Barry Diller

The Internet world, I think that everybody participated in up until still true to some degree today.

was so dominated by Google.

Google, absolute monopoly on search and all your traffic.

I mean, at least half your traffic, if you were healthy, would come from people coming directly to you.

But the other half, without which you wouldn't be able to survive.

came from Google and Google over the years was consistently as a monopoly group was squeezing the people who kind of lived on as a surf on its land.

Yeah.

And, uh, so I was always, I mean, we were fighting that good fight for 20 plus years and succeeding and building some considerable assets.

But when I found an asset that couldn't be disintermediated by search, I thought, wow, that wasn't AI.

I'm not really very good on my very own staring at a wall or at a screen or at something.

I need the convulsive arguing of ideas of people who have passion

And that's often got a lot of voices and a lot of voices saying, okay, it's okay.

But a lot of voices saying that's stupid or whatever.

Opinion, trying to listen for what rings your instinct, is a process that I think is best conducted in extreme, at least for me and those that like being around me and doing it.

And some do.

I love confrontation because in confrontation out comes stuff that if you're listening, no matter how noisy that confrontation gets, if your ear is open, you're listening and you'll hear something.

And the thing you hear will be a better truth, at least for me, than in any other process.

So I do love it.

And I've always...

surprised it.