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Branson and the Vigin team are absolutely brilliant at PR. All day the top headlines on Google News have been about his "determination" to "find the cause of th
by spikels 12y ago
Branson and the Vigin team are absolutely brilliant at PR. All day the top headlines on Google News have been about his "determination" to "find the cause of the crash" and "move forward" with little reflection on how big a screw up this was.
This (along with good HR) has been the secret to Virgin's success in what are basicly commodity businesses (retail, music, telecom, airlines). The free advertising and friendly governments (also PR targets) are a big advantage against competitors. Very little innovation required. However it is of limited value in a business requiring overcoming multiple technical challenges.
The cheap spaceports and celebrity endorsements are still quite valuable. They just need a partner that could actually make it fly but apparently these are in short supply. Perhaps only SpaceX?
- justincormack 12y agoNot quite all, the tone has shifted "Space dream in doubt after crash" http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/01/sir-richard-branson-space-tourism-project-doubt http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/01/sir-richard-b...
- waterlesscloud 12y agoThat headline requires an almost willful misinterpretation of the quote it's based on, though.
- k-mcgrady 12y agoYeh, they really twisted what he said. Here is a direct quote from Branson in the same article: “And once we find out what went wrong, if we can overcome it, we will make absolutely certain that the dream lives on.” In other words unless there is a flaw in the design that makes it financially unviable to continue they will solve the problem and push on.
- lutorm 12y ago"... if we can overcome it" sounds like doubt to me. Maybe less doubt than what the article implied, but I don't think it's that different.