[00:00] When I met Rupert, I had always wanted to start a fourth network because I thought the three networks were boring. And he said, "Great." I said, "What do you mean great?" He said, "Do it." Well, we have to buy these stations. It cost a billion 150. And he said, "Do it." What could be better? [Music] When I ask around about you, as I've done the last couple of days, lots of
[00:31] mutual friends, the word that comes up in every single conversation is curiosity. Usually insatiable curiosity maybe is the term that people use. Um, and I love the part in your book about the time in the William Morris file room reading everything you possibly could. Where did the spark come from? Like is it just innate in you? Has it always been this way? >> Curiosity, I absolutely believe is innate. I mean, I guess people could try, oh, make me curious, you know? >> I don't know how you'd go about that. I think you either have the biology so much to me is about biology and not
[01:02] necessarily willful direction but the idea that you can pull it from someplace I'm in I've always been innately curious not voraciously or crazily just generally and luckily my curiosity is not like I want to understand how unwinged butterflies metastasize eyes. My curiosity is in more general interest areas. So,
[01:34] they've somehow resonated in other parts of productive life. >> What did you discover in the file room that that got you going? >> Well, I had always been interested in the entertainment business. So, that's why I went there to to because I was 19 years old. No one was going to pay attention to me. So, I thought, where can I go and >> or just where can I go? Who would want me? Uh, I don't think anyone wanted me at that time for sure. But I thought, what could I do? And they had a male room concept, which they brought in
[02:05] young supposedly sparky people uh, and trained them to be quote agents. I had no interest in being an agent. Uh, I would never ever think I would be qualified to do that kind of thing or really have any interest. But what I was interested in was the entertainment business. And at the time, William Morris agency was 70 years old and it was the leading agency. So it had the history of entertainment in its file room >> and I got lucky enough to be able to
[02:37] wangle my way to basically read it from A to Zed. It wasn't curiosity. I was like I I just read the entire place. >> What was it about entertainment that captivated you? Seems like that was the sort of like the eye of its day in all the top. >> I grew up in a a little town, Beverly Hills. Almost all of my friends parents were involved in entertainment in one form or the other. My parents were involved in construction and building and finance things like that, the other,
[03:09] you know, world from entertainment. And I was just always drawn to it. Always fascinated me. I liked I was interested in the people they led. Definitely interesting lives to say the least, >> but no, they also I was also interested in the mechanics of it. It just it's like anything, you know, you're drawn to something. >> I was drawn to that. >> In the earliest days, uh when you knew you did not want to be an agent, but rather create things. Uh there was this confrontation in your book, I think you were 23 years old with Charles Bluorn.
[03:39] Can you talk about that fight that you had over over something? Well, what happened is so I go after I leave William Morrison and I go to ABC and I'm 23 years old and ABC at the time there were only three networks and they had 100% of the viewings. They were all each of these networks were very powerful and but ABC was kind of run like a candy store cuz it was the youngest of the three networks and it hadn't yet bureaucratized itself. So if you wanted responsibility, it was there. And
[04:09] anyway, so I'm in the program department and no one else was doing it. So my responsibility was to buy movies from the major studio producers of movies at the time to put on television because that was a big diet of television watching then was to watch theatrical movies on television. and Charlie Bluedorn, this great industrialist of the 60s and 70s, uh, had bought Paramount, uh, and in order to justify his
[04:41] purchase, he wanted to sell all their old Turkey movies. And so he convinced the chairman of ABC uh in a meeting where he couldn't wait to get rid of the mad Austrian Charlie Bluddor uh to uh buy all these movies and blue the chairman called me up to his office. I was the only one on the floor at the time uh and said, "Okay, you do this." >> And and I told Mr. Bluedorn after he had
[05:12] thought he'd clenched this deal to kind of save his purchase of Paramount Pictures and I said, "I'm not buying any of these movies. They're all turkeys and I'm not doing it." >> And he fumed at the ears and whatever. And out of that, we found a way for us to buy some of the movies and him to create new movies and to finance the new movies. And so he got intrigued with me. >> In that episode, did you discover a fearlessness in yourself? Well, I discovered, look, I had I had this one
[05:42] big fear about sexuality, uh, that kind of obliterated all other fears. >> And so, I was not, it turned out, which I was a total discovery because I didn't know it, of course, I'd never been in such confrontations. >> I had no fear of of business situations. I I I had this big fear and that made me take on >> weaponized >> everything else. Absolutely. So it was a kind of secret weapon. >> It wasn't a thrill to go through and I'm
[06:12] not so sure I would advise it, but it was >> it was fodder for me. So when I came up against this very powerful and >> you know some people are quietly demonstratively not at face power. He was powerful in all ways >> and combustible. He had the biggest conglomerate of the time >> uh again uh late 60s 70s and uh he was
[06:42] so he was probably 40 or something >> an old man to me. Anyway, I found that I could argue with him and >> I wasn't afraid of him. >> Everybody else was petrified. >> We're going to talk about the decades more of that to come. But when I read your book, I was captivated and amazed by how clearly you described things in your early life that so impacted you. Um, the two that stood out to me were this. I went to camp and I was horribly homesick when I went to camp as a kid. I
[07:13] could just like remember quaking going to it. And you tell this story about wanting your mom to pick you up and her not showing up. Um, and then everything with your brother. And the way that you described these two events was just it just kind of like blew my face off that you were willing to be this honest in the book. Um but but but also in a way that like so many people that have read the book that I've talked to I don't know got them talking about their [ __ ] when they were young. >> It's really quite amazing to me and I the reason I wrote the book is because I thought this is a good story you know I mean I know story. I know narrative. I've been telling stories all my life.
[07:44] >> So I thought it's a good story if I can tell it true. And I thought, well, do I want to? And then I thought, well, if I'm going to do it, >> why would I not want? I mean, my that would be crazy. So, that's what I set out to do. What's really surprised me is how it seems to have emotionally resonated with so many people in ways I would have never expected. >> Can you talk about what happened in that camping incident and with your brother and and the impact that those two things had on you? >> I was at this camp and I was eight,
[08:14] seven, eight, nine. Yes, somewhere in there. Um, and I was Yes, as you saw, I didn't want to be there. And the only person in my dysfunctional family that I thought I could have any dependence on was my mother because I certainly couldn't depend on my father. My brother was a sadist monster. Uh, and so I I I said, "Come and get me." And she said, "Okay, I will come and get you." And it is a it it is a describable scene of
[08:48] sitting uh in a in a you know kind of the part to the entrance of the campground and whatever on a kind of near a tree stump and waiting hours for my mother to come and rescue me. uh and the waiting of it became this bitter sad sweet moment of me saying I cannot depend upon my mother which meant I can't depend upon anyone other than myself and it was a resolve that from
[09:20] that moment on uh I would I would I would force the world around me that I was dependent on no one >> which was at that age a kind of well kind of harsh but it was a truly revelatory moment of being my own savior. >> How did the need for control evolve across the rest of your life? I think it's because, you know, I think
[09:51] it's because I, you know, I've thought a lot about that and I'm I'm not really not that introspective, but in reading writing this book, I had to go through >> thought a lot about that. And because I had no control no control over the biggest issue of my life, which was my emerging and confusing sexuality. >> Yeah. >> And of course, what I wanted to do is control it. you know, I wanted to say no, turn it this way instead of that way. I I want that. I want this or I
[10:23] wasn't that obviously argumentative in a subject, but I think we all have stuff that we would like to control and find our either ability to control it or not. Now, many things that come up, you can control them. So everything else in my life >> that I could control, I'd want to sure try. >> And and has that gone down at all through I mean you've been so successful. >> It's the same as always.
[10:54] >> Oh, I think it's even worse or more. >> How does that manifest today? Like I was reading about the original moment of insight around QVC and the two-way interactivity and now we had you know you were with probably Sam around the time of chat GPT and like another moment >> very luckily because Sam Alman was on the board of one of our companies Expedia >> right >> and so definitely earlier than most uh he showed me the magic >> which was to me magic. It was he
[11:24] actually I think the first thing he did he he said to chat GPT tell me the biography of Barry Diller in Shakespeare sonnet >> and it did it >> and in a millisecond out of the little iPhone comes back and I'm telling you of course and again this is with I had little prep about what he was doing but it was friaking magic and I just was
[11:54] stunned. >> How did the two compare? Like did it feel of an order of magnitude even greater than the QVC moment of >> Well, the greatest epiphany, I mean, you know, my own big epiphany was when I went to, you know, I'd only known screens, you know, movie screens, television screens to be uh narrative uh formats, meaning that that you were passive. They told you stories. That's what screens did. I went to QVC and I saw these primitively interactive
[12:25] screens >> that you weren't passive with. You said, "I like that product." You at the time punched phone codes and you ordered it up and televisions and computers and uh uh tracked it and I thought, "Wow, screens can be used for something other than passive experience narrative." Now this is in '92 so it's 3 years before the internet gets used by people and uh of course I didn't see that but what
[12:56] I saw was interactivity in screens and I was dumbruck by it >> probably more so than the because that wasn't magic chat GPT me was magic >> this was pragmatic >> and I thought I don't know how but this is going to change things >> and I was just again I think so much of life and is circumstance and serendipity moment and whatever by the time the internet comes along three years later I
[13:26] had some fluency >> about it so I was able to make it productive >> we'll come back to the the investing chapter of your career but I want to flesh out some of these components of what I'll call like the Barry Diller model for approaching the world not not that it's formulaic at all but >> some concepts like creative conflict maybe starting with that and your love of creat creative conflict. Talk talk to me about what that means and how it manifests, why it's so valuable. >> I discovered fairly early that the best
[13:57] organizational process was to get smart, snappy people in a room who have opinion and get them clanging against each other with their opinion. And out of that conflict, because that can be conflicting because people will say, "Well, I think this about that." and somebody says, "No, I think that about that or you're a dope about this or oh that's you know an interesting insider whatever whatever." So the more that that that conflict forges hearing
[14:27] interesting things, if you're a good listener, and I'm lucky I can listen. I can pick out of that some not hidden. It's just I can pick out of it a truth or something that I can >> a >> roll with something that >> makes sense to me. Yeah. >> That I can say, "Whoa, huh, that's a good idea." because I'm always searching for an idea and the definition to me of an idea is it a good idea or a bad idea
[14:58] and that's obviously editorializing by instinct and I have always thought that the best arranging room for that is a an a a a group of people who are in conflict with each other >> usually past their point of endurance meaning the longer you push it I found over time that when you push people somewhat past their endurance when they like say, "Oh, please can I go home and
[15:29] you won't let them go home?" >> interesting things happen after that. >> The uh the notion of spark and edge being things that you were searching for in the people that might be in that room really interested me. Um spark I think I understand what how would you think about edge? What was an edgy person? Ed is someone who is I don't know define it better edgy someone who who who who who who has some coarseness and I don't mean by coarseness in in the p pjorative sense I
[15:59] mean that like like I don't know scratch paper that you know that that that creates a spark >> somebody who's got some I wouldn't call it you know original thought or whatever but someone who's willing to be on the edge of things rather than the common center of things >> and and is that related to this notion of like discontented and willful that you've talked a lot about >> discontent is I mean Robert Woodruff was the chairman of Coca-Cola company uh in
[16:32] its great formative years once I I mean it's kind of obvious but he but wasn't obvious to me when I heard it he said only give me the discontented >> those are the people I want in our organization And it so resonated with me >> that yes, of course, if you're >> if you're not discontented and and I think if I had grown up in a different environment and I wasn't in this in this dysfunctional environment that I was in with all these other issues, I'd
[17:03] probably end up a shoe clerk. And that's not a ter this terrible thing, >> but a little more interesting this way. Is there a room of creative conflict that you that most stands out in your memory where some idea came out of it? >> Oh, no. They've just been it's so empty. It's just it's just my life. >> Yeah. If you think about this notion of instinct and acting on instinct and not based on data or research or things like this, why is that so why is that proven so powerful to you rather than the alternative? Because I think well if you
[17:34] say relative to data >> and research and all which is it's good of course when there's a factual base that research of course can give you the deepest and draft of that factual base. But when you're dealing with editorial matters or new ideas or things that aren't yet >> there's no research that can help or guide you. It can only mislead you >> because it will essentially tell you what the past factual base has delivered
[18:06] to you which has no relevance to a fresh idea. >> All it can do is say well here's why it won't work. >> Right? >> That's all it can really based upon this that and the other thing. It ain't never going to tell you why it will or should work because it's not knowable. It's not researchable. It's purely instinctive. >> And so the if if that's the realm in which you want to live the the
[18:37] productive life, then you really have to have to try very hard to keep those instincts of yours as fresh and clean as you can. Which means you have to fight cynicism. You have to fight being sophisticated. You have to hold on to a certain form even if you make it up of naive. because it's only when you're in that state that your instincts can be applied to determining what is something interesting or not interesting. >> One of the things I loved hearing the story was how once you decided to do
[19:08] something, you would drill all the way down to like bedrock foundation and the essence of something and then build back up from that understanding. But you know the thing is which I still amazes me is I and it's me. I mean there are really people so much smarter than me who get stuff so much quicker. For me I have to go. It's not like I want to. I have to go all the way down cuz until I can get to the first little building block I
[19:38] don't understand it. And there are some areas that even if I try now certain obvious areas that that that defy I just don't have the capacity. But in the areas that I lived in uh I had to break everything down to its base block DNA where I could have the basis understanding. Just tell me yes. Okay. 2 + 2 is four. But I have to really as as demo as that
[20:09] sounds, I got to get down to those basics before I can figure out a very complex transaction. If you give it to me midway or twothirds of the way, you know, all the house names people use to confuse people with everything, it you never get to understand it. And I can tell you actually one of my first revelations was this is I used to have this is when I'm in my I don't know probably early
[20:40] late 20s early 30s and uh and I had at the time a a kind of a business manager took care of you know other than I was in my career life and and I had some capital and he would be investing it in like real estate transactions. and he would come into my office every four or six months, whatever, and he would go through something. I was so bored with it because I didn't understand the [ __ ] of what he was talking about. And he would give me this thing about this deal and whatever. And
[21:11] I would just basically say, you know, so I didn't understand what he was really talking about. I just using language I didn't understand. And I was, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." And a couple of years later, he's doing it to me. And I thought, you know what? I'm really a total bimbo. I said, I want to understand this transaction. I said, so let me now understand it. And I forced him to explain it from the very
[21:42] base of it. And he got about halfway through it and I said, "This is stupid and I'm not doing it." And I fired him. And it was my revelation, which is not that I didn't really know it, that that's the only way I can function. >> Yeah. If you think back to the entertainment days at Paramount and Fox, what innovation, you were part of so many of them. What innovation stands out as the thing you're most proud of to the extent you are proud of something? >> I was very lucky. The first real
[22:13] responsibility that I had was to make these original movies every week called the movie of the week which uh changed television at this time. I'm 25. No one uh everyone thought this project would fail and it was my project and it was an original concept >> and it the risks were very high and uh and because everybody thought it would fail, I got to do it myself. >> So I built up the fluency to do it and
[22:45] then we did it and then it succeeded giantly. >> Is there any better feeling than owning something end to end like that? >> It was just fantastic. It was fantastic because you know you can kind of I can drill to the moment when I you know at that time well you get ratings which was the initial scorecard you got for whether you were succeeding or failing and at that time they came overnight like at 7 in the morning and you know I kind of stayed up all night to wait for this rating and when I heard it in my ear and it was by the way it was like it
[23:16] was so big that it was like oh my freaking god. We did it >> and that was fantastic. >> Do you remember how many people it was? Do you remember this stat? >> Yes. Yeah, I do. It was a 34 something. So I called 35 rating. Now this means that there were 100 million households and this meant that 35 million households were watching this one little program >> which does not happen today.
[23:47] >> No no no no. See, it's not I mean, yes, actually, you'll get >> I guess someone will watch a Tik Tok >> a mega event will do that, but that's incredibly rare. >> A movie every week seems like logistically impossible. About like that, >> everybody thought it was logistically impossible. We made 25 the first year, 40 or so the next year, and by the third year, we were making 75 of these a year. >> This is like impossible. >> You think people should do more of that? set impossible goals and then thrive in
[24:18] the constraint. >> Of course, it's Yes. I mean, I don't know. The world will only handle so many. >> I'd like to zoom to the Fox days. >> Oh, sure. >> What was it like working with Murdoch when he was facing hard challenges? >> Well, he always faced hard challenges because he threw everything onto the middle of the table in order to challenge those challenges. and he did it in Australia, he did it in the UK and then he did it in the US. The biggest risk taker that I know uh have known as
[24:51] against a kind of hard ask risktaker who would kerogenly aortion risk whatever and grueling go through it. Rupert was a joyous and is still 94 a joyous risktaker and and and I was lucky enough and again all my life's serendipity and circumstance and moment that when I met Rupert which is when he bought an interest in the company that I had just become the CEO of 20th Century Fox. Uh, and I had
[25:24] always wanted to start a fourth network cuz I thought the three networks were boring and I thought there ought to be an alternative to them. And uh, and got the opportunity and literally in a in in in about an hour less realistically. I told him the concept of doing this fourth network and he said, "Great." I said, "What do you mean great?" He said, "Do it." I said, 'Well, we have to buy these stations. It'll cost a billion,
[25:56] 150, and then it'll cost, I don't know, 150, 200. And he said, >> do it. >> What could be better? >> There was a moment when um The Simpsons and Home Alone together effectively saved his bacon. >> That's true. >> What hap what was going on then? Why was there Why was there so much risk? Why did those things? >> Well, what happened is like, you know, a gambler, industrial gambler, and someone who keeps trying to change things, Murdoch
[26:27] had overextended himself because he had taken on huge amount of debt to start satellite broadcasting in the UK. Uh he'd taken on debt to buy TV Guide, which at the time was like America's Bible. uh now of course kind of irrelevant and he paid $3 billion for it uh which ended up some years later to be relatively worthless. So he had overextended himself and the banks
[26:58] uh didn't want to renew. It literally was the renewal of his entire loan package and there were 50 banks I think that were involved all over the world. And some of them had very little exposure. Big bank, big exposure all said yes. But the smaller ones said no, you're too much. You're too much of a gambler. it's too dodgy and we're not going to renew. And it literally for about a year it teetered
[27:29] on whether or not they'd renew these loans. And since we didn't there was not more credit. And because of the debt repayments and all, cash became extremely important to literally to keep my lights on. and Home Alone, which was this giant hit at the time, >> and poured cash into the company. And we weren't uh at that time we were uh we
[28:02] were very cash positive Fox. So, it was it wasn't Simpsons yet. Simpsons later delivered huge returns, but it was the cash basically from home alone that kept the company from going dark before he could refinance his loan package which took place about a year later. >> What was he like in that? >> I have so much admiration for Rert. I have some uh issues that are not admirable about his conservativism, but
[28:32] uh during that period he never complained. Uh he suffered enormously but but his character was that he would not show it and he wouldn't complain and he wouldn't blame others. Took full responsibility for it. Yes, no favors. Yes, no whatever. and uh uh and it was that that's a great demonstration of character. >> How much did you and he care about money as like a motivator?
[29:02] >> For me, part of being in the movie business, part of the fun of being in the movie business is I love process. And >> another difference between us is he doesn't like process. He wants basically he has an idea. He wants to get to the conclusion of the idea so he can move on to the next idea. I love process. So you make a movie, it's not an easy thing to go through. Uh and usually when it's more difficult, the movies come out better. A happy set is a boring set. Anyway, uh when you make a movie
[29:34] in olden times before streaming, whatever, you open it on a Friday night and by Saturday, Sunday, this is again before a lot of uh predictive stuff comes along that can tell you what the end gross is going to be. You literally understand every theater in the US and you get one by one the results from these theaters as to how it's doing on its first showing, its second showing, third showing. That process
[30:06] which either you're building yourself into a success into a into a hit movie because people are going to see it or not. That's a iterative processy thing and I love that. I I the rhythm of it was worth the candle of making the film and I can't remember when in the early days of Fox with Rupert. Uh I think we were talking on a Sunday of
[30:36] some movie. uh it was die hard and I'm getting these hourly figures whatever and and I I think for precautions how's it doing and I said it's doing really well and he said all right well so if it's doing this how much will it make I said what do you mean how much will it make he said well no no let's let's take the data of this and the data of that and multiply it by whatever and well what will be the final amount that it'll make and it was Like [ __ ] I know. I
[31:08] don't want to know right now. I want to enjoy the process of learning about it as actual human people are coursing through and sitting in those seats. All he wanted to know give me the final amount so I can take that amount and do something else >> and invest it somewhere else. So >> did you ever care about money? Was it ever a motivator? >> Never. Ever. Ever. Now, you know, it's like I mean, I'm an odd character obviously cuz that there are definitely some of us. Although, weirdly, people
[31:38] who have grown up with wealth, they seem to be very concentrated on wealth and money means a lot to them, even if they've got it. In my case, because it was never an issue to me, I never cared about it. So I have no I had no practical necessity and I say it's because I had no practical. It was probably about other things too. So since it never mattered to me now do I like it? Yeah, sure.
[32:11] >> But I have no interest in it. >> I have no nominal interest in it >> cuz it's never it's never been a marker for me. >> At the end of your executive run in entertainment. you're 50ish or so in the early 1990s. And there's this amazing line in the book that said, you know, basically you're you're thinking about wanting to own and control this thing to be independent. And and there's a line either I am or I'm not. >> It's just incredibly simple. What was that leap like? >> I was very successful, had been very
[32:42] successful in multiple iterations of it, but I'd always worked for companies. I I was a corporatist. I worked for the mother church, you know, in a way. And and when you do that, uh if I think if you're a good employee, you think it's yours. You you do have an illusion that oh, it's mine. It is an illusion. Uh it is not clearly yours. And and that illusion can be alive
[33:12] forever and who cares. It's nice. Nothing bad about it in any way. For me, when I realized that it wasn't mine, but I acted like it was mine, I thought, am I capable of actually having something that really is mine, that is independent of the mother church of the corporation? And so over a period of time, I didn't want to leave Fox. I was doing very well. I was very happy. I was
[33:42] challenged. I was still doing interesting stuff. But I thought I'm either capable of being independent or I'm not. And I got this thing in my head of this binary. You either are or you're not. >> And I couldn't turn away from it. I mean, as much as I tried, I don't know how much I really tried, but as much as
[34:12] ideas or convictions do dissipate, the you are or you're not, I could not accept that I wasn't. >> That was what it came I didn't want to go. But once I realized this binary, you are or you not, it forced me >> into action I did not want to take. >> And then everyone hated QVC, right? >> Oh, yes. Well, then but then of course I did leave and I left by design with uh a
[34:42] blank piece of paper cuz I didn't want to repeat myself and then I did go to QVC which everyone thought I was insane. >> You you described as being an internet opportunist, not visionary. You did something like 150 deals investments coming out of QVC. I want to hear about like how the hell you managed to do all those deals. But starting with QVC, what was so hard about it and the Home Shopping Network which followed soon thereafter? What what was like the getting the flywheel going? >> It wasn't hard actually. Oddly, it was we created this business model that was
[35:13] not Nothing with me is ever full-blown at the first hour of the first day. But uh we created this kind of conglomerate that was an anti- conglomerate because we've spun off 11 public companies over the over the last I don't know 15 or so years. But it was very iterative again lucky in that I had this primitive understanding of convergence and the coming of the internet. The internet
[35:44] came in 95. There was so many possibilities, so many ideas, the good from the bad, and we picked more good than bad. And they just came one after the other. They were just the it was the ground was just so fertile. I mean, that was the maybe second revolution, and now we're embarking on the third revolution. If you want to be an AI opportunist, is the lesson from that chapter that you should do a lot of things that like you should
[36:15] you should just be a bias to action and to say yes rather than be nitpicky about it? >> We we were very picky because unlike most people at the time who just thought getting attention meaning every one of the early internet almost everyone wanted to go after volume meaning >> eyeballs. Exactly. more eyeballs you could aggregate at at a a diseconomic cost often. Uh and we thought no, we
[36:47] treat revenue importantly as against expenses. And so we didn't do those web vanny things that were good but way very much before their times and not not just simply to aggregation of eyeballs. I the same thing I listen what the screw do I know about this but uh I would approach this this this next super period uh in the same way which would make me very wary of
[37:19] uh what now seems to be the cat's meow which is huge expenditures in areas in which there is no known revenue or no known big revenue to relate to you hundreds of billions of dollars of investment, you know, tell me tell me how that actually is going to return. Now, of course, some of it will, whatever, but I would I would be I would be dodgy
[37:49] about that. >> In this chapter in the '9s, a whole new cast of characters enters the scene. There was this amazing Larry Ellison interview on Charlie Rose where he quotes you talking about Bill Gates, which I found from like way way way back when. >> What did he do? and he said um it was around the whole ticket master thing which relates certainly to the AI you know copyright stuff today kind of a similar episode history repeating and you said something very funny which was like he's young he's mean and he's not tired >> all of those things definitely were true
[38:21] actually that's not fair to Bill who I like very much uh and I respect a great deal usually I think people do not grow I think They kind of by the time they're >> sentient they're relatively fully. >> Gates has grown in enormously in so many areas empathy, but he is he he he was mean >> uh and relentless. He is no longer that. He's a he he's a he's a solid citizen of
[38:54] today and tomorrow. >> Did you ever see anyone more competitive and aggressive than him in his heyday >> at that time? He was truly ferocious and he understood leverage. Anybody who's in any world uh of commanding revolutionizing uh a world which Gates certainly did uh has got that quality. >> Many people would love to be the person that you were in the internet era for this AI era. You did these 150 deals. What was that process like? Like what
[39:24] was the team like that found them? How much of it did you just do yourself? We never had a lot of people, but we had a lot of stimulants and anybody who had an idea was a good idea. You can't do good ideas until you ratchet through a lot of rotten ideas. And I've always thought you got to be you you got to tolerate stupidity cuz in any kind of argument about what to do, what not to do, future, whatever, you got to be stupid before you're smart. So you got to go
[39:54] through that process of allowing dumb stuff to come out cuz in the dumb stuff alongside of it is some little smart thing and if you can tease that one out and act on it, you know, you got a shot. >> Was there a defining early transaction other than QVC and HSN in those days that you think back on? There are the early obvious ones now, but uh uh match.com personals uh which which
[40:26] was also was something at that time that was uh very very so early stage uh and so primitive and again just a good idea >> and there were players around it who had not we had kind of rejected but then we came on this tiny little company texas called match.com and we bought it and then it just spawned everything and then you know one thing if you start in a good arena
[40:56] >> one thing spawns the next thing and out of little match came all sorts of different personals brands and then and along came Tinder >> this definition of an idea uh that with no investment I don't know. I think the investment in Tinder was nickels, but absolutely virally just shot to the skies. >> You've got this interesting setup with IA now. You've spun out all these businesses. You you've been this amazing
[41:26] capital allocator. One thing that's so remarkable is Buffett's observed this lots of times. Usually amazing executives get to the promised land, which is like tons of free cash flow they can do something with, and now they have to be an allocator and they stink at it. And you had the opposite experience. Arguably a better allocator even than than executive. You're an allocator again. I mean, it's amazing that you're sort of still doing this through IA. How do you think about that job in this world? >> I think I'm no longer qualified for it. That's what I think. I think I'm irrelevant to it. >> Why? Why? >> Because I don't want to do it anymore. I
[41:56] mean, it's really for others to do. And And I also think, you know, I have this whole thing about dodging every aspect of age and thinking about it and conceptualizing, which I think is horrible of thing to do. So I stay way away from it. But the one thing I am aware of for me, I still have a lot of curiosity, but this world we're entering is too much for my curiosity load
[42:27] >> to relate to. I don't think I've ever conceptualized that. Well, by the way, this is why one of the things that interested me, we bought 20 known 24% of MGM. And why does that appeal to me? Because you can't disintermediate it. Because you give me any AI equation and I will tell you irrelevant to this. No one's going to get between going to an MGM resort. Let's put particularly Las Vegas in which we have a huge share of Las Vegas. We have 11 properties in Las
[42:59] Vegas. No tech is getting between that and a human. And so I'm I'm actually it's maybe going, you know, it's like the Flintstones. I'm going back to the >> I was going to say, yeah, >> to the dark ages. But I think that that to me because it is so unable to be everything else in the world that I see almost everything else is able to be disintermediated by this that and the other thing that isn't. And so it fascinates me. Certainly understand how
[43:29] like a visit to a place, a concert, something live in person can't be. What about like betting though like Poly Market and Koshi and these markets like people are glued to their phones, you know, $10 million valuation today or yesterday? >> I think that's crazy. >> Do do you think that's um a threat to a major threat to MGM? >> No. No. No. No. >> Because people want to go. >> People want to go. The gambling part of it, it's certainly an important part of the revenue, but it's not the most important part. The thing is we have these resorts that if you if you just
[44:01] look at the depth and breadth in Las Vegas, we have 490 restaurants. We have 125 performance venues from 25,000 seats down to a few thousand seats. We have so many ideas of things and places to do and to go and to be and to enjoy and to entertain and to all of those things. Yeah, gaming's over here. Uh, but that's the to me the plotting and and pleasure
[44:32] of it. >> The other person that I would argue built the modern sort of media world with you is John Malone uh who just came out with the book as well. >> Yes. >> What was it like being >> around him with him? >> Malone was is is today I talked to John frequently. He's still the smartest one in the room. I mean there's just no question his he he he he he brings to it again you know it's people's ingredients and their history and whatever Johnson engineer by training uh but he is he has such pure uh ability
[45:07] to analyze almost any situation because he brings this engineer's frame with an absolute round understanding of every technological ical possibility that could possibly happen. And he can mix all that >> both horizontally and vertically. >> And so when you're talking to him, you're talking to it's really you're talking to a master. It's a master craftsman. >> What did uh Lou Wasserman teach you
[45:37] about negotiation? >> Lou Wasserman was the legendary chairman of MCA, which started this talent agency and became Universal Studios and other kinds of things. and uh I grew up with his daughter as my friend and so I knew him very young. But then when I was in my 20s and negotiating movies, I went to his office to kind of close one deal and I said to him of the 60 some odd units we were buying because we were paying a big price. I
[46:08] said, "Can you just give us one less?" And he just looked at me. He said, "No." And I said, "What do you mean no?" And he said, "No." And he kind of said, "That's it." And we got up and walked the door. And he said to me, "So, let me tell you something." He said, "When you're in a negotiation, you better be prepared if I say no to blow the deal or you're never going to get what you want." And it was the greatest lesson in leverage and in
[46:38] organizing in your brain how far you're prepared to go. And if you if you must and you must figure that out up front. You draw a line and you must demonstrate beyond that line, you will never go. >> That's how I learned to negotiate. >> How did you produce so many people that have gone on to great things? Eisner Diller Killers. >> I don't produce them. I mean they grow up in your environment and if you have I like environments where in all those
[47:09] cases just like me I was totally unprepared and I had no reason for anyone to give me any responsibility no experience about anything right but I got dropped in the deep end of the water and I kind of figured out how to swim. I like people coming into any orbit of mine without any experience particularly without any necessarily expertise without having been quote made uh at kind of the earliest stage and
[47:40] then you give people more responsibility than they qualify for >> because in that forge you find out who swims and who doesn't and if you have that kind of environment out of it's going to come pretty good people. >> What made Eisner so >> Oh, Michael is just this big gy guy who just his brain is so creative and his mind is so fertile >> that just out spins stuff faster than
[48:12] his mouth can do it. Stuff comes out little like that's goofy. >> But the next thing is absolutely brilliant. It's it's actual original thought and he is capable of that. I lost track of the Simpsons before, which I think is the most profitable show maybe ever >> in history. Probably the most >> longest running. >> Yeah. Well, it's that, but it's also probably the single most profitable entertainment product ever invented. >> What was it like at its origin? >> Everybody thought it was stupid.
[48:42] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> And they thought it was stupid because it was a cartoon. >> Well, because yes, the last cartoon was as wrapped the the the Flintstones before was like I don't know 20 30 years before we put the Simpsons on. So we just thought, are you crazy? You're going to do a halfhour, you know, television that a cartoon about these characters, the Simpsons. And the first screening we had was with a bunch of suits, but executives from Fox. Uh, and they said, "Well, you can't put this thing on the air. I mean, you
[49:12] must be nuts. I mean, >> you just liked it. >> Well, Jim Brooks, who is the creative force of this along with Matt Gring, but uh and I were in this screening and as you making things and particularly comedies and you're in a room with other people and you're involved in the making of the thing, you laugh harder at things. You you kind of wanting to create laughter so that other people will laugh. So, you're kind of overengaged. And so
[49:43] there, Jim and I are laughing. We, by the way, had long stopped laughing at this stuff cuz we'd seen it a h 100 times. And we're laughing to create with these 12 suits some laughter in the room. And they're just solid hunks, not even moving. It was so sad. And uh and afterwards, they said, "Well, you know, we're not we're not successful enough to just write this off. I don't know what you're going to do with this. You certainly can't put it on the air." And of course, like many things, from the
[50:13] first hour of the first day that went on the air, it was a smash. >> I mean, it's been running ever since. And most profitable thing ever. How through the lens of The Simpsons, how do you think about the world of entertainment today? Like, there's just nothing. It just seems like nothing like that will ever happen again. >> Oh, no. You know, I don't know that that's true. I just think that that that now I mean by then there's some cable networks around had gotten successful but that was a time when there were fewer options there were still
[50:44] reasonable number of options today the options are so unlimited there's just so much out there whether your time is spent on Tik Tok or Insta or watching television programs and uh streamers and this and that. If you make an entertainment product, a movie or a television series, the amount of people who see it is your revenue stream there your reaction. You go back to the olden
[51:14] times of today's times rarely but in theaters people coming into the place sitting in seats and they like it and they pay their money and whatever and you see them and they leave and they come and they leave and they come. How do you deal when the business model instead of being the audience reaction to it is to take a subscription to Prime whose business model is to get you to buy products on Amazon
[51:45] where they offer you on the side >> amazing movies, >> movies and television programs. They could not care less whether one person or 9 billion people see it. It's just whether or not we get more Prime subscriptions or the Apple environment which is which is keep you in the closed circle of Apple rather than any one thing that you want. So if you're a maker of these things or if you're in the vineyard of trying to create this stuff, it it it's just dismaying that
[52:17] the business models are just so vastly different. It's not the best environment for making work. >> If you add Netflix into that category, >> well, yes, of course Netflix is in that >> Netflix is the leader of it. Hollywood is irrelevant. >> Worse than >> No, I mean it's Yes, it's not. And people yell at me for saying that. Like I'm first of all it used to be that all these companies did was make movies and television shows from the top of their executives to the bottom. Now
[52:50] making the product is the 68th or 78th division inside very large enterprises. So it's just so down on the totem pole >> of stuff that it just makes the process and it's it's not Yeah. Look, the fun of it is mostly as it as an organizing process. The fun of it is gone. >> Is glamour gone too?
[53:20] >> N gone. It's just now in other areas. >> Where is that? Where is glamour? >> Certainly not. It's not in >> It was Hollywood. where it was but that's you know now it's dispersed of course now it's probably in Instagram you know it's in other things but it's it's not that it's the whole hedgeimony has now uh been transferred to the world of big tech and is this going to be true and this is the probably biggest question of
[53:50] AI >> because it is possible that our entire worlds will be subsumed by further advances, AI advances of big tech, in which case in the end, we'll all be a simulation anyway. And as one of my friends said, we'll maybe come, we'll maybe have a happy ending. >> I saw these uh that's funny. I saw these amazing photo spreads from Sun Valley in like the '9s when entertainment was in its like >> complete ascendance and blooming. >> You've been to these conf these sorts of conferences your whole life. Does it now
[54:21] just feel like that center of gravity is entirely shifted to tech and and the entertainment people >> completely completely shifted >> and after they are it is true the cultural stuff aside uh and and maybe it's just an old dog talking but it the the the the fact that it has dispersed so that there is there's just so much now there's so much optionality that everything comes and goes so quickly you It used to be there was a
[54:52] cultural event uh take take uh one of the great cultural events of this of uh which was roots >> uh which was the seinal thing that went for 11 nights and captured 45 50% of the population of this country and lived in the cultural environment for months. You know, you do good work today, it's here today, it's gone in the next hour.
[55:22] >> So, you got MGM dot dash Meredith was just renamed people. Yes. >> Talk about that business and in print it's print media, you know, in many cases like how have you made this a strong such a strong it feels like an anacronism and yet it's a really strong business. >> Yeah. >> How did you do that? Well, we're doing it. I hope I spent actually just before I got here two hours with Travel Leisure, >> which is doing extremely well. And yet publishing all publishers, what's
[55:52] happening with Google is just it is going, you know, they say it goes slow and then it goes fast. It's going fast. I mean, it really is. And >> if you depend on your life traffic from Google, from search, you're going to be close to extinct if that's what you do. Uh and that's a huge issue but directly to the question and so we were talking and this one magazine of ours doing very well million subscriptions extremely strong digital life whatever and but
[56:24] nevertheless it's got this Google parad paradox hardly which is direct searches are dying going so I said to to the creator creatative people. I said, you know, don't you have to kind of invert your business? You know, you create content from People magazine to food and wine to all these areas. This incredible gold mine of of content of ideas and and
[56:55] of subject areas, etc. And you publish them in both print and make 10 million copies a year. It's more than that. Anyway, whatever. We still have a print business and a big digital and they're doing really well at it. Certainly, far better than their competition. But I said, back up four years ago, 5 years ago, and you're a travel and leisure. So, you know something about the travel
[57:25] business and you know that lure. How come you didn't create White Lotus? How come it didn't come out of you? Because think of what would have happened if it did come out of you. And there's no reason it didn't other than you have not inverted your business. We own food and wine. Why didn't if you're in the food and wine business, liquor business or the whatever drinking business
[57:55] and you know a lot about that, you know where trends are and you know what's happening. How come you didn't do casamos? So if you think about our businesses that way, then you get you succeed and fail, but you come up with hundreds of things to pursue >> that if some of them work out, you build a giant company anyway. >> So the media becomes the marketing. >> Exactly.