Bombardier A magazine for Rule Breakers
RISK GAME Survivor, teacher, is the
TV host
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ROW THE ATLANTIC
F
John AIRFAX
SCREW IT
LET’S DO IT!
The Most Interesting Man In the World
Exclusive interview with the elusive, inquisitive, and ingenious
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SIR RICHARD BRANSON P1
TABLE OF CONTENTS NOVEMBER 2013 BOMBARDIER
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
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LEGENDARY
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FUNNY BUSINESS
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RISK IS THE GAME
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MANCHESTER MAESTRO
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WORK HARD AND SMART
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NOV 2013
A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR HEY, THANKS! In case you haven’t noticed, you’re reading BOMBARDIER Magazine! So firstly, thanks for picking it up and giving us a chance. Unlike many other business magazines, this one is going to give you some inspiration, rather than just make you feel like you’re doing nothing with your life. Besides being beautifully designed, we wanted to create a magazine that is interesting, informative, and inspirational for anyone interested in business. We’re about breaking rules. Explorers, artists, and inventors have all graced
WE ARE RULE BREAKERS, LOVERS, FIGHTERS, THE BOLD, THE FIRST, THE PERSEVERANT, THE WINNERS.
B OM B ARDIER our pages with their personal accounts of perseverance and ingenuity, just as business leaders have done the same. To call us just a business magazine would be an understatement. The idea is actually pretty simple: inspire people! Even business people need some inspiration, they need to learn to break the rules, go farther, you get what I mean. Breaking the rules is pretty simple in the business world but when you try to live too much by the rules you lose creativity, self-worth, and individuality. We will be collecting business leaders and hundreds of other people who’s actions justify their position, skill, and tenacity. It’s not because they had something special, but because of their determination. I hope you enjoy the magazine and learn a lot about you and the world.
THE LOSERS, THOSE WHO ARE IN FOR THE LONG FIGHT TILL WE WIN. THE GOAL IS TO BE ABOVE AND BEYOND. DON’T EVER FORGET. THIS IS BOMBARDIER
A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Editor: Justin Sooter Justin is a really great editor. Seriously he totally is. He’s a rule breaker and a general know-it-all. He thinks he’s really awesome but he’s only kind of okay. But on another note he is a really good editor and loves BOMBARDIER.
WAIT, THERE’S MORE See some of what’s coming next issue THE AVETT BROTHERS A perfect melody of rule breaking and folk: you have the Avett Brothers. They are above and beyond what BOMBARDIER is about. Next month is gonna be great!
JK ROWLING The legendary writer is now Britain’s most wealthy woman. She above and beyond what BOMBARDIER is about. Next month is gonna be great!
NICK OFFERMAN Actor, Man, Mustache. He is above and beyond what BOMBARDIER is about. Next month is gonna be great!
JAY Z From Brooklyn to L.A. to International fame. He is above and beyond what BOMBARDIER is about. Next month is gonna be great!
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APPLE GOES BEYOND This week, Apple unveiled the first largescale integration of iBeacon, a technology that, when coupled with their fingerprint identification system, may be another building block in building a revolutionary new payment system. What is iBeacon? Before we go into the details as to how this new frictionless approach to payment will work, let me explain what its component pieces are. In very simple terms, iBeacon is an indoor positioning system. While your GPS can identify where you are, its accuracy can be limited by a number of factors when you are indoors. So iBeacons are little radio transmitters that use very small amounts of electricity and can send information to a smartphone. The technology leverages improvements in the Bluetooth standards called Bluetooth Low Energy and is available on every iOS device since the iPhone 4S and every Android phone that supports Bluetooth 4.0 and Android OS 4.3 or later (that means that popular devices like the Samsung Galaxy S III and 4, the Nexus 4 or later, HTC One, and Droid DNA all support it).
PPG $187 +3.5%
WEBC $114 +5%
ROC $73 +4%
When a consumer gets close to an iBeacon, information can be pushed to their device via push messages and the consumer’s location is made available to the retailer, which can allow for such uses as in-store specific promotions or payment capabilities. This week, Apple rolled out the technology in all its stores. The iBeacon was incorporated into its Apple Store App, which allows consumers to skip the register lane and purchase items directly from their device when shopping for holiday items. With over half a billion users on iTunes, the company has a large trove of credit card numbers from most returning members, allowing it to optimize the payment process for existing customers.
BUSINESS & NEWS
Ford $16.70 (-.04) Apple $560.02 (-7.88) Google $1069.87 (+12.53) IBM $177.67 (+1.59) Walmart $79.94 (+.50) Bank of America $15.56 (+.13) General Electric $26.94 (+.49) Whole Foods Market $56.26 (+1.17) Chipotle $525.81 (+4.8) McDonalds $96.80 (+1.37) OBAMACARE LOSING VALUE Doctor and nurse vacancies are approaching nearly 20 percent at hospitals as these facilities prepare to be inundated by millions of patients who have the ability to pay for medical care thanks to the Affordable Care Act.
TC $2.25 +4%
A survey by health care provider staffing firm AMN Healthcare shows the vacancy rate for physicians at hospitals near 18 percent in 2013 while the nurse vacancy rate is 17 percent. That vacancy rate is more than three times what it was just four years ago when vacancies for nurses were just 5.5 percent in 2009 while vacancies for doctors were 10.7 percent. “There is a war for talent,” Sean Gregory, president of Health First Holmes Regional Medical Center, a 400-bed hospital in Melbourne, Florida, said in an interview with Forbes.
The employment picture comes as the Affordable Care Act and pressures by insurance companies and employers to control costs creates a shift
away from fee-for-service payment of doctors to approaches that emphasize more accountable care. Most of these new models use primary care doctors as a quarterback of sorts to nurse practitioners and physician assistants who reach out to the patients, making sure they are taking their medications, eating properly and adhering to doctor’s orders. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants are also in short supply with hospital executives seeing a vacancy rate of 15 percent, according to the AMN Healthcare survey. “We are actively hiring and building up cores of physician assistants and nurse practitioners,” Gregory said.
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THE LEGEND THE REAL THING Canary to Florida, California to Australia For a man who detested rowing, John Fairfax did an awful lot of it. In 1969, he was the first person to row solo across the Atlantic, taking six months to complete the journey from the Canary Islands to Florida. Two years later he tackled an even greater challenge when he and his girlfriend became the first to cross the Pacific in a rowboat. They departed from San Francisco and landed in Australia in 1972 after rowing for an entire year. On both trips he battled weather, waves, sharks and the tedium of 12-hour sessions at the oars. “John really was the real thing, a real adventurer” said Kenneth Crutchlow, executive director of the Ocean Rowing Society, who said Mr. Fairfax died Wednesday
at age 74. Born in Italy of an English father and a Bulgarian mother who resettled in Argentina, Mr. Fairfax had a peripatetic youth. He was kicked out of the boy scouts in Italy for firing at fellow scouts with a pistol. He first ran away from his home in Argentina at age 13. He soon returned to his mother in Buenos Aires, but left again and was on his own by his late teens. Even before Mr. Fairfax surfaced as a playboy living the high life in late 1960s London, he had a complicated history that by his own account included bicycling through Mexico and Central America, being abducted by pirates, working as a rum smuggler and fisherman, and fighting sharks for money.
I T ’ S T H E H ARDE S T WAY T O DO I T. He hunted jaguars in the Amazon jungle, traveling by dugout canoe while still a teenager. In 1957, he published a book about his adventures, “Vagabundos Bajo el Sol,”—”Vagabonds Under the Sun” —with an author’s portrait featuring a shirtless Mr. Fairfax with a 10-foot python slung about his shoulders. Ocean rowing also had a history, starting in 1896 when a pair of Norwegian immigrants cast off from New York and returned by rowboat to Europe. Mr. Fairfax said his Atlantic crossing was inspired by reading about the Norwegians as a child. “I’m always happiest when I tackle things alone,” Mr. Fairfax told reporters before casting off in his rowboat from the Canary Islands on Jan. 20, 1969. The boat, dubbed Britannia, was no pond-fishing craft, but a 22-foot double-hulled rowboat based on a design for an airdropped lifeboat. Britannia was painted bright orange to make it visible to freighters plying the Atlantic, was self-bailing and could right itself in seconds if overturned. Still, Mr. Fairfax was exposed to the weather and carried bland provisions such as oatmeal, much of which he jettisoned
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for weight. The rowing was tedious. En route, Mr. Fairfax fished for dorado from an accompanying school he called his “floating larder.” He dodged freighters, some of which pulled alongside to give him provisions. He said he fell overboard just once, while trying to open a bottle of scotch. On one occasion while he was scraping barnacles off the Britannia’s hull a giant mako shark menaced him and he slit it open “from mouth to tail,” he wrote in his log.
Rough and Ready Fairfax made a point of being prepared both mentally and physically during his voyages and daily life.
His boat, the Britannia, was designed as state of the art, however at sea maintenance to the vessel nearly killed him numerous times.
Adventuring Isn’t Easy
Mr. Fairfax arrived at Hollywood Beach, Florida, just south of Fort Lauderdale, on July 19, 1969. A photo of him hailing the retired ocean liner Queen Elizabeth in Fort Lauderdale harbor from his tiny rowboat ran in newspapers across the country. The American astronauts who had been first to land on the moon sent him a congratulatory message. “We who sail what President Kennedy once called ‘The new ocean of space’ are pleased to pay our respects to the man who, single-handedly, has conquered the still formidable ocean of water,” they wrote.
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LIVES ON Motivation Though Fairfax was in great physical condition, he always took a bottle of scotch and his pipe with him.
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JOHN FAIRFAX Rower, Professional Adventurer Born Edward Michael Grylls, Bear loved adventuring as a child and at the age of 23 he achieved his dream of scaling Mount Everest and its sister Ama Dablam.
Bear’s resume includes tackling jungles in Guyana with the British SAS, training with the French Foreign Legion, and hosting the toughest survival show on TV. “John really was the real thing, a real adventurer”
LEGENDARY
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LEGENDARY A Human Can Accomplish Anything When a reporter from the Miami Herald challenged his claim that he had killed the 15-foot shark armed only with a knife, an incensed Mr. Fairfax rented a boat, killed another big shark with his knife, and deposited it on the newspaper’s front step, according to Mr. Crutchlow of the Ocean Rowing Society, who said he witnessed the hunt. “I hate rowing,” Mr. Fairfax told the Boston Globe. By coincidence, the second successful solo Atlantic rowboat crossing was completed days later, on a shorter route from Newfoundland to Ireland. For the Pacific trip, Mr. Fairfax had a new, larger rowboat, Britannia II, built to accommodate his girlfriend, Sylvia Cook, as well. “The only reason I am doing this,” he told the Los Angeles Times, “is because it is the hardest way to cross the Pacific.” The pair took off from San Francisco on April 26, 1971, and were immediately storm-blown to Baja California, Mexico, where they landed, bedraggled, and relaunched two weeks later. The Pacific voyage seemed endless, Ms. Cook said, constant rowing punctuated only by occasional stops for water at islands. At one point Mr. Fairfax was gutting a small shark he had caught when it somehow came to life and bit a chunk out of his arm. Ms. Cook sewed the arm up, but Mr. Fairfax was incapacitated for weeks and the boat’s progress slowed. At one point they lost radio contact in a cyclone, and others feared them lost, but they survived. The crossing ended April 22, 1972, after an estimated 8,000 nautical miles at Hayman Island in Australia, site of a luxury resort near the Great Barrier Reef.
Mr. Fairfax had been laying plans for a new adventure, a skiing trip across Antarctica, when he married in 1981 and settled in Las Vegas where his new wife, Tiffany, worked as an astrologer, writing a newspaper column, “Cosmic Jackpot.” Mr. Fairfax made his living at the game of baccarat, Mrs. Fairfax said. He painted for relaxation and had been at work on a book about the stupidity of humanity, she said. In a 1997 interview with the Las Vegas Sun, Mr. Fairfax said, “I like to fight something that’s so far superior to me that if I lose, I don’t feel so bad, but if I win, I feel great.”
Atlantic Crossing
CANARY ISLANDS 180 DAYS ALONE
FLORIDA
“It was a miserable journey,” Mr. Fairfax told reporters. Mr. Fairfax subsequently contemplated but rejected a plan to row around Cape Horn: “It would have been a stunt, only that,” he told the Washington Post in 1973. He did have one other seagoing adventure. Having spotted during the Pacific crossing a ship laden with lead ingots on the reef at Washington Island (an atoll in the Oceania Republic of Kiribati), Mr. Fairfax returned to undertake a salvage operation. But the boat he chartered, the unpropitiously named Mal di Testa—”headache” in Italian—capsized and was abandoned, Ms. Cook said.
“I realized that rowing a boat across an ocean would take more than a well-stocked boat and navigational skills. It would do me no good to know my stars if I lacked the stamina to pull on the oars and follow them, hour after hour, day after day, for months.” -John Fairfax, Interview 1966
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JOHN FAIRFAX Hunter, Pirate, Rower, Adventurer
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John Fairfax, Rower, Professional Adventurer “ A human CAN accomplish anything if they had confidence” In Panama, he met a pirate, applied for a job as a pirate’s apprentice and was taken on. He spent three years smuggling guns, liquor and cigarettes around the world, becoming captain of one of his boss’s boats, work that gave him superb navigational skills. When piracy lost its luster, he gave his boss the slip and fetched up in 1960s London, at loose ends. He revived his boyhood dream of crossing the ocean and, since his pirate duties had entailed no rowing, he began to train. He rowed daily on the Serpentine, the lake in Hyde Park. Barely more than half a mile long, it was about one eightthousandth the width of the Atlantic, but it would do. On Jan. 20, 1969, Mr. Fairfax pushed off from the Canary Islands, bound for Florida. His 22-foot craft, the Britannia, was the Rolls-Royce of rowboats: made of mahogany, it had been created for the voyage by the eminent English boat designer Uffa Fox. It was self-righting, self-bailing and partly covered.
LEGENDARY
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THE BUSINESS 2
SIR RICHARD BRANSON Adventurer, Author, Television Host Richard Branson, born 18 July, 1950, has become one of the world’s most successful and recognizable billionaires.
Virgin Group, the company which hosts everything from beverages, to music, to travel, is the venture of Sir Richard Branson with over 30 subsidiaries internationally. “Business and fun should go hand in hand.”
“I want to go to space. My newest venture is the final frontier.”
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OF HAVING FUN FUNNY BUSINESS The Beginning of the Brilliant Rule Breaking The 20-something Richard Branson racked up a résumé that would impress no one: highschool dropout with poor reading and math skills. Failed get-rich-quick schemes. Longhaired, barefooted hippie. Struggling business that led to two arrests and a night in jail on suspicion of tax evasion. But as he turns 59 in July, Branson’s life seems as golden as his locks. Worth about $4.4 billion, he ranked as the 236th richest person in 2008, according to Forbes. Branson has put his Virgin brand on independent businesses in the airline, hospitality, space travel and financial industries, to name a few. He has made headlines as a humanitarian, environmentalist and adventurer. In 2000, he was knighted for his services to entrepreneurship.
Perseverance, imagination and courage sustained his transformation. His family nurtured his independence and entrepreneurial spirit; however, many of his strengths were born out of struggles. Dyslexia, for instance, made reading and understanding some concepts painfully difficult. Even today, he says he doesn’t trust numbers. “I don’t complicate my life with financial reports,” he says, laughing. But he compensated for what he lacked by exceeding in other areas, developing extraordinary people skills and learning to trust his instincts. “I do a lot by gut feeling and a lot by personal experience,” Branson says. “I mean, if I relied on accountants to make decisions, I
Y O U O N LY L I V E O N C E A N D I DO N ’ T W A N T T O W A S T E A MOME N T. most certainly would have never gone into the airline business. I most certainly would not have gone into the space business, and I certainly wouldn’t have gone into most of the businesses that I’m in. So, in hindsight, it seems to have worked pretty well to my advantage.” In addition to Virgin Atlantic, Branson’s airlines include Virgin Blue and V Australia in Australia, and Virgin America. He expects to fly even higher with Virgin Galactic, which plans to offer space tourism beginning in 2011 or 2012 (f lights are $200,000 per ticket, and the group has already secured almost $40 million in bookings). Interested passengers include designer Philippe Starck, actress Sigourney Weaver, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and, of course, Branson and his family. In a new venture to encourage entrepreneurship, Branson launched PitchTV in March as part of Virgin Atlantic’s 25th anniversary celebrations. The show will air the video pitches of wannabe entrepreneurs onboard and online. Virgin Atlantic’s business travelers,
FUNNY BUSINESS
many of them executives, will see the pitches, and each year Branson will select a favorite with a yet-undisclosed prize for the winner. Branson remains mindful of his own entrepreneurial beginnings, as well as the fact that great ideas from up-and-comers help fuel the Virgin Group today. He tells SUCCESS that one key to entrepreneurial success is to “get a great group of people around you who believe in your idea.” Just as he had his family’s support from his childhood to his earliest business ventures to his space flights today, Branson aims to provide encouragement and inspiration for other entrepreneurs. But, he says, the ultimate reward for an entrepreneur is individual and personal.
New Ventures Branson has lead the way in the privatization of space travel. He now regularly flies anyone willing to buy a $250,000 ticket to space.
In 2000, Branson was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his “services to entrepreneurship,” among many other awards.
Knighthood
“Entrepreneurship is business’s beating heart. Entrepreneurship isn’t about capital; it’s about ideas. Entrepreneurship is also about excellence. Not excellence measured in awards or other people’s approval, but the sort that one achieves for oneself by exploring what the world has to offer.”
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FUNNY BUSINESS
“Take the compensation seriously, but not yourself.”
The founder of one of the most profitable businesses ever talks about not taking yourself too seriously, keeping it simple, and having fun.
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Sir Richard Branson, Founder and Chairman of Virgin Group “BUSINESS AND FUN SHOULD GO HAND IN HAND.” “I think “screwing business as usual” means that it’s important that people in business make sure the people working for them have fun. Business leaders take things far too seriously. They forget that people spend most of their lives at work, and it should be fun. That should almost go without saying. But I’m afraid that in a lot of companies, it doesn’t go without saying.”
Out of what had been a chaotic and heartbreaking experience came a new business strategy: “branded venture capitalism,” as Branson calls it, which gives him control over a large number of companies with minimal financial risk. Today, the Virgin Group is an eclectic empire of more than 200 diverse companies that run independently with different shareholders and boards, yet share the brand, as well as the resources and collective knowledge and experience of others at Virgin. Branson believes in empowering talent to flourish, providing freedom and minimizing bureaucracy to foster creativity. “Every business… operates according to its own rules. There are many ways to run a successful company. What works once may never work again,” Branson writes in Business Stripped Bare. “There are no rules. You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing.” Virgin Group currently operates in more than 50 countries and employs over 50,000 people. P 12
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Virgin Group Annual Revenue
“I think because I have great difficulty saying the word, ‘no,’ almost every day’s a different adventure.”
2008 £15bn
2011 £3.992bn
2013 £12bn ESTIMATED
2009 £3.8bn Interview With Sir Richard Branson: Success & Creativity in Business Q: What’s an example of thinking differently? Branson: We’re looking at setting up a business leaders group where we can brainstorm all the ways of turning business on their head. For instance, should there be 10 percent of people completely out of work, when 90 percent of people are working day and night, more hours than they want to work? When we’re in a time of crisis, why not share the amount of work around? Why don’t you go to companies and say, how many people would like to job-share? How many people would like to go part-time for the next year or two while there’s this recession on? That’s the kind of approach that I think the country needs in the future. Q: You say in your book, “Those of us who have been fortunate enough to acquire wealth must play a role in looking at how we use these means to make the world a far better place.” What should the role of the wealthy entrepreneur be today? As far as people giving hard cash is concerned, that makes sense in the moment, in particular if there’s a famine or some real crisis. It’s very important that people give and give generously—and a few wealthier people can afford to give more than others. All I’m saying is that anybody who has got the time to use their entrepreneurial skills to start up more companies to make more profit could also use some of their time to start up, say, a not-for-profit organization to tackle some of the big problems in this world, or even some of the smaller problems in this world. I’ve had enormous satisfaction setting up The Elders, and setting up the Centers for Disease Control in Africa. To be able to look at the profit bottom line at the end of the year, and also say, “Have we managed to stop any wars this year?” “Have we been able to reduce global warming?” “Have we stopped any diseases?” It’s just a different approach. Q: What business models in the realm of social entrepreneurship do you admire? I think there are lots of good examples. Jeff Skoll, who started Participant Films, is one of my favorites. Instead of just making films to make money, he’s made films to try to make a difference in the world. An Inconvenient Truth would not have been made if it weren’t for Jeff Skoll. And if it hadn’t been made, I don’t think Virgin would have pledged profits from the airline business to trying to tackle the problem of global warming and trying to invent clean fuels.
Q: What do you consider the most innovative venture of the Virgin Group? What about the most charitable?
2010 £10.8bn
2012 £15bn
The most innovative one must be the spaceship company. We just had a final rocket test yesterday, and that was successful. We’re about one year from taking people into space—it’s very, very, very close now. I suppose the most satisfying one we’ve launched is The Elders, which is a foundation. The Elders is headed up by Nelson Mandela and President Carter, along with Kofi Annan and Archbishop Tutu, and they’ll go into conflict regions and try to resolve conflicts, and they’ve had some good successes. I’d have to say that’s the most worthwhile venture. Q: What about the most profitable? I would say moving into the airline business—which is strange, because most people would say the airline business is bankrupt. But I think we’ve created the best airlines in the world. We’ve created three airlines, the best quality airlines: Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia, and Virgin America. They’ve made a real difference to the flying experience for people, and people come back for more, and the airlines have done well over the years. Q: What’s the one invention you’d like to see in the next five years that you won’t be the creator of? Yeah, well, I’d like somebody to make the body of a 20-year-old for me in the next five years! I don’t ask for a lot. Q: Fair enough. But how about one more? One invention? We have a $25 million prize that we put out there called the Earth Prize to see if anyone can come up with a device to take carbon out of the Earth’s atmosphere. If someone do with that in the next five years, it would potentially save the world from global warming, so it would be wonderful if someone could win that prize.
“The best ideas come from people just wanting to create, like [Google co-founder] Larry Page in his garage just wanted to create a product that he could play with, and then you go and try to make sure that you can pay the bills at the end of the month,” Mr. Branson says. He’s flanked by Jean Oelwang, CEO of his empire’s charitable arm, Virgin Unite, who doesn’t seem pleased that I’m not interested in “high-impact social investment.” But Mr. Branson is on a roll. “If I’d gone to the accountants and said, could you please work out the profit and loss of starting a spaceship company—especially when we didn’t even have a spaceship—they would’ve laughed at me.”
FUNNY BUSINESS
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AD V E N T U RE Risk Is The Game The top of Everest, the jungles of Africa, and the blazing Sahara... All part of the ongoing adventure that Bear Grylls lives. After earning the nickname “Bear” during his climb of Everest, he expanded his knowledge and experience by joining the British SAS and launched a career of adventuring and pushing the bounds of what is possible. Bear’s penchant for adventure has established this 37-year-old Englishman as television’s foremost survivalist. In episodes of the Discovery Channel’s “Man vs. Wild,” he has been dropped into some punishing environments (the sands of the Sahara, the frigid Siberian wilderness) with little more than a knife, a water bottle and the instructions to make it out alive. In his new autobiography, “Mud, Sweat, and Tears,” he recounts some of these expeditions, along with stories from the days before he became a television personality. Below are excerpts from a conversation with him.
Q. When did you first grow interested in the outdoors? Bear: My late dad had been a royal marine commando and a climber. He started taking me out into the wild at a young age, doing everything from climbing sea cliffs hundreds of feet up to making boats and building treehouses. He taught me to take risks but to always listen to my inner voice; to work out clever solutions even when the situation was dramatically low on tools. Q. When you were in the British Special Forces in southern Africa, your parachute failed to open, resulting in an injury that nearly left you paralyzed. What effect did that have on you? Bear: Those long months in military rehabilitation were a dark time for me. I couldn’t move and was in constant agony, strapped up in braces. It was while I was lying there that I determined to refind
IF Y O U RIS K NOT H I NG Y OU GAIN NO T H I N G. my childhood dream to climb Everest. I left that hospital by God’s grace determined to live life boldly and without regrets. Q. Why do you find adventure travel so attractive? Bear: Adventure brings out the best and worst in people. We don’t always allow ourselves to get pushed to the edge, either physically or mentally. Adventure is different: the wild is unpredictable. However much we prepare, things sometimes go wrong, and it is then that the real adventures begin. We get squeezed. And we see what we are all really made of. My experience tells me that people are much stronger than they often give themselves credit for. It is why I say the wild can empower you. And that’s not something money can buy. Q. What was your most dangerous trip? Bear: Probably a small expedition I led across the Arctic Ocean in an open inflatable boat. It became a nightmare. We hit freak subzero storms off the ice packs of Greenland and gale force winds. In a tiny open boat, you are truly at the mercy of the elements, and your survival is then taken out of your hands into the hands of mother luck. All five of us had to face the prospect of death during those nights.
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Q. What travel recommendations do you have for adventurers? Bear: Pick a terrain, pick a sport, then open up your atlas. Try Patagonia to sea kayak, Alaska to heli-ski or Borneo to scuba dive and jungle trek. Q: Is knowing how to survive an inherently masculine trait? Does this knowledge make you more of a man?
Churning Waters Bear wading across the Hainan River in Southern China during the filming of Born Survivor on the Discovery Channel in 2010.
Along with others, Bear underwent training in the Sahara Desert with the French Foreign Legion for a four-part series, Escape to the Legion.
Tough Enough
Bear: No. But it is what is natural to me. Some of the greatest survivors have been women. Look at the courage so many women have shown after surviving earthquakes in the rubble for days on end. Look at the women surviving in Japan right now. Courage is quiet, and strength is spirit. That is not a male or female issue. Q: What, in your opinion, is one quality every man should have to be a better man? Bear: An awareness of their need sometimes for help. A man’s pride can be his downfall, and he needs to learn when to turn to others for support and guidance. Q: Do you have a personal motto? Bear: “Victory belongs to the most persevering.”
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IS
CALLING
Wild Ride During his time in Australia filming Man Vs. Wild, Bear came across many crocodiles, one of his least favorite adventures.
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BEAR GRYLLS Adventurer, Author, Television Host Born Edward Michael Grylls, Bear loved adventuring as a child and at the age of 23 he achieved his dream of scaling Mount Everest and its sister Ama Dablam.
Bear’s resume includes tackling jungles in Guyana with the British SAS, training with the French Foreign Legion, and hosting the toughest survival show on TV. Advice: “Smile when it’s raining and never ever ever ever give up. That’s all you need to know.”
RISK IS THE GAME
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“I’m really a simple guy, I just happen to have a complex job.”
Q: What adventure most changed your life? Bear: The parachuting accident I had when I was 22 while a member of the British special forces. The canopy ripped at about 14,000 feet. I smashed into the desert, broke my back in three places, and spent the next year in rehabilitation, strapped up in braces and all that bad stuff. I’d missed severing my spinal cord by like a millimeter, so I was aware that life had given me a precious second chance. That’s when climbing Everest, a dream of mine since I was seven, became the whole focus of my recovery. Eighteen months after the accident, I was on top of Everest. You’ve got to grab life and live it boldly.
Q: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? Bear: When I was a kid and received another bad school report, my father would say, “Hey, listen, that’s the details. The important stuff is to follow your dreams and look after your friends.” That, to him, was life in a nutshell. Q: How should a man best face his fears? Bear: Understand that fear is an emotion that’s there to give you an edge for what you need to do. It’s your instinct talking. If I’m honest, I get scared most days, but I try to use that.
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NOV 2013
BEAR GRYLLS
“I’m not in it for the fame.”
British dare-devil shares his skills and action packed lifestyle as a host on arguably TV’s toughest show.
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Bear Grylls, Survivalist, Adventurer, TV host “Adventure Never Ends” “I don’t think I’m really in a situation to complain, because I consider myself to be privileged to be doing what I do. The spotlight will always be on me, but it’s something I’m learning to live with as the years go by.” Taught to climb and sail at an early age by his father, Grylls earned a black belt in karate as a teenager (he now favors yoga and ninjitsu), then joined the British Special Air Service right out of Eton College, the elite British prep school. In 1996, he came “within a whisker,” as his surgeon put it, of being paralyzed for life when his parachute failed him on a training exercise in Africa. During an agonizing 18-month recovery, he vowed that if he walked again – an open question at first – he’d climb Mount Everest. Two years later, at 23, he became the youngest Englishman (at the time) to reach the Earth’s highest point. He has since flown a motorized parasail as high as Everest’s summit, crossed the North Atlantic by rigid inflatable boat, and completed the notoriously brutal French legionnaires desert course for one of his first significant TV documentaries in the U.K.
“You’ve got to grab life and live it boldly.” RISK IS THE GAME
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MANCHESTER 4
DAVID BECKHAM
International Footballer David Beckham, born May 2, 1975 in Leytonstone, England, began his extravagant football career in 1991 when he signed on to Manchester United Football Club.
The leadership of famed manager Sir Alex Ferguson brought Manchester United and Beckham many titles and wins. Beckham eventually moved to Real Madrid after 12 years of glory in England.
“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
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Tag Team Lebron James has expressed interest in joining Beckham in starting an MLS soccer team in Miami.
NOV 2013
MAE S T RO MORE THAN A GAME Transforming into a businessman If you’re not a big fan of David Beckham you might want to spend the next four years or so under a rock because the former Galaxy midfielder seems to be making news every day in his effort to bring a Major League Soccer franchise to Miami. Miami Heat superstar LeBron James confirmed Monday he’s in discussions with soccer icon David Beckham to potentially bring an MLS franchise back to South Florida. LeBron James said he’s talking with David Beckham about interest in a potential MLS franchise for Miami. Beckham, who recently retired as one of the sport’s most recognizable players, has been exploring the idea of running his own MLS franchise for the past few months. MLS had a franchise in South Florida from 1998 to 2001, but the Fusion folded after playing in Fort Lauderdale. James insisted the discussions are preliminary and haven’t advanced past “some open dialogues.”
Managership Beckham was made assistant coach during the 2010 World Cup, earning him much praise and recognition.
Though football was his first love, Beckham has interest in ownership of other sports teams and is an avid Miami Heat fan.
and Beckham reach agreement on the MLS team, it will be the latest of several business ventures James is attached to in South Florida. He already owns a sports apparel store in a suburban Miami mall, and his wife, Savannah, is set to open a juice bar near the couple’s home in Coconut Grove. The business moves, coupled with James’ success on the court the past two seasons, have many fans in Miami hoping the ventures are signs he will remain with the Heat in the long term. James could opt out of the final two years of his Heat contract after this season to pursue free agency.
Last month, a source told ESPN FC that Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross expressed his interest in looking to partner with Beckham to bring an MLS expansion team to Miami. The source indicated that if Beckham and his partners are successful in landing a team, Ross will work in conjunction with the group, “The research is still being made out, but I think it can and that Ross wouldn’t provide any of the start-up be huge,” said James, a four-time league MVP and money needed by Beckham’s consortium. two-time champion. “But you never know. I think this is a great town for soccer. There are a lot of soccer Beckham reportedly has an option to acquire an MLS players here. There is a lot of great youth soccer expansion franchise at a discounted rate, believed to here.” be $25 million. It also has been reported that Beckham’s option expires at the end of the year, although James said his interest in the sport has grown in the ESPN FC could not confirm that detail. two years since he secured a business partnership with Fenway Sports Group to purchase Liverpool. James spent time in England touring the team’s facilities and meeting with players after he won his first NBA championship with the Heat in 2012. If James
New Ventures 2012 £16.5mil
2010 £3.6mil 2011 £7.5mil
2009 £1.5mil 2013 £4mil
MANCHESTER MAESTRO
Beckham Ventures Annual Profits P 19
MANCHESTER MAESTRO From International Footballer to Investment Mogul Beckham Ventures, the company linked to Victoria Beckham’s clothing label, was star performing business for family brand. THREE companies at the heart of the Beckham family branding empire have posted combined profits of more than £4mil (RM20.3mil) and one director – thought to be David Beckham – has received £14.1mil (RM71.7mil) in pay for his success in exploiting brand and image rights. Beckham Ventures, the firm linked to Victoria Beckham’s clothing label, was the star performing business with sales jumping from £6.8mil (about RM34mil) to £15.4mil (RM78mil) last year. It is now close to the level of turnover at Footwork Productions, a sister company dedicated to exploiting the David Beckham brand.
THE BEST PART IS THE CHANCE
Victoria has built a growing following in the designer fashion world, letting her pop career as a Spice Girl fade. She presented her first catwalk collection in New York in 2008.
“This additional line has proven to be successful and has been a key driver in growing revenues,” the accounts state.
Meanwhile, David Beckham’s Footwork Productions reported sales up 8% to £16.5mil (RM84mil) last year, but generated profits of just £390,500 (RM2mil) after incurring £14.4mil (RM73mil) of “administrative expensive” – largely accounted for by a £14.1mil (RM71.7mil) payout to the highest paid director.
While company papers suggest the activities do not extend much beyond exploiting the family brand, the accounts make clear the business has invested in considerable fashion production, leaving it holding £3.6mil (RM18mil) of stock at the end of last year. The business owed a similar sum to trade creditors.
This is thought to have gone to David, though Victoria and her father Tony Adams are also on the board, as is their lawyer Andrew Thompson.
Company Share
The biggest success among the Beckham’s three UK brand and imaging companies was recorded at Beckham Ventures, where a £2.1mil (about RM10mil) loss in 2011 was transformed into a pretax profit of £2mil for last year.
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David B eck ha m
n/Branding Fashio Investing
33.33%
His investment vehicle XIX Management owns an equal one-third stake in Beckham Ventures and another sister company, Beckham Brand. These two companies give their principal activities as “exploiting the brand of David and Victoria Beckham”.
% 33 3.
Beckham Ventures
X IX
Ma
nage
d. m e n t U K, L t
33.33% XIX Management UK, Ltd. 33.33% David Beckham 33.33% Victoria Beckham
Vic tor ia
ham ck Be
Another winner from the success of the Beckham brand is the couple’s manager Simon Fuller.
The Beckhams put this down to the company’s significant investment in launching the Victoria Beckham fashion line.
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.33
%
As part of a negotiated deal with Simon Fuller, Beckham’s agent and owner of XIX Management UK, Ltd., Beckham Ventures is owned by the Beckham family and Mr. Fuller. The main source of income is through fashion and brand promotion. H&M, Marc Jacobs, Adidas, Burberry, and Armani are all brands featuring the Beckham’s themselves and their brand.
‘I absolutely want an empire,’ said the star during the interview, held at her rental house in London. ‘I just wanted to create beautiful clothes, good quality clothes I wanted to wear myself.’ Victoria also admitted in the interview that she missed Los Angeles, where she, David and their four children - sons Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz and daughter Harper - lived recently. ‘I am very career minded, and I think my personality is more suited to America,’ she said. ‘I am a working mother.’ And as if to prove a point Victoria spent time throughout the interview continuing to do various aspects of her job. -Victoria Beckham, Interview 2012
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NOV 2013
DAVID BECKHAM
“I still look at myself and want to improve.”
Arguably one of the most successful and prolific footballers ever is trying his hand at investments, business, and starting a new MLS franchise.
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David Beckham, International Footballer “Every situation has changed me as a person.” “I don’t think I’m really in a situation to complain, because I consider myself to be privileged to be doing what I do. The spotlight will always be on me, but it’s something I’m learning to live with as the years go by.” Earlier this month MLS gave the green light to an expansion team in Orlando, which will join the league alongside a new New York team in 2015. That will bring to 21 the number of teams in MLS. The league has said it believes the next wave of expansion will add Atlanta in 2017. It’s possible the proposed Beckham team could join the league then as well. “There’s some interest in both sides,” James said Monday of his talks with Beckham, who has attended several Miami Heat games in recent seasons. “David has become a good friend of mine over the last few years, and I think it would be great for this city to have a football club for sure.”
Beckham Ventures had a combined profits of £4 million in 2013 MANCHESTER MAESTRO
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WOR K HARD YOU CAN ONLY CONTROL EFFORT Interview with Mark Cuban February 3, 2013 Q: I love pro sports, but I don’t think cities should be picking up the tab for things like championship parades — so kudos to you for paying for the Mavs’ victory parade out of your own pocket. Can you please convince your fellow owners to do the same whenever they win titles? -Rogah A. Everyone should make their own decision. Q. I’m a high schooler in Detroit. I just read something interesting the other day about my hometown — specifically that Detroit’s 14 largest employers, which have among them roughly 75,000 workers, are dominated by public organizations such as government entities, city and school systems, and health care companies. None of these entities pay taxes! It shouldn’t be a surprise that our city is in financial trouble. Do you think that Detroit will go away and never come back? Should I go to college out-of-state and plan on staying there? Is it likely (> 50 percent
chance) that Detroit will come back? -Terry A. I think that Detroit is undergoing a renaissance that will allow it to blossom. The first step is to revitalize its schools, and I know there are steps being taken. As far as business expansion, I know Dan Gilbert and others have been very excited about what they see going on in Detroit. It will just take time. The best way you can impact Detroit is to reach out to your classmates and encourage everyone to stay in school and go on to college. Q. I graduated with an undergrad engineering degree from MIT. I currently work in finance, as do the majority of my engineering classmate friends. This strikes me as a shame, specifically that many well-trained young engineering/tech minds aren’t working in technology. Seems like a lot of brainpower is spent “innovating” finance. What’s your take on this? Is this a problem? If so,
LOVE WHAT YOU DO OR DON’T DO IT. what could be done? -Milt A. I agree with you. It is a huge problem. We have too many bright grads concentrating on “financial engineering” rather than actually making something and contributing to society. I think we will see tax and regulatory policy that will reduce the incentives and increase the friction for those who “hack” the stock market and focus on financial engineering. Which, in turn, hopefully will incentivize you and others to enter other disciplines. I am in favor of a “Tobin Tax” which taxes many financial transactions with the goal of returning the stock market to its original purpose of being a market designed to raise capital for growing businesses of any size. I also think we should increase taxes on carried income earned by funds. If we can get the stock market back to its roots, then there will be far more capital available to companies of all sizes. That will increase the number of IPOs and secondaries by making it easier for companies to access markets directly, not only creating funding for those companies, but also creating incentives for early stage investors to take risks knowing there is a better chance they can create liquidity through an IPO.
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Going public has become an opportunity available to the “1%” of companies with great pedigrees and huge investment funds already in place. We need to open it up to the other 99 percent of companies who need capital to grow. Q. My father immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s. He came with nothing and has done very well for himself and his family. He feels that America has lost its way, specifically that Americans don’t work as hard as they used to, don’t work as hard as people in emerging countries, and have a belief that they are entitled to things (such as markets that always go up, that the government should take care of them, that they don’t have to plan for retirement). I wholeheartedly disagree with my father. Whose side would you take? -Wes A. He is right. But so was his father when he told your dad how much harder he worked. Productivity has increased generation by generation. Things change. Remember, you never live in the world you were born into. Q. Let’s say that all of the NBA owners are called to a conference room for a meeting with David Stern. All of the owners show up. You look around. Who’s the smartest guy in the room? -Hollins A. Depends on the topic.
Churning Waters Bear wading across the Hainan River in Southern China during the filming of Born Survivor on the Discovery Channel in 2010.
Along with others, Bear underwent training in the Sahara Desert with the French Foreign Legion for a four-part series, Escape to the Legion.
Tough Enough
NOV 2013
WOR K SMART Wild Ride During his time in Australia filming Man Vs. Wild, Bear came across many crocodiles, one of his least favorite adventures.
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MARK CUBAN Adventurer, Author, Television Host Born Edward Michael Grylls, Bear loved adventuring as a child and at the age of 23 he achieved his dream of scaling Mount Everest and its sister Ama Dablam.
Bear’s resume includes tackling jungles in Guyana with the British SAS, training with the French Foreign Legion, and hosting the toughest survival show on TV. “Never follow your dreams. Follow your effort. It’s not about what you can dream of. “
WORK HARD AND SMART
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MARK CUBAN
“It doesn’t matter how many times you fail.”
It’s about the big wins. Making your time and hard work pay off.
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Mark Cuban, Entrepreneur “Everyone has got the will to win; it’s only those with the will to prepare that do win.” At age 24, I left Indiana and hit the road in my 1977 Fiat X19. I was on my way to Dallas. The car had a hole in the floorboard. It needed oil every 60 miles. Some college buddies of mine had told me to come to Dallas–that the weather was great, that there were jobs and that the women were amazing. I didn’t hear the first two pieces, but I definitely heard the third. But let me back up a bit. I’d been in Indiana for a few months, working at a place called Tronics 2000. Before that, I’d been in Pittsburgh, my hometown, where I joined Mellon Bank after graduating from Indiana University in 1980 at 22. Back then a lot of smaller regional banks still did everything on paper. Mellon had a department that went in and converted them to computerized systems.
@mcuban
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NOV 2013
WORK HARD AND SMART “You only have to win once.” That’s what I did. A lot of my peers at Mellon were just happy to have a job. I wanted to be more entrepreneurial. I took the initiative. I used to send notes to the CEO of the bank. I once cut out a magazine story about how corporations could save money by withholding Social Security and sent it to him. He sent me a thank-you letter back. I started something called the “Rookie Club.” I’d invite senior executives to a happy hour to talk to a group of younger employees in their 20s like me. Then I went a little further. I started writing a newsletter. I did updates on current projects. I tried to inject a little humor. I thought my boss would love me for doing these things. Instead, my boss called me into his office one day and ripped me a new one. “Who the f— do you think you are?” he yelled. I told him I was trying to help Mellon make more money. He told me I was never to go over him or around him, or he’d crush me. I knew then it was time to get out of there. That’s how I found myself back in Indiana, then on the road to Dallas. As it turned out, it wouldn’t be the last time I had a run-in like that with a boss. In Dallas, I moved into a tiny apartment with five buddies at a place called The Village. At the time it was the largest apartment complex in the country. The place was filled with twentysomethings. I was the last one to move in. We had only three bedrooms and three beds. I slept on the floor. I had no closet and no dresser. I just stacked my clothes in a corner. The place was a dump, and we just destroyed it even more. None of us had any money, but we had some wild times. We threw parties at our place to save money. When we went out, we had a rule that no one could spend more than $20. We’d go to a place called Fast and Cool, and we’d all buy bottles of $12 champagne. We walked around like we were moguls. We didn’t know the difference between good and bad champagne. Our rent was $750 split six ways. In order to get some extra time to pay our rent, the guys would write checks to one guy who would collect them all and make a deposit and he would then pay the bills. It would give us three or four days of float. One time our roommate Dobie collected all the checks and skipped town. That was the last we ever saw of him. One roommate had a job selling burglar bars in the worst Dallas neighborhoods. One guy was a waiter. Another worked construction. I initially got a job as a bartender at a place called Elan, which was a hot Dallas club. But bartending wasn’t my end goal. I wanted to start my own business. While tending bar, I applied for jobs. I got an interview with a company called Your Business Software. They sold PC software to businesses and consumers. I’d just bought a $99 Texas Instruments computer and was teaching myself programming. They were impressed by that. They were also impressed by the fact that I was actually willing to read all of the software manuals. I got the job. It paid me $18,000 a year, plus commission. I was happy. I was selling, making money. More importantly, I was learning about the PC and software industry and building a client base. About nine months in, I got an opportunity to make a $15,000 sale to a guy named Kevin. I was going to make a $1,500 commission, which was enormous. It would have allowed me to move out of the apartment and maybe have a bed. I asked a co-worker to cover me at the office. I called my boss, the CEO, whose name was Michael, and told him I was going to pick up the check. I thought
THE BEST PART IS THE CHANCE he’d be thrilled. He wasn’t. He told me not to do it. I thought: “Are you kidding me?” I decided to do it anyway. I thought when I showed up with a $15,000 check, he’d be cool with it. Instead, when I came back to the office, he fired me on the spot. I had disobeyed him. He was one of those CEOs who is all pomp and circumstance, one of those guys who seems to scream: “Don’t you know who I am? What I do?” He tried hard to look and act the part of the CEO. He wore the right suits. But he had a huge flaw: He never did the work. He never demonstrated the initiative to go out to sell. I had realized by that time that “sales cures all.” That’s a phrase I still use to this day. He was my mentor, but not in the way you’d expect. Even now I think back to things he did, and I do the opposite. And he made me superstitious about titles. I’m never listed as the CEO of my companies. There is no CEO. I am the president.
Mark Cuban’s Net Worth $2.6 Bn $2.5 Bn $2.5 Bn $2.3 Bn $2.3 Bn $2.4 Bn
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Q: Do you think this is a time in which people can really make the most of their money? Cuban: Recessions are the best time to start a company. Companies fail. Others hold back capital. If you are willing to do the preparation and work, it is the best time to invest in yourself and start a business. As far as the stock market, that’s tougher. Remember, whatever you buy, someone is on the other side of the trade. They aren’t selling thinking; they are helping you make easy money. It is very tough for individual investors. I think you are better off with money in the bank and paying off all your debt.
WORK HARD AND SMART
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B OM B AR DIER