Richard Branson: Losing My Virginity
Two books about moving early, learning in public and making the adventure part of the business.
By the time I reached Richard Branson, my reading had become heavily occupied with money, business and the mechanics of success. Branson brought movement back into it. His companies, adventures and failures all seemed to belong to the same restless personality.
Losing My Virginity is the fuller story. I enjoyed the willingness to enter industries before every answer was available, then learn quickly enough to remain standing. The brand grew around that appetite for motion, and Branson understood that the story itself had commercial force.
Screw It, Let's Do It is the compact version: decide, move, solve the next problem and keep enough humor to survive the process. There is survivor bias in any billionaire memoir. There is also a useful cure for waiting until the world provides written permission.
What stayed with me was the combination of nerve and communication. Branson built companies that people wanted to watch being built. That is a business skill too, and technical people often discover its value rather late.
I read both books as part of the same investigation. The finance titles gave me vocabulary. Branson made the subject feel alive.