← The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
Ambition, Media, and What’s Left of Hollywood — with Barry Diller
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- [00:02]
Scott Galloway
Support for the show comes from Charles Schwab. At Schwab, how you invest is your choice, not theirs. That's why when it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices. You can invest and trade on your own plus get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs. With award winning service, low costs and transparent advice, you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab.
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Barry Diller
Visit schwab.com to learn more.
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Scott Galloway
Support for the show comes from Trinet. Trinet can help empower your small and medium sized business with industry leading HR solutions. From payroll to compliance to access to benefits. You can join innovative and purpose driven companies including Zap, Surgical, Good Culture and more who trust Trinet to provide industry leading HR solutions so your team can stay focused on what matters most. Learn how@trinet.com Vox to see what's possible for your business. That's T R-I-N-E-T.com Vox to get started Trinet your path Their purpose Support for the show comes from Yonder. While technology can be incredibly helpful for teaching and learning, it can also be a source of seemingly endless screens and distractions. And those distractions can keep us from being present and focused in the moment, especially in places like school. Yonder says they are committed to fostering phone free schools so students can learn without distractions, social media pressure or worries about being filmed. Yonder has put its years of experience forward so they can support schools through the whole process from policy and planning to culture transition and launch. Learn more at overyonder.com that's O V E R Y-O-N-D R.com over yonder.com Episode 352352 is the area code serving Northern Florida. 1952 the contraceptive pill was introduced. What does MAGA use for contraception? Their personality. Yeah, I said it. And by the way, if you're going to fill my comments up with how I have Trump Derangement Syndrome, just look at what's going on with the fascist movement in Los Angeles. And if you unsubscribe, I promise to send you a full refund. Go, go go. Welcome to the 352nd episode of the Prop G Pod. What's happening? I am back in London. I went London, Paris, Paris, Miami, Miami, New York for a couple days, then to Detroit for Summit and then back home. The highlight was I did this thing called the Faina Rumble where they set it up like a boxing tournament and it's sort of a debate. The audience asks Questions, you have a minute to respond, then the other person responds. And then at the end of the fight, the audience decides who won the bout. And I debated a guy named Shermichael Singleton, who's a fairly well known conservative, who's on CNN a lot. I would describe him as sort of a Romney or Bush conservative in that he isn't fucking crazy and is pretty thoughtful. I was really impressed with him. He's a really young man, a 34 year old. But I went into this, I agreed to do this because my buddy wanted to do it and asked me to commit because, you know, kind of a big deal. And then I find out I'm going up against some young Republican and it's like, okay, I'm fucked. Anyways, it was a lot of fun. He's a really impressive kid. He came back to London last night to find out that my hometown of Los Angeles is being occupied by the National Guard. The last time I happened, or last time I happened, I was actually in Los Angeles. I had returned home from business school. Was it business school? I think it was business school. And I was living with my mom and we live in a suburb of Los Angeles, Westwood, right behind ucla. And I came home and on every Corner There were two young men, they looked 17, in fatigues with M15s. They call them the semiautomatic that they used to carry way back when. And it was very odd and very strange and a very dark moment for us. But this was back when people were being pulled out of their cars, beaten up, bricks being thrown, people were killed. And my understanding is, having spoken to several people who live in Los Angeles, most of my college friends are still there. There really isn't anything going on that would in any way indicate a need for this type of brute federal force. I think this is when you think about what you want to do in your own household as you get older, a little bit more mature, or as the man of the household, I think your job is oftentimes to de escalate. And that is, I do that a lot in confrontations in my house and my company. And that as I try and deescalate the situation such that. Because what happens when you get to a certain point, people start saying things or doing things that is difficult to take back and just makes a bad situation much worse. And if you think about it, the whole point or one of the wonderful things about being a president, having a huge, huge military and a bully pulpit, that's the biggest platform in the world, arguably, is you can kind of Be the master de escalator. That's kind of your job. We're called on to try and create peace and deescalate. And this is a perfect example of doing exactly the opposite. This is setting up a confrontation. This is incendiary. It's inflaming emotions. You're supposed to only send in the National Guard. And by the way, he's allowed to do this under Title 11. He's supposed to be able to use federal resources to ensure that people's work gets done. But it's almost always the governor requested a natural disaster or when things get out of control as they did in 1992. But this is just setting up a confrontation. I have a bias here, but I believe that ultimately Governor Newsom is going to come out of this probably looking pretty good because I think he's been forceful yet dignified. And he's sort of setting up the national stage of Trump versus Newsom, which I think will ultimately end up being kind of JD fans versus Newsom. I think Newsom has stronger prospects to get the Democratic nomination than people like, why I think the nation is exceptionally looksist and that he just looks very presidential. I also think he has a good story to tell. Fourth largest economy in the world. For all the shitposting from VCs who leave to get tax status in Florida and then move back. California has created more tax revenue. It's a net contributor. It gives, I believe, $80 billion or sends 80 billion back to the federal government. Whereas a lot of these red states take money. For example, Texas, I think takes about 70 billion. But what is the danger here? I'd like to think I'm hoping things are going to maintain civility and de escalate and that the President will do his fucking job. But I've always thought that. I've always kind of. I'm definitely a glass half empty kind of person. So what could go wrong here? How does America end? How does America end? The thing is we think of ourselves, we're so narcissistic and think of America as such a big, powerful and were right, such an unbelievably huge dramatic icon center of the universe that if America were to go out of business or end it would go down with a bang. I don't think that's true. I think America goes out of business with a whimper. And that is, this is a step towards that. This is a confrontation between the federal government and a politically oppositional governor in a liberal state. Trump is not going to send federal troops into a red state. He's already, they've already are trying to demonize Governor Walls in Minnesota. Basically, he's deciding to weaponize the federal government to go after his, what he perceives as his political enemies or to distract from other things, this big beautiful tax bill, which is just a giant transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, from the young to the old, from the future to the past. Anyway, this is how America ends. And I think again, it's with a whimper. And that is there's a confrontation. I don't know if it results in violence or not, but maybe Governor Newsom says, we're no longer going to send our tax revenue back to the federal government. We're just going to hold onto it. That ends up in another confrontation. There is an election. So you can now see states that have economies the size of a European nation decide, no, we're no longer signed up for the federal government or what the people have decided on the Democratic or the Republican side. And we have a series of small nation states. California is a tech centered economy that does a lot of business with Asia. The south is. Or Texas would be a oil and gas centered economy doing a lot of business with the Gulf, if you will, or overseas or whoever needs oil. The Midwest and manufacturing economy doing a lot of business with Canada. And I could see the east coast breaking into its own fiefdom where it's mostly about trade with Europe and finance and financial services. And this is the new disunited States of America. And how does America come to an end not with a bang, but with a whimper. That was somber, wasn't it? Wasn't that light and cheery? Aren't I just a little bucket of sunshine today? Anyways, in today's episode, we speak with Barry Diller, a businessman known for his influential roles in media and entertainment and the chairman and senior executive of ic. We discuss with Barry his origin story, the current state of media and streaming, and his new book, who Knew? Out now. But I really enjoy Barry Diller. He was a media mogul. When I was in college, this guy, as you'll hear, he was doing, he was in charge of movie of the week. And if you're my age, you remember that when he was in his early 20s. Anyways, with that, here's our conversation with Barry Diller. Barry, where does this podcast find you?
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Barry Diller
I'm in my New York office.
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Scott Galloway
Is that the big sales?
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Barry Diller
Yes, it's the Sailcloth Frank Gehry building.
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Scott Galloway
Yeah, it's a beautiful building. I've done several events there. So let's bust right into this. I want to get your origin story. I remember my senior year at ucla. I had a job selling insurance and I wanted to break into media. And I had a friend named Tom Noonan and he worked for you like two levels down or he knew you. You were already kind of a master of the universe then.
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Barry Diller
But is this like ancient history we're doing here? Like, is this like 1912? When would this.
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Scott Galloway
No, this is like 1987, I think. You were at Fox.
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Barry Diller
1987. I was at Fox, yeah.
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Scott Galloway
So I would just love to get your origin story and how you ended up as a fairly young man kind of being a captain of media industry. Like, give us the origin story of Barry Diller.
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Barry Diller
Let's do When I kind of went to work since I had no seeming ambition until I walked into the William Morris Agency as a mailboy, basically. Although I never really delivered mail. And I ended up reading the file room. And at that time, file rooms were. This was a huge room with big file cabinets and in. It was basically the history of the entertainment business. So I found a way not to deliver mail or do what the other guys were doing, which were trying to be agents, which I never wanted to be. And I basically read the entire file room. And that was the most fortuitous thing because I got the entire. I mean, William Morris had been in business then for 70 years or something. And it represented almost everyone. So it had all the history. So I read the Life of Elvis Presley. I read the. I mean, it was just incredible basing. And then I got serendipitously lucky in that they were going to throw me out of William Morris because I never wanted to be an agent. And they only did these mailboy things in order to turn people into productive agents. And I was never going to be that. And I'd finished kind of the file room and I think they were getting ready to throw me out. And luckily I took the only job that I was offered, which was to be the assistant to what I thought was a middle level job at ABC in Los Angeles in what was called current programming. And the day that I accepted that job, they fired the czar of ABC and they reached down and they picked my guy. So instead of being the assistant to this west coast person, I moved to New York to be the assistant to the head of the network. And within six months I was kind of running the program department. So there you go. That was at age 23.
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Scott Galloway
There's something that clearly came from your. Even earlier than that. What influences Growing up gave you that type of drive, that type of creativity. Like when you look back on your childhood and how you were raised, is there anything or people that stand out?
- [12:38]
Barry Diller
I think that all of the things that were enormously, enormous difficulties for me, all those kind of insecurities, inadequacies, feeling that I had no self, that I didn't deserve to, all sorts of excuses of sexual confusion and stuff. And one big secret, which if you have one big secret and it's an overwhelming one, it tends to let all the other risks reduce in size. So you can take these giant risks because the big risk is just obliviating everything else. So that's, in a way, not that, God knows, I wanted it, but it allowed me to take risks everywhere else. My family never thought that I would actually ever work and they had resources enough that it didn't really matter. But I had no seeming ambition up until the age of really 19. And I didn't really want to go to school and I was kind of just hibernating. But once I found, actually when I walked into that William Morris Agency, because I'd always been interested in the entertainment business, when I walked in and I started reading about that world, that just drew me like the fiercest magnet. And that ignited this. I don't know where that ambition was, but it was certainly born of not feeling that there was any self or that I. That I deserved any self. And therefore that fuel, that was just big fuel for me.
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Scott Galloway
You said something off mic. I was saying I wanted to talk more about business because everyone's focused on other parts of the book. But you said that you're quote unquote secret, and I assume that's your sexuality you're talking about. Well, let me ask you this. If you were a 20s something executive in today's Hollywood, which is much more accepting of people's sexual orientation, do you not think you'd be as successful as you were?
- [14:45]
Barry Diller
God, I don't have a clue. I think. No, I think I would not have. I definitely think that the tools that I developed out of all of these seeming disadvantages absolutely did propel me for sure. If I didn't have those, I'd probably be a ribbon clerk.
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Scott Galloway
There's this term trad dad. Traditional dads who are a little bit harsher and are not sitting kids down and asking them how this made them feel. What I knew of you back in the 80s was you were the trad manager. People were scared of you. You had a reputation for not suffering fools, that you were A hard ass. One, is that accurate? And two, what can you tell us about how your management approach has, if at all, how it's evolved as you've gotten older?
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Barry Diller
Well, yeah, it is true. I mean, first of all, I have this voice and that voice is a bit intimidating to begin with. And then in all these, because I'm so indirect in everything else in my life, I'm so direct in anything relating to business. I am direct. I say exactly, exactly. I say what I think without kind of fear or favor. And I like creative conflict. I like argument. I like the whole concept of arguing things out of passion because all I care about is instinct. And in order to hear the truth of something, you got to push through and you've got to get, all right, what does that person really believe? And taking out of those kind of clanging discussions, you hear a truth and you can pull it. When I notice somebody's like uncomfortable, I say, look, this isn't for you. You don't like this environment. And whether it threatens you or does this to you is no matter. Except I don't want anyone in it who isn't accepting of the challenge of that kind of cauldron. I just think it's the most productive way to manage. The other thing is that, and it's long gone for me now, but I think the best way to learn to be a manager and evolve into that is. And I got very lucky because at 24 and a half, something like that, I started this project called Movie the Week, where I got to build my own company inside another company. So for a couple of years I hired every. First of all, I did every job and I hired every single person up to the point when we had, I don't know, hundreds end up thousands of employees in that group. So when you learn the luckiest thing anyone can get is to start something where you get to learn every job. Because in learning every job and in then hiring the people and doing all that, you actually learn to manage because you are so on the original ground of things. And I think that is incredibly productive. Now, I evolved out of that in my mid-20s because by my late 20s I was supervising a rather large organization. And then at 32, I became chairman of Paramount, which is a whole other kind of management catharsis of learning how to be in a movie business where nobody from television had been in one before and they didn't like those people. I don't know about the evolution. I'm still, I hope I still bring that same tool making, which is to Create situations where you have opinion argued about whether it's a new business idea or a company to acquire or anything else. I hope I still have that very tough process of trying to find what is at the heart root of an idea to determine whether it's worth pursuing.
- [18:47]
Scott Galloway
So I can't help but wax nostalgic here. So I was raised by a single immigrant mother and we didn't see each other much during the week. She was a secretary. But we always made. We had a date, a standing date on Tuesday nights. You know what we did?
- [19:04]
Barry Diller
Oh, 7:30, movie of the week, ABC.
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Scott Galloway
Movie of the week. And it was a standing thing. And my mom would make me loaf. Getting emotional just thinking about it. And my three favorites. People don't realize how the greater breakthrough in that show. And I assume you're involved in all three of these things. One Duel, Steven Spielberg's first thing I remember.
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Barry Diller
Yes sir.
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Scott Galloway
In my opinion. Billy Dee Williams, best movie. Brian Song, by far. And then the most underrated. It was a movie of the week, but it turned into a show which I think was one of the most underrated shows of the 70s that I did never, I never miss an episode. The Night Stalker, remember that? With Darren McGavin?
- [19:47]
Barry Diller
Are you kidding? I mean I. First of all, those three, there's a fourth called that Certain Summer which was probably. Of all the. God, what did we make? I say we probably made 350 individual movies of the week during that five year, seven year period. And certain Summer was my favorite for a lot of reasons. It was about. It was the first dramatic depiction of homosexuality on broadcast television. And it was a lovely story about. About two men's relationship and him having to tell one of them, having to tell his son about his life. And Night Stalker, I got this book that somebody sent me that I respected and it was about 200 pages long. I read it and I said, oh my God, a vampire in Las Vegas. What could be a better idea or a better place for a vampire to go than Las Vegas, which is open 24 hours a day, et cetera, is the definition of a nightmare city. And I read it. Literally I read those 200 pages in three hours and ordered up the movie. And when that movie was finished, it was so good that my colleagues at ABC said this is a theatrical movie. Let's release this in theaters. We'll make a fortune. And I said, are you crazy? This is what we do. This is a movie of the week. That's where it's going, that's where it belongs. And of course, it then spawned the series, et cetera, and Brian's Song. I don't know that you can do better, for sure. I mean, yeah, you picked some good ones.
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Scott Galloway
What other things early in your career sort of got you to the next level, if you will?
- [21:33]
Barry Diller
Well, I would say that. I mean, it was definitely. I mean, Movie of the week was again, I'm 23 or 4 and so my 20s were just dominated for five years by this. And then at the end of that, because after we'd made these movies, I was kind of used to the process, to say the least. And I thought that, you know, there were books that were made into movies, but big, sprawling, epic novels, you can't tell that story in two hours, really. And I thought Teljun has all this time, so why not do long, long form, which we called the novel for television, which evolved into the miniseries, which we all live with today for sure in streaming. And that created like the next bump because that was this out of nowhere, huge success. So I had these two seminal thrusts really early. And I don't know, it was that because it was a confluence of other events that landed me at Paramount and the movie business at also a really young age. And I was always the youngest and now I'm always the oldest.
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Scott Galloway
Yeah, it's weird. I often say I used to walk into every room, be the youngest and I walk into every room and I'm the oldest. I was never the same age just goes so fast. So you're sort of a decathlete in terms of different types of content. You started in TV and then you transition to movies. How is that different? Or what skills? Is it the same skills or did you need to develop different management and different capital allocation skills?
- [23:10]
Barry Diller
It's the same tool set, I'd say, but it's applied to totally different organizations. The movie business, television, if you didn't get it delivered at 7:30 on a Tuesday night, the screen went dark. In the movie business, if you didn't make a movie, nobody knew, nobody cared. So the rhythms are just so completely different. And the industry, movie industry at its height of snobism, I don't think it's diverted that much today from what it was then in terms of looking down on almost all other forms. Though now the world is so. I don't know even what the definition of a movie is anymore, given the Netflix them of life. But the movie companies in the. This is in the seventies dominated world culture to such an extent. And so. And you only did. We never made. We. Paramount made probably fewer movies than most other companies. Other studios, of which there were five dominant ones, we made maybe 15 to 18 movies a year. Other people made 25 to 30. So, you know, that's kind of putting your tent up and taking it down every month or so. It's a completely different rhythm. And I had, first of all, movie people peed on people from television. So I had the good and the bad of people. So discounting saying, well, I'd be thrown out soon because a television person could never succeed in the exalted movie world. And so they kind of left me alone for a couple of years where I figured out how to make the company run the way I was comfortable with. And that was a very, very hard time where I certainly failed first because I believe almost everything I've ever done, you kind of, at least in my mind, fail first before you succeed. And so it was a completely different process that I had to adapt to. I was using the same basically toolkit of, in my case, which was developing material rather than buying packages with made up, you know, made to form directors, actors, writers, et cetera, that were given to studios by agencies. I wanted to develop, I've always thought was my first thing of developing material. So I wanted to develop material that takes a long time to do. But that process has never changed for me.
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Scott Galloway
So while you were there, I just want to review this. You decided to go back to TV and essentially started the Fox television network where Married With Children and the Simpsons were sort of the pillars there. Why did you go back to TV and tell us a little bit about those two shows? Because someone told me the Simpsons is the most profitable TV show in history.
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Barry Diller
That is true. Well, back into tv, when I left Paramount to go to Fox, I tried to start a fourth network. There were at that time three networks which got 100% of the viewing. There wasn't cable. I mean, cable was just getting a better signal. And so three networks dominated everything. And I had thought over the years that while they started out with different personalities, by the 80s, they all talked, looked and acted alike. And I thought, well, that's interesting. There's room for, I mean, maybe room for an alternative to that. So when I got to Fox and their confluence against serendipitous events was able to get a bunch of television stations that we could buy and start this fourth network. And in the beginning, we didn't find our vein until I got a script called not the Cosbys. Now not the Cosby's means Bill Cosby's show was Number one on television, had been for many years. And so when I saw the title not the Cosbys, I was, oh, that's like interesting. And it was an anti establishment family which we later called Married with Children and that I knew we'd struck the vein. And shortly thereafter we had had a show called Tracey Allman and in it were these interstitials that Matt Groening did with his character the Simpsons. And Jim Brooks, great director who made Terms of Endearment, et cetera, et cetera, said, who produced Tracey Allman show, said, I think we could make this into a series. And I said, yes, absolutely. Now at that time, because animation took six months and whatever, we had to commit to 13 episodes without making, quote, pilot, et cetera. So it was a big commitment. We did it and made the 13 episodes and we hadn't scheduled yet. And the first episode came back again like six, eight months later. And we had this viewing and actually Jim Brooks's little bungalow on the Fox lot. And I brought the sales department and some other like 12 people. It was one of those screenings where Jim Brooks and I are the only people laughing. And when you're laughing at material that you've already seen before, you're really doing it to try and get other people to laugh. So it's like over performance. And there Jim and I are hocking it up, stone faced, every other person in the room. We walk out with my group out of the bungalow, back up to our offices and these guys said, well, can't air that. I mean a cartoon. And I thought, as Jim did, this is great. Of course, we scheduled it from the first hour of the first day. It was a smash hit. It's still going now. Well, certainly decades, 30 years later. But because of syndication and because of streaming and because of all this, now it's owned by Disney. There's no question that as a single entertainment product, it is the most profitable in history.
- [29:34]
Scott Galloway
We'll be right back after a quick break. Support for the show comes from SoFi Small Business Lending. If you run a small business, you're probably dealing with cash flow, trying to find capital for new opportunities, or thinking about other ways to expand. SoFi Small business lending Marketplace is your new best friend. No more chasing bankers or wasting time in a branch. SoFi's Marketplace offers a fast digital solution in one Single simple search, SoFi matches you with vetted providers for your business in just minutes. Search for quotes that meet your specific needs and you can find an option that works for you. You may receive funds as soon as as the same day you're approved. Say it's working capital you need or a line of credit or an SBA loan or equipment financing. SoFi's marketplace can help you find all of the above. It's already helped thousands of small businesses find the funding they need. SoFi also offers business owners curated tools, vetted business bank accounts, business credit card recommendations, and a ton of resources to help you scale your business like a boss. SoFi now helping you get your business right. Visit sofi.comprachipod and see your options in minutes. Support for the show comes from TED Next. Let's be honest, we're not just busy. We're experiencing the greatest acceleration of change in human history. The pace of technology has left regulation, culture, and even our own biology in the dust. And somehow we're supposed to figure out who we want to be. That's what TED Next is built for, to provide a toolkit for navigating a world where yesterday's playbook is already obsolete. It's an invitation to join a community of visionaries, emerging leaders, innovators, culture shapers and change agents. And they all want to take the next step on their life's journey together. If you want to be part of something meaningful and energizing, TED is for you. I've spoken to TED myself. After working my ass off for 30 years, I was an overnight success after speaking at Ted. I, I like the community and I really found it very rewarding. Register for Ted next November 9th, 11th in Atlanta. It's a rare convergence where career advancement meets personal reinvention. Both non negotiable for tomorrow's leaders. And right now Ted is offering our listeners a special rate@ted.com Scott again, that's Ted.com Scott McCrispy strips are now at.
- [31:57]
Barry Diller
McDonald's tender juicy and its own sauce. Would you look at that. Well, you can't see it, but trust me, it looks delicious. New McCrispy strips now at McDonald's.
- [32:13]
Scott Galloway
So you then were able to pivot or evolve into online or e commerce. What was the motivation there and what kind of, what inspired you to get involved in sort of the digital world?
- [32:27]
Barry Diller
What happened was after I left Fox, I wanted to be independent. I wanted my own store. I wanted, I'd always worked for companies. I was the definition of a corporatist. And I was 49 years old and I thought, well, if I don't strike out, so to speak, for independence, I never will. And I didn't like that idea that I never would. And that kind of Forced me out of Fox. And I had no clue what I wanted to do. All I wanted to do was not what I'd done before. I didn't want to run movie companies anymore. I'd run two. And a couple of people asked me if I would do that, and I said no. And I didn't want to be in the. I certainly didn't want to be in the production business. That was kind of boring. But I had no. All I did is I created a vacuum. I, like, said, okay, I'm going to go drive across the country and wait for something. And again, serendipity. My wife, who's in the fashion business, called me and said, you have to come go see this qvc, this home shopping channel, because I'm thinking of going on it to offer my design clothes. And he said, just interesting, just go see it. So I wasn't doing anything. So I went to Westchester, Pennsylvania, and I got, again, I had this probably single epiphany, which is I saw screens being used for something other than to tell stories. Now, I knew, God knows screens tell stories, but I didn't know anything else. I didn't know a screen could be interactive. And there I am at qvc, and I'm watching telephones and televisions and computers being used in this primitive convergence. And it struck me. I mean, it just, like, banged at me of, wow. Now, I didn't. This is 1993, two years before the Internet really started being used by common folk. And I thought, wow. But I didn't think what was gonna happen. I just knew it was gonna change things, and I was fascinated with it. And then again, I've used this word, serendipity, but it is the leitmotif of my life. A couple of months later, I was offered to buy qvc, and I did it. And so by the time the Internet came along from this primitive convergence, now two years later, I had kind of in my fingertips an understanding of that world. And so when that happened, we were able to start all these businesses, the Internet business, Expedia and Match and all these things that came along, because I was kind of present at the creation of this radical transformation into the digital age. I didn't plan it. I never actually planned anything. But once I saw it, I was just again, drawn like a magnet to it. And that's what got it started. And then it just went from there.
- [35:30]
Scott Galloway
You have a reputation for mentoring and developing or maturing a lot of predictions, impressive executives ranging from Strauss Valnock to Dara Kaspershai. At Uber, Don Steele, one of my investors, Tim Armstrong speaks very highly of you. Curious. When you see someone, what attributes in them or signals tell you this person is worth making an investment in? And this person could play a really important role. What, what do you spot in people and think this person's a comer?
- [36:07]
Barry Diller
Spark, energy, edge, being alive to the moment. And that's all I need. I don't like education unless they're tool sets. You need to do a specific task. But education doesn't impress me. Certainly MBAs don't impress me. I think they're over educated or narrowly over educated. And I just look for somebody who's got some spark. And edge doesn't have to have an original mind, it just has to have a live mind and be open to possibilities and be curious. If I see that, that's enough to start. And every one of the people you mentioned, almost everyone that's come into my life in that way usually comes in at the junior est of levels. And then. And you see that little spark or whatever it is. And I don't like. I think mentoring is a, it's cut into official. It's like choose your mentoree or whatever, all that stuff. I think it's a little high flown. But I think if you get people at the earliest age and they get into your environment and you can bash around with them in different roles that they could play and then they grow up within the organization. They just get big dosages of everything and some it takes and some it doesn't.
- [37:38]
Scott Galloway
I'm curious what you think when you look at the media world right now. Are there any kind of specific trends that pop out to you and any thoughts on say you're coming out and you want to be the next Barry Diller? Where do you think the puck is headed?
- [37:51]
Barry Diller
Well, I have no clue where it's headed really. I mean I can. A couple of things maybe. I mean if I was starting today, I would look for things that can't be disintermediated because I think the changes that are afoot are going to. Things have been as, you know, Internet, disintermediate, lots of stuff. AI is going to put that to G force power. Uh, so if I were again, mine wasn't my own experience. All I got is my own experience. I was drawn to stuff I didn't suss out. Oh, entertainment business looks like it has this or that quality about it. I was just fascinated by it, I think. You think what fascinates you? What are you interested? What are you curious? About and then just get on the broad path of it somehow. Just start whatever door you have to bash through, whatever you have to do, just get on the main path of whatever intrigues you. And it will take you or not, but it'll take you where you're supposed to go. As against the dopes, particularly entertainment business who say I want to run a studio. Anyone who says that to me I would throw out of my office. I mean that's like such an idiot goal I think, look, if you want to be a doctor, yeah, you gotta have a goal, you gotta get a degree or other things. But if those aren't necessary then early age goal stuff is really stupid. You should only be governed by what you're curious about and get in the.
- [39:31]
Scott Galloway
Lane in terms of the media ecosystem right now you've actually, I think some of the stuff I've read you've called for antitrust. Do you think the ecosystem is too concentrated right now?
- [39:43]
Barry Diller
Oh, you mean the lawsuits against Google and Alphabet? I don't know how practical it is. Look, I think with Google, Google, the thing is Google was and is currently, but by little currently is on the head of a little pin because that's changing. Google was an absolute monopoly. No question. You lived as a serf in their land. If you had anything Internet or traffic oriented that you needed for your services or products, a total monopoly. I think that's just about to change. Now maybe their Gemini will take over search just like their Google took over search 20 years ago. I doubt it. I don't think the chances are great. So it seems awfully late. Maybe you need most antitrust stuff does come late of this kind. So I don't know what sense that makes. And as for separating Instagram or WhatsApp and trying to get them, I mean it's also, I think the basis of that doesn't make any sense. I don't think that they are anti competitive at the heart of the meta lawsuit. Doesn't make any total sense to me. But okay, all of that. I think that what is happening on the eve of today in the next year or two is there's going to be so much diversity in AI empowered stuff that I think these tech monopolies, except for Apple which is not a monopoly but is the greatest business as you know, the iPhone business and its walled circle. I don't know how you do better than that ecosystem, but I don't think these companies are going to these companies probably because they're so big and so profitable that offshoots of them Look, Google has YouTube which is a giant. People don't realize how powerful YouTube is. YouTube is probably going to be worth more then Google search in a while because I don't see that getting disintermediated. So anyway, I'm long winded about this. I don't think that the breakup, I think it's the breakup of these things is so late in the game that they're going to get competed with vociferously by everything else. Coming from AI you mentioned YouTube which.
- [42:25]
Scott Galloway
Is a good segue into the streaming wars. When you look at Netflix and all the other players, I think of it as Netflix and the seven dwarves. Any predictions or any feel for how that might shake out?
- [42:37]
Barry Diller
5 years ago I said Netflix won. Everybody get over it please. Don't try, don't over invest to try and become or compete against Netflix. You cannot do it. They lead in every respect, not only the movie business, but certainly the television business in every every respect. They are dominant, they set the rules and everybody else abides by those rules. Doesn't mean that there aren't other companies that can be successful with their streaming if they scale it down what their costs going into it and they make good programming because in the end entertainment is a business of hits, world of hits. And you can do it at a lesser scale than Netflix and succeed very nicely. You can just never be ever be number one or have big growth that the growth of those movie companies subsumed everything else that came along for 70 years. They have been subsumed now by huge tech companies that have different business models than they do that they can never compete with. So all those companies that have been around for 100 years, they're just going to be smaller enterprises without great growth prospects. But they'll be okay.
- [43:55]
Scott Galloway
There's a lot of. You see all these tiktoks about people saying that Hollywood is underset, especially production, that production is way down in LA and that everyone's asking for tax credits to make it more competitive. And I think Netflix now spends more than half of its content budget overseas. Do you think that Hollywood is to the entertainment industry what Detroit was to the automotive industry? Is this cyclical or structural Hollywood hedge.
- [44:22]
Barry Diller
Money is gone forever. Again, Hollywood now is dominated by Netflix, a tech company, Amazon, a tech company with completely different business model than anybody in the entertainment business could have ever conceived of. Which is we don't care if you watch this stuff really or that if it's, you know, we don't need really hits. We need you to join prime and we're going to give you this stuff in the front of the store, you know, the in order to get you in the store of prime. How do you compete with that? It's not possible. And then there's of course Apple and its efforts in in programming. So tech are now the overlords Hollywood is. I'm not saying it's culturally irrelevant because a lot of stuff gets created there or is organized there. Whether it's shot there or shot someplace else is somewhat irrelevant. Though I think it's very relevant to the craft. All of whom live in LA and I think LA County, LA City, CA State has been so frigging dumb in not offering the kinds of production below the line incentives that every other state and country has offered that has pulled the centrality of just making this stuff away from the place that's got all the craft expertise. Kind of crazy, but there it is. Certainly tariffs aren't going to help that. That's brainless. It's just a completely different system now than what it was for, you know, dominated again for close to 100 years by just a handful of companies that subsumed almost everything that came along technically until Netflix busted the Apple.
- [46:15]
Scott Galloway
We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from Mercury, the banking product that feels extraordinary to use when you're a startup founder getting your business business off the ground, the last thing you want to be doing is toggling between a dozen apps and clunky banking services that can barely keep up with your needs. Enter Mercury. Mercury is the banking product made by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. What makes it so special? Well, Mercury isn't technically a bank. They provide banking services through partner banks and are able to focus on delivering well designed software that helps navigate some of the tedium for you. Because when your finances are simple, your mind is free to focus on the real worth of growing your business. With Mercury, you get the tools you need to operate at your best, scale your business and keep your spend under control. Visit mercury.com to join over 200,000 entrepreneurs who use Mercury to do more for their business. Mercury Banking that does more Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column N A and Evolved bank and trust members FDIC. The IO card is issued by Patriot bank member FDIC pursuant into a license from MasterCard. Support for the show comes from selectquote. I'm sure you've heard people say the phrase you can't take it with you. And what that phrase means is that when you pass all your worldly assets won't matter to you, and that's a nice sentiment, but your worldly assets will definitely matter to your loved ones. Should something happen to you tomorrow, you can make sure your assets are safe and secure for your legacy and your family's future. Selectquote says they can help Selectquote is one of America's leading insurance brokers with nearly 40 years of experience helping over 2 million customers find over $700 billion in coverage since 1985. SelectQuote's licensed insurance agents work for you to tailor a life insurance policy for your individual needs in as little as 15 minutes. And selectquote partners with carriers that provide policies for a variety of health conditions or if you don't have any major health health issues. They work with carriers that get you same day coverage with no medical exam required. Get the right life insurance for you for less@SelectQuote.com profg Go to SelectQuote.com profg today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com profg.
- [48:31]
Bring the savor with.
- [48:32]
Barry Diller
Modelo Chelada a mouth watering mix of.
- [48:34]
Scott Galloway
Authentic Mexican beer, bold fruit flavors and spices. Bring the heat with Santiago Picante where the citrus burst of limonisal Modelo Chelada bring the Sabor drink responsibly. Modelo Chalada flavored beers imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, Illinois.
- [48:50]
We're back with more from Barry Diller. So just I want to in our remaining time here, I want to switch to stuff that's more personal. You've had what I would argue from at least an exterior perspective is a very successful partnership with your wife. You guys have been together married for two and a half decades, but together for five decades. Is that right?
- [49:12]
Barry Diller
Except for an interregnum period when I was sent off to the wilderness which lasted almost about 10 years. But yes, we are. It's almost 50 years.
- [49:23]
Scott Galloway
Your two kids I'm friends or friendly with Alex. My sense is you have a really good relationship with them. What advice would you have for husbands and for dads around fostering and cultivating strong relationships with your partner and your kids?
- [49:40]
Barry Diller
I don't know. I guess be engaged or whatever. I'm not really very good at advice. I think I just think again, if you're lucky enough that and luck is a part of it. And of course there's other stuff in there, but luck is a real part of what is the result of a child that gets to be, let's see, a semi adult in their teens or post teens or twenties, whatever in their kind of development, period. And if they come out of that as responsible, whatever your definition of responsible is, if they're responsible and you're engaged with them, it's really not me. You know what? As I think about it, it's not me, it's Dion, my wife. I don't know. I've never seen anyone else's relationship with their children, which is like that. It's not the old Elaine May, Mike Nichols thing of, you know, of guilt in calling, quote, your mother. This family talks to each other every day and multiple times a day. And none of it is effortful. It's effortless. And that's just the children and the grandchildren, much younger, obviously, but the children are. Everybody's life is kind of intertwined. There's no. I marvel. People say, well, I haven't talked to my mother or father in two weeks, or I call them every Thursday or whatever. Something like that. Formalized could not be further than the truth. I just think I don't have got no advice here. I just think if you're lucky enough to have that kind of easy is not the word for. But natural engagement and enfoldment, that good things happen.
- [51:35]
Scott Galloway
So you're 83. You've checked a lot of boxes. What boxes are left for you? Like do you have. When you think about your purpose and what's left for you and what you want to accomplish you haven't accomplished what is that or those things?
- [51:50]
Barry Diller
I don't think it's accomplishment. I never thought about accomplishments in that sense. I think it's. Am I still curious? I'm still responsible for two public companies, probably three actually now. And as long as I'm curious about them, then I will have something to contribute. And that kind of goes on just like a clock that doesn't stop or Energizer Bunny that you can't turn off. And that's just the nice. That's just nature. But what I do think about is. And I don't think of. I hate that word legacy anyways, I think it's stupid. But what I want to do. I like public art and public places. And I've been lucky enough to be involved in a few of those. And I want to do as many more of those as I can because I think there are very few people who have the resources and the will or desire to do that. And since I got that, then I think it'd be criminal for me not to spend those resources and my own juice to create more public places and public art because I marvel at what has been created by others and lives for hundreds of years and you come upon it and you say, how the hell, how the hell did they decide to do Central Park? How did they, whatever it is, any place that there is anything that is of a public institution.
- [53:28]
Scott Galloway
Barry Diller is a businessman known for his influential roles in media and entertainment. He's the chairman and senior Executive of iac. His new book, who Knew is out now. He joins us from his office in Manhattan. Barry, I, I, I've only had one dinner with you, but I think everybody, everybody just wants to be Barry Diller. You just have a certain good luck though. Yeah, you just have a certain fearlessness about you that I think we're all drawn to both professionally and personally. Really appreciate your coming on. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Drew Burrows is our Technical Director. Thank you for listening to the Prophecy Pod from the Box Media Podcast Network. Stay tuned for next week's Conversation episode featuring one of my favorites and a real role model for me, Sam Harris.
- [54:27]
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- [55:05]
Barry Diller
Show comes from WhatsApp. The personal chat on WhatsApp is a place where you share everything from the mundane connections to the memories that mean everything. It's a place that can truly feel like it's your own. And WhatsApp makes sure everything stays protected from outside eyes, even theirs. No one, not even WhatsApp, can see or hear your personal messages. That includes personal calls plus any documents, photos or media that you share in your personal chat. WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Visit WhatsApp.com privacy to learn more.
- [55:44]
Scott Galloway
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