Page 80 - Forbes - USA (October 2019)

THE DILLER DOZEN

STARTING IN THE 1960S BARRY DILLER BECAME A FORCE IN TELEVISION, THEN MOVIES
AND NOW THE INTERNET. HIS TRAIL OF PROTÉGÉS AND ASSOCIATES IS EQUALLY IMPRESSIVE.

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Michael Eisner David Geffen Jeffrey Katzenberg Mindy Grossman Dara Khosrowshahi John Foley
R
E ex-CEO, Disney Founder, Geffen Cofounder, DreamWorks CEO, WW CEO, Uber Technologies Cofounder/CEO, Peloton
L Records, Cofounder (Weight Watchers)
L Worked with Diller at Hired as assistant to Former banker to IAC Spent 13 years at
I ABC in the 1960s, then Dreamworks Diller at Paramount and Ran Home at Allen & Co. Hired IAC, running brands
D
Diller hired him at Worked with Diller at eventually tasked with Shopping Network by Diller in 1998. Ran like Evite, Citysearch
Y Paramount. William Morris. reviving Star Trek. for Diller. Expedia. and Pronto.
R
R
A
B

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L
I
F
O
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Sean Rad Scott Sanborn Julius Genachowski Ricky Van Veen Shana Fisher Sam Yagan
Cofounder, Tinder CEO, Former Chairman, FCC, Head of Global Cofounder, Third CEO,
LendingClub now at Carlyle Group Strategy, Facebook Kind VC ShopRunner
Hired by IAC-funded
incubator Hatch Marketing Hired by Diller in 1997 Cofounded Hired by Diller from Sold OKCupid to
Labs in 2012, where executive at Home and spent 8 years CollegeHumor at Allen & Co and led Match in 2013. Was
he co-created Shopping Network building up IAC and Wake Forest; sold his strategic planning CEO when it went
Tinder. for five years. predecessors. operation to IAC in 2006. and M&A for IAC. public in 2015.

net giants like Baidu at their dawn and Amazon always has a plan,” Geffen adds. “I’ve never seen
after the dot-com bust. When Priceline was of- him be anything but successful. To bet against CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:EVAN AGOSTINI-INVISION-AP; NICHOLAS HUNT-GETTY IMAGES; RICHARD SHOTWELL-INVISION-AP; JIM SPELLMAN-GETTY IMAGES; DAVID PAUL MORRIS-BLOOMBERG; ALLI HARVEY-GETTY IMAGES;
fered to him, he was stretched thin because of him would be a fool’s errand.”
trouble at Expedia and was unable to pounce. Now Diller is again challenging convention.
But Diller’s hits have more than made up for He is preparing to spin off the remainder of
his misses. At IAC he has built and spun off ten Match Group, IAC’s crown jewel, and the handy-
publicly traded companies including Ticketmas- man marketplace ANGI HomeServices, worth
ter, travel giant Expedia and Match Group, Tin- a combined $20 billion. Then Diller will start EVAN AGOSTINI-INVISION-AP; HEIDI GUTMAN-CNBC-GETTY IMAGES; FREDERICK M. BROWN-GETTY IMAGES; DANIEL ACKER-BLOOMBERG; DAVID PAUL MORRIS-BLOOMBERG
der’s parent company, worth a combined $70 bil- again with a hodgepodge of internet unknowns
lion (at an estimated cost of $12 billion). and has-beens. “All of our transmutations have
“Seventy billion dollars from nothing is a lot, been about renewal,” he philosophizes. “Spinning
but it isn’t $700 billion,” Diller concedes. “It off Match is a process of renewal in that IAC the
would be so absurd and almost revolting for me company gets to start inventing again. We are
to feel bad about that disparity. I wasn’t a found- … shrinking in order to grow again … shrinking
er of a single company. We were opportunists and with $5 billion or so of cash.”
I think pretty good managers. I wish I had in- Former Diller lieutenant Dara Khosrowshahi,
vented a single company, but I also wish I could now the CEO of Uber Technologies, says, “Barry’s
dance like Fred Astaire and sing like Adele.” like a shark. If he stops swimming, he dies. So he
Since he took control of IAC’s predecessor in just keeps going.”
1995, he’s produced 14% compound annual re- o understand Diller, it’s impor-
lywood giants like Disney, CBS and Viacom. “He T tant to realize that he relishes be-
turns for shareholders, outperforming Berkshire
Hathaway and trouncing both the S&P and Hol-
ing an underdog. When it comes
understood the dynamics of the digital world to acquisitions, he tends to buy
early among the media moguls, and he captured misfits that others dismiss. That,
it,” says billionaire Mario Gabelli, an IAC inves- in fact, is the plot of one of Diller’s earliest suc-
tor who has followed Diller for decades. “Barry cesses, the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears,

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