He's 58 yrs old with kids and the opportunity to make twice what a British 747 captain makes. I'm pretty sure he doesn't give a smack what other people think about him.
On that note, does anyone have a Virgin Atlantic (not Virgin American) payscale..
http://www.pilotjobsnetwork.com/factfile.php?id=he3zcpvztkk5578e2ek9jvn4qjhwv77zbykhb41scam57j9xpgw
These payscales are about a year out of date and are in GBP Pounds. So doing the conversion with the terribly performing GB currency, the basic salary is about 150K $, plus flight (sector) pay which can add a fair amount. Pension contribution is 15% of your gross. 35 days plus vacation. Don't forget the approximately 37% tax deduction though!!
Branson has his detractors but the line is out the door to work at Virgin (Atlantic) back in the UK, it's very common to leave the left seat of a decent A320/757 gig to go there...