Adventures in Entrepreneurship: Transcript of the Event

Yesterday I wrote my account of the American Express OPEN Adventures in Entrepreneurship event in Miami, Florida. Anchorwoman Jane Pauley interviewed billionaire Sir Richard Branson before a live audience of 2000+ small business owners. I had the good fortune to be there, and I wanted to make sure you could read the transcript of that event.

Here is the link to the transcript of that event.

I took away some key learnings from Branson's talk, including these:

• On Branson's style of management: "I make sure that I spend most of my time out and about and experiencing my businesses...."



• On competition and striving to be the best: "Anyway, there were 12 other airlines and they were all much, much bigger than Virgin Atlantic and we were not out to topple them, we were out to survive. They toppled themselves and every single one of them disappeared. And I think the -- the thing to learn from that is the best -- you know, the best never -- never -- never disappear."



• Branson's views about the Internet: "I think if companies are not embracing it they're making a big mistake."



• On the advantages of choosing entrepreneurship very very young: "One of the advantages of leaving school at 15 or 16 is you don't have a steady relationship. You don't have a mortgage to pay. You've got nothing to lose."

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Follow the conversation at Technorati: OPEN Adventures

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The facilitator and bloggers for this event have been compensated for their time by OPEN from American Express.