The inaugural Chief Pilot was an ex Ansett pilot ,Indeed, he was the Ansett VP in the AFAP in the 1989 dispute.
Thats true. He was also the person who first introduced pay for your own type rating with an Australian domestic airline. He was also the person who became very wealthy when Virgin was floated. To clarify P377's comment, Ansett pilots were employed by Virgin but they were aka "The Dirty Dozen". If you were employed by Ansett after July 1990 then you were a "cleanskin" and were an acceptable Ansett pilot. Anyone employed between 1989 and that date in 1990, or you had certain surnames, were never going to get in. There was a story of one young bloke in the latter category who was invited for an interview but at the end of the process the interview "team" kept repeating his surname and told him that there would be no position for him in Virgin. So this statement from P377 is correct:
The Virgin culture became toxic early in its life as an airline and it sounds like that is still the case.