Barry Diller (3:35)

Thank you for, you know, for foremosting me, as they say, meaning having expectations beyond my competence for a little. That's all right. We'll find out.

David Begnaud (3:42)

We'll find out. For a gay kid who grew up in Louisiana, knowing your story and seeing the degree to which you succeeded is massively inspiring for me.

Barry Diller (3:54)

I'm glad for that.

David Begnaud (3:55)

I have something to show you.

Barry Diller (3:57)

What is that? Oh, God. Wow. Alcatraz. What the hell? Welcome to Alcatraz. I look like I belong in Alcatraz in that picture.

David Begnaud (4:13)

The person circled is Charlie Bludorn.

Barry Diller (4:16)

Yes.

David Begnaud (4:17)

First words that come to mind seeing him.

Barry Diller (4:20)

I miss him. He was a great, great character. He was a character, I mean, only could be. And he was an Austrian immigrant who came to the United States, I think, when he was in his 11, 16, something like that, from Austria and from the Second World War, which he escaped with his family moved to London, then to the US and like many immigrants, they have a vision of America that is extraordinary. It certainly was the savior for him and his family, but they have a mythology mostly exported by American filmmaking of the early 20th century. But their image of this country and what its possibilities are is always extra large. They're more American than Americans in terms of believing, believing, believing. And Charlie was someone who became a coffee trader at the age of 21 and made many millions of dollars. This is in the probably 50s, when a few million dollars was a few million dollars, big deal. The real deal. And then he went on to found a company called Gulf Western, which became the largest conglomerate of this era of the 60s and the 70s and probably the early 80s. He was a huge industrialist, but he was also romantic as A businessman he was not. He could add boxcar numbers better than anyone else. But what he also had was a romantic streak. He was also someone who was so. He was such a large character that he could not be in the room with you without buying or selling something. So often you. And he loved changing people's lives. He's the person who actually said to Robert Redford, who was not thinking in that arena of you should be a director, and gave him his kind of first film. Actually, not as a director, as a producer for Downhill Racer, film of the 60s, I guess. Anyway, that was Charlie and he was very important in my life because he did this ridiculous thing that everyone thought he was mad. And people referred to him as the mad Austrian, which was. He pick picked this middle level executive at a television network to be the first person actually from television to come run a movie company. So that was, that was something.

David Begnaud (7:07)

And Mr. Diller, remind us how old you were at that time.

Barry Diller (7:09)

32.

David Begnaud (7:10)

32 years old. It is unprecedented, or seems so today, but back in the day, the heyday for them to take a gamble on a 32 year old kid. I still can't believe it.

Barry Diller (7:23)

Yeah, yeah. I didn't really believe it then either, so I joined the club.

David Begnaud (7:29)

Before he believed in you. He didn't. Wasn't he the guy who wanted you banned from the ABC lot for driving too fast? No, no, no, that was a different guy.

Barry Diller (7:36)

Another guy.

David Begnaud (7:37)

Oh, because that's a great story from the book.

Barry Diller (7:39)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that was earlier. That was when I literally, I'd gone from William Morris to join abc and before I moved to New York they wanted me to see all these television pilots that they had made. This is in the 60s and God, it's so long ago. Anyway, so I went to the, to the. Where ABC was at the time, which is way over in East Hollywood. And I drove my little Corvette because I was like this, you know, little reckless kid. And I zammed in and out of there for three or four days to look at these pilots. And the guy who ran the station, the ABC local station, that was where I was doing this, called the guy who hired me, hadn't even started yet and said, you should crater this kid, he's irresponsible, et cetera, et cetera. That guy went on to actually run abc and over the next six, seven years, thinking that I was not only not qualified, but a kind of snotty rich kid, came to actually bless my career.

David Begnaud (8:50)

Amen. Okay, so let's go back to Charlie. So where Were you in your career when you first met Charlie Bluton?

Barry Diller (8:56)

I was 24 years old a little before and I was a junior, junior executive at abc, but I had the responsibility for buying movies from theatrical movies that ran in theaters to run on abc. And one day I got this call from the chairman of ABC who didn't know my name or whatever, but I was the only one around that day. And he said, I have this person in my office, this big time industrialist, Charles Bludorn, who's just bought Paramount Pictures and he is going to sell us a lot of movies from the Paramount studios. And he said, can you come up? I said, okay. So there I go into the chairman's office who I'd never been in before, meet this guy. And I said to him, we're not buying these movies, they're no good. The chairman, who thought, I don't want to deal with this, I don't like confrontation, sent us off to my office. You and Bludorn, me and bludorn, this little 23 year old person and. And this big industrialist who was. He was probably 40 then, something like that. I mean, he was also young too, to have the momentous career he had.

David Begnaud (10:12)

Well, you write in the book. Who knew? And we're going to get to the book because it's one of my favorite reads of the entire year. You had the gumption to push back on him, right? So y' all are in your office and you're like, sorry, I just don't see it.

Barry Diller (10:24)

Yeah, well, it was more than that. It was. You made. He bought Paramount, which had made all these turkey films for, you know, I don't know, the last 10 years or so.

David Begnaud (10:36)

Before you got there?

Barry Diller (10:36)

Yes, definitely before I got there, long before. And I didn't want them for abc. And he thought it would be the easiest thing in the world to force them on. And I stood up to him. How I did that, I have no clue. Cause I'd never really stood up to anybody before, really. I'd never been in a position that there was any standing to be done, right. And I did. And that impressed him. And over the next. So probably eight years or so, in and out buying movies and then him using me as kind of a testing board for things Hollywood. He lived in New York. I mean, his business was all over the world, but the home office of Gulf Western was in New York. And so he would use me over those years to kind of put me against his executives at Paramount, where he thought they were full of it. And often they were.

David Begnaud (11:32)

When did you realize, hey, I think this guy actually likes me and this might lead to something?

Barry Diller (11:37)

No, I never thought about it leading to.

David Begnaud (11:38)

You never thought of that?

Barry Diller (11:39)

No, no, I've never thought. I don't think in those terms. So I'm not like.

David Begnaud (11:44)

Does that mean you're not ambitious?

Barry Diller (11:46)

No, I am natively very ambitious, but I am not. I've never thought about future opportunities as things to manipulate or think about. It's not like I ever thought.

David Begnaud (11:55)

Not even to think about.

Barry Diller (11:56)

No, I've never thought, well, I want that job or I want to do this or I want to do that. Everything for me has been either curiosity or serendipity, situational things that have just come to me. So, no, I thought that Charlie Bludorn, you know, this big industrialist, does own Paramount, but he's got two executives there who owns or superstars, et cetera. And no, I had no ambition about that. And he circumstantially. Circumstantially. There was a situation. Garbled language, that he thought, I could solve his problem at Paramount.

David Begnaud (12:36)

But before he did that, what happened? So he comes into abc, and you're like, sorry, guy, it's not gonna work. I don't like the idea. And he's like, no, no, let me prove to you. And you write in the book, you depict him as someone who simply will not let go of an idea when he's passionate about it.

Barry Diller (12:52)

If you had an idea, he would not let go of this table until he shook it to the ground.

David Begnaud (12:55)

There you go. So when did he shake you?

Barry Diller (12:58)

No, he did not. Now I know where you're pulling out of this, but it don't go. Don't push.

David Begnaud (13:03)

So it didn't. So he didn't get you to do anything at abc?

Barry Diller (13:06)

No, no, no, no. We did some business together. As years went on, we bought some movies, we did some things. But mostly he. Because he liked a little sparky spunk of this person who was willing to confront him.

David Begnaud (13:23)

Right.

Barry Diller (13:24)

And few people, I think, probably were. He took an interest in me just to test out things that were going on in Paramount that he either couldn't get done or didn't agree with. And he would call me up and say, well, what do you think about that? And I would tell him, whatever. And it was just that kind of relationship that went on for years.

David Begnaud (13:42)

All right, so he ended up getting ABC to buy some movies, and y' all ended up putting some of those turkeys on abc, right?

Barry Diller (13:49)

Well, yeah.

David Begnaud (13:50)

Okay. And then when did it change that you're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about you going over to Paramount.

Barry Diller (13:57)

Yeah. It wasn't.

David Begnaud (13:59)

How did that evolve?

Barry Diller (14:00)

It wasn't an evolution. He had tried to get me to come to Paramount, I don't know, five, six times.

David Begnaud (14:07)

Do you remember the first time he asked?

Barry Diller (14:09)

No, no, no. He probably no. I'm sure, though, that it was. I'm now 25, 6, 7. And had become very successful at ABC as we invented this new form of television.

David Begnaud (14:25)

The movie night on abc.

Barry Diller (14:26)

Yeah. Movie of the week. And so he said to me, come and be vice president of television for Paramount. And I'd say, don't be silly. I don't want to do that. And over the years, he would say, come and be this or come and be that. And I would toss it off. Literally, truly toss it off with utterly no interest. And one day, one day, literally, he said, you need to come over. I need to see you. And so I went over to see him. I often did that. He often asked me over. And I go in his office and he says, well, I want you to be chairman of Paramount. I said, what? You're out of your mind. And he said, only thing for you to do is say yes. Dope. And I said, well, I don't qualify. I'm like, you know, I've never been in the movie business. I mean, I make movies for television. What are you talking about? This is absurd. And he said, this is what I want to do. I think you would. I can't recall his words Other than that I sat kind of stupefied. He's offering me to be chairman of Paramount. And my instinct was to say no. And I said to him, I want to think about this. He said, what's there to think about, you idiot? You're lowly vice president of abc. I'm offering you to be head of one of the five major studios in Hollywood. I said, charlie, I am going to think about it. And I walked from there to where I lived in New York and thinking, well, yeah, I mean, it's this big job, but I don't know that world. I'm not really qualified. Da, da, da, da. And I kind of thought, oh. When I left Charlie's office, he said that he was gonna call the chairman of abc.

David Begnaud (16:17)

Oh, shit.

Barry Diller (16:17)

And ask his permission to make me a formal offer. And I said, you cannot do that until I tell you whether I'm interested in doing this right. He said, I'll do what I want. So I knew he was gonna do that. So I Then had call the guy I worked for. And I said to him, I don't know that I do. He also said to me, well, you're an imbecile and you have to, of course, take this job. But I went through this process for the next 2440 hours until I'd gone to see the chairman of ABC, who also said to me, you take this job. That I really didn't want to take it because. Because I didn't think I qualified for it.

David Begnaud (16:54)

Okay, so I want to come back to that in a moment. But I want to help the audience understand. While at abc, you created this movie of the. Yeah. Which had never been done before. And correct me if I'm wrong, because I know you will, but they were running this, you know, crap on abc.

Barry Diller (17:08)

No, no, no. We're running half hour, an hour television series like people at NBC and cbs.

David Begnaud (17:15)

But the idea of movie of the week was you said to your bosses at abc, instead of going to pay all that money for movies from somebody else, I think we can do it cheaper and in some ways better by doing it ourselves. And let me show you how. True or false.

Barry Diller (17:30)

Yeah, generally true. I thought, Look, I thought that it was more. I didn't really like series television very much. I thought it was kind of boring because the characters are always in stasis. They never, you know, they really don't get old. They perpetuate themselves, whether it's a half hour or an hour procedural show. And I thought, well, having a new movie every week, if we could make it and why couldn't we make it would be a really good program idea. And everybody said it would fail because movies for television, not movies for television. Because theatrical movies worked on television, but television was about series. I convinced the people at ABC that this was a good idea. And they said yes. And there I was. Cause everyone thought it would fail. They actually let me do it by myself, meaning there was no supervision. And so I built a little movie studio inside abc.

David Begnaud (18:31)

I grew up as a child hearing how this phenomenon, roots, had been put on television and had no clue who it was that made that possible until I read your book. How many nights did it run?

Barry Diller (18:41)

11 nights. It had the largest, I think at that date, by far the largest audience ever for a television. It may be in history the largest audience, I'm not sure, but it ran 11 nights. It had, I think, over 50% of the US population watching it.

David Begnaud (18:58)

It's both absurd and inspiring how fast success came to you. That's my opinion.

Barry Diller (19:05)

I don't know. Well, it is absurd. No, it's not so absurd. It just, It. It's timing and circumstance. I was at ABC when ABC was kind of run like a candy store, so if you wanted responsibility, you could take it. And I took it, and it succeed. And I was just very young, but

David Begnaud (19:22)

also in this age of Nepo baby, where, like, people grow up and either mom or daddy's a billionaire or they run something and so you inherit it, that wasn't your growing up. You didn't grow up a Nepo baby.

Barry Diller (19:33)

No.

David Begnaud (19:33)

I love how you talk in the book about, you know, people giving you scripts, and you start reading them and you start giving feedback, and you initially, you're like, what do I know about this?

Barry Diller (19:41)

Well, I didn't know anything about it. And, you know, like, anything, you gotta. You gotta screw it up before you succeed.

David Begnaud (19:47)

All right, back to Charles Bludorn. So he says, you got to take this job, you idiot. And you're like, let me call my boss. Your boss says to you, you got to take the job. What was the moment you decided, all right, I'm going to take it?

Barry Diller (19:58)

Oh, I know. I. What it. Well, it was so obvious that I had to. It was only me and my kind of juvenile at that time. Idiot. Immature. Not juvenile. Idiocy and insecurities. That said, I don't think I will. But of course, I always was going to take it. It was only my little dumminess pushing it a bit away just to get timing so that I could digest it. But I was always going to do it.

David Begnaud (20:28)

So you take the job.

Barry Diller (20:29)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Begnaud (20:29)

Tell me not about the job, because we know you went on to greatness at Paramount, but tell me about the relationship. And again, what Blue Dorn did for you or didn't do that helped you become the mogul you are today.

Barry Diller (20:44)

Well, what he did is he had faith in me. And once, if you're very lucky, if someone has almost unbreachable faith in you, ooh, that's good. And so you can. Within that you can fail a lot, you can disappoint a lot, because that. It's only rare, people who do that, who do not bend with the wind of the moment. So for me, it took me a couple of years to figure out how to run this company differently than it had been run before. And so for the first two years, I wasn't really flailing around, but the results were very poor as I was trying to figure I need to fail first before I can succeed. So it took a couple of years for that to happen. And Charlie, hardly the easiest man in the world to be around or deal with, fundamentally, had enough belief and trust in me that he did not pull the rug. And when I said to him, I think it's time, this isn't really working out. We're the number six movie company of six movie companies. We were at the bottom of the group for this period, this beginning period. And I said, I think it's, you know, he shouldn't stay with me much longer. And he's just. He said, basically, just go back to the office and go back to work. I'm not doing it. I'm not leaving. I'm not losing you. And a few months after that, the movies we had started to make. Actually, the first big one that came out was Saturday Night Fever. And then. And we went from last place to first place in the movie business, and we held it for seven straight years.

David Begnaud (22:40)

I was about to say, as I read the book, who knew? You described every movie that's probably on anybody's top 10 list. And I thought, well, shit, how does someone have a winning streak that long? I mean, you went from being six of six to on top, and everybody else was a mile behind. Well, what do you attribute that to?

Barry Diller (23:01)

Instinct or process and instinct. I mean, is there anything I contribute that to that I can signal as something that was, let's say, my doing was, of course, my having enough instinct and prizing instinct. So much clean instinct for making editorial choices, which is what you do when you're deciding whether to do this project or that project or no project, is using your instincts to be able to make those different decisions.

David Begnaud (23:40)

Instinct over data. You literally write about that in the book.

Barry Diller (23:43)

I do, I do, yeah. I don't think there's any research that can help you on anything. Data can't help you. Data can help you with factual matters of the past. It cannot help you with anything in the future.

David Begnaud (23:56)

Fascinating. You've said about Bludorn that he never flinched when people doubted him. So I wonder how that fearlessness, if you will, influenced your own appetite for risk.

Barry Diller (24:08)

Well, I don't really think that he influenced my appetite for risk, actually at all. I admired you Couldn't have found a more polar opposite to me than Charlie Bludorn.

David Begnaud (24:21)

How so?

Barry Diller (24:22)

Because his natural effervescence, his wild ambition, his insatiable desire for the next thing is just so much. I don't have that. I mean, I'm not unambitious, but I'm certainly not that. And also, he, you know, he walked and stalked with such utter innate confidence that it was. It bedazzled everyone.

David Begnaud (24:54)

I need to take a moment just to thank Canva for backing this podcast. Their support is what makes these conversations possible. Canva's guided by a clear idea. Build something incredibly valuable and then use it to do real good in the world. That's why they provide their tools free of charge to schools and nonprofits. Profits helping to create equal access and opportunity for people all over the world. You talk about him being known for having these explosive meetings.

Barry Diller (25:22)

Well, he frothed. Yeah. Say the least. Smoke came out of his ears.

David Begnaud (25:25)

Do you remember one where he came out of his mouth where he tested you? Was. Was there a moment where froth was coming out of his mouth at you and you were like, listen, you need to back off. Did y' all have one of those moments?

Barry Diller (25:36)

No, no, no. Never tell anybody. What I would do is argue with him.

David Begnaud (25:40)

Okay.

Barry Diller (25:40)

I mean, I wouldn't tell him to stop.

David Begnaud (25:41)

Do you remember the biggest argument?

Barry Diller (25:44)

Oh, God. We had? We had so much. He loved argument, and I do, too, so.

David Begnaud (25:52)

You do?

Barry Diller (25:53)

Yeah, I do. I like argument. So we did that endlessly.

David Begnaud (25:57)

Can I tell you something? I took from the book Torturing the process, and I now do it with my team because I just appreciate sort of the meaning of that, which is let's torture the process in order to get it right. And sometimes the process, as you write about in the book, is quite argumentative. It's not always polite and pleasing.

Barry Diller (26:14)

Well, I believe that creative conflict is a very good thing. That people arguing out of their own passion or belief against someone else who's got equal passion and belief, either skepticism, devil's advocate, ism, or whatever for an idea or whatever is the best way to get to a good solution. So I like that, and I have always liked the process of that. And some people like participating in it. And some people run for the hills.

David Begnaud (26:52)

Many people saw Charlie Bludorn as volatile and kind of ruthless. Did you see a side of him

Barry Diller (26:59)

that others didn't when you said, no? Ruthless? I do not. Well, volatile, absolutely. But ruthless. Now, ruthless connotes something that. And I think it's often applied to people who make tough business decisions are called ruthless. Again, it's the etymology of the word, which I probably object to, because I just see it as something that isn't usually applicable to people making very, very tough business decisions. If you're running a business and you've got to change the people in that business, often because they're not working out or whatever, and you do it consistently. You're considered ruthless. True. However, in fact, you're the steward of that business. And those are the things you have to do.

David Begnaud (27:53)

Amen. Amen.

Barry Diller (27:55)

I kind of reject the word.

David Begnaud (27:57)

What side of Charlie did you see that others didn't?

Barry Diller (28:00)

Oh, no. Charlie was the most. I saw no side of him that others didn't.

David Begnaud (28:04)

No.

Barry Diller (28:04)

He was the most transparent person the world could ever find. He was absolutely transparent. That was part of Charlie's great ability and charm is utter. He was not afraid to do anything or say anything that didn't expose every part of him. He was utterly effusive.

David Begnaud (28:28)

Did he, in some way see you as a son?

Barry Diller (28:32)

Don't. I don't maybe. I mean, certainly never expressed.

David Begnaud (28:39)

Did he see himself as a mentor to you?

Barry Diller (28:42)

I don't know. I think that word.

David Begnaud (28:44)

You don't like that. Why? Why?

Barry Diller (28:47)

Well, because I think it's taken on now a formality that. That kind of overstates it. And it's gotten to be a kind of professional class thing. Let's choose who our mentor is going to be or let's do mentoring. It's all bag of empty, flossy words. I doubt Charlie would have. I mean, I bet if you said the word mentor to him, you said, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

David Begnaud (29:20)

Over the course of your time with him, what did he teach you?

Barry Diller (29:28)

There are so many things if you're in the experience of working with somebody, particularly in the situation I was in. But I learned so much from just observing how he handled matters. Both observing ones I wanted to emulate and ones I wanted to never emulate. And that was a process that went on for the eight and a half years. Because he died eight and a half years after I became chairman of Paramount. He died at the age of 56. 56.

David Begnaud (30:05)

Can you give me examples of things you wanted to emulate and those you didn't from him?

Barry Diller (30:10)

If you're in someone's environment, who is that present and you're spending lots of time together. We spent a lot of time together. And I learned about business in such a gargantuan way that I would have never had exposure to. So when I say, what were the things? No, I mean the things that I did not want to emulate was there were so many observations of, as I said, with this person, Charlie, where he was kind of a rug merchant. He could not be in a room without buying or selling something. Absolutely not me. And not something I ever had any interest in.

David Begnaud (31:00)

Why'd he die of.

Barry Diller (31:02)

He had leukemia, and he had had it secretly for three years. I think he was diagnosed when he was 53.

David Begnaud (31:09)

Did he tell you?

Barry Diller (31:10)

No, no, no. He told no one other than his family. No one. And again, he was like, I don't know. I say he was very, very. He was the leading industrialist of the day. And Gulf and Western must have had hundreds of thousands of employees. And he kept it a secret for literally three years. And as those years went on, if, you know, if you see someone every day, you don't notice changes, or at least I didn't. And I thought often, how could I be this clueless not to have recognized that this person that I was interacting with was sick? When I was told that he had died, it was an utter shock.

David Begnaud (32:01)

Tell our listeners about the helicopter ride you took him on.

Barry Diller (32:05)

Oh, yeah. So a couple of months before he died, we. One of the things that Gulf and Western owned was about 10% of the Dominican Republic, and they were the largest sugar producers.

David Begnaud (32:15)

He would go down there a lot. He liked the art.

Barry Diller (32:17)

He loved the Dominican, and he kind of adopted it in so many different ways. And he built an Italianate village called Altos de Chavon. He had seen a kind of artist village in France, and he wanted to emulate an artist village so that the artists, young artists of the Dominican could have a place to work and whatever. Anyway, they overbuilt it to such an absurdist length. And part of what this place was an amphitheater that was designed to seat like 5,000 people. Kind of crazy. And so at Paramount, we were doing these. We did one with Diana Ross in Central park, these specials, television specials. And we decided we would do one with Frank Sinatra. And I thought, oh, great. They were just thinking of. They had not yet opened this amphitheater. I said, let's do it, and we'll open the amphitheater. It'll be very nice for Charlie and whatever nice thing to do. Again, I had no idea he was sick. And so the day that this was happening, I. We had an opening shot that we were doing, which was to take a helicopter ride up this river and going swimming up and down into this amphitheater. And I banged on Charlie's door. He was sleeping, like, in the early evening. It was just getting to be kind of dusk. And I said, come with me. And he said, I don't want to. I'm sleeping. Da, da, da. I got him in this helicopter and I took him on this pre. Kind of. Obviously, it was before we were shooting the thing, this track of the shot we were planning for the thing. And as we got. He kind of got into the awesomeness of this beautiful thing in this helicopter, flying up this thing, going down into the amphitheater for this opening shot, and he started crying, and he said, this is the nicest present you could have ever given me. And two months later, he was dead.

David Begnaud (34:28)

Would there be the Barry Diller that we know today without Charlie Blutorn?

Barry Diller (34:34)

Hell if I know. I don't know.

David Begnaud (34:38)

It's a reasonable question.

Barry Diller (34:39)

Well, it's a reasonable question with a reasonable answer of, how would I know? I have no idea. I would have. Would I. Would I've done something else? Would something else happen to me? But he was a great influence on me. Yeah. Or he was greatly influential. Hmm.

David Begnaud (34:53)

All right, I want to now move over to some things from the book. I have some dillerisms that are among my favorite. And we're gonna come back. I want to talk about sort of the early years, the formative wounds. I wrote down so many questions that I showed you in Sun Valley. By the way, if you're gonna read Barry's book, that's great, but listen to it, because hearing you in the audiobook, people like listening.

Barry Diller (35:17)

I was so surprised, and I'm so surprised how many people have. Have converted to listening to books.

David Begnaud (35:23)

Well, you have a great voice, so that helps. You write in the book about feeling abandoned. You had a cranky father, abusive brother, and distant mother. And there's this story you tell about your mother. At seven years old, you call her to pick you up at camp, and she says, I'm not coming. And you write, this is a quote. I cemented myself shut. So the question would be, what did cementing yourself shut protect you from, and what did it cost you?

Barry Diller (35:53)

Well, it cost me, basically, almost. Not forever, for sure, but it cost me depending upon other people, because I felt I couldn't depend upon my mother, couldn't depend upon the one person in my family who I thought might protect me. And so it kind of soldered me shut about human relationships because I couldn't depend upon them. And that as, of course, an enormous cost. But it was not crazily adopted by me. It was adopted because that's what I felt. I felt unprotected.

David Begnaud (36:29)

Did the emotional distance, thank God.

Barry Diller (36:30)

And by the way, it's only my good biology that saved me. It was something that I ordered or whatever. I just had good enough biology to figure a way out of that, which was to essentially depend on myself.

David Begnaud (36:45)

You talk about your mother again. That you learn to please others, especially your mom, as a survival skill, of course. And you call that both a superpower and a disease?

Barry Diller (37:00)

I don't. Did I call it a disease? You did. You did.

David Begnaud (37:03)

That's a direct quote.

Barry Diller (37:04)

Oh, yeah. I overstate things. I was very lucky that I learned very early that I could seduce people by pleasing them. And particularly when you're. Before you have any accomplishment. And if you can particularly do that with adults, that is a bit of a superpower.

David Begnaud (37:30)

Hell, yeah. When did you learn that the people pleasing, though, was hurting more than helping? Was there a moment that you.

Barry Diller (37:38)

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't think so. I just think it's a. It's not that it hurts. It's that it forms in you often. An inability to assert self. That's just a condition.

David Begnaud (37:56)

Boy, that's really good. Because you're so damn focused on pleasing them that you is getting lost. You have this phobia, or you had. In the book you write, phobia flying.

Barry Diller (38:06)

Oh, yeah.

David Begnaud (38:07)

Right. And so you became a pilot to master it.

Barry Diller (38:10)

Yeah.

David Begnaud (38:11)

Right.

Barry Diller (38:12)

So, like, who does that?

David Begnaud (38:14)

Barry?

Barry Diller (38:15)

Well, it was. It seems so obviously simple and practical, which is I knew that if I continued with this fear of flying, it would hurt my life. In other words, it would circumspect. If I couldn't fly, how could I? I was flying basically back and forth to New York from LA every week or so. So it was not exactly like I had a choice. I just had to get over it. And I certainly couldn't argue myself out of it. But I figured out that what I. Which I think is true for a lot of people about fear of flying is they're just not in control. There's two dopes up there, and who knows what they're doing or who knows what the wing flop is going to do? And so I thought, oh, okay. Well, if I learned how to do it and I understood it more, then maybe I'd lose the fear. And interestingly, the second I actually got in this little Cessna 172 training plane at Santa Monica Airport, I was so enthralled with flying that in that instant, I forevermore lost not only the fear of it, but I became to love the whole thing of it. Wow. And I never see a plane taking off that I don't want to be on.

David Begnaud (39:31)

You also had a fear of public speaking?

Barry Diller (39:33)

Yeah. Yeah.

David Begnaud (39:34)

Do you still?

Barry Diller (39:35)

No.

David Begnaud (39:35)

Okay. You write about anxiety that you had being channeled into control.

Barry Diller (39:41)

Yeah. Yeah.

David Begnaud (39:42)

What'd you mean?

Barry Diller (39:43)

I grew up because I Was so able to compartmentalize things and through other devices to never have a moment of anxiety. I mean, none. Until I was 19 and had basically a nervous breakdown. Anxiety just flooded through me. And of course, when that happens, you have panic attacks, whatever. It's such a loss of control that it's like, oh, my God. Well, I never want to confront this again. This anxiety.

David Begnaud (40:19)

Has the anxiety gotten less and less as you've gotten older?

Barry Diller (40:22)

I have very little anxiety.

David Begnaud (40:24)

Very little.

Barry Diller (40:25)

Yeah. I mean, I have stress, I guess, although I don't really feel it as stress.

David Begnaud (40:29)

What are things Barry Diller obsesses over?

Barry Diller (40:31)

Oh, I can obsess over the angle of that lamp. Give me anything and I'll obsess over it because I'm obsessive.

David Begnaud (40:39)

You were obsessive in making it clear to people that you favored instinct over data. And I wrote some of this down from the book. You dismissed research and prized gut instinct.

Barry Diller (40:56)

Yep.

David Begnaud (40:57)

How did that show up in meetings like, give me an example.

Barry Diller (41:00)

When people make arguments to you that they believe are factual based on data, again, on things of the future, you data for the past. Of course. That's all you care about is factual stuff that took place. Precedent to any action. Right? Right. So you're in any situation and people are saying things that are not factual about what is going to work or not work. Let's say in any given situation, you have to keep your brain and those around you that their speaking process separate from dealing misrepresenting fact as prediction.

David Begnaud (41:48)

Can you think of one example where they came to you or a team at Paramount or even iac Everything.

Barry Diller (41:54)

There's trillions and trillions, but you always want a little specific. So here is one which is, I wanted to do these movies for television. Yep. Every fact, precedent to that was saying why it would not work. And I simply rebelled against that because I thought this is a good idea. Ideas and instinct overpower any kind of factual base that's determined to quash them.

David Begnaud (42:31)

Love it. Creative tension. You write in the book that you believe in argument over civil debate.

Barry Diller (42:38)

Oh, it can be civil, but it's not very productive to me. I mean, you really. You want to get the best out of a situation. You want to get people past their kind of endurance. Meaning that the best stuff comes out when people, I think, are actually tired and want to get out of the room. And that stretches them to come up with something original.

David Begnaud (43:04)

You say you love confrontation.

Barry Diller (43:06)

Yeah, I like conflict still today. Oh, yeah. Of course.

David Begnaud (43:09)

This spoke to me especially because as a new business Owner. I felt this in my soul when I read it. You talk about process being your mantra, right? And that never settle for okay, well

Barry Diller (43:21)

I such a bimbo statement. So it is that I do believe that you know something's good when you see it. Take it like in terms of, take it in terms of advertising. You watch billboards, advertisements, 60 second television spots, whatever, whatever. When there's an advertisement, you don't need to explain it or argue it. It just is. Most stuff is just good, not great. And the way you get from good to great is say no to good. And you just say, no, I won't accept it, come back later, oh shit, that's good. And eventually the later it goes, the more people want to go home and say please and you say no.

David Begnaud (44:12)

But what happens when people push back on that and say you're being abusive?

Barry Diller (44:15)

It has nothing to do with abusive. It has to do with. Again, some people are up for this. And some people, it's like I've said to people who in this creative conflict arenas that I like to create, it's very clear, some people don't like it. And I say, you know what? You pay no price. Just leave the room, Go into some other room. Because your personality is not conducive to this process. If you stay in the room, all you're going to do is feel abused. I don't want you to feel abused. I want you to feel invigorated. But if that's not who you are and you just don't like such things, there are people who run the hills from conflict and just can't bear to be around it. And I say fine. That doesn't define you as a bad person or as a not person able to contribute. It's just, I don't want you in my room. Go into somebody else's room.

David Begnaud (45:08)

Can torturing the process survive in today's workplace culture of safe spaces?

Barry Diller (45:14)

Listen, I hate the woke left as much as I hate the woke right.

David Begnaud (45:18)

I know you do.

Barry Diller (45:19)

So there are of course work situations where people have been abusive to each other and gone over an actual line. But that line is not to be a wuss either. It is certainly, as I say, if somebody does not like. There are plenty of people who like confrontation, who like arguing, who like arguing out of passion. There are plenty of people who don't. Well, the people who don't would feel they're being abused. I say, just leave the room. I don't want to abuse you.

David Begnaud (45:52)

Let's talk about the quiet resistance. As I'm calling it. You write in the book you never faked being straight, but, quote, I had secrets but told no lies.

Barry Diller (46:04)

Yes.

David Begnaud (46:04)

I had secrets but told no lies.

Barry Diller (46:07)

Yeah. What about that?

David Begnaud (46:09)

How did it feel to write it?

Barry Diller (46:10)

To write it? Yeah. Well, I lived it, so how could I do anything but write it?

David Begnaud (46:16)

Sure. Okay, so here's what I mean.

Barry Diller (46:18)

You mean, how did it tell. How did it feel to actually tell the story and whatever. Whatever all that. Well, look, the one thing I knew when I was trying to write a book was I know good stories. You do? Because I have a long history of telling stories. And I knew that my life, the arc of my life, was a very good story. The only question was, could I tell it? And that if I would tell it, the only way to tell it is to tell it true. And so once I said that, the rest just came out. It wasn't like I negotiated it. I knew that I wasn't so sure that I would ever publish this book up until really the last year.

David Begnaud (47:02)

How long had you been working on it?

Barry Diller (47:03)

Oh, ten years or so. And I thought off and on. I mean, I would put it aside for a year, but I thought, well, you know, all I can do is tell the tale true, as true as I can tell it. And, you know, my truth is, whatever. Not necessarily someone else's, but anyway, it's my book. So I knew all that. And I did not realize, really, until very close to publishing it. My wife Dion, who's been public, had a public life all her life, because she is her brand, said to me, get ready. I said, get ready for what? She said, well, you're going to be exposed. I said, I'm not going to be. What are you talking about? I actually totally compartmentalized it. So on the kind of week it was being published, and I started doing some of these interviews, and people asked me these questions. At the beginning of them, I was absolutely gobsmacked. I thought, what are you doing asking me about coming out silly. Such silly questions about that and about issues of sexuality and all that. How did I get in this place? And, you know, you did it to yourself. Of course I did it to myself.

David Begnaud (48:13)

You write in the book that you feel guilty for not being an LGBTQ role model sooner. Tell me more about that.

Barry Diller (48:21)

Well, this is most predominantly in the 80s, so it is around AIDS and all of the things that went on about, first of all, dealing with the crisis itself, doing whatever you could, to quote, help it. There were groups around. One was called act up, which were kind of. They Weren't really violent. But what they were trying to do is get the attention of the government and everyone else to pay attention to this crisis. It was mostly. Mostly involving homosexual activity. And so they were actually running around outing people, quote, for the cause which I thought was a kind of heinous prospect because I don't think anybody should be dragged to do anything whatever. But at the same time, I thought, well, you know, I was then chairman of Paramount in those years. Actually, part of those years Paramount and part Fox. So I had this influential position and I founded support groups and other things and certainly contribute and all of that. But I didn't declare my own sexuality for a whole number of reasons. One, because. Because mine was not, I thought, a great poster. I was not a great poster for it because my sexuality was so. Not unlike a lot of others. Not conflicted, but gray. Because I also was in a relationship with a woman. But I felt guilty that I should have done more. That's all.

David Begnaud (50:08)

Well, what's interesting is at the same time when you're saying you should have done more you were pioneering gay representation on television.

Barry Diller (50:14)

Yeah, I was doing good things. I mean, I was doing some good things, but. But. But that is a lingering cowardice.

David Begnaud (50:22)

Do you forgive yourself for not being louder when it mattered?

Barry Diller (50:27)

Forgive? I don't know if I forgive or not forgive. It isn't a question of that. I have some guilt about it.

David Begnaud (50:32)

This is something I've slugged. Power failure and Paramount. You were in the mailroom at William Morris, then the chairman of Paramount. You described the early years of Paramount as a train wreck. Yeah, because they were just in last.

Barry Diller (50:48)

No, because in order for me to figure stuff out I have to drill way, way down. And usually that process is not only messy but I tend to fail first before I can succeed. Meaning I tend to make situations worse before I can figure out how to make them better. Because I'm taking them apart, trying to get to their essence. And in the process of doing that that's not really particularly productive. So every experience I've had there has been that period where I'm figuring it out that I make things worse.

David Begnaud (51:37)

That's fascinating. I mean, I'm marinating on that almost to the point of, like. You want to embrace failure?

Barry Diller (51:44)

No, no, no. I don't embrace it. I hate it. But it's, like, necessary. I can't. There's no other way to do it.

David Begnaud (51:50)

Okay, so embracing the process, right?

Barry Diller (51:52)

I don't know. Using a word that I wouldn't use. I didn't embrace It.

David Begnaud (51:56)

I was walking down the street when you said this, and I laughed out loud. You said People magazine called you a failure at some point. Right.

Barry Diller (52:06)

When I became chairman of Paramount. I come from abc, and at that time, a lot of ABC programs were failing. And so they wrote a story about me failing upward, I think the story was called. And.

David Begnaud (52:23)

Yeah, and Mr. Diller, the person who People called a failure back then. Who owns People today?

Barry Diller (52:30)

Yeah, it's nicely ironic.

David Begnaud (52:32)

Who owns People today?

Barry Diller (52:34)

We do.

David Begnaud (52:35)

Mr. Diller does. And they're doing quite well.

Barry Diller (52:38)

Yeah, yeah, People's great. Like, really good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People's excellent right now. They just put out. Just put out. Just a new product of People's is an app, an actual standalone app they introduced a few months ago, and it's great.

David Begnaud (52:55)

There are still questions if you deserve the Paramount role.

Barry Diller (52:59)

Oh, yes. Everyone.

David Begnaud (53:00)

Okay.

Barry Diller (53:01)

Yeah. Everyone thought, who is this television person coming into the movie business? This is ridiculous.

David Begnaud (53:07)

I know you sort of.

Barry Diller (53:08)

I love being discounted. You do? Of course.

David Begnaud (53:11)

It works in your favor always. So here's a question that I wrote. What did failure teach you that success never could?

Barry Diller (53:22)

Success and failure? I mean, failure doesn't. I mean, you learn from anything. Experience you go through. You learn from failure, you learn from success. They're not mutually exclusive nor mutually admirable. They are things you go through if you don't. I. I have rarely met anyone who's had a long career. God knows I've had endlessly long career that has not had some failure in it. I've never actually, though, had any project that ended up being a failure. I mean, I've had individual programs that I've done, movies that I've made that have failed, but I've had no career failure thus far. Boom.

David Begnaud (54:16)

Mic drop. I want to close out with this. Your personal relationships in the book. You're pretty verbose in describing that you had very few close friends, despite being so charismatic and such a massive success.

Barry Diller (54:32)

Yeah.

David Begnaud (54:33)

Why?

Barry Diller (54:35)

Because I didn't like depending upon people very much, and I was fairly closed off for a long time. And luckily, because of my family that has. I wouldn't call it reformed me, but it certainly surrounded me.

David Begnaud (54:49)

Dion, you call her the miracle of my life.

Barry Diller (54:52)

Yes. How so? Because she's. She. Because we have a unique relationship that is now close to really, like, I think next month is 50 years and not being together during all those years. But we've been married for the last 22, 24, one of those two. And her family is the most important thing in her life. And our family is the most important thing in my life. How lucky do you get?

David Begnaud (55:35)

You talk about success at times making you feel lonely, right? And isolating. So the question would be, if success at times made you lonely, would you choose it again?

Barry Diller (55:49)

I have no choice. It's not a matter of choice. I have a both, as I said, I have a biology that forces me, that is not subject to willful debate. And I am natively ambitious. So there are, of course, consequences to being very successful. By the nature of that, you are somewhat isolated. If you are. If you are the senior person with tens and tens of thousands of employees, that is isolating. It's just part of the trip.

David Begnaud (56:38)

How old are you now?

Barry Diller (56:39)

83.

David Begnaud (56:41)

I want to say this, and I mean it with 100% sincerity. I hope I get to 83 and I hope I'm as with it, having fun doing it and still hungry like you seem to be.

Barry Diller (56:54)

I'm. I'm so lucky. Luck. Luck and circumstance.

David Begnaud (57:00)

I know it's called the Person who Believed in Me, but as I had written by that artist, I asked to write that note for you. Thank you for believing in me enough to say yes. Because when I asked Brian Lord and Herb Allen to help me book you as a guest, I think Herb's response was, oh, boy.

Barry Diller (57:17)

And Brian said, I ain't trying.

David Begnaud (57:19)

Brian's response was, you're on your own.

Barry Diller (57:22)

Well, here I am. I'm happy to have done this.

David Begnaud (57:24)

So thank you for believing in me.

Barry Diller (57:25)

That's a pleasure.

David Begnaud (57:26)

And doing it.

Barry Diller (57:26)

That's a pleasure. True. All right.

David Begnaud (57:30)

Thank you. Barry Diller, y'. All.

Barry Diller (57:32)

I'm Barry Diller. And the person who believed in me was Charlie Bludor.

David Begnaud (57:39)

I thought you were. You might want to know, but this podcast is at the heart of a company I founded called Do Good Crew. I've spent 25 years telling stories. It used to be the bad news, and now I want to focus on the good news. The everyday heroes who are doing extraordinary things. You can join us. We do live events, but we also have a newsletter. It's free. You can sign up for it by going to www.thedogoodcrew.com. this show was created by me, David Begno. Our. Our executive producers are Ellen Rockamora and Olivier Delfoss. Our associate producer is Griffin Hamilton. Our booker is Sully Block. Director of photography is Foster Parks. Our theme music was created by Slipstream, post production and edit done by Longwave Digital. This podcast was brought to you by our friends at Canva. If you're interested in more stories about people doing good in this world. Go sign up for our free newsletter at@www.thedogoodcrew.com.