Barry Diller

Chairman and CEO
IAC

Barry Diller needs almost no introduction–he is one of the best-known executives in the U.S., straddling a number of industries, including entertainment, online and retail. Well known too for his biting wit and gimlet gaze, he has recently been embroiled in a high-profile battle for control of IAC with major investor John Malone, another well-known mogul. What's been at stake are some of the Web's most famous names, including HSN, Ticketmaster, LendingTree, Match.com, Ask.com, CitySearch and Evite. Mr. Diller was one of the first Hollywood executives to take interest in the interactive space, which made him unusual when he started focusing on the Web in the mid-1990s. Before that, he served as chairman and CEO of Fox Inc. from 1984 to 1992. Previous to that, Mr. Diller was chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures for a decade. He started off his career in television at ABC.

Posts With Barry Diller

OkCupid Sets Up San Francisco Labs to Try to Reinvent Online Dating (Video)

Liz Gannes in Social on November 18, 2011 at 1:30 am PT

The hipster dating service OkCupid has ventured from New York to San Francisco to create a freshly staffed outpost of start-up folks in order to brainstorm the site’s next act. They call it OkCupid Labs.

Welcome to the Boardroom: Chelsea Clinton Joins Diller

Lauren A. E. Schuker and Joann S. Lublin, Reporters, The Wall Street Journal in Media on September 26, 2011 at 10:30 pm PT

She’s 31. She’s still a graduate student. And she’s held many different jobs in different industries over the last five years.

Barry Diller Panders to SXSW–and It Works

Liz Gannes in Social on March 14, 2011 at 10:06 am PT

One of these speakers is not like the others, one of these speakers just doesn’t belong…but the fourth-day hangover crowd at SXSW Interactive came out in force to see longtime media executive Barry Diller speak at the Austin Convention Center this morning.

News Byte

Barry Diller and John Malone Complete Their Divorce

Peter Kafka in Media on December 2, 2010 at 5:40 am PT

Barry Diller and John Malone, who have been tied together for 17 years, are officially split up, for good: Malone’s Liberty Media is abandoning its majority stake in Diller’s IAC holding company and taking $220 million along with IAC’s Evite.com and Gift.com units, as parting gifts. Meanwhile Diller himself is making a smaller break with IAC by stepping down as CEO, but will remain as chairman. More details from Shira Ovide.

Ask Adds to Consensus: Social Is the Way to Compete With Google

Liz Gannes in Social on November 9, 2010 at 1:00 pm PT

IAC’s Ask.com is giving up the ghost on algorithmic search and Web crawling. Rather than continuing to wilt on search or competing directly with Google, IAC said today it is changing strategy to Q&A search. That will strike 130 engineering jobs in New Jersey and China, according to Bloomberg.

College Humor Gets a New Grown-Up: Time Inc. Digital Dude Paul Greenberg

Peter Kafka in Media on October 7, 2010 at 5:44 am PT

Here’s the new adult supervisor at College Humor, Barry Diller’s much-smarter-than-you’d-think humor site: Paul Greenberg, who most recently has been running digital operations at Time Inc.’s Lifestyle group.

Daily Beast's Tina Brown Brags About "Interesting Discussions" With Newsweek

Peter Kafka in Media on October 6, 2010 at 7:13 am PT

How are things at the Daily Beast, which turns two today? Awesome, says Tina Brown–so awesome that Barry Diller may end up pawning the thing off to Newsweek and new owner Sidney Harman.

First Ben Silverman Online Program–"Ready, Set, Dance!"–Debuts on Yahoo

Kara Swisher in News on September 28, 2010 at 7:31 pm PT

Yahoo and Electus, the multiplatform content studio headed by former NBC entertainment head Ben Silverman, debuted its first original, branded entertainment programming tonight with “Ready, Set, Dance!” The site, which is now live on Yahoo Music and sponsored by State Farm, merges the candid-camera phenomenon with reality television and “aims to tap into the pop culture interest in television dance shows and dance videos on the Web….” The site is relatively spare right now, with only one episode, titled “Magic Sparkle Chunk and Frisky Ris.”

For Barry Diller and Ben Silverman, "Branded Content" Means Jason Bateman on a Stripper Pole

Peter Kafka in Media on August 6, 2010 at 11:29 am PT

A mini-movie featuring a cross-dressing dancer with a heart of something other than gold. Does it make you want to buy some gum?

Oracle's Ellison: Pay King

Scott Thurm, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on July 27, 2010 at 3:30 am PT

Larry Ellison, founder and chief executive of software maker Oracle Corp., topped the list of best-paid executives of public companies during the past decade, receiving $1.84 billion in compensation, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of CEO pay. Coming in No. 2 on the compensation list was Barry Diller, who received roughly $1.14 billion from IAC/InterActive and Expedia.com, the online travel site IAC spun off in 2005, where he remains chairman.