Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. If you've watched the
Speaker 1: Fox Television Network or USA Network, if you've seen The
Speaker 1: Simpsons or Home Alone, if you've used Tinder or Angie,
Speaker 1: then you know just some of the work done under
Speaker 1: the watch of media mogul Barry Diller. At ABC in
Speaker 1: his early twenties, he became the youngest VP in network
Speaker 1: television history, and less than a decade later, Diller was
Speaker 1: put in charge of Paramount Pictures. After that, he co
Speaker 1: founded Fox, and he took an early interest in the Internet. Today,
Speaker 1: Barry Diller is in his eighties with a networth of
Speaker 1: almost six billion dollars. That's according to Bloomberg News. Diller
Speaker 1: is the chairman and senior executive of Expedia and the
Speaker 1: holding company IAC, which owns magazines including People and Food
Speaker 1: and Wine, along with The Dailybeast, care dot Com and
Speaker 1: a significant stake in MGM Resort Now. Dealer has published
Speaker 1: a memoir fifteen years in the making called Who Knew.
Speaker 1: I sat down with him last week at IAC's headquarters
Speaker 1: in New York. Are you in a retrospective mood? You're
Speaker 1: eighty three years old? Is that part of the mechanism?
Speaker 1: As well, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: I thought, you know, it's a good story.
Speaker 3: And the question was, and probably that thing that spurred
Speaker 3: me on was could I tell it? And could I
Speaker 3: If I did it, could I tell it true?
Speaker 1: The book is full of stories about Hollywood A listers,
Speaker 1: actors and directors including Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, and Catherine Hepburn,
Speaker 1: and stories about deals dealers done over the decades. But
Speaker 1: this is not a business book.
Speaker 3: I'm not disrespectful to the people who do it, but
Speaker 3: I just didn't want to do a book that quote
Speaker 3: taught anybody anything or said if you do these things
Speaker 3: in business or whatever.
Speaker 2: This is what will happen to you. I just thought
Speaker 2: it was a good tale.
Speaker 1: Who Knew is mostly a Diller's career, but he also
Speaker 1: opens up about his personal life, about his twenty four
Speaker 1: year marriage to the fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, and
Speaker 1: for the first time publicly his identity as a gay man.
Speaker 2: I did not lead a secret life.
Speaker 3: I just refused to make declarations, and I think that
Speaker 3: was a lack of courage.
Speaker 2: I wish I had had it. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I'm David Gerret And this is the big take from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News Today on the show My Conversation with Barry
Speaker 1: Diller about his career, his life, and how as an
Speaker 1: executive he's navigating the uncertainty of President Trump's second term.
Speaker 1: Barry Diller grew up in Beverly Hills, the son of
Speaker 1: a real estate developer. Dealer, dropped out of college and
Speaker 1: started his career at the William Morris Agency. What was
Speaker 1: the magic of that place when you started out?
Speaker 3: Well, for me, since I never wanted to be an agent,
Speaker 3: it wasn't being an age. It was that they had
Speaker 3: essentially the entire history of the entertainment business in one room,
Speaker 3: their fileroom, and so I manufactured my way into reading
Speaker 3: the fileroom.
Speaker 1: If there's a through line in his career, it's chance
Speaker 1: of Diller being in the right place at the right time.
Speaker 1: He moved from William Morris to ABC in his early twenties.
Speaker 1: He was tasked with improving the network's movie library. He
Speaker 1: ended up creating what became a wildly successful franchise, The
Speaker 1: Movie of.
Speaker 3: The Week, presenting the world premiere of an original motion
Speaker 3: picture but used especially for ABC. You know, ABC was
Speaker 3: the most junior of the network. CBS and NBC had
Speaker 3: invented basically radio. So ABC was the tag along when
Speaker 3: it entered television, so it was kind of the hip shooting.
Speaker 3: It would try anything just to get attention, and it
Speaker 3: was kind of run like a candy store, which is
Speaker 3: why they would give a twenty five year old's immense
Speaker 3: responsibilities because there was no one, There was no bureaucracy to.
Speaker 2: Stop him me it. So it was a remarkable place.
Speaker 1: As a young man. He was meeting executives and doing deals.
Speaker 1: It was a job, he says, he grabbed when nobody
Speaker 1: else was looking. Inherent in that is confidence or hubris.
Speaker 1: What made you able to do that? To put it together?
Speaker 1: I think you could do it and then assemble this.
Speaker 3: I don't know that I ever. I'm not so sure
Speaker 3: I ever had confidence. I don't think I've ever had confidence. Really,
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, sure. I think it's the lack of confidence
Speaker 3: that at least in my case, made me somewhat effective.
Speaker 3: I think this is a great good luck of anybody
Speaker 3: who kind of starts anything from quote zero is you
Speaker 3: end up learning every job. I mean until it gets
Speaker 3: to be of scale, but you learn every essential job.
Speaker 3: You are the head of marketing, You are the head
Speaker 3: of sales, you are the head of affiliate relations, are
Speaker 3: every task and also every creative aspect of it in
Speaker 3: the very beginning. If you do those things, you then
Speaker 3: know how to manage other people doing those things, whereas
Speaker 3: if you come in at more senior levels, you only
Speaker 3: learn to manage top down rather than bottom up, and
Speaker 3: bottom up is the only thing that I think produces
Speaker 3: anything valuable.
Speaker 1: Do you retain that level of engagement? In other words,
Speaker 1: do you want to be involved in everything all the
Speaker 1: time or you just content no knowing what's happening.
Speaker 3: Once it becomes a success, I basically lose interest, So
Speaker 3: I'm not a good shepherd of things that have already
Speaker 3: kind of succeeded. I want to move on to the
Speaker 3: next challenge, or to the next thing that I'm curious about,
Speaker 3: or the next thing that's kind of.
Speaker 1: Unknown, which is how Dialer made the leap from TV
Speaker 1: to movies. In nineteen seventy four, he became the chairman
Speaker 1: and CEO of Paramount Pictures. During a decade there, he
Speaker 1: made movies with the likes of Robert Redford, John Travolta,
Speaker 1: George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg, and two decades later his
Speaker 1: fascination with the commercial possibilities of the Internet started when
Speaker 1: he was introduced to AOL. You very early on took
Speaker 1: an interest in the Internet. What was it about it
Speaker 1: that spark Jura for Stardos's the time?
Speaker 2: Pure curiosity. H Well, I've never seen a screen.
Speaker 3: I only knew screens from being used to tell stories,
Speaker 3: and I came upon screens that were very primitive in
Speaker 3: the early nineties. But they were interactive. In other words,
Speaker 3: you acted with something that you saw on a screen.
Speaker 3: Of course, I didn't know what was to become of it.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that in three years from then there
Speaker 3: would be this thing called the Internet that people would
Speaker 3: start to use. But that interactivity fascinated me.
Speaker 1: Are you an inherently creative person that you consider yourself.
Speaker 2: So apparently creative? I never thought so. Certainly.
Speaker 3: I always had very strong opinions and instincts about things,
Speaker 3: particularly in entertainment. But I found that I was confident
Speaker 3: with my instincts and passion in creative affairs is all
Speaker 3: that really matters. I mean, if you're total dope passionate
Speaker 3: about something stupid is terrible. But if you're not that,
Speaker 3: then the difference between you and the other person is
Speaker 3: both your ability to be willful and the ability to
Speaker 3: argue creatively out of passion, and out of that kind
Speaker 3: of creative conflict comes some good things.
Speaker 2: Also comes some big mistakes, but you know it's okay.
Speaker 1: Is there a very dealer's sensibility as you look back
Speaker 1: on all the mince as you've been known?
Speaker 2: No, I just know where to see it. What there is.
Speaker 3: Again lucky because in the range of people's interests, some
Speaker 3: people are interested in pigeons walking in Antarctica or other abstruse.
Speaker 2: Kinds of things.
Speaker 3: I have kind of a mainstream sensibility, and I also
Speaker 3: have a guard against cynicism, and I want to hold
Speaker 3: onto naivete and so those things put me kind of
Speaker 3: in a mainstream, broad mainstream rather than on the outskirts
Speaker 3: of things, and that kind of often.
Speaker 2: Has resonance with larger numbers of people.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a bit about data, and I gather you
Speaker 1: hate data.
Speaker 2: I don't hate that. I know I don't hate it.
Speaker 1: How do you use it?
Speaker 2: I guess I like it factually.
Speaker 3: That I don't like is anything that is supposedly predictive
Speaker 3: of future events, or if audience taste based upon certainly
Speaker 3: you can't do that. I mean, I think the amounts
Speaker 3: that have been time wasted and spent in trying to
Speaker 3: divine what audiences will like and not like is its
Speaker 3: grandest waste of time.
Speaker 1: Dealer's career has centered on the silver screen, the small screen,
Speaker 1: and the Internet, and I wanted to know what's exciting
Speaker 1: to him in business today.
Speaker 3: I now am very much interested in things that cannot
Speaker 3: be disintermediated, which are places. Travel, one of our companies
Speaker 3: has expeded. I love travel, and travel you cannot AI travel.
Speaker 1: And post COVID, you made a big bet that people
Speaker 1: would feel similarly.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, And I like MGM resorts because those
Speaker 3: experiences you can't get in the way of them.
Speaker 1: After the Break, Barry Diller on how he approaches business
Speaker 1: today and his perspective on the economy during President Trump's
Speaker 1: second term, plus his decision to open up in his
Speaker 1: memoir about his personal life and his identity as a
Speaker 1: gay man. These days, Barry Diller is the chair and
Speaker 1: senior executive of IAC and Expedia, and like other business leaders,
Speaker 1: he's trying to navigate a challenging business environment. I asked
Speaker 1: him what he thinks about President Trump's trade policies in particular.
Speaker 3: We're in a very unique moment of instability because of
Speaker 3: everything that has been shoved on the table by this administration,
Speaker 3: and will it work out or not? I think the
Speaker 3: time limit for it either working out or not, particularly
Speaker 3: in trade, is very short. A few months, it will
Speaker 3: either be pulled through or it will be an abject
Speaker 3: failure and be pulled back. So I think right now
Speaker 3: it's extremely difficult for people in business to make decisions
Speaker 3: that go beyond this period until they see what conditions
Speaker 3: are going to be. So it's an odd time. Listen,
Speaker 3: I'm willing to give the administration the time to pull
Speaker 3: it through without unduly trashing it or criticizing it.
Speaker 2: I doubt it'll work out, but I hope I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: I also hope that if I'm right, it just ends quickly,
Speaker 3: and if I'm wrong, hallelujah, everything's great.
Speaker 1: Diller is paying close attention to how the private sector
Speaker 1: is dealing with Trump. The president hasn't been shy to
Speaker 1: call out some businesses and executives Over the weekend. For instance,
Speaker 1: he told walmart in a post on social media to
Speaker 1: quote eat the tariffs that are threatening the retailer's bottom line.
Speaker 1: Dealer says he's also watching the FCC investigate TV networks
Speaker 1: and the FCC scrutiny of the merger of Paramount, the
Speaker 1: owner of CBS, with Skydance Media. On Monday, the CEO
Speaker 1: of CBS News announced she's leaving the network, saying she
Speaker 1: and the company do not agree on the path forward.
Speaker 2: The well list too will pass in a few years,
Speaker 2: I would think, but.
Speaker 3: Politicizing the FCC saying that broadcasters or people whose licenses
Speaker 3: the FCC holds should be subject to political determinization as
Speaker 3: led by the chair of the FCC delving into matters
Speaker 3: of suitability, that the FCC could actually say, we're going
Speaker 3: to scrutinize that to determine whether you should hold a
Speaker 3: broadcast license. That's heenus.
Speaker 1: Do you have sympathy for Sherry Redstone as she tries
Speaker 1: to get.
Speaker 2: This You know again, I'm amazed by this.
Speaker 3: I've been incredibly criticized for this because I said, look,
Speaker 3: if a guillotine is at your throat and it costs
Speaker 3: you twenty million dollars or whatever to settle this lawsuit
Speaker 3: so that you can get out of going into bankruptcy
Speaker 3: or close to it, then I'm sympathetic to that.
Speaker 2: If the guillotine is at your neck.
Speaker 3: So yes, I'm sympathetic to that. Contrast that with law firms.
Speaker 3: Law firms, the worst that could happen to them under
Speaker 3: what the administration was doing is they could lose a
Speaker 3: little business. No guillotine is at their throat, they will
Speaker 3: not be irrevocably harmed.
Speaker 2: For them to cave, that's bad.
Speaker 3: And for those that stood up and have said, you know,
Speaker 3: go put sanctions on us, will survive. I'm totally respectful
Speaker 3: of them, and I would hope if I have some
Speaker 3: ability to direct things, I would never employ one of
Speaker 3: those law firms that essentially folded under the circumstances.
Speaker 1: Equivocally absolutely. Diller is known as someone who is not
Speaker 1: shy about saying what he thinks, but over the span
Speaker 1: of his life, there are things he hasn't addressed publicly.
Speaker 1: You write about this contrast between you and your wife,
Speaker 1: that she's a public figure and her since it's entirely
Speaker 1: wrapped up in that, and you've led a very public
Speaker 1: life in many ways, but you've been kind of assiduously privateist.
Speaker 3: Well, I like privacy, and I mean I respect privacy
Speaker 3: and others and I and for many reasons, partly because
Speaker 3: I actually like it as a quality, and partly because
Speaker 3: privacy protected me in things that I was fearful of.
Speaker 3: And contrast, my wife is her brand, and so her
Speaker 3: life has been every aspect of it has been public
Speaker 3: since she's twenty years old. So she's utterly comfortable with it,
Speaker 3: and I'm utterly uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: But we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1: His memoir marks a shift from that privacy. In his book,
Speaker 1: he writes to my confused adolescent brain, being exposed as
Speaker 1: a homosexual meant the end of life as I knew it,
Speaker 1: And in another passage quote, when I was young in
Speaker 1: the United States of the nineteen sixties, I was far
Speaker 1: too afraid. I'm no longer that and too old to care.
Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about your professional life, and I
Speaker 1: think to a tea, as I've mentioned i'm doing this interview,
Speaker 1: everyone's asked me, did you address your personal life in
Speaker 1: the book? Was that a dilemma or a debate for
Speaker 1: you as you wrote it.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean it's debate today only because I'm so surprised.
Speaker 3: I am kind of surprised kind of naive that it
Speaker 3: seems to be kind of the you know, it's.
Speaker 2: The catnip that the media like pulls.
Speaker 3: And to me, it's not only a news story or whatever,
Speaker 3: because a lot of my life has never been a secret.
Speaker 3: But when I started writing it, I said, the only
Speaker 3: way to do it is to tell the truth.
Speaker 2: So I had to tell my life. So I did.
Speaker 2: I've written the book, and I like what I've written.
Speaker 1: Reading the book, I was struck how in your younger
Speaker 1: life you almost didn't allow yourself to have a personal life.
Speaker 1: It was a thing that you had to suppresses the
Speaker 1: wrong word, but you were so focused on your professional life.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people who over index in business.
Speaker 3: I mean, sacrifice isn't really could be the word, but
Speaker 3: isn't really the word for me? But is you don't
Speaker 3: have room, you know, if you're working and obsessed with working,
Speaker 3: that crunches down to hear the amount of time or
Speaker 3: interest you have in almost anything else.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of moments in the book where
Speaker 1: you suggest that you could have said more about your
Speaker 1: private life sooner and maybe that would have made a difference,
Speaker 1: and that you regret that.
Speaker 2: Do you feel that way.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, it's so many years later now,
Speaker 3: I think other than media, anybody really cares about people's sexuality.
Speaker 3: But I think that again, it's a long time ago.
Speaker 2: But I would have liked to.
Speaker 3: Have had more courage to make declarations. I did not
Speaker 3: lead a secret life. I just refuse to make declarations.
Speaker 3: And I wish, I wish, and I think that was
Speaker 3: a lack of courage.
Speaker 2: I wish I had had it. I didn't.
Speaker 1: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura.
Speaker 1: This episode is produced by Naomi Shaven, our senior producer,
Speaker 1: and our deputy executive producer, Julia Weaver, with help from
Speaker 1: Simon Hampton. It was edited by Aaron Edwards and Chris Palmery.
Speaker 1: It was fact checked by our editorial team and mixed
Speaker 1: and sound designed by Alex Sagura. Elizabeth Ponso is our
Speaker 1: senior editor, Nicole Beemster Borr is our executive producer. Sage
Speaker 1: Bauman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. If you liked this episode,
Speaker 1: make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. It helps people find the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: We'll be back tomorrow.