Barry Diller: Building IAC

0:00 Success teaches you nothing. But Failure sure teaches you a lot. You've worked with some of the biggest egos in Hollywood and some of the most ruthless tycoons. I'm wondering if you can spend a few minutes on the lessons you've learned about ego and power.

0:17 Barry Diller is a legendary media mogul, businessman, and investor. He is the chairman and senior executive of IAC and is best known for co-founding the Fox Broadcasting Company with Ruper Murdoch and leading Paramount Pictures. Over his career, he has reshaped television, film, and online media. He remains one of the most influential figures in business and entertainment today. We're

0:39 Certainly. At the brink of the next Revolution. if you were sitting in nineteen ninety five or two thousand. At the beginning of the things you did not know, and there were plenty of those. There was nothing that cracked your mind and astounded you and said.

0:57 Oh my god, this is beyond me. This is magic. Google. over the years was consistently as it monopoly grew was squeezing The people who kind of lived on as a surf on its uh land. But when I found an asset that couldn't be disintermediated by search

1:16 I thought, wow, that wasn't AI. That was just the characteristics of the internet environment. The only thing that will save us is our brands, and whether our brands and content we make For people to Recognize their brand and

1:33 Want to be Бранд інвал радиогностик. А в ай блів. Until the last breath. That

1:48 At eighty three, you chose to reveal some of the most private parts of your life and you're a super private person. Why now? I can't do the why now. It wasn't like I chose This date or that date. It's that I Had thought Uh that my life was a good story and if I could tell it true, then I wanted

2:07 Uh Try and do it. So It took me an endless amount of time. Basically because I put it away for a year and come back to it and put it away for six months and then come back to it. It was only really in the last couple of years that I was

2:21 I wouldn't call it dedicated, but that I had more discipline. I never Was sure I would publish it. And then I got to a point where I said, but you know I've done it. I've kind of told it. I got it down.

2:32 So let it go. My friends told me Uh publish it after you're gone. After you Die and I thought well. I ain't gonna have anything to do with that. So I'd rather have agency of my own. How does it feel to release it?

2:46 out loud into the world. It feels exposing. Now I it's now been Like I think three weeks or so.

2:55 So I've gotten a bit used to it. But in the first days I thought, Oh my God, what the hell have I done here? I think the first day or the second day. I did a I I think it was a live interview on CBS Sunday morning. And I know it wasn't live, it was taped, but it was it went out.

3:12 Like right away. And And I thought And I'm being asked all these very personal questions and I thought You know, do I throw down this little microphone and stalk out? What do I do? And I thought, you know what, I've done it. So just go answer the questions and get on with it. And kinda once I did that, I relaxed in it a bit. Now

3:31 I'm kinda used to the exposure, but yeah, I've I wrote a personal book. one of the stories that really stood out for me was as a child you gave up on your mother while you were at sleep away camp. And you were sitting waiting for her to pick you up. That seemed to be such a defining moment for you. And it led to this craving of independent and non reliance on other people. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Yeah, I don't think it was a craving, it was a necessity. I knew

4:00 At that moment and it was a a a stark Flash. You know, those snapshots you have that you capture and they're always with you for the rest of your life. And I have that snapshot. Of me in that moment. And I thought I'm the only one to protect me, so I have no choice.

4:17 That's That's what I felt. How old were you? Can you recount the story for I was Eight?

4:24 And I went to camp and I was not very happy there. I mean a lot of children go to camp and have this, but mine was kind of acute. And my mother promised she would come. And she didn't.

4:36 This was not horrendous of uh child neglect or anything. Of that sort. My parents were perfectly nice. They just were clueless about children. They really They'd never been parented. Their parents had never been parented. And so they had no

4:51 Vocabulary for And So she wasn't really there to protect me and That scared me. I can relate to that a lot. And then you you sort of had to develop your own

5:02 independent from that moment on. I had no choice. I don't know. I think it's in biology. My biology's very strong. And my biology saved me. I had to be independent and so I was.

5:14 I don't claim it as you know, some Something to be prideful about. It just uh I'm I I was lucky. One of the ideas that stood out in your book as well was fake it until you make it. And how that was crucial to your success. You've had these moments in your career where you sort of believed in yourself almost despite the uh any tangible evidence to indicate that you could do something

5:37 And one of the first moments was that ABC and convincing Mr. Goldenston to let you create original programming for TV. I'd love for you to explore this idea, especially considering I I've also heard you in interviews say that you never had any confidence. I never had a sense of self.

5:54 'Cause I didn't think I deserved a sense of self. And so I never could claim that. I never thought of that. And I and I didn't have uh the kind of early buoyant confidence that that I saw around me and that has always attracted me. I'm always attracted to people who are natively confident. I don't know how the hell the stars or the or their biology or their environment put that together for them. And I see people walking down the street and I can see their confidence and I like think, Oh my God, I wish I had ever had that. But then

6:27 If I'd had that I'd probably end up being a shoe clerk at Macy's. So I think that that lack of a sense of self. Oddly. It enabled me

6:37 In the earliest part of my career. to please others to such an extent. But it got me going. And once I got going. I just kept going.

6:48 And I think that that In a sense. Lack of confidence. Lack of sense of self, wanted. Propelled me to count.

6:57 As much as I could in the eyes of others. You said that you were sort of an unambitious teen. What changed? Was there a defining moment where you sort of like I had no ambition. My family didn't think much, but they whatever they thought, uh somewhat unexpressed, but coming out from them uh as an environment. My family had resources and so

7:18 I think they thought Well, they'd be supporting me. I never really have a job. I didn't want to go to school. I didn't want to go to college. I didn't want to do much of anything. I was hibernating. For A good long time.

7:30 But I'd always had this interest in the entertainment in the world of entertainment. I grew up around it. Most of my friends' parents were in the entertainment business in one form or the other. And so I I was just pulled by it. It was uh a tractor beam that always drove me and or intrigued me and

7:49 When I Finally thought, you know, I really am nineteen. I don't want to go to school, but I gotta do something. I mean I I was basically staying up Nights.

7:59 And sleeping most days and I thought well You know, I would like to learn about the entertainment business. And I thought There are these talent agencies, William Morris. Yeah.

8:10 Probably at that time. the most famous number one agency. And they had a mailroom Where they so to speak, train people to be agents. I didn't want to be an agent, so I thought I'd never be an agent. That was ridiculous.

8:23 Uh talk about if you don't have a sense of self, how can you represent others, how can you ever have the confidence to go sell somebody that you're going to take care of their lives. But I thought I could go and learn. And I essentially went

8:37 There and at that time. There were big file rooms, paper file rooms, and I read the entire firearm and they had had the history. Of the entertainment business. For seventy years. And so

8:50 What incredible luck. For someone who wanted to learn stuff. And I did. I was insatiable about learning and that literally from one day to the next.

9:04 Lit. A fire. Of ambition and purposefulness. I love the idea of sort of dark hours and sort of hours learning and preparing uh that other people could do but didn't do. And

9:18 You sort of alluded to the fact that nobody wanted that job downstairs in the room. It was just you. Yep. I was really lucky because All the people who were in the mailroom Well they just wanted to get to be agents, since I didn't.

9:32 wanna be an agent. I took the job no one else wanted. They all wanted to go Meet people.

9:43 I went to the dungeon and and had this job that allowed me Basically almost the entire day. To read. And that's what I did.

9:53 for three years until I think they were on the verge of throwing me out. You said you never had a goal and that that's sort of what allowed you to do that. They all wanted to be agents, so they were working towards that. Can you go a little bit deeper on that? Look. If you want to be a doctor Yes.

10:09 That's goal. You've got to go do step, step, step, step to get there. There are Rolls like that. But

10:16 If you have a specific craft or something. you can name that craft as a goal. and train for it or do whatever you have to do for it. I've never had any goals. I had the goal that I wanted to count and I had the goal that I was

10:30 fascinated by the entertainment business. I don't like it when people come in. to the early stages of a broad general entertainment career. and say I wanna run a studio or things like that. I think Whatever your interest is, you just get on a broad

10:46 Path. Whatever door you gotta bang to get in there, you get on the broad path. And everything else takes care of itself. You don't have to say I want to be this or I want to be that and I've always mistrusted that. I was thinking about this as I was reading that in your book, and the thing that came to me was sort of people look at jobs as stepping stones.

11:06 Um sort of uh, you know, this is temporary until I get the job I want. I wanna be an agent's assistant until I'm the agent, but then they're never fully present in the job. They're never just I mean, listen, maybe it might work for some, I guess. My observation is that doesn't really work. What works is If you get lucky enough. So get A position.

11:27 That you don't have experience for. That you haven't mastered. And then you just go about Doing it. The sparks you set off.

11:37 Naturally Impress others and lead. They They drag you to the next step. You don't have to do much of anything. And and I think when you do too many things, you know, you see people

11:49 Who's Naked ambition. It's so structured. And so people who say, Well, I need to go out and network and I I hear that And I think oh you fools. I mean, what are you talking about? You don't really need to do that. It's this kind of pro forma thinking.

12:05 of the s things you should do, the steps you should take. It really is far more naturalistic than that. Do you remember the first person who had expectations of you? Yes. At one point one of the things are progress. In uh in that mail room. Yeah.

12:23 is you work on on agent's desk as his assistant. Secretary at that time, but assistant. Person my second time I did it was for someone who

12:35 did take an interest in me and Was kind of the first person where I could see You know, I know what I'm doing for him. And I know how effective I am for him.

12:48 By the way, it's not like he ever said it to me particularly. But I could feel it and know it and at the i that that he had confidence in me gave me the imagery of confidence in myself. And That was probably the first time. So he believed in you.

13:05 More than you believed in yourself. Well, I had no belief in myself. So I mean, and I'm not exaggerating this just for whatever for drama purposes, but I didn't have any belief in myself. But I don't even know if I now have much belief in myself. I know how absurd that probably is to say, but it's But I can only reflect on my own. Dim. Uh

13:24 I think it's a very important thing. That There's no Doubt that. His confidence in me.

13:31 Spurred me on, for sure. I don't know that ever made me feel confident, but it sure spurred me on. I just wanted to please him more. And I did. I was the best little assistant the world had ever created.

13:43 You've worked with some of the Biggest egos. In Hollywood and some of the most ruthless Tycoons. I'm wondering if you can spend a few minutes on the lessons you've learned about ego and power. I'm direct.

13:57 And I'm sincere. and often quite blunt. That Uh in a way it does make people Maybe trust you? I'm generally very trusting.

14:08 I don't start out untrusting. I start out trusting. And you have to do a lot. to break that trust. So I think that that ability to Initially trust and people

14:20 Realize that I am trusting them. And I I don't say oh this is a very precious thing, please don't screw this up. Of course I've been in situations where It's been Misplaced to say the least.

14:33 You can't be in business as long as I have to not Have your trust broken a lot of times. The great thing is I can't really remember and I don't have any vengeance. And that's again just luck. It's not uh not something I would take pride in. The one great thing about the entertainment business has been in many Ways demonstrations of various excessive personality in order to get something done.

14:55 Or to be Distinguishable from the next person. Yeah, excessiveness is not a Bad quality. And also If you're trying to convince people of things

15:06 You probably gotta have either forceful personality, forceful something. Uh That's just Whether

15:14 You got it or you don't got it. And Today there is less of it. Then there was When I was kinda growing up in it where there was just outsized personalities that if you're interested in the entertainment is this

15:28 We've read about for a hundred years. uh that kind of created the business, the motion picture business in particular. Uh it's it's now a completely different dynamic, but but those outsize personalities were were thrilling to be around. Are you struggling to manage your projects at work using lots of different tools for communication, task management, and scheduling?

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18:04 The entertainment business. Let's let's say the motion picture business. Was Kind of encased. In its own world.

18:13 During its greatest. Years of development. That was what these companies did. They just made movies, the great movies of The thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, and some in the nineties. And there's still some good movies made. I'm not saying that. But they were

18:31 Worlds unto themselves. They were important worlds'cause those movies were exported to the world and became the export of American culture to the world. in movies, uh is probably The most extraordinary

18:46 Movement onating almost. Every country in the world. From the inception of the motion picture business. And

18:57 As time went on. They started doing television. And then they own cable networks and television networks, et cetera. And as they Diversified.

19:06 movies not kinda somewhat down the ladder of importance to these places. I think that has an effect on the work itself. when the senior most person Wakes up every morning and worries about what's gonna happen with the movie they're making and how how it's doing and all of that, the care and feeding of it.

19:25 Uh is far different than it being number eighty seven in the priorities of a large conglomerated company. But the most profound What took place with streaming. When

19:38 Technology essentially Overtook the entire екосистем. of the manufacturer of television. And movies. And so where

19:49 These Pure entertainment companies, by the way. To some degree. Yes. So

19:56 furthest you could ever go. to say the difference between instinct And ones and zeros or technology. Which is

20:06 As we know, quite fact based and numerical. As to making. Any content is instinctive. And those tech companies essentially have now taken over the old hedge of money of uh quote Hollywood.

20:21 And now Netflix and Apple. An Amazon? I mean just take one part of it, if you want to know the distinction.

20:30 Where If you make content The test of it is how many people Watch it, want it. Go to a movie theater, buy a ticket, do whatever. So you're in direct relationship.

20:43 to the reaction to that thing that you made. If your Amazon And Your main business is subscriptions in prime. And you offer content.

20:55 As kind of The thing in the front of the store. to get people to come in. You're so far away, it's a different business model. It's no longer based upon oh I love that program. I love that movie.

21:09 I pay my money, I react to it and the reaction is to the people who made it in this case. That's not the business model. So it's it's comp It's a completely different environment than it than it was. Now Not saying it can't produce good things. Good things do get produced.

21:26 And they will continue to be, but The environment and the process is different. And I think probably just pound for pound. What

21:37 I can say this about it. I'cause I can't Yes, I can, but it's boring to save. God, it was so much better eight years, ten years, twenty, thirty years ago. terms of making stuff. It used to be, for sure, up until recently.

21:51 It was fun. You had fun doing it. You You did it. You set up your tent. Uh Every couple of month or month or two. You have a movie come out.

22:02 And you all run towards figuring out how to make it make it work, et cetera, et cetera. And Then your next excitement was the next movie and you lived in that environment and if the movie was good it lasted for a while.

22:18 Things now go so quickly. So it is not a process today where most people in it will say they're having a good time. It's just so fractionated now that that and it goes so quickly. That The great

22:31 Thrills of Making great programs is kinda gone. Do you think it's too numbers driven? I'm I mean you mentioned instinct as a deciding factor. You used to decide on instinct and You know, other people would bring numbers and I think one of your quotes, if I remember correctly, was Numbers can tell you what has happened in the past, but they won't tell you what's happened in the future.

22:52 But everything is sort of analytical these days. Netflix can see the exact moment somebody stopped watching a show. So when they're doing programming, they think about this. And do you think it's getting too formulaic and too data driven, or I I don't think algorithms Can help here. None of us know what's gonna happen with The dread and wonderful word AI, but I don't think that

23:15 But Predictive research. Yeah, it's uh Certainly in the Arena of

23:23 Content. Worthless. They cannot tell you anything of real value. In making a forward decision. It's just not

23:34 Possible. And Yet. Everybody Wants it to be possible.

23:41 Why? Because Making instinctive decisions is living with great insecurity. There's no way to be secure. Uh when you're making decisions based on instinct. If I can

23:55 Get more comfort. By using this piece of data or that piece of data to quote help me. Lovely. But it's a delusion. It's almost like hiding, you know, the safety in the numbers. I wasn't wrong, the numbers were wrong, and you can absolve yourself from responsibility in a way.

24:12 You can only do that for so long because In the end. Uh Your work will get you. Good or bad.

24:22 And there's nothing you could you can't hide. That's the The thing that I will always love about That

24:30 world is your your out there. With Whatever you've made, you've put together Whatever role you played in it.

24:40 And there's no hiding. It's there for people to see and React to and they will react. Is there any particular failure that stands out in your mind as like, Oh, I I I've learned a lot from that one, or it was more impactful than the other ones? If you were in the work of making Things content. You're gonna have a good amount of failure. It's not

25:03 Possible otherwise. No. I've I've been lucky, uh I won't say it's luck. It is that isn't luck. But I've had enough successes to balance the failures and probably

25:16 have b have had a better average, let's call it. Of that. Every failure in some way ought to teach you something. And Uh success teaches you nothing.

25:28 But Failure sure teaches you a lot. Are there lessons that you've sort of been taught? multiple times from failure that you're sort of like I keep running into that, but it's a different version of the same problem. The most important thing and the thing that I've been reminded of

25:43 continuously is to keep scrubbing My instincts clean, as it were. Every time I've made a decision out of cynicism I wouldn't say every time'cause sometimes probably it has worked, but there's a continual theme of cynical decision making that is poor. So being naive, not being cynical. being able to not let life experience, so to speak, infect

26:10 your basic instinct, your ability to know a good idea from a bad idea. That has been, if anything, the thing that constantly I've had to work at because you gain experience. the natural tendency is to be cynical or is is to be sophisticated.

26:30 is to know things. And it's something that I've just learned to fight against. Not always successfully. How do you maintain that beginner's mindset though? Like what are the things that you do to approach things that way? I wish I could I give you a prescription for this. I think probably the best way I can say it is hold on to naivete. Do not let the fact

26:52 that you are of course learning things and learning is of course how could you say it's anything but good. But living in an environment Where the corrosiveness of the day grinds at you. And makes you

27:08 worriedly cynical and all of that. It's just something you gotta fight against. That that's A the best prescription, but that's all I got. You mentioned AI. I wanna come back to that in a second. You've lived through major technological disruptions from cable to TV to home video to theaters becoming less important and now We have the internet.

27:31 And we have AI here. I'm wondering if you can spend a few beats on AI and tell me about how you see that. not only impacting the media and film business, but also maybe double click on how you think it's gonna impact the website and travel and all of these other things that you're involved in. content business into the worlds that I've been in for the last twenty five or so years, which is the world of

27:57 Internet Tech Life with Expedia. And dozens and dozens of other websites. Commerce sites, et cetera. And I was very lucky I got to participate in that revolution, which started really around nine eighty five when

28:13 you know that started to get u used by ordinary folk. And I was there in that Period and able to To have this wonderful field. Kinda open there just for the So to speak, grabbing and learning.

28:25 And that was Definitely a radical transformation. We're Certainly. At the brink of the next

28:34 Revolution. if you were sitting in nineteen ninety five or two thousand. at the beginning of the things you did not know and there were plenty of those. There was nothing that cracked your mind and astounded you and said Oh my God, this is beyond me. This is magic. You could master it.

28:53 Wasn't hard to master. AI will it master us? Certainly in some cases it probably will. The first time I used Chat GPT.

29:04 Which was before It was released. And I thought, Well, this is friggin' magic. And we're past that very early stage.

29:14 We're into the great unknown here. It's going to have profound effect. I don't know. to what exact extent I know that for my businesses We are Racing And we've been doing this for years and we go and anyone in business has been using machine learning for a decade or more.

29:31 We're so far past that now in so many different areas. That I can't By any stretch. I know they're profound.

29:45 How do you think it's gonna impact the travel business? Well, it's already impacted the travel business. You are able now, I mean expedio Which is a large Uh entity. I mean a hundred and fifteen or twenty billion dollars of sales. It's a large enterprise. And it is a

30:03 Tech company. The things we are using AI to do now. Which did not exist. Is

30:12 Profound and Every area of our service. It is more than likely That Within a year

30:21 But I would say that And I think it really is probably truly within a year or so. You really will be able to have a conversation. A gente. This new word.

30:33 We're An agent does work for you. Will know so much about you. It's not like They will have known

30:42 that your calendar says you have to be in Las Vegas on Thursday, the twentieth of September. And We'll just take care of everything for you. Eventually that may happen, but the dialogue that you will have very soon. Where the agent will know so much and have such

31:01 Agency. With the ability to actually complete A transaction. in all its respects is not far off.

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33:02 Visit remarkable dot com to learn more and get your paper tablet today. Sounds like there's opportunities for you from uh travel planning, knowing your customer, and and there's a lot there, but there's also this. Sort of. this intermediary uh threat, I would imagine, where people are purchasing their travel or planning their travel in a completely different way that doesn't involve something like Expedia. How do you think about that?

33:27 They will unless we plan it better than The next dope or the or a competitor of ours. We have more information now than anybody else has. So if we screw that up, it's you know, it's on us, as they say. And we deserve to fail. But

33:43 Presumably If we are satisfying the consumer. because of the data that we have, which is Deep and vast. Then I think they'll continue to

33:56 Engage us, they'll continue to want us to do that for them. I think from what I know now. It is not Easy. Today.

34:06 For anyone else to do that. Uh other than our competitors can do that today. But it's not easy for Any large language model or any

34:17 modality that that I know of. So it's up to us to do it. It it's a it's always listen. one of our we're the largest publisher. It's another business of ours called Thot Dash Merida.

34:28 Where we're with People Magazine, h uh uh better homes than gardens, travel leisure, et cetera, sixty some odd magazines that we publish digitally and Also hugely still in print. Obviously that is a business that's supported by advertising. And

34:44 With the changes in search. that could disintermediate those advertising opportunities. The only thing that will save us is our brands and whether our brands and what we the content we make. Resonates enough directly.

35:00 For people to recognize the brand and Want to be brand involved rather than agnostic. I've I believe Until

35:10 The last breath. That Brand value. is enduring. But it's gotta be differentiated, it's gotta be clear.

35:19 And it's gotta be of its own unique value. If it is. I don't worry so much. One way or the other it'll get It'll it'll it'll get recognized. What opportunities do you see in new business lines that maybe you could acquire or data sets or anything on the horizon where you're like,

35:37 Oh, we can take advantage of AI wave by doing something different versus a legacy business. Our company owns a large interest in MGM resorts, which Has nine resorts in Las Vegas. There's no way to disintermediate the experience. I mean again, if we're in a simulation we can go into that route, but there's no way as humans

36:00 you can find an experience that's going to divert you. From All the entertainment offerings that a Las Vegas has. To offer. It's impervious.

36:12 Two. A I or to anything other than whether or not you got Something That's pleasurable for a family and exciting for people to come and see concerts and All of the things that take place at the kind of scale that

36:28 What impressed me about that? from the very beginning was I said, nobody's ever gonna make another one of those. No matter how much anyone tries. Las Vegas. Is

36:40 On its own, it's not necessarily for everybody. But No one is going To recreate. But

36:48 the infrastructure that exists in that particular place. That's unique. And of I think enduring value. And I'm fascinated by it because I just think it is again an example.

37:02 Of a place where You can make something up today. And it comes out tomorrow, meaning there's nothing that stands in your way. We just created a beach club with Cairo at one of our properties that

37:16 It's just it's just original and anything you can think of, there's nothing to stand in your way of making it up there. When did you get involved with MGM? It was during latter stage Covid. Now NGM was out of business.

37:30 It's just like For a long time Xp D was out of business. I mean Nobody could travel, nobody could go, nobody with the Entire city was shut down. But I looked at it and I thought, just like I thought about travel, if there's life, there's travel. Well

37:43 If there's life and there's gonna be life, there's gonna be Las Vegas. And so M GM It's value had decreased enormously. So we were able to purchase a large percentage of it. Inevely at the time.

37:57 Because we believed That once you Reopened. It would be fine. And

38:05 Uh we picked I think the best entity to do it. All the entities that uh Suffered the same. Situation. But

38:13 That's what intrigued me. And And its infrastructure. The fact that it had Four hundred and eighty restaurants. In one place.

38:24 Uh a hundred and twenty five performance venues. Nine million, I think it's nine million feet. I mean, It just was s once we learned about it, it was so vast and deep. said how do you you know how do you not

38:39 Do this. One of the things that motivated us. Were you thinking about that through a lens of AI at the time? Well, to a d to a degree for sure. The

38:51 Internet World. I think that everybody participated in Up until Still true to some degree today.

39:00 was so dominated by Google. Uh Google Absolute monopoly on search and all your traffic. I mean least half your traffic if you were healthy would come

39:12 From people coming directly to you. But the other half. Without which you wouldn't be able to survive. Came from Google and Google

39:21 Over the years was consistently as it Monopoly grew, was squeezing. The people who kind of lived on it as a serf on its uh land. Yeah.

39:32 Uh So I was always I mean. We were fighting that good fight for twenty Plus years.

39:41 And succeeding. And building some considerable assets. But when I found an asset that couldn't be disintermediated by search I thought, wow, that wasn't AI. That was just the characteristics of the internet environment. I wanna come back to the fact that you said sort of you were direct

40:01 and blunt as two of your your sort of things that define you in a way and most people shy away from confrontation and you love it. Can you tell me more about that? I'm not really very good. on my very own staring at a wall or at a Screen or at something.

40:19 I need The Convulsive. Arguing of ideas. Of

40:26 People who have passion. And That's often got a lot of voices and a lot of voices saying Okay, it's okay. But a lot of voice saying that's stupid or Whatever. Opinion.

40:39 Trying to Listen for what rings your instinct. Is a process that I think is best conducted In extreme.

40:49 At least for me. And Those pet like being around me and doing it. And some do. I

40:57 Love confrontation because in confrontation outcomes Stuff that if you're listening No matter how noisy that confrontation gets if your ear is open. You're listening and you'll hear something. And the thing you hear

41:16 will be a better truth. at least for me, than in any other process. So I do love it. And I've always surprised it and if I'm not in an environment where it's happening. I think it's kinda dull outside, inside or wherever. Why do you think people

41:34 aren't always direct. Like where does that come from? Where does your directness come from? Was that a learned thing or were you always direct? No, I always was. I don't know. My interior thinking. Like many things with me is

41:46 I think it's biological. I I can't I can't do it any other way. It's not like I made a choice. Like I said, oh let's do that'cause it's better than not doing that. situations where

41:59 I see people Run from confrontation. And I Of course can't do anything. Of course we I tolerate it. But I tend to kind of run from it. It just makes me uncomfortable. Uh and I understand better those that

42:13 Error. incapable of it or worried about it? than I do me that's very capable of it. I mean I certainly understand Why? you would be

42:24 Uh It it it's combative. It is irritating. It is Often frustrating. It is a lot of things. I value those things. Other people hate it.

42:35 You have a passage in your book that uh I loved. It's great self talk and I'm gonna read it because I wanna quote it. You said Like almost everything in my life. Iteration one dumb. Step in front of the other, course correcting as you go is the only process I'm any good at. That's true. And this process became your mantra. Can you unpack this for me a bit? I learn from bouncing off the walls.

43:01 Uh Um A bad And course correcting.

43:09 And make Plus mistakes. Look. There are some people for sure. Relatively few.

43:16 But there are certainly people Who don't need to bother with that because they are Brilliant. in ways I'm not.

43:25 Uh And They are Able to do it. Yeah.

43:31 Seemingly not have any process. Those the that's that's where genius laws. For those people that are Fantastic, my observation is they have other problems. But for those of us who are not, particularly in something that hasn't happened before, now

43:46 You know. Things that are very known. Uh you can Find guideposts, but In the world that I

43:54 I'm involved in. Uh And a world that I'm most happy to be involved in is where Something isn't known.

44:03 And you are making progress as you go, building a company step by step. an idea from a whatever wherever it comes from to whatever it's going to be. The the only way to proceed Is in that.

44:17 World of unknown. Of building something. I could do it only by Bouncing off the wall. Going a step forward.

44:27 Pushing back. being pushed back a half a step. And eventually. Making less mistakes and busting through. I think what keeps people from doing that is they don't want to look like an idiot. So it prevents them from starting in the first place. They don't want to look like an amateur. They're scared, but oh

44:44 What's your reaction to that? It was a long time ago. I don't know who said it or whatever, but it rang for me very true. Somebody said something. And someone else said, Well, that's stupid. And

44:58 The person said. That's what I want. Stupid. The more I hear stupid, the more I will hear ideas. And

45:07 So If you're in a process with other people. And Any idea.

45:15 Any idea dumb, stupid, wrong. Uh Any One of those words you want to attach to it. is the step to the next idea which isn't.

45:25 You gotta get stupid before you get smart. You never feared failure because you had one primary fear most of your life, which made it easier for you to eliminate other fears. Yeah. One of the things that stood out in the book was you had this contradiction. You struggled with this decision to leave Fox and start your own thing.

45:45 Can you explore the tension there between What was the fear going into that? I'd been working in companies Since I was nineteen. That was

45:56 Thirty years later. I was forty nine. I've been a very good corporatist. I had run two movie companies. An incredibly successful In the world that I was in.

46:08 And Yeah, I yearned. For something that was my own and I it wasn't mine. I mean Uh

46:16 I worked for large Enterprises. And Like any good employee believes and acts like it's theirs. But that's a delusion. It isn't theirs.

46:27 Someone else's. And That struck me and sat with me for Once I'd realised

46:37 that I had this year for independence. Uh I was very comfortable. I I Harbor's You couldn't be more successful than I was at that time.

46:49 We created the fourth network. I don't care. Simpsons, like you had the very successful movie company. Et cetera, et cetera. But It wasn't mine. And I thought, Well What am I gonna do about that? And I came up with this

47:06 Oh. thing in my brain that I couldn't get out of my brain, which was either you are or you're not. It's binary. And you can do what most executives do, which is you rationalize and you You know, you live a Pretty good life. So

47:19 You rationalize your situation or you just So it won't This is what it is. You don't have any urn to be independent or on your own. I did. And I knew that that was binary and it just kept

47:32 At me. Wasn't that I was afraid. It was I didn't want to confront the very binariness of it because On the other side of

47:43 not being a corporateist or being on your own or being independent or wanting to build something. Yourself. Is That You are very far away from the mother church. You really are on your own.

47:56 And while it didn't frighten me, it was like Such a different solar system. that I couldn't even conceive of it other than in these terms of you are or you're You're not, and I couldn't accept. That

48:11 I was not. And that's That's what got me out. It was my inability to accept that. And so I left Fox and I had no clue what I was gonna do. So up until that point you had been on the receiving end of a lot of these compensation agreements and now you're setting them for your CEOs. How do you think about that? Do you have a different approach than others, or how do you think about incentives and ownership? I believe in risk and reward. And I believe if the risks if you take risks and if you're doing any

48:42 valuable work you're gonna be taking risks. Yeah. It works out. The rewards should be there. And we now and always have.

48:54 Hope always will compensate people accordingly. People can't Ga wealth. in the enterprises that I'm involved in. Something's wrong with the enterprise.

49:06 So I I'm about wanting people to give people the opportunity to create real wealth. With Unlimited upside for it. How do you think about that? Can you walk me through an example of sort of like how you think about the principles of compensation and alignment and a base salary and sort of incentives.

49:24 I think generally Compensation That is stock based. Is

49:31 Not the best route. Oh It depends again. Just a broad general statement. For developed enterprises, it's not the best route.

49:42 Uh the Best route is up to me a much simpler one. If you create value. working in a project or you create value to whatever degree you create it.

49:54 You should share in that value on a cash basis. Meaning Any Time period, a year. Just take every year.

50:03 Yep. Enterprise does well. You should have a share of how well it does. paid to you at that moment. What I have learned is that most people you think that

50:15 giving large populations options in the companies for securities. That they would hold on to them. And what you find out is Eighty, ninety percent. The first moment that they

50:29 quote vest they cash them. So it I don't know. I've got a lot of Endless thoughts about that that bore the hell out of everyone.

50:37 Well, they won't bore me. I I'm really curious about it actually because you know, stock based compensation is Um It distorts a lot of the economics of the business and people think that it incentivizes or retains people when you've had no problem. I don't believe, by the way, I also I I I've heard a retention arguments From time immemorial. Decades of

51:02 Well we do this to retain people. I think that's ridiculous. You retain people, people stay in your enterprise. because they like what they do. And there's opportunity there. a a handcuff, so to speak, or they stay because they haven't Vested in this or that. I think that's Hobwash.

51:23 I don't believe in retention. I believe in opportunity. I like the idea of sort of participating in the success of the organization. How do you think about it as a new CEO coming in, maybe to a mature business? And do you set the compensation based on uh above baseline for next year, or how do you think about that? You certainly if you have an ongoing business Uh you're really compensating people for growth. I mean other than

51:49 base tasks that need to be performed. You want growth. If people can provide you with growth, you should give them a share of that growth. If they want to be an owner, they can take their cash compensation and then go buy a stock. Yes, absolutely. Give them their resources and Let them go do it. But the wealth you can create for them, it should be based upon

52:10 What they do and what they produce. Have you ever lost anybody ever because you wouldn't give stock options? No. I don't think so. See people might say the yes, but I don't think so.

52:23 one of my friends had a clever idea because he doesn't give stock options. So when he was recruiting people They were like, We're walking away from all these options and he's like, I'll give you the exact same options that the company you're leaving. Uh but I'm not gonna give you options in the company you're coming to. That's a good idea. I like that. One of the the moments that really stuck out in your book, you had this core principle, and you said that the clock starts ticking the moment you're made aware of the incident, from the second, from that second, you're responsible for the actions. And I think you hit on that in relation to two of your marketing people who were who were stealing from you.

52:56 Can you tell me that story and sort of what happened and what the realization was? It was my first Exposure to something like that. Where Uh we found out.

53:09 But Two of our key executives had been Stealing. And uh And uh

53:17 And one of my colleagues said, You know We can bury this. Another of my colleagues said, Well Actually one of the people who did this They threatened you very directly.

53:28 kind of blackmail and saying if you expose this or if you report this to the authorities we'll do this terribly damaging thing which was So heinous to me, but What I realised And it is a great lesson for me.

53:42 Presuming you run a straight organization, meaning in other words, presuming you're not Engaged in Yeah. Nefarious stuff.

53:52 But If something happens And it doesn't necessarily be somebody stealing, it could be One of your products has some anti social

54:01 thing that you discover. Or Somebody in your organization has just done something. That is unethical, whatever it is. And so long as you're running a general like checks and balances.

54:13 Up until that moment. That you know it. You have no issue with culpability, you have no agency, you have no nothing. But the second you know it. The clock is ticking.

54:24 And you have to have that in your brain. You have to know. That Every second after that, what you do. About that.

54:35 Is now Your Absolute responsibility. I have a Like it.

54:40 word bubble above my head about it. But It is a great discipline, and I've seen so many situations where that was not recognized where Prevarication or

54:53 Other Methods. We are not aware. That that clock ticks. And

54:59 Every action you take. Is then Your actions. Before that. You got no fault.

55:07 I wanna come to public broadcasting for a second. One of the the things that I I don't see getting enough attention that you wrote about was the fairness doctrine. I'm wondering if you can explain what that is and what the impact's been in getting rid of it. Well the fairness doctrine was a fundamental tenant. Oh Broadcasting.

55:25 Buch. Mant That You had to in any

55:31 Of anything. You had to present if there were Two sides to an R you had to present them. Fairly. You had to be fair in your presentation. And this was

55:43 Along with a lot of other regulation thrown out some time ago. And I think is uh very unfortunate for the common wheel, as they say. Meaning that that Proviso for broadcaster. Still are, but they were licensed. 'Cause they were using the public airways belonging to the public.

56:04 And so you felt a responsibility. If you were in that world. To do Uh right thing. And we de can define right in all sorts of different ways, but we all know what the mainstream of right is. To a very large degree.

56:19 That's kind of been tossed. And I think that's just very unfortunate. How do you think about the media landscape today in terms of information, disinformation, and How it's all playing out. With people.

56:31 Oh my God. I mean it's We're in a very difficult period about information about facts. There is so much from our leadership. That Uh

56:42 is not based on facts. Is not true. It's promotional or it's just outright. Not factual. And We hear this thing about quote fake news. Principally by people who are faking news.

56:59 Uh Not always, of course, and listen, I hate the right as much as far right as much as I hate the f you know the The woke left is as horrible as the woke right. Or walk right as whatever say it anyway you like.

57:13 But We have lost. A central Fact. Based method.

57:20 Or the dissemination of call it news, broadly speaking. And uh it's just Every bird brain knows this.

57:30 Most Of the Talkers. Are talking Essentially.

57:37 to themselves and to their audience, reinforcing What they think which is not. necessarily factual wherever you are on the spectrum. the biggest issue we have. Is

57:49 Having Faith. And belief. In information.

57:55 And That's That's that's a sorry state, and there are some trusted sources. Relatively few. We always end these interviews with the same question, Barry, which is what is success for you?

58:09 Yeah. Well success for me uh Is is remaining curious. I and The only thing That

58:19 I I the only thing that Drives me is Is my curiosity. And if I'm curious Then that is success.

58:32 I love that answer. Uh, thank you very much for the time today. Nice to be with you. Thanks for listening and learning with us. Be sure to sign up for my free weekly newsletter at fs.blog/newsletter. The Farnum Street website is also where you can get more info on our membership program, which includes access to episode transcripts, my repository, ad-free episodes, and more. Follow myself and Farnum Street on X, Instagram, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. If you like what we're doing here, leaving a rating and review would mean the world, and if you really like us, sharing with a friend is the best way to grow this community. Until next time.

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