Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Blog Pricing
Podcast Image

The Knowledge Project

Barry Diller: Building IAC

30 Sep 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 4.919 Shane Parrish

Success teaches you nothing, but failure sure teaches you a lot.

0

Chapter 2: What motivated Barry Diller to write his personal book 'Who Knew'?

4.939 - 17.5 Shane Parrish

You've worked with some of the biggest egos in Hollywood and some of the most ruthless tycoons. I'm wondering if you can spend a few minutes on the lessons you've learned about ego and power.

0

17.935 - 29.428 Unknown

Barry Diller is a legendary media mogul, businessman, and investor. He is the chairman and senior executive of IAC and is best known for co-founding the Fox Broadcasting Company with Rupert Murdoch and leading Paramount Pictures.

0

Chapter 3: How did Barry Diller overcome his lack of confidence in his career?

30.349 - 38.218 Unknown

Over his career, he has reshaped television, film, and online media. He remains one of the most influential figures in business and entertainment today.

0

38.879 - 59.706 Barry Diller

We're certainly at the brink of the next revolution. If you were sitting in 1995 or 2000, at the beginning of the things you did not know, and there were plenty of those, there was nothing that cracked your mind and astounded you and said, oh, my God, this is beyond me. This is magic.

0

59.966 - 82.088 Barry Diller

Google, over the years, was consistently, as Monopoly grew, was squeezing the people who kind of lived on it as a surf on its land. But when I found an asset that couldn't be disintermediated by search... I thought, wow, that wasn't AI. That was just the characteristics of the Internet environment.

0

82.108 - 105.874 Barry Diller

The only thing that will save us is our brands and whether our brands and the content we make resonates enough directly for people to recognize a brand and want to be brand-involved rather than agnostic. I believe, until the last breath, that...

0

Chapter 4: What significant changes has Barry Diller observed in the entertainment industry?

108.385 - 116.654 Shane Parrish

At 83, you chose to reveal some of the most private parts of your life, and you're a super private person. Why now? I can't do the why now.

0

116.714 - 128.888 Barry Diller

It wasn't like I chose this date or that date. It's that I had thought that my life was a good story, and if I could tell it true, then I wanted to try and do it.

0

Chapter 5: How does Barry Diller differentiate between instinct and data in decision-making?

128.968 - 150.476 Barry Diller

So it took me an endless amount of time, basically because I put it away for a year and come back to it and put it away for six months and then come back to it. It was only... really in the last couple of years that I was, I wouldn't call it dedicated, but that I had more discipline. I never was sure I would publish it. And then I got to a point where I said, you know, I've done it.

0

Chapter 6: What impact does AI have on the entertainment and travel industries according to Barry Diller?

150.536 - 164.093 Barry Diller

I've kind of told it. I got it down. So let it go. My friends told me, publish it after you're gone, after you die. And I thought, well, I ain't going to have anything to do with that. So I'd rather have agency of my own.

0

164.794 - 170.491 Shane Parrish

How does it feel to release it out loud into the world? It feels exposing.

0

170.531 - 193.521 Barry Diller

Now, it's now been like, I think, three weeks or so So I've gotten a bit used to it. But in the first days, I thought, oh, my God, what the hell have I done here? I think the first day or the second day, I did a I think it was a live interview on CBS Sunday morning. And I know it wasn't live. It was taped. But it was it went out like right away.

0

Chapter 7: What lessons does Barry Diller emphasize about accountability during conflict?

193.702 - 213.157 Barry Diller

And and I thought and I'm being asked all these very personal questions. And I thought. You know, do I throw down this little microphone and stalk out? What do I do? And I thought, you know what? I've done it. So just go answer the questions and get on with it. And kind of once I did that, I relaxed in it a bit. Now I'm kind of used to the exposure.

0

213.358 - 234.085 Shane Parrish

But yeah, I wrote a personal book. One of the stories that really stood out for me was as a child, you gave up on your mother while you were at sleepaway camp and you were sitting waiting for her to pick you up. That seemed to be such a defining moment for you. And it led to this craving of independence and non-reliance on other people.

0

Chapter 8: What does Barry Diller define as success in his life?

234.165 - 237.569 Shane Parrish

Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Yeah, I don't think it was a craving.

0

237.609 - 261.636 Barry Diller

It was a necessity. I knew at that moment, and it was a stark flash, you know, those snapshots you have that you capture and they're always with you the rest of your life. And I have that snapshot of me in that moment. And I thought, I'm the only one to protect me. So I have no choice. That's... That's what I felt. How old were you? Can you recount this story?

0

262.237 - 287.292 Barry Diller

I was eight, and I went to camp, and I was not very happy there. I mean, a lot of children go to camp and have this, but mine was kind of acute, and my mother promised she would come, and she didn't. This was not horrendous child neglect or anything of that sort. My parents were perfectly nice. They just were clueless about children. They really... They'd never been parented.

0

287.332 - 297.812 Barry Diller

Their parents had never been parented. And so they had no vocabulary for it. And so she wasn't really there to protect me. And that scared me.

0

298.193 - 306.028 Shane Parrish

I can relate to that a lot. And then you sort of had to develop your own independence from that moment on. I had no choice.

306.008 - 318.523 Barry Diller

I think it's in biology. My biology is very strong and my biology saved me. I had to be independent and so I was. I don't claim it as something to be prideful about.

318.563 - 337.043 Shane Parrish

It's just I was lucky. One of the ideas that stood out in your book as well was fake it until you make it and how that was crucial to your success. You've had these moments in your career where you sort of believed in yourself almost despite any tangible evidence to indicate that you could do something.

337.063 - 352.656 Shane Parrish

And one of the first moments was at ABC and convincing Mr. Goldenson to let you create original programming for TV. I'd love for you to explore this idea, especially considering I've also heard you in interviews say that you never had any confidence.

353.057 - 371.687 Barry Diller

I never had a sense of self because I didn't think I deserved a sense of self. And so I never could claim that. I never thought of that. And I didn't have... the kind of early buoyant confidence that I saw around me and that has always attracted me. I'm always attracted to people who are natively confident.

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.