred years, so if you stop it right now, you still have this 100-year problem.

BRANSON: And we`ve got -- we can`t stop the next 20, 30 years of carbon going up there, as well. So what we`re asking scientists is to put their mind to try to come up with a way of actually taking that carbon out and using it, you know, getting rid of it.

BECK: And so you`ve developed another company, Virgin Fuels, and you just told me a little while ago that you believe in the next, how many years, you`ll be able to fly an airplane without CO-2?

BRANSON: We said that we would be able to fly a jet engine plane by the end of next year, working with GM and Boeing, without emitting carbon.

BECK: How?

BRANSON: We actually think we`re going to be able to do it sooner. But, no, this is actually making a fuel that is a clean fuel rather than a dirty fuel.

BECK: Why in the hell haven`t we done that before? I mean, no offense here, but I mean, why haven`t we been hearing about this?

BRANSON: We`ve been working on it for the last three or four years, and other people are also now trying to develop clean fuels for planes, for cars, for lorries, for buses. And, obviously, if we`re successful in flying a plane on clean fuel, either ourselves, our Virgin Fuel company, we`ll be able to then sell it to other airlines or whoever`s fuel it is that we`ll use. We`ll have a major competitor to the Middle East and...

BECK: It`s not oil-based?

BRANSON: It`s not oil-based. And, basically, there are a lot of different potential fuels. Most sugar-based fuels are much more efficient than, say, corn-based fuels. And cellulosic fuel, which is making fuels from waste product or from the stalks or from prairie grass or from willow trees, you know, there`s enough waste product in the world like that to replace all the dirty fuels. And that`s an area where a lot of research is going, and I think it`s got the most hope.

BECK: So you`re going to be able to fly -- now this would be a jet fuel first, but will the stuff you`re working on specifically be able to go into cars?

BRANSON: Yes. I mean, if America had a president who wants to completely tackle global warming -- and this is why actually politics can affect things. You do need entrepreneurs to be entrepreneurial and come up with fuels, but you also need political leaders to set the right landscape.

So, for instance, you know, if the president set some rules for petrol companies, who are obviously going to be trying to stop this happening and say, "Well, you`ve got to have at least one clean fuel petrol pump in all your petrol stations competing with the dirty fuels," that will speed up the process.

For instance, if the president got rid of importation duties on sugar, there is enough sugar in the world, and enough sugar could be made in the world, to produce just a simple-based, sugar-based ethanol which could power 85 percent of all America`s cars within five years. And that`s carbon-neutral.

BECK: Yes. I will tell you this, that I agree with you. The politics -- I`ve never, until recently, never really believed in the Big Oil bull crap that all these evil guys are sitting around, I don`t believe it the way I think most Americans understand it. I do believe there is so much money left on the table that nobody wants to walk away from that money until you absolutely have to walk away from that money.

But I don`t think it`s just the president. I think it`s everybody. I think it`s all these politicians here. There`s too much money out there to be made. And I believe -- I mean, I really truly believe the car manufacturers in America, GM, if they just had leadership from Washington and they said, "You know what? We`re going to do this kind of fuel, this kind of fuel, or this kind of fuel, and that`s the way it`s going to be," we could make the car, we could make the airplane, we could make the things that would change everything, but nobody has the courage or is clean enough to be able to set that agenda. Am I right or wrong?

BRANSON: I agree 100 percent with what you say, 100 percent right.

BECK: So are you concerned at all about the airline industry in this particular period where we haven`t gotten other fuel? I mean, you have a business that is dependent on oil. You`ve got a war that is not good for the planet. We`ve got all kinds of players all around the world -- Saudi Arabia just put another 35,000 troops around their oil fields in the last two weeks. How does that play with you on, "Gosh, I`m in a dangerous business"?

BRANSON: Well, I`ve, in a sense, been in a dangerous business for 21 years. And we`ve obviously been through September the 11th. We`ve been through, you know, a tripling of fuel prices, and we just had to deal with these problems.

And it is very important, I think, for all of us, not just airlines, but for the security of Americans, security of Europe, that we don`t just have this complete reliance on the Middle East fuel, that we actually -- you know, that as soon as possible, that 50 percent, at least 50 percent of our fuel is alternative fuel. And that will not only help global warming, it will help farmers, it will -- it helps everything.

BECK: I don`t know why we don`t build bridges to each other on this stuff, because no matter what you -- I mean, there are people who kind of believe in global warming, but really believe in Middle Eastern terror, and some people who don`t really believe in that, and you could just build bridges to each other. This solves all kinds of problems.

You were not a believer in global warming at the beginning. What was the pivot point for you? And let me start this: I believe in global warming. I`m not sure man is responsible, but you could talk me into that, but I`m not sure that, unless people like you who are entrepreneurs, that we could solve it without crippling ourselves. We`re never going to solve it through things like the Kyoto treaty. What was the turning point for you? And what made you say, "We can solve it"?

BRANSON: I mean, I fortunately have a certain amount of time to read quite a lot, so I`ve read books by James Lovelock, I`ve read books by Flannery, really eminent scientists. And I`ve met a lot of eminent scientists. And if you actually, you know, list the thousands of scientists, and you ring them all up, "Do they believe that man is causing global warming?" You will actually find that about 990 of those thousand will tick the box and say, you know, between coal-fired power stations, airplanes, cattle farting, you name it, that effectively we are adding that extra carbon into the atmosphere, which is creating this very rapid rising of the Earth`s temperature.

And, also, liberals say -- I know you may not have a lot of time for people like Al Gore, you know, they did -- he took the trouble to come to England two years ago, sat down in my house, and talked to me for two hours about it and said, "Look, you`re a businessman, you`re known worldwide. Use yourself to get out there and try to play your bid."

BECK: Consistency question. Are you a vegan?

BRANSON: I`ll tell you what, interestingly, if you were a vegetarian, I believe you emit more carbon than meat-eaters, interestingly.

BECK: I don`t believe -- I believe you may, but the farms wouldn`t.

BRANSON: I know. Well, whatever. No, I`m an old-fashioned meat- eater. But I try in my...

BECK: I don`t mean to put you on -- you are a guy who -- you are a guy who is actually doing something. You`re putting your money where your mouth is. I respect that.

BRANSON: But it isn`t -- it`s a good, fair question. I mean, I`m very lucky enough to have a little island in the Caribbean. We`re in the process, within six months from now, it will be completely carbon-neutral. It will be powered from the sun and from the wind and from battery storage. And so it is important that, if you talk about things like global warming issues, that you do get your own house in order, and so I try to balance my books.

BECK: OK. Richard Branson, back in a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Back with Sir Richard Branson, knighted in England. Didn`t get a suit of armor, either.

BRANSON: No suit of armor either.

BECK: That stinks. You`re selling tickets now to space, $200,000. Where do we buy them?

BRANSON: Just give me the check.

BECK: Yes, right. Have you sold any yet? How many tickets have you sold, $200,000 and you`ll be going in space? And is this like a little, "Hey, look, you can kind of see the curvature of the Earth," and then you`re out, or...

BRANSON: Well, first of all, we have about 40,000 people who`ve put small deposits down, and we have about 200 people -- the first 200 people who are going to fly who put the $200,000 down. There are millions of people out there who`d love the chance of going to space.

Our initial program will be suborbital space flight. So we`ll take you up to 60,000 feet attached to a mother ship. We`ll then drop you off, and you`ll go from naught to 3,500 miles an hour in 10 seconds. And once you`ve burst into space, you`ll unbuckle, and you`ll have these wonderful windows which you`ll look out of and look back on the Earth. You`ll become an astronaut, and I think you`ll have the ride of a lifetime.

BECK: I`ve got to tell you, I would love to do that, but you wouldn`t want to ride with me, because I think I would be vomiting the whole time. How do you know if you`re going to be the vomit guy?

BRANSON: Well...

BECK: I don`t mean to be rude, it`s just...

BRANSON: I know my own stomach`s not that great. And what we`ll do is we`ll put people through gentle tests before they go to -- which, actually, you can overcome that problem, basically, just adjusting your body.

BECK: Really?

BRANSON: And the actual g-force is not horrendous. It gets up to about 5.5 g force, which you should be able to cope, and that`s only for about 10 seconds. And, anyway, you`re going to be so interested making sure that, you know, they`re right, the Earth is round.

BECK: How long are you in space, $200 grand, how long is the whole thing?

BRANSON: The whole trip is about three hours from...

BECK: Well, that`s not bad.

(CROSSTALK)

BRANSON: ... to coming back. And then, you know, the money that we make from that, we`re putting into research into suborbital flights. And one day, we plan to have a Virgin hotel which will be just off-set of the moon, and we`ll have little two-man spaceships, which you`ll be able to go off for a day trip around the moon. And then we can program them so they`ll fly about 50 foot about the moon.

BECK: I have to ask, why do we have a hotel on the moon and yet we don`t have our own flying car? I was promised in the 1934 World`s Fair a flying car. America wants the flying car.

BRANSON: I`ve been in a car, which I really would recommend, which is a car that goes 130 miles an hour on the land and then goes 35 miles an hour on the water. But you might have shown it at the video on the program. And that`s great fun, but it would be lovely if it also took off, especially in a traffic jam.

BECK: So now you`re going to be on the first flight to space?

BRANSON: I`m going to be on the first flight with my children, or my grown-up children.

BECK: But your wife will not go?

BRANSON: My wife is far too sensible. She`s got her feet firmly on the ground. My parents, on the other hand, who will be in their nineties then, they`ve both booked a seat, as well, so they`re very keen.

BECK: What`s your wife like? How long have you been married?

BRANSON: We`ve been together for 31 years.

BECK: Good for you.

BRANSON: She`s obviously very down to earth. She puts up with a lot, and we`ve been very lucky. We`ve been very happy together.

BECK: Secret, staying together that long?

BRANSON: I think we love each other, which is great. And we`ve got great kids. And it might also come from a family, my parents have also stayed together. And we see -- we`re very lucky, anyway, good friends.

BECK: I saw this at your rules of business. You`ve got to challenge the big ones, keep it casual, haggle, everything`s negotiable, have fun working, do the right things for the brand, smile for the camera, don`t lead sheep, herd cats, move like a bullet, size does matter, be a common, regular person. I`m reading a book right now -- do you know who Jon Huntsman is?

BRANSON: I know the name, but...

BECK: He`s in your billionaire`s club. He`s a chemical guy. And he wrote a book, "Winner`s Never Cheat." And it`s a fantastic book about ethics in business. Ethics didn`t jump out at me. How is important -- in your top 10?

BRANSON: I would say, of all those, the most important is how good you are with dealing with people, you know, whether you`re a good motivator of people. And I think that, no question, that ethics should play a big part, I think, for a company. If you deal well with people and fairly with people, then people will want to continue to deal with you and come back for more.

BECK: Have you ever had a situation in business where you really wanted to do something and it just was not -- it just wasn`t ethical? There was something that you thought...

BRANSON: Yes, I mean, if we`d wanted to fly to a particular country in this world -- and I`m not to talk about America -- you know, as a country we desperately wanted to fly to, we`d wanted to fly years ago, and we were willing to slip some money under the table, it would have cost next to nothing to got a license to fly to it. We felt that was wrong. And we just wouldn`t do something like that. And, therefore, it took us 10 years before we legitimately got the license. And so I think it`s very important that you sleep well at nights and that you run your company in an ethical way.

BECK: Number nine, size does matter?

BRANSON: Yes, I`m not -- I`m not sure where this list came from. I`m sure...

BECK: I got it on the Internet.

BRANSON: I`m sure I said it, but actually, I think more strongly, I think small is beautiful, and that is that, you know, we try to keep all our companies in small units. And I think people generally enjoy working for small companies rather than large companies. And if one of our companies gets too big, I`ll split it in two. And if it gets too big again, I`ll split it in two again, because I actually think small is more nimble than the big conglomerates.

BECK: OK, back in a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: We`re back with Richard Branson, a guy that I would say is our generation`s Howard Hughes, but maybe sane. I hope that`s not an insult to you. You are sending people to space, but you`re also starting an eco- friendly resort right by the island that you own, that you live on sometimes. What is an eco-friendly resort? What is it?

BRANSON: It`s an experiment. I mean, what we`re doing is we`re taking an island that`s going to be powered completely by the wind, and sun, and waves. And the materials that we use for building will all be friendly. They won`t come from rain forests, the obvious things. And we believe that, if we can do it, we can then go to the whole of the British Virgin Islands and say, "Look, you can become the first group of islands or the first country in the world that can be carbon-neutral," and then we can take this to the whole of the Caribbean and likewise.

BECK: This is kind of like what Walt Disney would be probably be doing today with Epcot if he hadn`t died. Epcot was an experiment -- what he wanted to build was an experiment to see how you can make everything better, and you`re kind of picking it up and doing that.

BRANSON: Isn`t it wonderful to think that the sun can actually, you know, power 50 percent of your energy needs and the wind can power the other 50 percent? And, you know, whether or not there was a global warming problem or not, how much nicer than that dirty, black fuel that we have?

BECK: Now, the island next to that is your home, but it`s not your main home?

BRANSON: It is now actually, now the kids have grown up. You know, when they have holidays, they like to come there. And we love to go back there.

BECK: But it`s for rent? I mean, I could rent it at $47,000 a night?

BRANSON: Yes, it`s called Necker Island, and it is perhaps the most beautiful island in the world, but it does cost a few pounds, yes.

BECK: OK, real quick, because we have, what, 30 seconds left. Thirty seconds left, if there was one thing that you could do where there were no obstacles -- and I don`t know what an obstacle means to you -- but no obstacles, and you could do it, what is the thing that intrigues you or you dream about, 30 seconds?

BRANSON: I think wars are completely unnecessary and man, with its intelligence, should be able to come up with alternative ways to wars. And, you know, we`ve got involved in setting up an organization called the Elders with Nelson Mandela, and Archbishop Tutu, and President Carter and others, and we hope that they can play their part in making sure that wars are a thing of the past.

BECK: Richard Branson, best of luck to you, sir. Thank you very much.

BRANSON: Thank you.

END