Self-Made Billionaire: What Actually Creates Success | Barry Diller

Mr. Diller, the person who people magazine called the failure back then who owns people today, we do.

Mr. Diller does.

A media mogul.

Technology executive Atoni winning producer and a member of the television hall of fame.

Barry Diller has shaped the media world for more than half a century.

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

Hell of a no.

He loved changing people's lives.

For them to take a gamble on a 32-year-old kid, I still can't believe from joy in the club.

Everything for me has been either curiosity or serendipity, situational things that have just come to me.

Does that mean you're not ambitious?

One day, he said, you need to come over. I need to see you.

And I go in and say, well, I want you to be chairman of the drama.

I said, what? You're out of your mind.

Do you say, what's there to think about you, idiot?

What's your name?

Cunda.

Cunda Quente.

How many nights did it run?

11 nights.

It had, I think, over 50% of the US population watching it.

Wow.

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

I know good stories, and I knew that my life, the arc of my life, was a very good story.

Charlie, hardly the easiest man in the world to be around or deal with, fundamentally had enough belief in trust in me

that he did not pull the rug when I was told that he had died.

It was an utter shock.

In this podcast, we sit out with some of the world's most successful people who reveal a person that believed in them before the world did.

The conversations are deep, raw, and relatable.

Special thanks to our friends at Canva for believing in us.

Canva has a two-part mission, build one of the world's most valuable companies, and then do the most good you can with it.

They give their product free of charge to schools and nonprofits because they are on a mission to create equal opportunities that empower people all over the world.

And finally, please like and subscribe this video, and if you're listening, please consider rating our podcast.

This is the person who believed in me.

I'm David Begno.

My intention for this podcast was that every guest would be a big name in their field.

But the star of each episode would be an everyday person who believed in them.

My guest is Barry Diller, and the man who believed in him was actually a big deal in the media field.

He was Charlie Bludorn, the man who owned Paramount Pictures and went on to hire Barry Diller to run Paramount when Barry was in his early 30s.

Barry started in the mail room at William Morris, went on to run Paramount, started Fox, and now runs IAC.

Barry has transformed the way we watch and experience entertainment.

Barry and I met at a conference a few years ago, and when he released his memoir earlier in 2025, I read it, and actually the audiobook was even better than reading it,

and I knew I wanted to have him on the podcast and talk about the person who believed in him.

And Barry showed up in true Barry form.

You do not put words in his mouth.

He was ready to go and what a great conversation it was.

Please welcome to the podcast, Barry Diller.

Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for, you know, for for most in me as they say, meaning having expectations beyond my competence for a lift.

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

I'm glad for that.

I have something to show you.

What is that?

Oh God, wow.

Alcatraz, what the hell?

Welcome to Alcatraz.

I look like I belong in Alcatraz.

The person circled is Charlie Blutowen.

Yes.

First words that come to mind seeing him.

I miss him.

He's a he was a great, great character.

He was a character.

I mean, only it could be.

And he was an Austrian immigrant.

He came to the United States.

I think when he was in his 11, 16, something like that from Austria and from the Second World War, which he escaped with his family moved to London, then to the US.

And like many immigrants, they have a vision of America that is extraordinary.

It certainly was the savior for him and his family.

But they have a mythology mostly exported by American filmmaking of the early 20th century.

But their image of this country and what its possibilities are is always extra large.

They're more American than Americans in terms of believing, believing, believing.

And Charlie was someone who became a coffee trader at the age of 21 and made many millions of dollars.

This is in the probably 50s when a few million dollars was a few million dollars.

A big deal.

The real deal.

And then he went on to found a company called Gulf Western, which became the largest conglomerate of the city.

Of the era of the 60s and the 70s and probably the early 80s.

It was a huge industrialist, but he was also romantic as a businessman.

He was not, he could add box card numbers better than anyone else.

But what he also had was a romantic streak.

He was also someone who was so, he was such a large character.

Did he could not be in the room with you without buying or selling something?

So often you and he loved changing people's lives.

He's the person who actually said to Robert Redford, who was not thinking in that arena of you should be a director and gave him his his kind of first film.

Actually not as a director.

It's a producer for downhill racer film of the 60s.

I guess anyway.

That was Charlie.

And he was very important in my life because he did this ridiculous thing that everyone thought he was mad.

And people refer to him as the mad Austrian is which was he picked this middle level executive at a television network.

To be the first person actually from television to come run a movie company.

So that was that was something.

And Mr. Dilla remind us how old you were at that 32 32 years old.

It is unprecedented or seem so today.

But back in the day, the hey day for them to take a gamble on a 32 year old kid.

I still can't believe it.

Yeah.

I didn't really believe it then either.

So I joined the club before he believed in you.

He didn't.

What did the guy who wanted you banned from the ABC Lot for driving too fast?

No, no, no.

That was a different guy.

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

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, that was earlier.

That was when I literally I'd gone from William Morris to join ABC.

And before I moved to New York, they wanted me to see all these television pilots that they had made right in the 60s.

And my God, it's so long ago.

Anyway, so I went to the to the where ABC was at the time, which is way over in East Hollywood.

And I drove my little Corvette because I was like this, you know, a reckless kid.

And I zammed in and out of there for three or four days to look at these pilots.

And the guy who ran the station, the ABC local station that was where I was doing this called the guy who hired me and even started yet and said,

you should you should crater this kid.

He's here.

He's irresponsible, et cetera, et cetera.

That guy went on to actually run ABC.

And over the next six, seven years, thinking that I was not only not qualified, but a kind of snotty rich kid,

came to actually a bless my career.

Amen.

Let's go back to Charlie.

So where were you in your career when you first met Charlie?

I was 24 years old, a little before.

And I was a junior junior executive at ABC, but I had the responsibility for buying movies from theatrical movies, the random theaters to run on ABC.

And one day I got this call from the chairman of ABC who didn't know my name or whatever, but I was the only one around at that day.

And he said, I have this person in my office, this big time industrialist, Charles Bludon, who's just bought Paramount Pictures.

And he is going to sell us a lot of movies from the Paramount studios.

And he said, can you come up?

So there I go into the chairman's office, who I've never been in before, meet this guy.

And I said to him, we're not buying these movies, they're no good.

The chairman thought, I don't want to deal with this.

I don't like confrontation.

Send us off to my office.

And you and Bludon.

Me and Bludon, this little 23 year old person and this big industrialist,

he was, he was probably 40 then, something like that.

I mean, he was also young too, to have the momentous career here.

Well, you write in the book, who knew, and we're going to get to the book, because it's one of my favorite reads of the entire year.

You had the gumption to push back on him, right?

So y'all are in your office and you're like, sorry, I just don't see it.

Yeah, well, it was more than that.

It was, you made, he bought Paramount, which had made all these turkey films for, you know, I don't know, the last 10 years or so.

Before you got there, yes, definitely before I got there, long before.

And I didn't want them for ABC, and he thought it would be the easiest thing in order to force them on.

And I stood up to him, how I did that, I had no clue, because I'd never really stood up to anybody before, really.

I'd never been in a position that there was any standing to be done.

And I did, and that impressed him.

And over the next, so probably eight years or so, in and out, buying movies, and then him using me as kind of a testing board for things Hollywood, he lived in New York.

I mean, his business was all over the world, but the home office of Gulf Western was in New York.

And so he would use me over those years to kind of put me against his executives at Paramount, where he thought they were full of it, and often they were.

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

No, I never thought about it leading to him.

You never thought of that?

No, I've never thought, I don't think in those terms.

So I'm not like, does that mean you're not ambitious?

No, I am natively very ambitious, but I am not.

I've never thought about future opportunities as things to manipulate or think about.

It's not like I ever, not even to think about.

No, I've never thought, well, I want that job or I want to do this or I want to do that.

Everything for me has been either curiosity or serendipity situational of things that have just come to me.

So I thought that why Charlie Blutorn, this big industrialist, does own Paramount, but he's got two executives there who are superstars, et cetera.

And no, I know I had no ambition about that.

And he circumstantially, there was a situation, there was a situation in the Garber language, that he thought I could solve his problem at Paramount.

But before he did that, what happened?

So he comes in the ABC and you're like, sorry guy, it's not going to work.

I don't like the idea.

And he's like, no, no, let me prove to you.

And you write in the book, you depict him as someone who simply will not let go of an idea when he's passionate about it.

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

There you go.

So when did he shake you?

No, he did not.

Now, I know where you're pulling out of this, but it don't go.

So it didn't, so he didn't get you to do anything at ABC.

No, no, no, no.

We did some business together as years went on.

We bought some movies.

We did things.

Okay, okay.

And but mostly he, because he liked a little sparky spunk of this person who was willing to confront him.

Right.

And few people I think probably were.

He took an interest in me just to test out things that were going on in Paramount that he either couldn't get done or didn't agree with.

And he would call me up and say, well, what do you think about that?

And I would tell him whatever.

And it was just that kind of relationship that went on for years.

All right.

So he ended up getting ABC to buy some movies, y'all ended up putting some of those turkeys on ABC.

Right?

Well, yeah.

Okay.

And then when did it change that you're like, oh, no, no, no.

I'm talking about you going over to Paramount.

Yeah.

How did that evolve?

It wasn't an evolution.

He tried to get me to come to Paramount.

I don't know.

Five, six times.

Do you remember the first time he asked?

No, no, no.

He probably, no, I'm sure though that it was now 2567 and had become very successful at ABC.

There's we invented this new form of television.

The movie night on ABC.

Yeah, movie the week.

And so he said to me, come and be vice president of television for Paramount.

And I said, don't be silly.

I don't want to do that.

And over the years, he would say, come and be this or come and be that.

And I would pass it off literally, truly pass it off with utterly no interest.

And one day, one day, literally, he said, you need to come over.

I need to see you.

And so I went over to see him.

I often did that.

He often asked me over.

And I go in his office and he says, well, I want you to be chairman of Paramount.

I said, what?

What if your mind?

And he said, well, the only thing for you to do is say, yes, you dope.

And I said, well, I don't call.

I'm like, you know, I've never, I've never been in the movie business.

I mean, I make movies for television.

What are you talking about?

This is absurd.

And he said, this is what I want to do.

I think you would.

Well, I can't even, I can't recall his words other than that I sat kind of stupified.

He's offering me to be chairman of Paramount.

And my instinct was to say no.

And I said to him, I want to think about this.

He said, what's there to think about you, idiot?

You're a lowly vice president, ABC.

I'm walking you to be head of the one of the five major studios in Hollywood.

I said, Charlie, I am going to think about it.

And I walked from there to where I lived in New York and thinking, well, yeah, I mean, it's this big job.

But I don't know that world.

I'm not really qualified at it.

And I kind of thought, oh, and when I left Charlie's office, he said that he was going to call the chairman of ABC.

And ask his permission to make me a formal offer.

And I said, you cannot do that until I tell you whether I'm interested in doing this.

Right.

He said, I'll do what I want.

So I knew he was going to do that.

So I then had to call a guy I worked for.

And I said to him, I don't know.

He also said to me, well, you're an imbecile.

You have to, of course, take this job.

And, but I went to this process for the next 24, 40 hours until I go on to see the chairman of ABC, who also said to me, you take this job, that I really didn't want to take it.

Because I didn't think I qualified for it.

Okay.

So I want to come back to that in a moment, but I want to help the audience understand, while at ABC, you created this movie of the week, which had never been done before.

Correct me if I'm wrong, because I know you will.

But they were running this, you know, crap on ABC.

No, no, no.

Well, they were running half hour and hour television series like people at NBC and CBS.

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

And let me show you how.

True or false?

Yeah, generally true.

I thought, look, I thought that it was more, I didn't really like series television very much.

I thought it was kind of boring, because the characters are always in stasis.

They never, you know, they really don't get old.

They perpetuate themselves, whether it's a half hour or an hour procedural show.

And I thought, well, having a new movie every week, if we could make it, and why couldn't we make it, would be a really good program idea.

Everybody said it would fail, because movies for television, not movies, because theatrical movies worked on television, but television was about series.

I convinced the people at ABC that this was a good idea.

And they said, yes, and there I was, because everyone thought it would fail, they actually let me do it by myself, meaning there was no supervision.

And so I built a little movie studio inside ABC.

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

How many nights did it run?

11 nights.

It had the largest, I think at that date, by far the largest audience ever for television.

Maybe in history, the largest audience, I'm not sure, but it ran 11 nights.

It had I think over 50% of the US population watching it.

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

That's my opinion.

I don't know, well, it is absurd.

No, it's not so absurd.

It's timing and circumstance.

I was at ABC when ABC was kind of run like a candy store.

So if you wanted responsibility, you could take it, and I took it, and it succeeded.

And I was just very young.

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

You didn't grow up a Nepo baby.

No.

I love how you talk in the book about people giving you scripts and you start reading them and you start giving feedback.

And you initially, you're like, what do I know about this?

Well, I didn't know anything about that.

You got to screw it up before you succeed.

All right, back to Charles Blu-Dorn.

So he says, you got to take this job, you idiot.

And you're like, let me call my boss.

Your boss says to you.

You got to take the job.

What was the moment you decided?

All right, shit, I'm going to take it.

Well, I know what it was.

Well, it was so obvious that I had to.

It was only me and my kind of juvenile at that time.

The immature, not juvenile, at ESC and insecurities that said, I don't think I will.

But of course, I always was going to take it.

It was only my little dumbiness pushing it a bit away just to get timing so that I could digest it.

But I was always going to do it.

So you take the job.

Yeah, yeah.

Tell me not about the job because we know you went on to greatness at Paramount.

Tell me about the relationship.

And again, what Blu-Dorn did for you or didn't do that helped you become the mogul you are today?

Well, what he did is he had faith in me.

He had, he, he, and once you're very lucky, if someone has almost unbreachable faith in you.

Oh, that's good.

And, yeah.

And so you can, within that, you can fail a lot.

You can disappoint a lot because that, that, and it's only rare people who do that, who do not bend with the wind of the moment.

So for me, it took me a couple of years to figure out how to run this company differently than it had been run before.

And so for the first two years, I was, I wasn't really flailing around, but the results were very poor as I was trying to figure out I need to fail first before I can succeed.

So it took a couple of years for that to happen.

And Charlie, well, not hardly the easiest man in the world to be around or deal with.

Fundamentally had enough belief in trust in me that he did not pull the rug.

And when I said to him, I think you really, it's time.

This isn't really working out where the, where the number six movie company of six movie companies, we were at the bottom of the group for this period, this beginning period.

And I said, I think it's, you know, it shouldn't stay with me much longer.

You said, basically, just go back to the office and go back to work. I'm not doing it. I'm not, I'm not leaving. I'm not losing you.

And a few months after that, the movies we had started to make actually the first big one that came out was Saturday Night Fever.

And then, and we went from last place to first place in the movie business and we held it for seven straight years.

I was about to say as I read the book, who knew you describe every movie that's probably on anybody's top 10 list.

And I thought, well, shit, how does someone have a winning streak that long?

I mean, you went from being six of six to on top. And everybody else was a mile behind.

Well, what do you attribute that to?

Instinct or process and instinct.

And it's anything I contribute that to that I can signal as something that was, let's say, my doing was, of course, my having, having enough instinct and rising instinct so much clean instinct for making editorial choices,

which is what you do when you're deciding whether to do this project or that project or no project is using your instincts to be able to make those different different decisions.

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

I do. I do.

Yeah. I don't think there's any research that can help you on anything.

Data can't help you. Data can help you with factual matters of the past.

It cannot help you with anything in the future.

Fascinating. You've said about Blu-Dohan that he never flinched when people doubted him.

So I wonder how that fearlessness, if you will, influenced your own appetite for risk.

Well, I don't really think that he influenced my appetite for risk actually at all.

I admired. You couldn't have found a more polar opposite to me than Charlie Blu-Dohan.

Also, because his natural effervescence, his wild ambition, his insatiable desire for the next thing is just so much there.

I don't have that. I mean, I'm not unambitious, but I'm certainly not that.

And also, he walked and stalked with such utter innate confidence that it be dazzled everyone.

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You talk about him being known for having these explosive meetings.

Well, he frothed.

Yes, say the least. Smoke came out of his ears.

So you remember one where he...

He walked him out of his mouth.

Where he tested you.

Was there a moment where froth was coming out of his mouth at you and you were like, listen, you need a back-off.

Did you all have one of those moments?

No, no, no.

Never tell anybody.

What I would do is argue with him.

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

Do you remember the biggest argument?

Oh, God, we had so much.

He loved argument.

And I do too.

So you do.

Yeah, I do.

I like argument.

So we did that endlessly.

Can I tell you something I took from the book, torturing the process.

And I now do it with my team because I just appreciate sort of the meaning of that,

which is let's torture the process in order to get it right.

And sometimes the process you, as you write about in the book, is quite argumentative.

It's not always polite and pleasing.

Well, I believe in...

I believe that creative conflict is a very good thing that people arguing out of their own passion or belief

against someone else who's got equal passion and belief, either skepticism, devil's advocateism

or whatever for an idea or whatever is the best way to get to a good solution.

So I like that.

And I have always liked the process of that.

And some people like participating in it.

And some people run for the hills.

Many people saw Charlie Blu-Dorn as volatile and kind of ruthless.

Did you see a side of him that others didn't?

No, ruthless.

I don't agree.

Well, volatile, absolutely.

But ruthless now, ruthless connotes something that...

And I think it's often applied to people who make tough business decisions, uncalled ruthless.

Again, it's the etymology of the word, which I probably object to because I just see it as something that isn't usually applicable

to people making very, very tough business decisions.

If you're running a business and you've got to change the people in that business often

because they're not working out or whatever.

And you do it consistently.

You're considered ruthless.

However, in fact, you're the steward of that business and those are the things you have to do.

Amen.

So, you know, I kind of reject the word.

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

Oh, no.

Charlie was the most...

I saw no side of him that others didn't.

No.

He was the most transparent person the world could ever find.

He was absolutely transparent.

That was part of Charlie's great ability and charm is utter...

He was not afraid to do anything or say anything that didn't expose every part of him.

He was utterly effusive.

Did he in some way see you as a son?

Don't, I don't...

Maybe.

I mean, certainly never expressed.

Did he see himself as a mentor to you?

I don't know.

I think that word...

You don't like that.

I object to the word mentor.

Why?

Well, because I think it's taken on now a formality that overstates it.

And it's gotten to be a kind of professional class thing.

Let's choose who her mentor is going to be or let's do mentoring.

It's all, you know, a bag of empty, flossy words.

I doubt Charlie would have...

I mean, I bet if you said the word mentor to him, he said,

I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Over the course of your time with him.

What did he teach you?

There are so many things.

If you're in an experience of working with somebody particularly in a situation I was in.

Right.

But I learned so much from just observing how he handled matters.

Both observing ones I wanted to emulate and ones I wanted to never emulate.

And that was a process that went on for the eight and a half years,

because he died eight and a half years after I became chairman of Paramount.

He died at the age of...

56.

56.

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

If you're in someone's environment, who is that present

and you're spending lots of time together, we spent a lot of time together.

And I learned about business in such a gargantuan way that I would have never had exposure to.

So when I said, what were the things?

No.

I mean, the things that I did not want to emulate was I...

There was so many observations of as I said with this person Charlie,

where he was kind of a rug merchant.

He could not be in a room without buying or selling something.

Absolutely not me and not something I ever had any interest in.

What did he die of?

He had leukemia and he had had it secretly for three years.

I think he was diagnosed when he was 53.

Did he tell you?

No, no, no.

He told no one other than his family.

No one.

And again, he was like...

I don't know.

I'd say he was very...

He was the leading industrialist of the day and at a...

Gulf and Western must have had hundreds of thousands of employees.

And he kept it a secret for literally three years.

And as those years went on, if you see someone every day,

you don't notice changes or at least I didn't.

And I thought often, you know, how could I be this clueless?

Not to have recognized that this person that I was interacting with was sick.

When I was told that he had died, it was an utter shock.

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

Oh, yeah.

So a couple of months before he died,

one of the things that Gulf and Western owned was about 10% of the Dominican Republic

and they were the largest sugar producers.

He would go down there a lot.

He loved the Dominican.

And he kind of adopted it in so many different ways.

And he built an Italian village called Altostescivone.

He had seen a kind of artist village in France.

And he wanted to emulate an artist village so that the artists,

young artists of the Dominican could have a place to work and whatever.

Anyway, they overbuilt it to such an absurdist length.

And part of what this place was,

an amphitheater that was designed to see like 5,000 people come crazy.

And so at Paramount, we were doing these,

we did one with Diana Ross in Central Park.

These specials.

Right.

Television specials.

And we decided we would do one with Frank Sinatra.

And I thought, oh, great.

They were just thinking of,

they had not yet opened this amphitheater.

And I said, let's do it.

And we'll open the amphitheater.

It'll be very nice for Charlie and whatever.

And nice thing to do.

Again, I had no idea.

It was sick.

And so the day that this was happening,

we had an opening shot that we were doing,

which was to take a helicopter ride up this river

and going swimming up and down into the amphitheater.

And I banged on Charlie's door.

He was sleeping like in the early evening.

It was just getting to be, you know, kind of dusk.

And I said, come with me.

And he said, I don't want to.

I'm sleeping.

I got him in this helicopter.

And I took him on this pre kind of,

obviously it was before we were shooting the thing.

This track of the shot we were planning for the thing.

And we, as we got,

he got into the awesomeness of this beautiful thing

in this helicopter flying up this thing going down

into the amphitheater for this opening shot.

And he started crying.

And he said, this is the nicest present

you could have ever given me.

And two months later, who's dead?

Would there be the very dealer

that we know today without Charlie Blutorn?

Hell if I know.

I don't know.

It's a reasonable question.

Well, it's a reasonable question with a reasonable answer

of how would I know?

I have no idea.

I would have what I've done something else

would something else happen to me.

But he was a great influence on me.

Yeah.

Or he was greatly influential.

All right.

I want to now move over to some things from the book.

I have some dillerisms that are among my favorite

and we're going to come back.

I want to talk about sort of the early years,

the formative wounds.

I wrote down so many questions that I showed you

in Sun Valley.

By the way, if you're going to read Barry's book,

that's great, but listen to it.

Because hearing you in the audio book.

People like listening.

I'm so surprised.

And I'm so surprised how many people have converted

to listening to books.

Well, you have a great voice.

So that helps.

You write in the book about feeling abandoned.

You had a cranky father, abusive brother,

and distant mother.

And there's this story you tell about your mother

at seven years old.

You called her to pick you up at camp.

And she says, I'm not coming.

And you write, this is a quote,

I cemented myself shut.

So the question would be,

what did cementing yourself shut?

Protect you from and what did it cost you?

Well, it cost me basically,

oh, not forever, for sure.

But it cost me depending upon other people.

Because I felt I couldn't depend upon my mother.

I couldn't depend upon the one person in my family

who I thought might protect me.

And so it kind of soldered me shut

about human relationships.

Because I couldn't depend upon them.

And that has, of course, an enormous cost.

But it was not crazily adopted by me.

It was adopted because that's what I felt.

I felt unprotected.

Did the emotional.

And just that got on, by the way,

it's only my good biology that saved me.

It was sort of something that I ordered or whatever.

I just said, good enough biology

to figure a way out of that,

which was to essentially depend on myself.

You talk about your mother again

that you learn to please others,

especially your mom as a survival skill.

Of course.

And you call that both a superpower and a disease.

Did I call it a disease?

You did, you did.

That's a direct quote.

Well, yeah, I overstayed things.

I was very lucky that I learned very early

that I could seduce people by pleasing them.

And particularly when you're

before you have any accomplishment.

And if you can particularly do that with adults,

that is a bit of a superpower.

Hell yeah.

When did you learn that the people pleasing though

was hurting more than helping?

Was there a moment that you?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I don't think so.

I just think it's a...

It's not that it hurts.

It's that it forms in you

and often an inability to assert itself.

That's just the condition.

Well, that's really good,

because you're so damn focused on pleasing them

that you was getting lost.

You have this phobia or you had in the book you write,

phobia flying.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And so you became a pilot to master it.

Yeah.

Right?

So who does that, Barry?

Well, it was...

It seems so obviously simple and practical,

which is I knew that if I continued with this fear of flying,

it would hurt my life.

In other words, it would circumscribe my life.

I couldn't fly the...

I was flying basically back and forth to New York from L.A.

Every week or so.

So it was not exactly like I had a choice.

I just had to get over it.

And I certainly couldn't argue myself out of it.

But I figured out what I...

Which I think is true for a lot of people about fear flying,

is there just not in control,

there's two builds up there,

and who knows what they're doing,

or who knows what the wing flap is going to do.

And so I thought,

oh, okay.

Well, if I learn how to do it,

and I understood it more,

then maybe I'd lose the fear.

And interestingly,

the second I actually got in

this little Cessna 172 training plane

at Santa Monica Airport,

I was so enthralled with flying

that in that instant,

I, for ever more,

it lost not only the fear of it,

but I became to love the whole thing of it.

Wow.

And I never see a plane taking off that I don't want to be on.

You also had a fear of public speaking.

Yeah, yeah.

Still?

No.

Okay.

You write about anxiety

that you had being channeled into control.

Yeah, yeah.

What do you mean?

I grew up,

because I was so able to compartmentalize things,

and through other devices,

to never have a moment of anxiety,

I mean,

not until I was 19,

and had basically a nervous breakdown.

Anxiety just flooded through me.

And, of course,

when that happens,

you have panic attacks,

whatever.

It's such a loss of control

that it's like,

oh, my God.

I never want to confront this again.

This anxiety.

Has the anxiety gotten less and less?

Has it gotten old?

Oh, I have a very little anxiety.

Very little.

Yeah.

I mean, I have stress, I guess,

although I don't really feel it is stress.

What are things Barry Diller obsesses over?

Oh, I can obsess over the angle of that lamp.

Give me anything and I'll obsess over it,

because I'm obsessive.

You were obsessive

in making it clear to people

that you favored instinct over data.

And I wrote some of this down from the book.

You dismissed research

and prized gut instinct.

Yeah.

How did that show up in meetings?

Like, give me an example.

When people make arguments to you

that they believe are factual

based on data,

again, on things of the future.

You data for the past, of course.

What it's all you care about

is factual stuff

that took place

of proceeding to any action.

Right.

So in any situation,

and people are saying things

that are not factual

about what is going to work or not work,

let's say, in any given situation,

you have to keep your brain

and those around you

or their speaking process

separate from dealing,

misrepresenting,

fact, as prediction.

Can you think of one example

where they came to you

or a team at Paramount

or even I.

Everything you would have.

I mean, there's trillions and trillions,

but you always want a little specific.

So here's one,

which is,

I wanted to do these movies

for television.

Yep.

Every fact

proceeding to that

was saying why it would not work.

Yep.

And I simply rebelled against that

because I thought

this is a good idea.

Ideas and instinct

overpower any kind of factual base

that's determined to quash them.

Love it.

Creative tension.

You write in the book

that you believe in argument

over civil debate.

Oh, it can be civil,

but it's not very productive to me.

I mean, you really,

you want to get the best out of a situation.

You want to get people past

their kind of endurance,

meaning that the best stuff comes out

when people I think are actually tired

and want to get out of the room.

And that stretches them

to come up with something original.

You say you love confrontation.

Yeah.

I like conflict.

Still today.

Oh, yeah.

Of course.

This spoke to me especially

because there's a new business owner.

I felt this in my soul when I read it.

You talk about process

being your mantra.

Right.

And that never settle for okay.

Well, I,

it's such a bimbo statement.

So it is that I do believe

that you know something's good

when you see it.

Yeah.

Take it like in terms of,

take it in terms of advertising.

You, you, you,

you know,

you watch billboards,

advertisements,

60-second television spots,

whatever, whatever.

When there's an advertisement,

it's great.

You don't need to explain it

or argue it.

It just is.

Most stuff is just good,

not great.

And the way you get from good to great

is say no to good.

And you just say,

no, I won't accept it.

Come back later.

Oh, shit.

That's good.

And eventually,

you know,

the later it goes,

the more people want to go home

and say,

please,

and you say no.

Well, what happens

when people push back on that

and say you're being abusive?

It has nothing to do with abusive.

It has to do with,

again,

some people are up for this

and some people,

it's like,

I've said to people who

in this creative conflict,

arenas that I like to create,

it's very clear,

some people don't like it.

And I say, you know what?

You pay no price.

Just leave the room.

Go into some other room.

Because your personality

is not conducive to this process.

If you stay in the room,

all you're going to do

is feel abused.

I don't want you to feel abused.

I want you to feel invigorated.

But if that's not who you are

and you just don't like such things,

there are people

who run the yields from conflict.

And just can't bear to be around it.

And I say,

fine,

that doesn't define you as a bad person

or as a not person

able to contribute.

It's just,

I don't want you in my room.

Go into somebody else's room.

Can torturing the process survive

in today's workplace culture

of safe spaces?

Listen,

I hate the woke left

as much as I hate the woke right.

I know you do.

So there are, of course,

work situations

where people have been abusive

to each other

and gone over an actual line.

But that line is not to be a was,

either.

It is certainly,

as I could say,

if somebody does not like,

there are plenty of people

who like confrontation,

like arguing,

like arguing out of passion.

There are plenty of people

who don't.

Well, the people who don't

would feel they're being abused.

I say,

just leave the room.

I don't want to abuse you.

Let's talk about the quiet resistance,

as I'm calling it.

You write in the book,

you never faked being straight.

But, quote,

I had secrets

but told no lies.

Yes.

I had secrets

but told no lies.

Yeah.

What about that?

How did it feel to write it?

To write it?

Yeah.

Well, I lived it.

So, how could I do anything but write it?

Sure.

Okay.

So, here's what I mean.

How did it tell?

How did it feel to actually tell the story?

Yeah.

Whatever, whatever, all that?

Yeah.

Well, I, look,

the one thing I knew when I was trying to write a book

was I knew,

I know good stories.

You do.

Because I have a long history

of telling stories.

Yeah.

And I knew that my life,

the arc of my life,

was a very good story.

The only question was,

could I tell it?

And that if I would tell it,

the only way to tell it,

is to tell it true.

Yeah.

And so, once I said that,

the rest just came out.

It wasn't like I negotiated it.

I knew that I,

that I wasn't so sure

that I would ever publish this book

up until really the last year.

How long had you been working on it?

Oh, ten years or so.

And I thought,

often on, I mean,

I would put it aside for a year.

But I thought,

well, you know,

all I can do is tell the tale,

true, as true as I can tell it.

And, you know,

my truth is whatever,

not necessarily someone else's,

but anyway, it's my book.

So, I knew all that.

And I did not realize,

really until very close to publishing it.

My wife, Dionne,

who's been public,

had a public life,

all her life because she is her brand.

Said to me,

get ready.

I said, get ready for what?

She said,

would you're going to be exposed?

I said, I'm not going to be,

what are you talking about?

I actually,

totally compartmentalized it.

So, on the kind of week

it was being published

and I started doing some of these interviews

and people asked me these questions.

At the beginning of them,

I was absolutely gobsmacked.

I thought,

what are you doing asking me about coming out?

Silly,

silly questions about that

and about issues of sexuality

and all that.

How did I get in this place?

You did it to yourself?

Of course I did it to myself.

You write in the book

that you feel guilty

for not being an LGBTQ role model sooner.

Tell me more about that.

This is the most predominantly in the 80s.

So, it is around AIDS

and all of the things that went on about,

first of all,

dealing with the crisis itself,

doing whatever you could to,

quote, help it.

There were groups around,

one was called ACT UP,

which were kind of,

they were really violent.

What they were trying to do

is get the attention of the government

and everyone else to pay attention

to this crisis

who was mostly,

mostly involving homosexual activity.

And so, they were actually

running around, quote,

outing people, quote, for the cause.

And which I thought was a kind of heinous prospect

because I don't think anybody

should be dragged to do anything.

Absolutely.

But at the same time,

I thought,

well, you know,

I was then chairman of Paramount.

In those years,

actually part of those years,

Paramount and Part Fox.

So, I had this influential position.

And I founded

a support groups and other things,

and certainly contributing all of that.

But I didn't declare my own sexuality

for a whole number of reasons,

one because,

I thought,

because mine was not,

I thought a great poster.

I was not a great poster for it

because my sexuality was so,

not unlike a lot of others,

not conflicted,

but gray,

because I also was in a relationship with a woman.

Right.

So,

but I felt guilty that I should have,

I should have done more.

That's all.

Well, it's interesting is,

at the same time when you're saying

you should have done more,

you were pioneering gay representation on television.

Yeah, I was doing good things.

I mean, I was doing some good things,

but,

but that is a lingering cowardice.

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

Forgive.

I don't know if I forgive or not forgive.

It isn't a question of that.

I have some guilt about it.

This is something I've slugged power,

failure and paramount.

You were in the mail room at William Morris,

then the chairman of paramount.

You described the early years of paramount

as a train wreck.

Yeah.

Because they were just in last.

No, because,

in order for me to figure stuff out,

I have to drill way, way down,

and usually that process is,

it's not only messy,

but I tend to,

I tend to fail first before I can succeed,

meaning I tend to make situations worse

before I can figure out how to make them better.

That's interesting.

Because I'm taking them apart,

trying to get to their essence,

and in the process of doing that,

that's not really particularly productive.

So every experience I've had,

there has been that period

where I'm figuring it out

that I make things worse.

That's fascinating.

I mean, I'm marinating on that,

almost to the point of like,

you want to embrace failure.

No.

No?

No, I don't embrace it.

I hate it, but it's like necessary.

I can't, there's no other way to do it.

Okay, so embracing the process, right?

I don't know.

You're using a word that I wouldn't use.

That didn't embrace it.

I was walking down the street

when you said this,

and I laughed out loud.

You said,

people magazine called you a failure

at some point, right?

When I became chairman of Paramount,

I'd come from ABC,

and at that time,

a lot of ABC programs were failing.

And so they wrote a story

about me failing upward.

I think the story was called.

And, yeah.

And Mr. Diller,

the person who people call the failure back then,

who owns people today?

Yeah.

It's nicely ironic.

Who owns people today?

We do.

Mr. Diller does.

And they're doing quite well.

Yeah, yeah.

People's great.

Like, really good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

People's excellent, right?

Now, they've just put out,

and I just put out,

just a new product of people's is an app,

an actual standalone app.

They introduced a few months ago,

and it's great.

There are still questions

if you deserve the Paramount role.

Oh, yes.

Everyone.

Okay.

Yeah, everyone thought up,

who is this television person

coming into the movie business?

This is ridiculous.

I know you sort of...

I love being discounted.

You do, of course.

It works in your favor.

Always.

So here's a question that I wrote.

What did fail your teach you

that success never could?

Success and failure.

I mean, failure doesn't...

I mean, you learn from anything

experience you go through.

You learn from failure,

you learn from success.

They're not mutually exclusive,

nor mutually admirable.

They are things you go through.

If you don't,

I have rarely met anyone

who's had a long career.

God knows, I've had an endlessly...

endlessly long career

that has not had some failure in it.

I've never actually, though,

had any project

that ended up being a failure.

I mean, I've had individual programs

that I've done,

movies that I've made that have failed.

But I've had no...

I've had no career failure

thus far.

Boom, mic drop.

I want to close out with this,

your personal relationships.

In the book, you're pretty verbose

in describing that you had very few

close friends,

despite being so charismatic

and such a massive success.

Yeah.

Why?

Because I didn't like

depending upon people very much

and I was fairly closed off

for a long time.

And luckily,

because of my family,

that has...

I wouldn't call it reformed me,

but it certainly surrounded me.

Dion.

You call her the miracle of my life.

Yes.

How so?

Because she's...

because we have a unique

relationship that is now

close to really like,

I think, next month is 50 years.

And not being together

during all those years,

but we've been married

for the last 22,

24, one of those two.

And her family

is the most important thing in her life.

And our family

is the most important thing in my life.

How lucky do you get?

You talk about success at times

making you feel lonely, right?

And isolating.

So the question would be,

if success at times

made you lonely,

would you choose it again?

I have no choice.

It's not a matter of choice.

I have both, as I said,

a biology

that forces me

that is not subject to

a willful debate.

And I am natively ambitious.

So there are,

of course,

consequences

to being very successful.

By the nature of that,

you are somewhat isolated.

If you are,

if you are the senior person

with tens and tens

of thousands of employees,

that is isolating.

It's just part of the trip.

How old are you now?

83.

I want to say this,

and I mean it with 100% sincerity.

I hope I get to 83.

And I hope I'm as

with it, having fun,

doing it,

and still hungry,

like you seem to be.

I'm so lucky.

Luck.

Luck in circumstance.

I know it's called the person

who believed in me,

but as I had written

by that artist,

I asked to write that note for you.

Thank you for believing in me enough to say yes.

When I asked Brian Lord

and Herb Allen

to help me book you as a guest,

I think Herb's response was,

oh boy.

And Brian said,

I ain't trying.

Brian's response was,

you're on your own.

Here I am.

I'm happy to have done this.

So thank you for believing in me.

That's a pleasure.

And doing.

That's a pleasure, truly.

All right.

Thank you.

Barry Diller, y'all.

I'm Barry Diller,

and the person who believed in me

was Charlie Bludor.

I thought you might want to know,

but this podcast

is at the heart of a company

I founded called

Do Good Crew.

I've spent 25 years telling stories.

It used to be the bad news,

and now I want to focus on the good news.

The everyday heroes

who are doing extraordinary things.

You can join us.

We do live events,

but we also have a newsletter.

It's free.

You can sign up for it

by going to www.MadoogoodCrew.com.

This show was created by me,

David Becknow.

Our executive producers are

Ellen Rockamora

and Olivier Delphaus.

Our associate producer is

Griffin Hamilton.

Our booker is Sully Block.

Director of Photography is Foster Parks.

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post-production and edit

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Thanks for watching.