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"Hurricanes are so rare," says Sir Richard Branson as he looks at the ocean from the Great House on Necker, his private Virgin Island. "You get plenty of warning."

So has he been in one?

"On purpose," he says. "I hate the idea of not experiencing something. It was a completely awesome experience. Just watching the seas, and the velocity of the wind, and the sounds. It was fantastic.

You only get a hurricane about once every 50 years in the same specific place, so it was a privilege to be here. The house is built to withstand 180-mile-per-hour winds. Foolishly we did venture out occasionally, but we all survived it."

He went out?

"I actually just sat in the swimming pool and kept my head as low as possible. It was fabulous."

Branson is 54, so it's not likely that he'll be around for the next hurricane that hits Necker's 74 acres of beaches, lagoons, palm trees, volcanic rock outcroppings, and Balinese-style pavilions. And he's running out of the dangerous sporting escapades that enthrall him. He gave up trying to fly around the earth in a balloon after an American, Steve Fossett, did it first. (Branson had to be rescued from the sea five times by helicopters.) Now he's financing a venture to send tourists into space. He plans to go up on the first Virgin space voyage, but thinks that will be several years away.

Until then, Sir Richard will have to rely on business for the danger he craves. There aren't many challenges left here either. Branson has been superrich for a long time -- his net worth is more than $2 billion -- and he has indulged his entrepreneurial instinct by starting an astonishing number of ventures: His Virgin Group comprises 350 companies he founded; they took in $8.1 billion in revenues last year. Earlier this year, Virgin had $450 million in cash ready to invest.

But where? There's not much room for Branson to grow in his native Britain, where he's a hero for shaking up the stuffy old establishment. Or on the Continent, for that matter. In an annual poll that asks thousands of consumers to name the five brands that had the greatest impact on their lives, Virgin ranked as the number-two brand in Europe last year, ahead of Nokia, Mini, and BMW, and behind only IKEA. And Virgin Blue, Branson's Australian airline, ranked seventh in the Asia-Pacific market.

Coming To America

Now Branson is launching his most audacious effort yet: a major assault on the United States, the world's biggest and most competitive market. And he's targeting one of our most notoriously challenging industries: airlines. The spearhead of his invasion is a new carrier, Virgin America, that will fly domestic routes with a base in San Francisco. It will be a very costly gamble: Branson may have to spend as much as $500 million just to start up the carrier and sustain its losses for the first couple of years. Even though he's searching for partners to share the financial risk, it's uncertain whether he'll find takers. Virgin America will be the biggest and boldest test yet of Branson's maverick approach to entrepreneurship and of the power of the Virgin brand, which he's stretching in some very unconventional ways. Watch what he does closely if you're interested in the power of disruption. For Sir Richard, breaking the rules has almost always paid off handsomely.