Rethink What's Possible Richard Branson blazed the trail. Simon Squibb's lighting what's next. Together they're opening doors.

It's a sunny day in Shoreditch, London. Cafés spill onto the pavement, the clatter of laptops and lattes mingling with the murmur of ideas. Inside the Virgin Hotel in London, Shoreditch, glass walls filter the light across the early-stage founders, who have all received support from Virgin StartUp to scale their businesses. In the centre, two men - Richard Branson and Simon Squibb. There's no grand stage or teleprompter. Just a few chairs, an open conversation, and a room filled with people who have ideas - and, crucially, the courage to pursue them. As Branson reflects on his own start, his story serves as a powerful reminder that success often comes from diving in headfirst.

Never one for corporate formality, Branson is reflective. "I loved learning as I went along," he says. "I threw myself in at the deep end, leaving school very young, starting a magazine and learning on the job - how to sell advertising, how to sort out distribution and how to blag my way into interviewing people." His story, familiar to many in outline, shows he didn't just talk the talk - he took a risk and made it work. "James Baldwin was a famous black activist and writer. I went to his hotel room and just banged on his door, uninvited. I was 16 years old." Branson's early audacity could have gone either way. "He opened the door, and I got a mouthful from him," the entrepreneur recalls, but "then he took pity on me and invited me into his room."

Branson had brought the wrong plug, so he borrowed a knife, jammed in some matchsticks, and wired the recorder up by hand. By the time the interview began, Baldwin was "not a happy man," Branson chuckles. "I suppose the point is, the best way of learning anything is just to chuck yourself in at the deep end." He pauses, then adds: "Sometimes you need to talk ahead of yourself. You've got to say you can do anything. And then you've just got to catch up, catch up, catch up."

Squibb, founder, investor, and long-time advocate for entrepreneurial education reform, picks up the thread. "I left school at 15. My father had just died and my mum and I had an argument and she told me to get out." The realisation that followed hit hard. "When I entered the real world, I realised everything I'd learned in school was wrong." He speaks not just of outdated pedagogy, but of a philosophy misaligned with reality. "You're told to sit down and do an exam on your own, and you're meant to get the grade by yourself. I realised that in the real world, you can't do it on your own." Then, he adds with a smile: "One plus one equals eleven." That kind of logic - rooted in collaboration rather than competition - shapes Squibb's entire outlook. "If you want to do an exam well, get ten of you to do it. You'll get A's every time." But it wasn't just the content of school that failed him; it was the culture. "I was never really quite understood. I wasn't getting A's - I was getting D's, especially in English, as I was dyslexic as well."

His tone shifts as he reflects on the emotional impact. "It took me a long time to get brave enough to ask for help. We are taught to grin and bear it." When his five-year-old started crying going into school, the teacher said, 'just suck it up, it's part of life.' Squibb now homeschools his child, driven by a desire to reform an education system that he believes fails to support, encourage, or inspire entrepreneurial thinking. Lets be clear - Squibb isn't pushing sentimentality for its own sake. He's making a case for emotional literacy as a business skill. "It took me a few years to reconnect to who I really was. I'm quite emotional. I cry at movies. Somehow I suppressed all of that." And then, a pivot into purpose: "School always made me feel like I had to fit in or I was going to get bullied. And now I realise - in the real world, if you stand out, you succeed." Squibb's argument is clear: the world doesn't need more conformity. It needs more courage. "That's why I'm so determined to upgrade the education system in this country, and give people access to some real-world knowledge - like financial literacy. We can only succeed if we work together and help each other."

Branson agrees, though in his typically understated manner, bringing the focus back to wellbeing and alignment. "I know a lot of us think we don't have time because we're so busy," he says, "but your body is the number one priority. Looking after yourself is the number one thing. So getting the balance right is really important, particularly as you get a bit older. I get an extra three or four hours at the end of the day because I've kept myself fit and healthy. It means that in between I've got the energy to do all these things. My body's feeling fantastic." Squibb nods, but offers a twist. "I think that sometimes this balance thing is a bit overplayed. I include my life in my work. So my son comes with me everywhere I go. I want my life to be integrated. I don't want to separate things out." His schedule, he admits, is unconventional. "I exercised this morning but I was also checking emails and making videos. A cameraman came with me into the sauna, and we talked about strategy. He got to sweat it out, I got to sweat it out, and we got to talk business." He's aware it might sound intense - or even privileged, but, he says, "I've worked to get to that point where I integrate the two. So I'm not separating exercise, I'm not separating family time, I'm not separating my workload" He compares it to "living on a wobbly stool."

When asked about starting a business today - in 2025 - with AI, social unrest and economic headwinds, Branson keeps it simple: "I would still do things that I was interested in personally." Squibb takes a more analytical route. "Today there are opportunities in community. Of course you're using AI - that's a hot word at the moment - but community is completely underutilised. "One of the greatest rewards is building a group of people who care as much as you do about the problem you're solving." He points out something subtle but significant: "Amazon, for example, or Google - what community do they have? They have the workers in the company, they have a kind of cult, but the actual customers are not community. There's an opportunity there," he says. "Community is a superpower."

And then comes a harder question: is it possible to stay true to your values while building a financially sustainable business? Squibb doesn't flinch. "Purpose-driven businesses is this generation's opportunity to fix all the problems that my generation has caused. Profit comes from purpose, in my opinion." Branson closes on a similar note. "Your reputation is all you really have in life - yours and your brand's. Every decision you make in business should be one you'd feel comfortable with if you had to rebuild from scratch the next day." He offers an example. "I was told that Virgin Atlantic was going to fly to Saudi Arabia. I had to think really hard - is this going to put our brand's reputation at risk? I asked a lot of questions and also looked at what Saudi Arabia had done over the last eight years… and in the end, decided to say yes." It points to a quieter truth: instinct and integrity still matter.

Entrepreneurs like Branson and Squibb bring the real deal - no nonsense, just results. They tap into the idea that business is, at its best, deeply human. That collaboration beats competition. That standing out is better than fitting in. And that sometimes, to get where you're going, you need to walk into someone's hotel room with the wrong plug, a tape recorder, and just enough nerve to ask for help.