номер 9, страница 54 - гдз по английскому языку 11 класс рабочая тетрадь Вербицкая, Фрикер

Track twelve.

A superhero for the business world by James Seely.

According to The Sunday Times, he is Britain's ninth richest person with a fortune of over three billion pounds. A man who it seems has a magic touch where business is concerned. But has he always been so successful? And how did he start to amass such a fortune?

As is so often the case, luck played a large part at the beginning.

It was obvious even as a schoolboy that Sir Richard had a flair for business. He set up a school magazine at the age of fifteen, his first business venture.

He was also a keen sports player and captain of the school football and cricket teams.

Richard Branson left school at the age of sixteen, and in nineteen seventy he started out in the record business with a mail order company selling records by post. A year later, he opened his first shop on London's Oxford Street.

However, at first things were difficult, and two years later the business was in trouble.

It was at this point that Branson needed something special to happen.

That special thing came in the form of a record that had been rejected by all the major record labels. A composer named Mike Oldfield had recorded a demo album of an instrumental record called Tubular Bells.

The only record company that showed any interest had asked him to add vocals before they would consider releasing it. Eventually, Oldfield played the demo to a studio engineer, Tom Newman, who told Richard Branson about it. The record was released in nineteen seventy-two.

This was where Branson took the risk, which could have sunk his business. He invested the money needed to record the album and released it on his own Virgin Records label. If it had failed, he would have lost everything. In fact, the record sold millions, and Richard Branson, the success, was born.

After ten years of concentrating on music, Richard Branson started looking at other ways of expanding his business into other fields. The first of these took off, literally, in nineteen eighty-four. Twelve years after Tubular Bells had given the world a new listening experience, Virgin Atlantic Airways promised a different kind of flying experience with in-flight music and entertainment, including video games that passengers could play against each other.

The first route was from London to Newark, and two years later a route was added to Miami.

Although Virgin Atlantic only flew to the Americas, Virgin have since added different routes throughout the world.

More companies followed the airline, some successful, others not, but all helped by Branson's obvious enthusiasm.

Even when there is a failure, he doesn't let it bother him, but moves on to the next venture.

One such failure was Virgin Cola, first sold in nineteen ninety-four. Despite initial high sales, its popularity soon fell dramatically, although it is still served on Virgin planes and Virgin trains.

The train business has also been a difficult one for Virgin since it started running in nineteen ninety-seven. High prices and poor punctuality have damaged Richard Branson's reputation slightly, although performance is improving. Not that it is stopping Sir Richard from looking to the future.

His latest venture, set up in two thousand and four, is Virgin Galactic, which offers flights into space for two hundred thousand pounds a ticket.

One reason for his continued success may be the enjoyment he gets from it all. One of his ten secrets for success is to have fun working. And it does seem that, whether records, planes or space travel, Richard Branson's businesses mirror his hobbies, which show a person who loves an adventure and has a desire to win against the odds.

In nineteen eighty-six, he broke the speed record for crossing the Atlantic by boat, and in nineteen eighty-seven, he became the first person to cross the Atlantic Ocean by balloon. He repeated the feat four years later, becoming the first person to cross the Pacific Ocean by balloon.

Four attempts to be the first to fly around the world by balloon ended in failure before he was beaten by a team of Swiss flyers.

Branson then put all his efforts into repeating their feat but more quickly. It's no wonder that he makes an appearance in Superman Returns. He truly is a superhero for the business world.