Monday, March 24, 2014

Richard Branson: a real entrepreneur?



Richard Branson is often cited as a classic example of an entrepreneur and indeed his early career would certainly appear to justify this. However, a recent biography by Tom Bower suggests that over the last few decades, Virgin’s achievements and Branson’s continued success in staying rich have had very little to do with being more innovative or more competitive than other firms and a lot to do with getting favorable deals through privileged government contacts.
In addition Branson has used many dubious maneouvres to avoid paying tax in his own country – most of us would be a lot richer if we didn’t pay taxes!

In other words, despite his celebrated rebel persona, in practice he may not be too different to the notorious Russian oligarchs. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n06/david-runciman/the-stuntman

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