Between revelations about his personal life and a dizzying abundance of bold-faced names, Barry Diller’s autobiography “Who Knew” is a pretty delicious read for anyone who has followed the imperious executive’s decades-long career, filled with insight into Diller’s business philosophy that clearly served the billionaire IAC chairman very, very well.
What the book isn’t, with its throwback old-Hollywood roots and Diller’s exploration of how his privileged upbringing fueled his professional fearlessness, is any sort of road map that a mere mortal could follow to emulate those business breakthroughs.
Through the course of the 321-page book, Diller’s equivalent of “The Art of Moguldom” offers plenty of observations about how he approached decisions along with his views regarding what works and what doesn’t in media and entertainment. Given his track record — from fathering the “Movie of the Week” at ABC to launching Fox to overseeing Paramount to becoming a successful internet entrepreneur — those merit attention, and will be explored here further.
Nor has the 83-year-old Diller shown signs of slowing down, from his stewardship of IAC to his frequent CNBC appearances, where he’s invariably outspoken, recently stating that he won’t work with law firms that have bowed to pressure from President Trump. He’s also still swinging deals and making waves, whether that’s rubbing elbows with other media titans in Sun Valley or his last pursuit of Paramount in 2024.
Yet the personal side of his life, about which he opens up with the liberated sense of someone no longer encumbered by keeping secrets, mostly reinforces the old truism that the best way to make it in Hollywood is to be born into it — or at least, born adjacent to it — with the connections and advantages that entails.
Although much of the focus has been on Diller finally discussing his sexuality — and the surprise, to him and others, when he fell for and eventually married Diane von Furstenberg — the related key was Diller was so concerned about the threat being gay posed to his career in the 1960s and ’70s that he was completely fearless in business matters.
“I was bashing forward all the time because I didn’t see the risks an average person would,” he writes, while knowing that being outed could derail his plans.
That quality also stemmed in part from not needing to worry about money, as he freely admits, which is certainly, as the old song goes, nice work if you can get it, but hardly a mind-set available to the less fortunate.
Despite the dysfunction of his family life, because he grew up relatively wealthy in Beverly Hills (his father was a real estate developer), Diller notes money isn’t what drove him, although Lord knows, he’s made a lot of it. As for breaking into the biz, his career-launching gig in William Morris’ mailroom came thanks to being a childhood friend of Marlo Thomas, whose father, Danny — one of the agency’s biggest clients at the time — simply told them to hire him.
Diller talks about being so indifferent to money he was chided for failing to cash his first several paychecks.
“I have never made a decision that was related to money,” Diller explains. “While I wanted to be paid for my work with the best of them, it had no dictatorial role for me. Money to me was only a byproduct of the work I was doing, never a motivation.”
Sounding occasionally wistful, Diller notes that he served as a sort-of bridge from an earlier generation of larger-than-life characters into the modern era, “before the movie industry became more boringly business-sized and bureaucratized.” He also concedes, “While yearning for simpler times is an old person’s foolishness, the fragmentation of media, and the polarization particularly in news, and the tectonic plates of Hollywood shifting from the old major studio system to the control of trillion-dollar technology companies is not an altogether good thing.”
As Diller notes, he started when three networks still dominated the landscape, and a made-for-TV movie like “That Certain Summer” — a landmark 1972 film about a son and his gay father, one of the first to feature LGBTQ characters in a sympathetic way — could have a huge impact by reaching a mass audience huddled together watching.
So what are the key takeaways from Diller’s book, which resonate well beyond media’s formative years? Here are eight that stand out, and surely merit consideration for anybody who aspires to occupy the executive suites where he forged his reputation:
Creative conflict is productive.
Far from those who seek to avoid conflict, Diller welcomed and encouraged it. “I’ve never thought decision-making should be peaceful,” he says, calling creative tension “the best process” for reaching positive outcomes. “What I call ‘torturing the process’ works. Saying ‘It’s OK’ or ‘It’ll do’ is repellent. Never compromise.”
Similarly, Diller expresses disdain for artist-driven conceptions of creativity that dismiss or reject input from others, including studio or network “suits.” As he puts it, “I abhor the popular concept that filmmakers should be left alone to do their work. There are very few who do not benefit from a more objective opinion; whether they appreciate or acknowledge it is beside the point.”
Don’t let success breed arrogance.
While Diller obviously takes pride in his accomplishments, he suggests, “If there’s a deadly sin that often results from someone’s success in business, arrogance should lead the list.”
Be willing to walk away from a deal.
Diller attributes “The best lesson in negotiating” he ever learned to MCA’s legendary president Lew Wasserman, who, after a particularly bruising negotiation told him as he was leaving, “Be fully prepared to call the whole deal off if you don’t get what you ask for. Because otherwise, you never will.”
Take chances when hiring and promoting.
Diller always favored naming people to positions for which they might not appear qualified — yet — elevating those who rose to the challenge and discarding those who didn’t. “Give them responsibilities before they are considered ready. Drop them in the deep end and see who struggles and who survives.”
Instinct beats data and research.
“Instinct is what I prize. Not research or data,” Diller writes. “Data can tell you what has happened, not what can or will happen. Data is often harmful to instinct, and I believe this to be true for making not only creative decisions but many business decisions.”
Be original.
Throughout his career, Diller says, he was creatively guided by two principles: “Never done before” and “never done quite this way.”
Consolidation and “bigness” are overrated.
At a time when many companies speak of seeking economies of scale, Diller contends“bigness” makes no sense for bigness’ sake, particularly in today’s idea-driven marketplace. “I don’t believe scale gets you anywhere other than sloppy governance. In so many ways consolidation is just an ego and organ-sizing competition.”
Know the company from top to bottom.
Diller talks frequently about the value of building an operation from scratch — going back to the TV movie at ABC — as opposed to parachuting in as the boss and taking over. “Managing top-down is exceptionally challenging if you haven’t had the experience of managing from the bottom up.”
I abhor the popular concept that filmmakers should be left alone to do their work. There are very few who do not benefit from a more objective opinion; whether they appreciate or acknowledge it is beside the point.
To his credit, Diller also acknowledges the importance of luck and timing, and identifies some of his failures, like pooh-poohing Bruce Willis as a movie star before “Die Hard” made him one, or passing on a ground-floor opportunity Steve Jobs presented him to join Pixar because the appeal of what would become “Toy Story” eluded him.
That said, Diller also owes no small debt to one of Hollywood’s oldest unspoken laws, which is really about real estate and legacy: Namely, it helps being born to, or next to, somebody who can get you that first job with a phone call.
Who knew that? If you’ve observed or studied the entertainment industry through the years, pretty much everybody.
