Sir Richard Branson and Michael Milken in Conversation with Kevin O'Leary

what a wonderful opportunity we're going to have tonight I'm honored to be here with two of the most legendary entrepreneurs of modern times for different reasons but well-known anyways think of Branson for example what's remarkable about Richard is he has created multiple billion-dollar enterprises that have nothing to do with each other that's extremely rare when you see entrepreneurship and often around a core technology or consumer goods whatever he's music he's space he's Hyperloop he's all over the mat and he's been remarkably successful we're gonna find out how he did that Michael is an extraordinary individual in the sense that he created a whole new class of capital it funded thousands of businesses and created millions of jobs we have to mine that data tonight - my job tonight is to take us on a journey we're gonna go and explore what makes great entrepreneurs how they did it and what they can teach us going into the future and I want to start with a story I arrived from Miami having had lunch with a whole group of young entrepreneurs I like to get my portfolio companies together every quarter because they haven't met each other and there's constant new businesses coming in and applying a little wine into them often gets you the real story of what's going on in their businesses the conversation went this way this is only a few 3040 hours ago 25 of them sitting at dinner in Miami and I heard this word billionaires are going to go and become extinct now the old kevin O'Leary would have washed their mouths out with soap but I have learned to be tolerant because you can't hear the train coming down to run you over if you don't have your ear to the track if - shut up and listen I've never heard that before from a young woman who is a spectacular entrepreneur her vision of the future is it's not just about money and I like that but I'm hoping she does become a billionaire because I own a lot of her company and I reminded her of that then I arrived here just in time to hear the keynote of the world government summit where I learned that global warming is not the number one threat to the earth it's capitalism that's news to me I like to go to sleep with the television on I read once that Lenin called it an electronic fireplace and keep saying puts me to sleep when I woke up this morning the lower third said war on wealth ladies and gentlemen I have two of the soon to be extinct species sitting beside me right here so let's get right at it and ask what the hell is going on out there because this is a remarkable issue that is emerging not just the United States but all over the world let's start with you Michael what do you think when you look at some of the situations that have occurred and how people particularly in the West so I don't know about all over the world but if you look at the United States and you polls of people under 30 and how many think their life is going to be better than their parents seventy-five percent it's not if you go to France eighty four percent say their life is not going to be better than their parents or Spain and all of Western Europe the highest percentage who think their life is going to be better than their parents would be in Germany at 30 and so what is making them feel this way if you look at recent polls that show in the United States 51% 51% of Millennials feel that maybe socialism or communism would be better than a free enterprise society or but even more shocking to me 25 or so percent of baby boomers of baby boomers those 54 to 72 think maybe socialism would be better so one maybe they don't know what socialism is or two particularly in the last decade the growth and markets for a number of reasons has left them behind and they're feeling that the capitalist system the free enterprise system wasn't working for them and if you think of young people student loans in the United States are one-and-a-half trillion and you cannot get rid of a student loan today even if you go bankrupt many of them remember when their parents might have lost their home or someone came and during the Oh eight oh nine difficult financial period so their interaction with the financial system hasn't necessarily be positive the other thing that occurred as more people started investing in real estate Shiller won a nobel prize for telling us that if you had invested in residential real estate in the United States over the last hundred and twenty years adjusted for inflation you have a zero rate of return if you invest it in equities adjusted for inflation you have a thousand times your money so they have not participated and I think it's the challenge the free enterprise system to get them involved and make them feel now this is the West if you go to Vietnam ninety-five percent of the people believe in the free enterprise system you go to China 78% of the people feel their life is going to be better than their parents you go to Mexico eighty-five percent so I think what you're seeing here really is more dominated in the US I would say since we were gonna link this to entrepreneurs I have the honor of financing more than three thousand companies only one CEO ever told me he was in it for the money wealth was a byproduct of creating value that passion and other things they had drove them and so I think our goal right now is to make sure the financial system is working for everyone and everyone feels they have a chance so this is a wake-up call for us Kevin Richard Michael's suggesting there may be a linkage to GDP growth in terms of happiness with capitalism he was mentioning countries that have four or five six seven percent GDP growth where you don't see this kind of rhetoric do you think that's a linkage or why do you think it's happening and what solutions can you offer to this well I first of all I agree with everything Mike has said that we are going to have to try to do everything we can to lift the vast majority of people up and and for a number of years the vast majority of people haven't may you know seen seen their living standards increasing year after year having said that I mean Nick the week after next I'm throwing a big concert on the border of Venezuela and we're trying to get a whole massive trucks with with with food and water and medical supplies into Venezuela socialism did not work in Venezuela it's resulted in a bankrupt country or worse and and people need to remember that what socialism was like in the United Kingdom you know when when governments ran the trains when governments ran you know everything but British Airways and so on it really it really didn't didn't work that well so so I don't think we should throw out capitalism but we definitely need you know for those of us who are fortunate to have made a lot of wealth we have an incredible responsibility to spread that wealth around to tackle some of the big problems of this world and if we don't you know we will deserve to be you know to be you know have very heavy taxes levied upon us so you know so we do have great responsibility I think Kevin one of the things that's occurred if we want to say that a lot of this move is centered in the United States today if you look at the United States the United States of all countries with more than 20 million people has the highest percentage of its population that is worth a million dollars or more 6.4 percent alongside Australia if you look at average net worth the United States is second in this group to Australia however if you look at median net worth where 50 percent of the people are below in line the US has the lowest net worth of all developed countries similar to Greece so there's a large group of individuals who are poor the u.s. of all developed countries has the highest percentage of its population with a net worth under 10,000 so it's understandable how they feel about this issue and if we're going to create a great life for our children and our grandchildren everyone has to feel at least they had a chance and that in my opinion is what's defined capitalism that you have a chance not based on your religion not based on being a man or a woman not based on where you went to school and who your parents are but based on your ability or creativity your ideas your drive your persistence and we have got to create that message and find a way to deliver it Richard does every day by his speeches launching new businesses and recreating industries and we have to find a way that everyone feels they have that opportunity that is the challenge to the free enterprise system and I think will meet that challenge here Richard before we leave this topic the rhetoric coming out of many politicians currently even in the US and outside regarding examples of socialism not working over an extended hundred year period is this they push back saying wait a second Venezuela is not in its current situation because of socialism it's there because of bad management we need better management and socialism to provide more and distribution of wealth that's the next generation of socialism socialism 2.0 now that's a damn good way to sell socialism these you're trying to sell it do you believe it I think I go back to this belief that you know if you if you are successful and you make you make good money you do not leave that money sitting on the bank account you've invested in creating new businesses and pulling new people make sure you look after your people well tackling you know the bigger the big issues of this world I mean last week we had a something called audacious ideas where we got some of the wealthiest people together every year on Necker and you know we go out and you know try to make sure that the big ideas and the world can be tackled I think you know that's you know back that's the positive way now socialism I mean if you have to point in one country where socialism has worked and I don't think you can find one and it's not just bad leaders it's just the I mean the exciting thing about the people in this room I mean the the anybody who has an idea to make people's lives better can start a business and if it is going to make people's lives better their business is likely to be successful and they have become capitalists de-facto and the reason that Abu Dhabi is is doing so well and Dubai and you know other other countries in Europe and so on is is because we have many many entrepreneurs who are you know making a mark not making a mark to make fortunes from the cells to make they're trying to create something they can be proud of the byproduct of creating something that you can be proud of is that wealth comes your way and and then responsibility and then you've just gotta you know keep investing and and creating other things you can be proud of I think Kevin if you think about a natural resource society a natural resource society has many challenges it might not create many jobs it lends itself to a socialist environment if you take over the Venezuelan oil company it has the most proven reserves you can use its cash flow you don't have to make anything work but as we saw you had to be able to pump oil and the amount of oil is decreased by 50% and look at that compared to the UAE natural resource society foster the free enterprise system incentives and had good leadership so one of the questions is can socialism in the long term have great leadership I think Richards challenging you it probably can't the free enterprise system constantly challenges the best the brightest the new ideas you wish there wasn't change and I think the other element is why do people feel this way today and I particularly say this in Western Europe and the US it's partly because of Technology you know cable challenges and the media challenges and manufacturing challenges and agricultural challenges and transportation what you knew is being challenged today and so the firm footing that I might have worked in a coal mine but I might not have that job in the future I might have been a driver but I might not have that job this uncertainty has created an environment I think that people are concerned about the future let's take attack to a more optimistic place entrepreneurship leadership and trying to divine which entrepreneurs to back and which to let go you've been doing this your whole life I imagine you get pitched 10 deals a week Richard you're the same how do you figure out which ones deserve to have the Sun Shine of them and which remain in darkness and I'm just talking about capital can you divine is there three things you can tell me that you found in a constant between different entrepreneurs that make them successful passion passion for what they do I think empathy seeing the world through others and the ability to communicate it you know it's the world it's not size anymore size does not protect you and so it's new ideas and I think many people in finance were so focused on the balance sheet or income or results from the past rather than what the future was like mmm great leaders can take a difficult situation turn around and make it good poor leaders can take a good situation and have a deteriorate there is this leadership of change and so to me I always focused on what was not on the balance sheet and that is the talent of the management and the talent of leadership you know a leader has to convince people to follow him and have that passion and vision and you can see it in their eyes I'm sure you see it in the short presentations on Shark Tank but there is a difference between an once capital was no longer constrained which occurred during the 1970s and 80s if you look at the United States small and medium companies created sixty-two million jobs in the last third of the 20th century and large companies created minus four so now the large company didn't have the protection that they were the only one who had access to capital so to me who is the leadership what is their vision what is their commitment and you have one tier left here that we would all follow around the world statements that Michael just made leadership versus management can you be a great leader in a poor manager yeah I mean we've had and if I go back to my record company days we had a wonderful entrepreneur running our French company who was this very very entrepreneurial and was great at setting up you know the Virgin Megastore on the Sean's Elysees and you know lots of other virgin companies in France we had a very solid manager running our company in Germany who was not interested in creating virgin megastores or Virgin Trains or Virgin Airlines or other things but was equally valuable to us but which ones are fired they were both equally valuable and both of them I mean the one in France was a good delegator so he found people to run the record company he found people to run the run the virgin megastores and our other you know publishing companies and so on and he was great at motivating these people and bringing out the best and his people and praising these people and and having a vision and a mission that they could all they could all buy into likely likewise the the guy in Germany because he wasn't entrepreneurial we had to get an entrepreneur in into Germany to do that side so yeah so you know often you can find great people doing with great different skills within a company Kevin - points you know there's only one industry that really puts people on the balance sheet that's professional sports it puts their contracts on the balance sheet but you know Steve Jobs wasn't on the balance sheet at cetera and the second point I just want to come back to the size issue in the late 1970s I met this man named Bill McGowan who believed in fiber optics in changing the telecommunication industry so he went into this industry there was a company with 99% market share AT&T AT&T had 1.4 million employees and Bill at the time I met him had 30 and my firm was resident and resisted financing MCI and I developed this whole strategy that they were right it really wasn't a fair competition in that I felt that a you needed AT&T needed at least a hundred thousand employees for every employee at MCI to offset them so they needed three million they only had a million and a half they could not compete and eventually you saw MCI eventually led to the breakup in AT&T and that vision AT&T that you know today really isn't AT&T as you know Kevin at Southwest Bell that was bought by it and mobile the vision on mobile of Craig McCaw AT&T invented mobile technology 1979 there's a meeting with McKenzie with a report telling AT&T there'll be 1 million customers in the world in the year 2000 paying $1000 a year a billion-dollar market it was too small for them to go in so they invented it and decided not to go into mobile so it is not size it's that I the ability to see and the ability to lead that makes the difference it was size up to the early 1970s when capital was denied but today as you know when you're bidding on shark tank you can get outbid there's a lot of capital around for good ideas Richard in the late 1990s I was an operator in a consumer software company and educational software and my marketing manager came in and said to me there's a guy named Richard Branson that's jumping out of an airplane the business has nothing to do with jumping out of airplanes why don't you go jump out of an airplane because he's on every television network in the country and I must admit I'm gonna be honest here I have ripped a page out of your PlayBook television and supporting businesses and to reduce customer acquisition cost is my model now I stole that from you was it a conscious effort in those days because you were doing outrageous stuff but it was always tied to a launch of a product or business and you got tons of free press long before social media was a factor so it started as a way to promote we had one at one plane with Virgin Atlantic one secondhand 747 we didn't have the advertising clout the British Airways had with their 300 planes and so put the first thing we decided to do was that let's break the transatlantic speed record on a boat and fortunately as it turned out we sank and the word Virgin was sticking out of the water so you know we had the front pages of every paper our airline took a full-page ad saying you know next time Richard take the plane and and then the following year we came back and we were successful but then it's then I think I just got the I got the the bug and we then decided to be the first across the Atlantic in a balloon and then the Pacific and try to go around the world in a balloon and and I wasn't doing it so much to promote the businesses but the yeah the byproduct was that it it really helped the businesses later on we went on to more serious fun fun ways of promoting things I mean last week you had the Super Bowl in America well a few years ago our airship company was asked to fly an airship over that over the Super Bowl to film the Super Bowl for NBC and we had a big fly virgin on the side and they made it very clear Super Bowl ads are the most expensive in the year they will not show any cameras on the side of our airship so after about five minutes of flying airship we unfold a banner outside the back of the airship which said NBC cameramen are the best-looking guys in the whole of America and the cameras just kept coming up and seeing fly the Virgin on the side so that's another cheeky way of doing it nice very nice Michael one of the outcomes of coming here today and as word got out we were going to do this this evening I started getting a of text with individual questions for both of you I want to touch on some of those because thir matically there were many that were the same and so I'd like to cover some of those I'm gonna ask you some questions on both of you there is a tremendous amount of interest for many people that would like you to make a call on the US market for the back end of this year because there's a lot of angst out there and you've been through many many cycles about that inequity and they don't want you to hedge it they want to know what you actually think what are you doing with your money that was the question well I'm not in the market every day like I used to so therefore I can't make a call my belief is it's a market of stocks not a stock market and every day you can look in the paper some stocks are making new highs some stocks are making new lows and so to me what is the company doing what are the services what does it have available to it you know food tech today a tremendous revolution in agriculture the ability to sequence your genome we now know if you're selling products whether they're healthy or not healthy for you today in the UAE they put a hundred percent tax on soft drinks so you're not going to answer this question my comment to you is there's some companies are going to do well those that are prom perceived as doing value for society and then some not so I can't predict the stock market but I can predict that if you're in industries of the future you will do well and I would say to you many of the industries or the future are going to deal with elder care since we have aging populations many of those industries are going to solve our problems in health and many of those industries are going to deal with new products and services to prevent obesity prevent diabetes and other diseases so when I think of investing I try to invest what are the challenges of society what companies or industries are going to answer those challenges and that's what my portfolio reflects top of the hit parade for you Richard was this make him answer the question of a brexit make a call on what's gonna happen here well brexit in my personal opinion is the worst thing that's happened to britain and the worst thing that's happened to Europe since the Second World War it's already wreaked havoc on the British economy we had the highest GDP before the brexit referendum we now have pretty well the lowest in Europe growth growth is at a 10-year low and if god forbid hard breaks it takes place in the next six weeks the pound will in my opinion drop to parity with the dollar and I'm afraid it will deserve to because the you know the effect it will have on Airlines and a whole new numerous sectors of the economy is going to be is going to be dramatic so I just hope that sense will prevail I mean in an ideal world I would I would love to see another referendum because a lot of the older people who you know voted for brexit have died out younger people that young younger people and coming up and and it's the young it's the young who gonna suffer the most from from brexit they won't be able to live and work and play in in wonderful places like Spain and Greece and Italy and you know I mean we just we're just putting a barrier up and saying thank you we want it to be little England in the future specifically probabilities on three outcomes hard exit No Deal a new referendum and what would the outcome be of that would be the second derivative question and lastly somehow your Prime Minister figures out a way to broker a deal all the signaling this week at the world conference was there's no tolerance at the EU for any changes the agreement and they were very clear about that what do you think just on those specifics and I think if if the Prime Minister's deal goes through it is gonna cost Britain a lot of money but not as much as a hard brexit and if that's the only choice then you know then I think we'll just have to accept that and then there will be people in Britain who will fight for another day to get to get back into Europe and be part of Europe what I wish for is that is that that deal you know it's not accepted and that she is brave enough to go back to the British people and ask for another referendum the problem for her is that it's likely to tear the Tory Party apart but it's certainly the right thing for the country and the question is you know will she be making a decision for her party or will she be making a decision for the country Kevin I just want to comment on that I have heard many times in my life the world is coming to an end what I consider to be the most important financial period post-world War two was the mid-1970s stock market went down 50% interest rates doubled hmm credit controls were put in price of oil quadrupled projections that hundreds of the largest companies were gonna go bankrupt New York was gonna go bankrupt etcetera none of that occurred here I think is Richard point out this is a very difficult situation today but when I think of Great Britain and I think of world war two and you see those movies that came out a couple years ago on Churchill etc those days it's just hard for me to believe that this this has anything can even be compared to that situation where the existence of democracy or freedom as we knew it was on the line and the unbelievable courage of the leaders in Britain and the people and many ways allow the world to be what it is today so I'm yeah I think I mean I would agree with what you say except I think it's worth remembering that Europe was formed at the end of that Second World War by Churchill and by the other European leaders to make sure that we would never go to war again and every single generation before mine my father fought in gin throughout Europe my grandfather was in the trenches and gassed in Europe and it goes back generation after generation and we mustn't forget this and and that's I think another consequence another danger of starting to see the breakup of Europe and you know you've got something that's by no means perfect but you know don't we got to fight to try to avoid it being broken up Michael here's your political question so I'd like to ask Richard a question do you feel that the leadership if they felt they had another vote that brexit would be turned down if they felt confident of that that they would move in that direction the opinion polls clearly say that people believe brexit with the voting for a brexit was those those were useless last time yeah but the pinyon polls have been very consistently going up and up and up over over the last two years and so so personally I believe it would be a clear-cut you know no no to brexit they you know what the leaders believe the problem is that in the you know sitting around the Prime Minister she's got a bunch of you know people who want to put up the borders you know you know extreme right-wing and then she's caught up and she wants another referendum in it you know is it so I don't think you're gonna get it you know she's just gonna have to make a decision itself in the end and she's got to be brave Michael your question deals with US politics for a moment here many want to know your opinion leave the rhetoric out of it okay this is this back up to this question I'll give you some data here that it's real it's not academic I've got 40 portfolio companies all private small in almost every state in the u.s. they had their best cash flow Quarter in history last quarter not because of tax reform because of deregulation the policy is working the politics are crazy so the question is this what's your opinion about the outcome of the upcoming election because the two policy directions are dramatically different and so these are people actually that want to know the risk mitigation of changing American policy given the success of the economy forget the politics the success of the economy they're trying to mitigate risk and make a decision about capital expenditures what you think happens does Trump get another term with his policies or is this wave of whatever you want to call it when we sweep into America this is really about capital flow I think it's my own opinion way too early President Bush 41 had an 80% approval rating ten months before the election and didn't win I think it's a question of what is the discussion is Mike Bloomberg gonna run for president the discussion would change dramatically on the Democratic ticket is Howard Schultz going to continue his efforts to run for president I think it changes the dialogue and so I think the full question is what is the dialogue a year from now and so I think you made an important point for 20 years I owned a company called Vistage it's like a for-profit YPO over 10,000 CEOs and if you ask them small and medium businesses what did they want they wanted really three things one they wanted to know that the administration believed in the free enterprise system that's the first thing they wanted to know the second thing they wanted to know is could they open their laundry mats could they run nor is there a new regulator a new regulation every day can we get the regulatory burden we want to build our business can you let us build our business we are too small to have 1520 people dealing with each of these areas and the last thing they wanted to know is can they bring manufacturing or can they do more things in the United States or they could get a tax code similar to what occurred in Ireland etc these are the three things that 10,000 CEOs were interested of small and medium businesses this administration has brought those three and as allowed as you've pointed out small and medium business they also brought something else and that is Opportunity Zones so we've identified more than a thousand areas in the United States that you can invest and you don't have to pay a capital gain on appreciation you can reinvest your money well I can do that in the UAE and I can do that in Hong Kong and I can do that in Singapore but we've designated these areas for rebuilding we have a good year or a year and a half to see whether we've taken up the mantle in many of these troubled areas of America and redeployed capital to create that so my opinion is I'd wait for a year and I think the dialogue is heavily dependent on who is running on the Democratic Party for the answer interesting a good way to not answer put your being honest about it you don't know what's going to happen I want to get to space in a minute but I have one more question about competition of Nations because there are some huge capital flows moving around I'm an indexer I work on watching money move from one geography to another and I'm always intrigued as to why I have an example for you gentlemen and I want to talk about the global situation and we're in an environment this country's been very successful in using their own capital and growing other's interest in bringing theirs here - let's take North America for a second Trump gets elected changes tax policy deregulates removes any Vistage of carbon tax or anything to do with paying for the environment whether you like that or not it's a fact it made it very attractive for capital north of the border it went in a different direction a more distribution of wealth mandate a you nanu young Prime Minister brought in a 70 percent tax rate for Canadians fifty three plus sixteen thirty percent VAT tax plus three percent carbon tax takes a Canadian to over seventy percent tax in a matter of thirty six months direct investment in the Canadian economy dropped by 52 percent hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost it never happened as fast before in any country and as a result the young Prime Minister faces a dilemma next October he may not get elected again now when you start to watch the successes of geographies of changing policy and seeing the rapid movement of capital what is going to happen going forward you think countries will compete for that capital because it doesn't seem to have any borders anymore money moves to the lowest risk and the highest probability of outcomes and this country is a good example of it so when you start thinking about being an investor and policy and returns does that not dictate the future of where capital will go and where entrepreneurs will be and that may be Asia Richard well I think you've thought about your own question but I think they I think the you mentioned climate change I mean I just sort of if I'm not going to answer your question specifically here but climate change is in my opinion one of the biggest threats facing this world and governments should be doing something about it not Canada unilaterally doing it but on a global basis this should be a carbon tax and I'm I'm an airline owner I don't run spaceships attacks may cost the politician his job if it's a universal carbon tax and then you give clean energy companies that money back so you actually then start creating a differential between you know dirty fuel and clean fuel you will you will see you soon see the clean energy business thriving and and you'll soon see the world moving towards clean energy I mean politicians ought to be thinking longer than the next two or three years in office they should they've got to sell it right to their people and I think again young people overwhelmingly realize the world has a problem and they they want the politicians to do more Kevin I would couldn't agree with Richard more I believe you can create financial incentives he spoke about a carbon tax I believe you can create financial incentives to solve these issues Richard dr. Sandor affiliated with the Milken Institute in the mid-1980s you might remember we were all going to die of sulfur dioxide acid rain movies books all written about it the credit was created that you had to reduce your admissions if you couldn't reduce them you had to buy a credit if you could reduce some more you got credits within 10 to 15 years if you looked at maps and satellite photos in the United States ninety five percent of all the sulfur dioxide was gone you created an incentive for people to replace old factories eliminate so2 and and we don't have any articles anymore about how we're going to die of acid rain I want to stress that you left one country out in North America called Mexico and Mexico in my opinion this could be their best period of time the next 20 years you can China cannot compete with Mexico and manufacturing many products you can export from Mexico to Europe without tariffs high quality cars are being manufactured and assembled and so the question is what is the new president and leadership going to do in Mexico and I think this comes back to your point of leadership are they going to seize defeat out of the jaws of victory here by not importing gas from the United States by not allowing private enterprise and others to come and develop their resources today so these are challenges but I want to move on if I could to something that we want to touch on tonight and that is space there are an infinity piece of tape Michael to roll okay I just want to I'm going to set the stage there is a probability greater than zero that something could happen to earth there's a probability of greater than zero the companies and can happen to our son did the human race ever exist is there any remember of the human race the nearest star is four million light years away and so the effort of Richard and others to title this is heaven stuff it is but you think that you're you talked about trade between countries you know one thing that will not unite the earth all together is just have some asteroid headed here that could do serious damage to our planet will then all be combined so I think this called to space the call to movement and the first effort is to make it a commercial enterprise and I can't applaud Richard enough for reminding us of this call to space and the importance of it so let's get into it but before we start I have a wonderful piece of tape I want to show you can we roll that it's about Richards endeavors here in space the exploration of space will go ahead and it is one of the great adventures of all time humans have managed to learn so much about the universe in such a relatively small timeframe compared with the life of the universe that was always very incredible to me our mission is to lower the barrier to getting into orbit so that businesses and entrepreneurs universities and countries can bring capabilities into space that helped us here on earth as a species we've traveled around that planet at the same speed for the last 50 to 60 years in a spaceship to is going to be the first space plane that on a regular basis flies humans faster than three times the speed of sound by bringing hundreds and eventually thousands of people into space they'll get a different perspective on life and on our future that will have a profound impact on how humanity faces its toughest problems together we can make space accessible in a way that has only been dreamt of before now and by doing that we can truly bring positive change to life on Earth [Music] [Music] they should be unity welcome to space Jaffe based million dollar view Richard your words were I want to democratize space what does that mean how many people in this room would like to go to space ok that's your answer I find in a typical room 60 70 % of people would love the chance to become become astronauts to you know to go into space to look back at this beautiful earth we live on come back wanting to protect it even more and also with virgin orbit I mean there are four and a half billion people are not connected we will be putting a massive array of satellites up around the earth and connecting those four and a half billion people and if you're not connected it's very difficult to start a business education health a lot of other things don't go for it so and so yeah that's roughly what I mean it's just a for-profit enterprise I hope so I mean enterprises like this do not do not survive unless they're for-profit and you know I've invested over a billion dollars we've had a wonderful partner here in Abu Dhabi who's being you know being our principal partner to date and and without them I don't think we'd be watching this video today and also I had some rather exciting talks today in Abu Dhabi I can't say too much but I got to give something away I think there's only spaceports in America China and Russia where else would people like to have a spaceport what's this space as they say Michael you've had an interest in space as well you always have a passion for it and that's a dark vision you've got of us having to leave the planet for various reasons that aren't financial well when you're an investor you like to hedge or folio so my point is the probability is very low but it's greater than zero okay do you want to know that humans ever existed what is our message we haven't figured out how to travel faster than the speed of light yet so we need to both protect our planet but also have vehicles if we need to they could go out in space and sustain life and this to me encourages if you think about space it really isn't written enough about today and I believe it will be 1957 Sputnik went up the middle of the Cold War communism was superior to the free enterprise system they put up this little ball that went around I'm a student in elementary school okay I was awoken to what the mission was the country the United States was scared people didn't know what to do the Soviet Union thought it was its finest hour that communism and 1 this was the day the Soviet Union ended it woke up the United States DARPA was formed nonce NASA was formed in an economy 40 times the size was awakened to go to space and the President of the United States you know said we're going there not because it's easy but because it's hard and it gathered the interest of the world many things have happened and to me when you go and look at this our earth this blue ball anyone who loves space yes I wrote the president the United States in 57 telling him I wanted to run the space program I didn't tell my was 11 but you know it didn't work but it's hard not to feel the oneness on the planet shake nyan reminded us of the importance of humanity and tolerance tonight in Abu Dhabi and I think you can't be out there and look back at this earth and realize there isn't anything else like this within 4 million light years and no one's going to make it there today and there might not be anything like it out there at all and you can't want to do anything but protect this planet so to me it has many missions it's not just the exhilaration of going to space but it's the understanding of how small this planet is in the universe and how important it is to protect it and how we are one and how we got to create opportunities for all so I think it fulfills many missions and as Richard says nothing is really sustainable ultimately unless it makes a profit and it's economically sustainable I love that it's an optimistic note we're ending on thank you very much I'd like a warm hand for these marvelous entrepreneurs thank you thank you everybody for coming thank you Richard thank you Michael take care everybody

Channel: Milken Institute

Views: 41,949

Rating: 4.892807 out of 5

Keywords: Milken, Institute, richard branson, kevin o leary

Id: oDHZHEi5ujs

Length: 51min 9sec (3069 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 28 2019