Who Knew
Barry Diller
Simon & Shuster (May 2025)
A corporate executive for all seasons
Barry Diller was born in San Francisco (in 1942) and raised within adequate but sufficient afflence in Beverly Hills. After graduation from high school, he enrolled at UCLA and then, after three weeks, dropped out and went to work for the William Morris Agency.
In Who Knew, he traces a series of successes and failures during a truly unique, multi-dimensional career.
Today. Diller is the Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC and the Chairman and Senior Executive of Expedia Group. From 1995 to late 2010, Diller served as the Chairman and the Chief Executive Officer of IAC. Since December 1992, beginning with QVC, he has served as chief executive for a number of predecessor companies engaged in media and interactivity prior to the formation of IAC.
From October 1984 to April 1992, Diller served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fox, Inc. and was responsible for the creation of Fox Broadcasting Company in addition to Fox’s motion picture operations.
Before joining Fox, Diller served for 10 years as the Chairman and Chief Executive of Paramount Pictures Corporation. In March 1983, in addition to Paramount, he became President of the conglomerate’s newly formed Entertainment and Communications Group, which included Simon & Schuster, Inc., Madison Square Garden Corporation and SEGA Enterprises, Inc.
Prior to joining Paramount, Diller served as Vice President of Prime Time Television for ABC Entertainment. He has also served as Producer on numerous Broadway shows, including The Music Man, The Lehman Trilogy, West Side Story, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Humans. Through his foundation, Diller created Little Island, a park and performance center near the Hudson River and has supported various organizations including The High Line, Motion Picture & Television Fund, UCLA Foundation and Culture Shed. He is a signatory of The Giving Pledge. He currently serves on the board of MGM Resorts International. His net worth is estimated to be about $4 billion.
There are dozens of reasons why I hold Barry Diller’s talents and achievements in high regard. Here are three. First, for reasons I do not fully understand, Barry Diller has uncommon personal courage, perhaps best exemplified by how well he has managed his bisexuality.
Throughout most of his adult life Diller had a number of casual homosexual relationships and a few that were intense, albeit brief. Then he met and fell in love with Diane von Furstenberg. It has been — and no doubt remains — a complicated relationship. “We met in 1974, separated in 1981, reunited in 1991, married in 2001, and have spent the years intertwined with each other in a unique and complete love.”
He formulated a code of values and it required a great of courage to follow amidst the chaos throughout the world within which Diller has been so active. This was a key principle: “I will have secrets but never lie.”
Another reason is that Diller thrives on crises and has highly developed skills when evaluating options, making decisions, delegating authority, mobilizing support, prioritizing, allocating resources, and leveraging strengths and advantages. His mental resilience and dexterity are comparable with the skills of a grandmaster of 3D Chess.
Finally, he has a built-in, shock-proof crap detector. While interacting with various CEOs (e.g. Elton Rule, Charles Bludorn, Daryl Zanuck, Sam Spiegel, Lou Wasserman, Rupert Murdoch, John Malone), he insisted on telling them what they needed to know, not what they wanted to hear. And then when he became a CEO, he insisted that his direct reports do the same.
Barry Diller seldom seems “larger than life” either from his perspective or anyone else’s. Rather, at least in this memoir, he reminds me (somewhat) of Walt Whitman’s declaration in “Song of Myself”:
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then,
I contradict myself.
I am large,
I contain multitudes.”
Who knew?
Obviously, Barry Diller did.