Michael Bloomberg vs. Richard Branson: Which Billionaire Wrote the Best Memoir?
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Michael Bloomberg and Richard Branson are two very different billionaires. One is a straight-up suit, and the other a bon vivant entrepreneur and adventurer who is rarely seen in one, unless it’s the space variety. They’ve each published a memoir, however. Branson penned his, Losing My Virginity, more than 20 years ago, but has followed it up with various sequels, plus a personal blog on Virgin’s website that he still maintains. Bloomberg’s tome, named Bloomberg by Bloomberg (how do they think up these titles?), is similarly seasoned, but was republished and revised in 2019. So which is worth revisiting?
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THE COVER A color photo of Michael Bloomberg staring down the reader against a stark white background (plus his scrawled signature).  Wiley Publishing | THE COVER A black-and-white shot of Branson proudly gazing into the distance like some kind of romance-novel hero.  Virgin Books |
AUTHOR’S CURRENT NET WORTH $59 Billion | AUTHOR’S CURRENT NET WORTH $4.4 Billion |
WE OPEN ON… Bloomberg getting fired from his first job, at Salomon Brothers, with a $10 million severance after a “Last Supper” meeting where executives ate “greasy steaks.” | WE OPEN ON… A flight on the Virgin Global Challenger hot-air balloon. Branson and his friends were attempting to circumnavigate the world, starting in Morocco. They crashed in the Sahara Desert.  Alamy |
FIRST PAYDAY $9,000 starting salary at Salomon Brothers, plus a $2,500 loan.  Patti McConville / Alamy Stock Photo | FIRST PAYDAY 10 shillings from his Auntie Joyce for learning to swim. |
AMAZON RANKING #582,909 in the Kindle Store | AMAZON RANKING #106,078 in the Kindle Store |
REVIEWS “Reading it feels like being trapped inside a PowerPoint presentation about why billionaires are interesting.” Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker | REVIEWS “Surprisingly, Branson comes off as a lovable underdog battling the establishment, instead of a spoiled tycoon.” Tom Faucett, CNN |
WEIRD FLEX “I was one of the youngest Eagle Scouts in that organization’s history.”  Boy Scouts of America | WEIRD FLEX Won a case where the manager of a Virgin Records shop was arrested because the poster for a Sex Pistols’ album used the word “bollocks” (the group was signed to Branson’s record label at the time). A linguistics professor argued on behalf of Virgin that “bollocks” was an old nickname for “priests” or “rubbish,” and that it was therefore not offensive.  Joe Holloway Jr./Associated Press |
IN THE YEAR THE BOOK WAS PUBLISHED, HE… Was CEO of his eponymous company, Bloomberg LP, a post he left to run for mayor only a few years later. | IN THE YEAR THE BOOK WAS PUBLISHED, HE… Flew a hot-air balloon from Morocco to Hawaii. He still didn’t make it all the way around the world, though. |
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