Sir Richard Branson

Photo: Chatham House

You could say that Richard Branson’s success in business has always been about disruption.

He disrupted air travel, he risrupted the music business, he disrupted retail — all through the Virgin Group, which he founded in the 1970s.

I met him in fall 1998. He had just written a memoir called “Losing My Virginity.”

So here now, from 1998, Richard Branson:

Richard Branson was knighted at Buckingham Palace about a year and a half after our interview.

He was honored for, quote, “services to entrepreneurship.”

Today Virgin Group controls over 400 companies. Last month, Forbes estimated Branson’s net worth at $4.1 billion.

And romorrow, July 18th, is Branson’s 70th birthday.