It’s not about the Boat.Photo:Getty Images
Barry Diller is like Madonna — he changes his shtick often and always comes out just a little bit ahead of the Zeitgeist. Fortunately, it appears from his interview with Lloyd Grove on Portfolio’s Website that he does not seem to be planning an H&M line for anytime soon. Rather, he’s become an Internet mogul — he’s chairman of the online conglomerate IAC and Expedia.com — and is amassing a collection of boats. “I promise you, it’s not about size,” he tells Grove of his new yacht, the 300-foot-ong Eos, purported to be the largest in the world. “I mean, it’s not for me. It wasn’t like I said ‘I want the biggest boat.’ And I’m sure that at some point fairly soon I won’t have the biggest boat … Once you’re in boats, you either go bankrupt or you keep going.” Words to live by.
More Diller musings after the jump…
• DreamWorks CEO Stacey Snider is a crybaby. “Stacey Snider cries for effect in whatever room she might be in. I mean, I didn’t make Stacey Snider cry! Stacey Snider wanted to cry for her own demonstrative purposes.”
• He’s kinda fickle. “We’ve given money to Obama; we’ve given money to Hillary Clinton; we’ve given money to John McCain. In this cycle.”
• He’s a news “scavenger” who thinks the print business, “the ink business, is deeply challenged … No newspaper, I think, has done an interesting job online.”
• By the way, he’s really rich. And loves boats. “I mean, I now get the Washington Post printed on my own little printer on my boat every morning via the Internet downloaded to a printer and printed.”
• But he still appreciates a good video game. “You know, if you get me started, it’s great — it’s great fun.”
World According to Barry Diller [Portfolio]
