Never Mind the Bollocks

In the May 14 edition of the New Yorker, Michael Specter profiles Sir Richard Branson, the man behind the Virgin empire, tracing the arc of the British billionaire's career from his early days running with the Sex Pistols to his current (thanks to Al Gore) obsession with global warming and the development of biofuels. The piece paints Branson as a likeable-enough, attention-grabbing gambler -- a man with an unusually high tolerance for risk, boatloads of gumption, and more than his share of good luck.

Branson, who is dyslexic and never finished school, operates more by instinct than intellect, and his gut tells him that biofuels are a good bet. As Specter is careful to note, there is plenty in Branson's dream to warrant skepticism. Branson, however, sees only promise. When Specter asks him whether he sees the world through an "unusually optimistic lens," the magnate replies, "I don't know any other way to look at it."

Some environmentalists have questioned Branson's motives; when Branson first announced his biofuels push at the Clinton Global Initiative last September, it was widely portrayed as a philantrhopic gesture, when in reality it was a business investment first and foremost. Daniel Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at UC Berkeley has little patience for such concerns. He says Sir Richard is just the type of "big actor" the environmental movement needs right now -- what he calls "a charismatic megaphone." He tells Specter:

Richard is willing to say, 'This affects my airlines, my trains and my income.' And he knows how to get people to pay attention to him. Of course, the environmental movement contains some of the last true puritans, and those people call him selfish, because he will clearly earn money if this works. But, for God's sake, so what? The man is willing to pull the trigger. I know other people who are just as affluent and they are totally constipated about what to do. Richard is not. he will move from one interesting risky proposition to another. Some will fail--just as some of his businesses have failed. But he keeps moving forward.