To be sure, Branson is aware that it takes profits for a business to have the luxury to do good. Take the magazine. "The business aspect was just, you know, the magazine had to survive, so I had to sell enough advertising to cover the printing and the paper costs. Survival played a part, but it was the boring side of what we were doing," he says.

It all sounds like such a matter of happenstance. Of course it wasn't. Anyone who has created a business from the ground up knows how much work it takes. Nor does Virgin Group's evolution sound like such a big feat, as Branson tells it:
"In those days it just came. An artist came to us, he had a tape, and nobody else would release it. I set out to try to get it released by the record companies. Nobody would release it, so we formed a record company and put it out."

So was born Virgin Records, a company that signed Mike Oldfield, the Sex Pistols, Culture Club and many other chart-topping artists, including the Rolling Stones, to its label. It sold in 1992 to EMI for nearly $1 billion.

"We ended up going into the airline business. I was sitting in Puerto Rico one day trying to get to the Virgin Islands and they bumped us. Airlines do bump people. So I got a blackboard and hired a plane and walked around in the foyer, $39 single to Puerto Rico, to all the other people who got bumped. I managed to sell my first flight, and we headed off to the Virgin Islands. I forgot to divide my name amongst all the other names so I actually made $39 profit."

So was born Virgin Airlines, which operates a multitude of routes throughout the world as Virgin Atlantic, Virgin America and Virgin Australia. The franchise is worth billions, and is recognized as one of the top brands in the world today.

Add to those businesses a mobile phone company (Virgin Mobile), a travel company (Virgin Holidays), a bank (Virgin Money), the previously mentioned space travel company (Virgin Galactic), and several hundred more companies peppered with the Virgin prefix, if you will, and you have the Virgin Group.

"It's only I suppose once we got to a stage where our group was not going to go bankrupt, was financially strong, then basically what we said was why invest in any kind of business? Why don't we start looking at businesses that are good. We've got a choice of cigarette companies or clean fuels.  Let's go for clean fuels. ... We've got spare money to spend. Let's direct it in ways that make a positive difference and hopefully make a profit as well."

What Branson has described-making a positive difference and profiting-is impact investing, one of the fastest-growing segments of the financial services industry.  Other billionaires such as Bill Gates, Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll and financial institutions such as JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, as well as big nonprofits with familiar names-Rockefeller, Ford, Kellogg-have turned to impact investing as well. Funds have been devised. To date, about $65 billion to $75 billion has flowed into the space, with estimates for 10 times that amount to be invested over the coming decade.

This autumn, Virgin will launch its own impact investing fund in the United Kingdom. Virgin Unite will also be adding to its initiatives and deepening its ties to the business community with its Business Elders program. The idea is to enlist top minds and thought leaders to shift the business landscape.
Additions should come as no surprise. Virgin Unite invests in causes and starts programs at a blistering rate and speed.
"The trouble with Jean and I is, normally at Virgin [Group] I've got the board that says 'no' occasionally," Branson says. The Jean he is referring to is Jean Oelwang, the chief executive of Virgin Unite, where, Branson notes, there is no board that says "no."
As he casually mentions her name, Oelwang sits down at our beachside table to join the conversation.

It's seamless, really, how the subjects blend together, overlap, gel, morph into something else and then carry on. The same with people. They come and go, enter and exit, all without pause, pomp or circumstance. This is the casually effective way in which Branson operates. It's an open door policy.