Richard Branson explains why Virgin Group didn’t focus on a single business

By the age of 33, you've got 50 different companies. I go, this is not what they told me about the need for focus in the school of business. They said, focus, you kind of break that law, it seems, of focus.

So I've. I've never really thought of myself as a business person. I've never really been interested in the bottom line. I really have been interested in creating things I can be proud of. And a lot of those things come out of personal frustration. And I must be frustrated quite a lot when I was young because I've end up, you know, trying a lot of things and I just found it great fun. If we'd stayed still and only focused on one business, let's say record stores wouldn't have a business today because the ipod and free music really put them out of business. So by actually going against the rule rules of, you know, what you learn in business school, we are still going strong, you know, 55 years later. And diversification actually saved us during COVID Virgin Atlantic and very badly hit companies was saved by being able to sell Virgin Galactic shares. So diversification is far more exciting. You learn a hell of a lot more and it can be useful in times of crisis.