Sir Richard Branson and Michael Milken in Conversation with Kevin O'Leary

what a wonderful opportunity we are going to have tonight. I'm honored to be here with two of the most legendary entrepreneurs of modern times for different reasons, but they are very well known nonetheless. Think of Branson, for example. What is notable about Richard is that he has created multiple billion dollar companies that have nothing to do with each other, that is extremely rare when you see entrepreneurship and often around a core technology or consumer goods, Whatever it is, it's music, it's space, it's Hyperloop, it's everywhere and it's been remarkably successful, we're going to find out Find out how he did it Michael is an extraordinary individual in the sense that he created a whole new kind of capital, financed thousands of companies and created millions of jobs.

We have to extract that data tonight; My job tonight is to take us on a journey. Let's go explore what makes great entrepreneurs good, how they did it, and what they can teach us in the future. I want to start with a story. I arrived from Miami after having lunch with a whole group of young entrepreneurs that I like. I bring my portfolio companies together every quarter because they are unknown and new businesses are constantly coming in and applying a little wine to them often gives you the real story of what is happening in their businesses.

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went this way. about 3040 hours ago 25 of them were sitting at dinner in Miami and I heard this word the billionaires are going to become extinct now old Kevin O'Leary would have washed their mouths out with soap but I have learned to be tolerant because you can't hear the train that comes down to run over you if you don't have your ear on the road if - shut up and listen I've never heard that before from a young woman who is a spectacular entrepreneur her vision of the future It's not just about money and I like that, but I hope it's become a billionaire because I own a large part of your company and I reminded you of that when I arrived here just in time to hear the keynote address of the world government summit. where I learned that global warming is not the number one threat to the Earth, it is capitalism that is new to me.

I like to sleep with the television on. I once read that Lenin called it an electronic fireplace and I still say he puts me to sleep when I woke up this morning, the bottom third said war on wealth, ladies and gentlemen. I have two of the soon-to-be-extinct species sitting next to me right here, so let's get right to it and ask what the hell is going on out there, because this is an extraordinary experience. problem that is emerging not only in the United States but throughout the world. Let's start with you, Michael, what do you think when you look at some of the situations that have occurred and how people, particularly in the West, I don't know everywhere? around the world, but if you look at the United States and you survey people under 30 and how many think their life is going to be better than their parents', seventy-five percent are not, if you're going to France, eighty-four percent say their life is not like that. are going to be better than their parents or Spain and all of Western Europe the highest percentage that thinks their life is going to be better than their parents would be in Germany at 30 years old and then what makes them feel that way if we look in recent polls? that shows that in the United States 51% of Millennials feel that maybe socialism or communism would be better than a free enterprise society or, even more shocking to me, about 25 percent of baby boomers between the ages of 54 and 72 think that perhaps socialism It would be better that one may not know what socialism is or two, particularly in the last decade, growth and markets, for several reasons, They have been left behind and they feel that the capitalist system, the free enterprise system, was not working for them and if you think about young people, student loans in the United States amount to a billion and a half and today you cannot get rid of a student loan, even if you go bankrupt, many of them remember when their parents might have lost their house or someone came and during the difficult financial period Oh eight oh nine, so their interaction with the financial system has not necessarily been positive, the Another thing that happened as more people started investing in real estate, Shiller won a Nobel Prize for telling us that if you've invested in residential real estate in the United States for the last one hundred and twenty inflation-adjusted years, you have a rate of zero return, if you invest it in inflation-adjusted stocks, you have a thousand times your money, so they haven't participated. and I think the challenge of the free enterprise system is to engage them and make them feel that this is the West.

If you go to Vietnam, ninety-five percent of the people believe in the free enterprise system. You go to China, 78% of the people. If you feel like your life is going to be better than your parents', you're eighty-five percent going to Mexico, so I think what you're seeing here is really more dominated in the US, I would say since We were going to link this with businessmen, I have the honor. from funding over three thousand companies, only one CEO ever told me that they were in it for the money, wealth was a byproduct of value creation, passion and other things that had driven them, so I think our The goal now is to make sure that the system works for everyone and everyone feels like they have a chance, so this is a wake-up call for us.

Kevin Richard Michael suggests that there may be a link to GDP growth in terms of happiness with capitalism. He was mentioning countries that have four or five sixes. seven percent GDP growth where you don't see this kind of rhetoric, do you think that's a link or why do you think it's happening and what solutions can you offer to this? Well, first of all, I agree with everything that Mike has said that we are We will have to try to do everything we can to help the vast majority of people and for several years the vast majority of people have not seen how their Standards of living increase year after year.

Nick, next week I'm playing a big concert on the Venezuelan border and we're trying to get huge trucks of food, water and medical supplies into Venezuela. Socialism did not work in Venezuela and resulted in bankruptcy. country or worse, and people need to remember that what socialism was like in the UK, you know when, when governments ran the trains, when governments ran, you know everything except British Airways and so on, it didn't really work, that Well , I don't think we should throw out capitalism, but we definitely need you to know that those of us who are lucky enough to have accumulated a lot of wealth, we have an incredible responsibility to distribute that wealth to address some of the big problems. of this world and if we don't know it, we deserve to be, you know to be, you know, they impose very high taxes on us, so you know, we have a great responsibility.

I think Kevin is one of the things that has happened if we want. To say that much of this movement is centered in the United States today, if you look at the United States, the United States of all the countries with more than 20 million inhabitants has the highest percentage of its population that is worth a million of dollars or more 6.4 percent along with Australia, if we look at the average net worth, the United States is second in this group after Australia; However, if you look at median net worth, where 50 percent of people are below the line, the United States has the lowest net worth of all similar developed countries. to Greece, so there is a large group of people who are poor in the USA.

Of all the developed countries it has the highest percentage of its population with a net worth less than 10,000, so it is understandable how they feel about of this issue and if we are going to create a great life for our children and our grandchildren, everyone must feel that at least you had a chance and that, in my opinion, is what defines capitalism: that you have a chance not based on your religion , not based on being a man or a woman, not based on where you went to school and who your parents are, but on your ability or creativity, your ideas drive your perseverance and we have to create that message and find a way to convey it.

Richard does it every day with speeches about him launching new businesses and recreating industries and we have to find a way for everyone to feel like they have that opportunity. It's the challenge to the free enterprise system and I think I'll face that challenge here, Richard, before I leave this topic. The rhetoric currently emerging from many politicians, including in the US and beyond, about examples of socialism not working over an extended period of a hundred years is this. they push back saying wait a second Venezuela is not in its current situation because of socialism, it is there because of bad management, we need better management and socialism to provide more and distribution of wealth, that is the next generation of socialism, socialism 2.0, that's a very good way. to sell socialism, you're trying to sell it, do you think so?

I think I go back to this belief that you know, if you're successful and you make good money, you don't leave that money in the bank account. You've invested in creating new businesses and attracting new people, make sure you take good care of your people, addressing the big problems in this world. I mean, last week we had something called bold ideas where we got some of the richest people. We meet every year at Necker and you know we go out and try to make sure that the big ideas and the world can be addressed. I think you know that's the positive form of socialism now.

I mean, if you have to point out. a country where socialism has worked and I don't think you can find one and it's not just bad leaders, it's just what's exciting about the people in this room, I mean anyone who has an idea to improve people's lives. They can start a business and if that is going to improve people's lives, their business is likely to be successful and they have become de facto capitalists and the reason why Abu Dhabi is is because it is doing so well and Dubai and you know other countries in Europe. and so on is because we have a lot of entrepreneurs who, you know, are leaving a mark, not leaving a mark, making fortunes from cells, they are trying to create something that they can be proud of the byproduct of creating something that you can being proud is that wealth comes to you and then responsibility comes to you and then you just have to keep investing and creating other things that you can be proud of.

I think Kevin, if you think about a natural resource society, a natural resource society has many challenges it may not create many jobs it lends itself to a socialist environment if you take control of the Venezuelan oil company it has the most proven reserves you can use its cash flow you don't have to make anything work but as we saw that you had to be able to pump oil and the amount of oil was reduced by 50% and look at that, compared to the natural resources society of the UAE, it encouraged the incentives of the system free enterprise and had good leadership, so one of the questions is whether long-term socialism will be successful. great leadership I think Richards challenges you, he probably can't, the free enterprise system constantly challenges the best, the brightest, new ideas, you wish there was no change and I think the other element is why people feels that way today and I particularly say This in Western Europe and the United States is partly due to technology, you know, the challenges of cable, media, manufacturing, agriculture and transportation, what you knew is being questioned today and therefore the firm basis that he could have worked in a coal mine, but may not have that job in the future.

You may have been a driver, but you may not have that job. This uncertainty has created an environment. I think people are worried about the future. Let's take the attack to a more optimistic place. Business leadership and trying to guess which entrepreneurs to back and which ones to let go. You've been doing this your whole life. I imagine they offer you 10 deals a week Richard, you are the same, how do you find out which ones deserve to have the shine of the sun and which remain in the dark and I'm just talking about capital, can you guess?

There are three things that you can tell me that you found a constant among different entrepreneurs that make them successful passion passion for what they do I think empathy seeing the world through others and the ability to communicate it you know what the world is, it is no longer the size size doesn't protect you and that's why it's new ideas and I think a lot of people in finance were so focused on the balance sheet or the revenue or the results of the past instead of what the future was like um, great leaders can change a difficult situation and make it good.

Poor leaders can take a good situation and deteriorate. There is this change leadership, so for me I always focused on what was not on the balance sheet and that is management talent and leadership talent. You know, a leader has to convince people to follow him and have that passion and vision, and you can see it in his eyes.I'm sure you'll see it in the short presentations about Shark. Tank, but there is a difference between what was once capital was no longer limited and what happened during the 1970s and 1980s. If you look at the United States, small and medium-sized businesses created sixty-two million jobs in the last third of the 20th century and large companies created sixty-two million jobs in the last third of the 20th century. minus four, so now the large company did not have the protection that they were the only ones who had access to capital, so, for me, who is the leadership, what is their vision, what is their commitment and here is a level at which everyone Follow around the world the statements that Michael just did leadership versus management.

Can you be a great leader with a bad manager? Yeah, I mean, we've had and if I go back to my record company days, we had a wonderful entrepreneur running our French company who was very, very entrepreneurial and was great at setting up, you know Virgin Megastore in Sean's Elysees and you know a lot of other virgin companies. in France we had. a very strong manager who ran our company in Germany who was not interested in creating Virgin megastores or Virgin Trains or Virgin Airlines or other things, but he was equally valuable to us, but which ones were fired, they were both equally valuable and both, I mean the one. in France he was a good steward, so he found people to run the record company, he found people to run the Virgin megastores and our other publishing companies, etc., and he was excellent at motivating these people and bringing out the best and his people and praising these people and having a vision and a mission that everyone could buy into probably the same way as the guy in Germany because he wasn't an entrepreneur, we had to get an entrepreneur in Germany to do that side, so yeah.

So, you know, you can often find great people with different skills within a company. Kevin: Points. You know, there's only one industry that really puts people on the balance sheet: professional sports, it puts their contracts on the balance sheet, but you know Steve Jobs. It wasn't on the balance in cetera and the second point, I just want to get back to the size question. In the late 1970s I met this man named Bill McGowan who believed in fiber optics to change the telecommunications industry, so he went into this industry. there was a company with a 99% market share AT&T AT&T had 1.4 million employees and Bill at the time I met him was 30 and my company was a resident and was reluctant to fund MCI and I developed this whole strategy that they were right, it really wasn't a fair competition in the sense that I felt like you needed AT&T needed at least a hundred thousand employees for every MCI employee to compensate them, so they needed three million, they only had a million and a half, they couldn't compete and finally we saw that MCI eventually led to the breakup of AT&T and that AT&T vision that you know today is really not AT&T as you know Kevin at Southwest Bell that was bought by her and Craig McCaw's mobile vision AT&T invented mobile technology 1979 there is a meeting with McKenzie with a report says that AT&T there will be 1 million customers in the world in the year 2000 paying $1000 a year a billion dollar market was too small for them so they invented it and decided not to enter the mobile sector, that's right It's not the size, it's the ability to see and the ability to lead that makes the difference.

The size was until the early 1970s when capital was denied, but today, as you know, when you bid on a shark tank you can get outbid, there are a lot of things. capital for good ideas Richard, in the late 1990s, I was an operator at a consumer software and educational software company and my marketing director came in and told me there's a guy named Richard Branson who's jumping out of a plane, business has nothing to do with it. What has to do with jumping out of planes, why don't you jump out of a plane? Because he's on every television network in the country and I have to admit, I'm going to be honest.

I have torn a page from your PlayBook of television and supporting companies. and reducing the cost of customer acquisition is my model now I stole it from you Was it a conscious effort in those days because you did outrageous things but it was always tied to the launch of a product or business and you had tons of free press for a long time? Before social media was a factor, it started as a way to promote, we had one on one with Virgin Atlantic, a second hand 747, we didn't have the advertising clout that British Airways had with its 300 planes, so we put the first thing that we decided.

What we had to do was break the transatlantic speed record on a ship and luckily it turned out that we sank and the word Virgin was sticking out of the water, so you know, we had the front pages of all the newspapers that our airline took a hit on. full page ad. saying, you know, next time Richard takes the plane and then the next year we came back and we were successful, but that's when I think the bug set in and then we decided to be the first to cross the Atlantic in a balloon and then the Pacific and trying to go around the world in a balloon and I wasn't doing it so much to promote companies, but yeah, the byproduct was that it really helped companies later on we moved on to more serious things. fun and fun ways to promote things, I mean, last week you had the Super Bowl in the United States.

A few years ago, our aircraft company was asked to fly an aircraft over the Super Bowl to film the Super Bowl for NBC and we had a big fly. virgin on the side and they made it very clear that the Super Bowl ads are the most expensive of the year, they will not show any cameras on the side of our aircraft, so after about five minutes of flying the aircraft, we unfurled a banner outside the rear of the aircraft. who said that NBC cameramen are the best-looking guys in all of America and the cameras kept zooming in and seeing the Virgin fly on the side, so that's another shameless way of doing it.

Very nice, Michael, one of the results of coming here today. and when word got out that we were going to do this tonight, I started getting a text with individual questions for both of us. I want to touch on some of them because, theoretically, there were many that were the same and so I would like to To cover some of them, I will ask you a few questions about the two of you. There's tremendous interest from a lot of people who would like to see you pay a visit to the US market by the end of this year because there's a lot of angst out there and you've been through a lot of cycles about that inequity and they don't want to. that you cover it, they want to know what you really think, what you are doing with your money, that was the question, well, I don't. in the market every day like I used to, therefore I can't make a decision.

I think it's a stock market, not a stock market, and every day you can look in the newspaper, some stocks are hitting new highs, some stocks are hitting new highs. low and for me, what is the company doing? What are the services? What do you have available? You know, food technology today is a tremendous revolution in agriculture. The ability to sequence your genome. Now we know if you are selling products. healthy or unhealthy for you today in the United Arab Emirates they impose a hundred percent tax on soft drinks, so it is not going to answer this question.

My comment to you is that some companies will do well with those that are perceived as having value. for society and some don't, so I can't predict the stock market, but I can predict that if you are in industries of the future you will do well and I would tell you that many of the industries of the future are going to deal in elder care, Since we have aging populations, many of those industries will solve our health problems and many of those industries will deal with new products and services to prevent obesity, prevent diabetes and other diseases, so when I think about investing, I try it. invest what the challenges of society are what companies or industries are going to respond to those challenges and that's what my portfolio reflects the highlight for you Richard was this, get me to answer the question of a Brexit, make a call about what it's going to happen here Well, in my personal opinion, Brexit is the worst thing that has happened to Britain and the worst thing that has happened to Europe since the Second World War.

It has already wreaked havoc on the British economy. We had the highest GDP before the Brexit referendum. We now have quite well the lowest growth in Europe is the lowest in 10 years and if God forbid there are sharp swings in the next six weeks, in my opinion the pound will fall to parity with the dollar and I'm afraid he will deserve it, because I know the effect it will have on airlines and numerous entirely new sectors of the economy will be dramatic, so I just hope common sense prevails. I mean, in an ideal world, I would love to see another referendum because a lot of the older people who voted for Brexit are gone, the younger ones, the younger ones, the younger ones and the ones that are emerging, and they are the young ones, they are Young people will suffer the most from Brexit, they will not be able to live or work. and playing in wonderful places like Spain, Greece and Italy, and you know, I mean, we're just putting up a barrier and saying thank you, we want it to be little England in the future, specifically odds of three outcomes, hard exit, no deal. a new referendum and what the result would be would be the second derived question and finally, somehow your Prime Minister finds a way to negotiate a deal.

All the signs this week at the world conference were that there is no tolerance in the EU for any change. the agreement and they were very clear about it, what do you think about those details? I think if the Prime Minister's deal goes through it will cost Britain a lot of money but not as much as a hard Brexit and if that is the only one then I think we will have to accept it and then there will be people in Britain who will fight for a day more to return to Europe and be part of Europe.

What I want is that, that is that. agree, you know it is not accepted and that she is brave enough to go back to the British people and ask for another referendum. The problem for her is that it is likely to destroy the Conservative Party, but it is certainly the right thing to do for the country and the issue. Do you know if she will make a decision for her party or she will make a decision for the country Kevin? I just want to comment that I have heard many times in my life that the world is coming to an end, what I consider it to be.

The most important financial period after World War II was the mid-1970s. The stock market fell by 50%. Interest rates doubled. Hmmm, credit controls were put on the price of oil. Projections that hundreds of the largest companies would go bankrupt quadrupled. New York was going to go bankrupt. bankruptcy, etc., none of that happened here, I think Richard points out that this is a very difficult situation today, but when I think about Britain and I think about World War II and you see those movies that came out a couple of years ago about Churchill, etc. I find it difficult today to believe that this has anything to even compare to that situation where the existence of democracy or freedom as we knew it was at stake and the incredible courage of the leaders of Britain and the people and in many ways allowing the world to be what it is today, so yeah, I guess I mean, I would agree with what you're saying, except I think it's worth remembering that Europe was formed at the end of World War II by Churchill and the other Europeans. leaders to make sure we would never go to war again and every generation before mine my father fought with gin all over Europe my grandfather was in the trenches and was gassed in Europe and that goes back generation after generation and we must not forget this and And that is, I think, another consequence, another danger of starting to see the breakup of Europe and you know you have something that is by no means perfect, but you know, don't we have to fight to try to prevent it from breaking up?

Michael, here is your political question, so I would like to ask Richard a question: do you think that the leaders, if they felt they had another vote, would reject Brexit if they felt confident that they would move in that direction? The opinion polls clearly say that People believe that Brexit with the vote for a Brexit was that which was useless last time, yes, but the Pinyon polls have been going up and up very consistently for the last two years and, personally, I think it would be a clear decision. You know, no, no, to Brexit, you know what the leaders believe, the problem is, you know, sitting around the Prime Minister, she has a group of, you know, people who want to lift the borders, you know, you know, the far right and then she gets caught up and wants another referendum, you know, so I don't thinkyou get it, you know, in the end she's going to have to make a decision for herself and she's going to have to be brave, Michael, your question.

She deals with American politics for a moment. Many here want to know your opinion. Leave the rhetoric out. Well, this is this. Returning to this question, I will give you here some data that is real, it is not academic. I have 40 companies in my portfolio. all small private in almost every US state had their best cash flow quarter ever last quarter not because of tax reform but because of deregulation the policy is working the policy is crazy so the question is which it's your opinion on the outcome of the upcoming election because the two political directions are dramatically different So these are people who actually want to know the risk mitigation of changing American policy given the success of the economy, they forget the politics, the success of the economy, they are trying to mitigate risk and make a decision on capital expenditures.

What do you think is happening? Trump gets another term with his policies or it's this wave of whatever you want to call it when he arrives in the United States. This is really about capital flow. I think it's my own opinion too soon. President Bush 41 had an 80% approval rating ten months earlier. the election and he didn't win I think it's a question of what the discussion is: Will Mike Bloomberg run for president? The discussion would change dramatically on the Democratic list. Is Howard Schultz going to continue his efforts to run for president? I think it changes the dialogue and so I think the whole question is what will the dialogue be in a year?

So I think you raised an important point for 20 years. I owned a company called Vistage it's like a for-profit YPO with over 10,000 CEOs and if you ask small and medium sized businesses what they wanted, they really wanted three things, one they wanted to know that management believed in the free enterprise, that's the first thing they wanted. The second thing they wanted to know is: could they open their laundry mats? Could they work? There is no new regulator. A new regulation every day. Can we get the regulatory burden? We want to build our business. Can you let us build our business? too small to have 1,520 people dealing with each of these areas and the last thing they wanted to know is can they bring manufacturing or can they do more things in the United States or could they get a tax code similar to what happened in Ireland, etc. are the three things that interested 10,000 CEOs of small and medium-sized businesses, this administration has brought those three and as you have pointed out, small and medium-sized businesses also brought something else and they are the opportunity zones, so we have identified more Of a thousand areas in the United States that you can invest in and you don't have to pay a capital gain on appreciation, you can reinvest your money well.

I can do it in the United Arab Emirates and I can do it in Hong Kong and I can do it. in Singapore, but we have designated these areas for reconstruction, we have a good year or a year and a half to see if we have taken over in many of these troubled areas of the United States and redeployed capital to create them, so my opinion is I would hope a year and I think the dialogue depends largely on who is running in the Democratic Party to get the interesting answer, a good way to not answer.

Be honest about it, you don't know what's going to happen. I want to get to space in a minute, but I have one more question about the competition of nations because there are huge flows of capital moving around. I am an indexer. I work by looking at how money moves from one geography to another and I'm always intrigued as to why I have an example for you gentlemen and I want to talk about the global situation and we are in an environment where this country has been very successful. in using your own capital and in increasing the interest of others in bringing theirs here.

Let's take North America for a second. Trump is elected changes to tax policy deregulation eliminates any view of the carbon tax or anything to do with paying for the environment, whether you like it or not is a fact that made it very attractive to capital north of the border went in a different direction and more wealth distribution mandate a young prime minister you nanu introduced a 70 percent tax rate for Canadians fifty-three plus sixteen thirty percent VAT plus three percent carbon tax leads to a Canadian to more than seventy percent taxes in a matter of thirty-six months direct investment in the Canadian economy fell by 52 percent, hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost, it has never happened so fast before in any country and, As a result, the young Prime Minister faces a dilemma next October: he may not be elected again now that he begins to see successes. of changing policy geographies and seeing the rapid movement of capital, what will happen in the future, you believe that countries will compete for that capital because it no longer seems to have borders, money moves towards the lowest risk and the highest probability of outcomes . and this country is a good example of that, so when you start thinking about being an investor and the policies and the returns, doesn't that dictate the future of where the capital will go and where the entrepreneurs will be and that may be Asia Richard ?

Well, I think you've thought about your own question, but I think I think you mentioned climate change. I mean, I'm just not going to answer your question specifically here, but climate change is, in my opinion, one of the biggest threats facing this world and governments should do something about it, not Canada unilaterally, but globally, This should be a carbon tax and I own an airline. I don't direct attacks on spaceships, it can cost the politician his job if it is a universal tax. carbon tax and then you give that money back to the clean energy companies, so you actually start to create a differential between dirty fuel and clean fuel.

You will see it, soon you will see the clean energy business prosper and soon you will see the world. Moving towards clean energy, I want to say that politicians should think beyond the next two or three years in office, they should sell it directly to their people and I think, once again, young people overwhelmingly realize that the world has a problem and I want politicians to do more Kevin I couldn't agree more with Richard. I think financial incentives can be created. He talked about a carbon tax. I believe that financial incentives can be created to solve these problems.

Richard dr. Sandor joined the Milken Institute in the mid 1980s, you may remember we were all going to die from sulfur dioxide acid rain, movies, books all written about it, the credit was created that you had to reduce your admissions if you couldn't reduce them. you had to buy a credit if you could cut a little more you got credits within 10 to 15 years if you looked at maps and satellite photographs in the United States ninety-five percent of all sulfur dioxide was gone you created an incentive for people replace the old one, factories eliminate SO2 and we no longer have any articles about how we are going to die from acid rain.

I want to emphasize that you left a country in North America called Mexico and Mexico, in my opinion, this could be its best period. For the next 20 years, China cannot compete with Mexico and manufactures many products that can be exported from Mexico to Europe without tariffs. High-quality automobiles are being manufactured and assembled, so the question is what the new president and his leaders will do in Mexico and I think this gets back to his leadership point: are they going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here? by not importing gas from the United States by not allowing private companies and others to come and develop their resources today, so these are challenges, but I want to move forward if I can, to something we want to touch on tonight and that is space, there is an infinite piece of tape that Michael has to roll, okay, I just want to, I'm going to set the stage, there's a chance. greater than zero that something could happen to the earth there is a probability greater than zero companies and it could happen to our child if the human race ever existed is there any memory of the human race the nearest star is four million light years away away and that's why the effort by Richard and others to title this is something from heaven, it is, but you think you're talking about trade between countries.

You know, one thing that won't unite the Earth completely is simply having an asteroid heading this way that could cause serious damage. to our planet then everything will combine so I think this called to space the call to movement and the first effort is to turn it into a commercial enterprise and I can't applaud Richard enough for reminding us of this call to space and the importance of So Let's get into it, but before we start I have a wonderful tape that I want to show you, can we roll? It's about Richards' efforts here in space.

Space exploration will continue and is one of the great adventures of all. Time that we humans have managed to learn so much about the universe in a relatively small period of time compared to the lifetime of the universe, that was always incredible to me. Our mission is to reduce the barrier to entering orbit for companies and entrepreneurs, universities and countries. can bring capabilities to space that helped us here on Earth as a species. We have traveled around that planet at the same speed for the last 50 to 60 years in a spacecraft that will be the first space plane to fly regularly. humans faster than three times the speed of sound by bringing hundreds and eventually thousands of people into space will gain a different perspective on life and our future that will have a profound impact on how humanity faces its most difficult problems together we can make space accessible in a way that has only been dreamed of until now and by doing so, we can truly bring positive change to life on Earth.

They should be the unit. Welcome to space. Million dollar view based on Jaffe. Richard. Your words were: I want to democratize space. What does that mean? I mean, how many people in this room would like to go to space? Ok, that's your answer. In a typical room I find that 60. 70% of people would love the opportunity to become astronauts. Know? Go to space to look back at this beautiful Earth. We live and return wanting to protect it even more and also with a virgin orbit. I mean, there are four and a half billion people who are not connected.

We will put a variety of satellites around the Earth and connect those four and a half billion. people and if you are not connected it is very difficult to start a business education health many other things don't work so and so yes that's pretty much what I mean it's just a for profit company I hope so I mean Companies like these don't survive unless they are for profit and you know, I've invested over a billion dollars. We've had a wonderful partner here in Abu Dhabi who is being, you know, our main partner to date and without them.

I don't think we'd watch this video today and I also had some pretty interesting talks today in Abu Dhabi. I can't say much, but I have to reveal something. I think there are only spaceports in the United States, China and Russia, where If not, would people like to have a spaceport? What is this space? As they say Michael, you have also had an interest in space, you have always had a passion for it and that is a dark vision that you have that we have to leave the planet for various reasons. reasons that are not financial, when you are an investor you like to hedge or invest, so my point is that the probability is very low but it is greater than zero, do you want to know that humans once existed?

What is our message? I haven't figured out how to travel faster than the speed of light yet, so we need to protect our planet but also have vehicles, if we need them, that can go out into space and support life, and this to me encourages me, if you think about space, really. Not enough has been written about today and I think it will be 1957. Sputnik emerged in the middle of the Cold War. Communism was superior to the free enterprise system. They put this little ball that circulated. I'm an elementary school student, okay? woke up to what the mission was the country the United States were scared people didn't know what to do the Soviet Union thought it was their best time than communism and 1 this was the day the Soviet Union ended woke up the United States DARPA was formed since NASA was formed in an economy 40 times the size woke up to go to space and the president of the United States, you know, said we will go there not because it is easy but because it is difficult and it sparked interest of the world.

Many things have happened and to me, when you go and look at this our earth, this blue ball, anyone who loves space, yes, theyI wrote to the president of the United States in 1957 telling him that I wanted to run the space program. I didn't tell him I was 11 years old. but you know it didn't work, but it's hard not to feel the unity on the planet shake. nyan reminded us of the importance of humanity and tolerance tonight in Abu Dhabi and I think you can't be out there and look back at this land. and you realize that there is nothing like this within 4 million light years and no one is going to get there today and there may not be anything like this out there at all and you can't want to do anything more than protect this planet.

For me it has many missions, it is not only the excitement of going to space, but also the understanding of how small this planet is in the universe and how important it is to protect it and how we are one and how we can create opportunities for everyone. so I think it serves a lot of missions and as Richard says, nothing is really ultimately sustainable unless it makes a profit and is economically sustainable. I love that it's an optimistic note we're ending on. Thank you so much. I would like a warm hand for these. wonderful entrepreneurs thank you thank you all for coming thank you Richard thank you Michael take care everyone