Perhaps it’s because he left school at 15 and ran his own business while his peers were still studying. But Richard Branson believes that the British education system does not serve budding businessmen and women well, according to a US diplomatic cable.

Branson touched on the subject at a lunch held in January 2008 by Chinese businessmen in Beijing. During the event, titled What Makes a Good Entrepreneur?, the Chinese criticised British entrepreneurs as being “overeducated, too conservative, lacking passion for entrepreneurship and too afraid of failure”.

Instead of countering their criticisms, the US ambassador Clark Randt reports that “British billionaire Richard Branson agreed that British entrepreneurs are overeducated and that schooling does not prepare one for entering the business world”. The Chinese also criticised their own education system as inadequate to prepare people for entrepreneurship.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/20/wikileaks-cables-businessmen-richard-branson