I became an entrepreneur by mistake. Ever since then I've gone into business, not to make money, but because I think I can do it better than it's been done elsewhere
Attributed toSir Richard Bransonb. 18 July 1950 · founder of the Virgin Group
Wikiquote carries this line in the main quotes list on its Richard Branson page with a citation attached: an interview with Martyn Lewis in his book Reflections on Success (1997). The book is real, Branson is named among its interviewees, and the sentiment matches how Branson tells the story elsewhere in his own voice — but every copy reachable online is lending-restricted or paywalled, so the page itself could not be opened to confirm the wording letter-for-letter.
“I became an entrepreneur by mistake. Ever since then I've gone into business, not to make money, but because I think I can do it better than it's been done elsewhere” Sir Richard Branson, interviewed by Martyn Lewis in "Reflections on Success" (1997). Attributed — the citation is documented at Wikiquote, but the book's text was not independently checked. Via Quotle.info · Verbatim: “I became an entrepreneur by mistake. Ever since then I've gone into business, not to make money, but because I think I can do it better than it's been done elsewhere. And, quite often, just out of personal frustration about the way it's been done by other people.”
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In context
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Provenance
Where the line comes from
Work
Reflections on Success
Form
Interview with Martyn Lewis, BBC news presenter
First published
1997 (Lennard, Harpenden; reissued 1998)
Status
Citation documented; book text not independently opened
I became an entrepreneur by mistake. Ever since then I’ve gone into business, not to make money, but because I think I can do it better than it’s been done elsewhere. And, quite often, just out of personal frustration about the way it’s been done by other people.
Full three-sentence form
This is the full three-sentence form as Wikiquote records it — and the aggregators we checked (Lib Quotes, Quotepark, The Cite Site) print all three sentences too. The two-sentence version in the headline above is this site’s own clipping, not evidence about how others quote the line.
Wikiquote’s Richard Branson page ↗ carries the full three-sentence wording in its main quotes list, footnoted “As stated in an interview with Martyn Lewis in his book, Reflections on Success (1997)”. Quote Investigator has no article on this line.
The book is real and the citation is checkable in outline. Wikipedia’s article on Martyn Lewis ↗ lists “Reflections on Success (1997) – interviews with more than 60 notable individuals across a wide range of professions analysing their success”. Lewis was presenting the BBC Six O’Clock News across those years.
Branson is demonstrably one of those interviewees: the publisher’s synopsis on the AbeBooks listing for ISBN 9781852911393 ↗ describes 67 interviews and names Richard Branson among them.
What stops this being fully verified: the Internet Archive’s copy ↗ (Lennard, 1998; catalogued with the note “Previous edition: 1997”) is lending-restricted, so its text cannot be searched. We could not read the page and confirm the sentence letter-for-letter, and we do not claim to have.
The work carrying this line, Reflections on Success, was first published in 1997 — far too recent for the public domain in the United States, where copyright protection is the default for anything first published in 1931 or later. The interview format means two interests overlap: the compiler-interviewer and his publisher in the book, and Branson himself in the words he spoke. Treat short quotation with attribution as ordinary fair use and do not reproduce the chapter.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
How this one gets mangled
This is not a stolen-attribution case. Nobody credits it to Steve Jobs or Henry Ford, and no fact-checker has flagged it. What goes wrong is quieter: the citation gets dropped, and Branson’s own opening phrase moves around between retellings.
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The citationSites that reproduce it whole Unsourced
The Cite Site ↗ carries all three sentences but attaches no book, no interviewer and no date — leaving readers no way to check it. Quotepark ↗ does keep the Martyn Lewis citation.
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The opening phraseBranson himself, in later retellings Variant
✓The honest summary: the citation is real and specific — Wikiquote ↗ ties it to his interview with Martyn Lewis in Reflections on Success (1997), and Lib Quotes and Quotepark carry the same citation — but the book’s text has not been independently checked. Quote it in full, and cite the book.
Context
Why it matters
Branson’s claim is not modesty — it is a claim about sequence. He wanted to edit a magazine, not run a company. The first issue of Student appeared in January 1968, and keeping it alive meant selling the advertising and sorting the printing and distribution himself. Business was the tax he paid on the thing he actually wanted to do.
The second sentence is the one that does the work. It sets out a test for entering a market that has nothing to do with margin: not is there money here, but is the incumbent doing this badly enough that I could do it better. That is the logic Branson has used to explain moving the Virgin name from records into airlines, trains and phones — industries with no obvious thread between them except an incumbent he thought was complacent.
Not to make money, but because I think I can do it better than it’s been done elsewhere.
The third sentence, and why it changes the meaning
The full quotation runs to three sentences, and the closing one is: “And, quite often, just out of personal frustration about the way it’s been done by other people.”
Cut it — as any two-sentence quotation of the line does — and it reads as a tidy philosophy of value creation. Keep it and it reads as something closer to irritation: a man starting companies because a service annoyed him. The short form is the one that would fit on a motivational poster; the full one sounds like a person.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Born 18 July 1950 · English entrepreneur, founder of the Virgin Group
Richard Branson was born in Blackheath, south-east London, on 18 July 1950. He left school young and put out the first issue of a magazine called Student in January 1968 — the venture that, on his own telling, turned him into a businessman against his intentions. He launched the record label Virgin Records in 1972 and built the Virgin name outward from there into airlines, rail, telecoms and spaceflight.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Best available citation
Richard Branson, interviewed by Martyn Lewis, in Martyn Lewis, Reflections on Success (Harpenden: Lennard, 1997). Wording as documented at Wikiquote, “Richard Branson”; the book’s text was not independently consulted.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I became an entrepreneur by mistake. Ever since then I've gone into business, not to make money, but because I think I can do it better than it's been done elsewhere’?” Last verified 8 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-became-an-entrepreneur-by-mistake-ever-since-then-ive/