Recup I was also fortunate to attend a sponsored lunch event in the late 1980s where Branson was the guest speaker. This was when he only had VS and all the other airline expansion was in the future.
He gave a potted story of starting the airline, why and how. At the time, he had done a series of adverts for American Express. The edited film, showed him taxing their first machine (a 741 as I recall) up to a garage and paying for the gas with AmEx. He had come in for a lot of stick about putting himself forward for that and wanting to be in the front of all the pictures (this in the media of the day).
His reply was simple, "It was free advertising! Where else could I get prime time TV adverts for my airline and have someone pay me to do it?" Likewise, any of the records that he has set out to win have ALL had the Virgin brand stamped on them.
Of course he has critics in his companies but he gets my business as first choice in long haul. My next trip to ZA will be with VS.