Barry Diller
position, you have to do it, but if you do it consistently, I think it’s the definition of a poorly managed company.
Tinder, and its cofounder Sean Rad, emerged from an incubator that you funded and fostered. What do you think about incubators as an approach to finding and nurturing talent? Well, they’re inherently crapshoots. They’re speculations, and you’re really not looking for the kinds of ratios you should look for in directly managed businesses. If you’re rational and objective, you know that a great many of them will fail. Every once in a while, though, something good happens. Tinder is an example of that.
You have a long history of mentoring women. Is this something you’ve done consciously? I’m lucky I never made any distinction. Why, I can’t really tell you. I just didn’t. IAC has a number of women running portfolio companies, such as Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud and The Daily Beast CEO Heather Dietrick. Do you think they run their companies differently? Yes.
How so? They are women, not men.
But they have to perform or they wouldn’t get to stick around. I didn’t say that they perform better or worse. That’s ridiculous. But when you say, “Do they run them differently?” Yes, they are a different gender. You can be neutral about [gender] in terms of making choices, but there are gender differences, and I think that’s good.
I imagine that politicians solicit you all the time for money. Yes.
Do you see any breakout talents in politics today? Are there people who could, were they not in politics, thrive at IAC? Few, I’m afraid.
Is that because politics and business require different skill sets or energy levels? It’s like the difference between educators and film stars. I mean, they’re the other sides of the hemisphere. There’s nothing in common.
What about media and technology, two worlds where you have a lot of experience. Do you think the talent requirements there differ? Generally, yes. Technology is zeros and ones and an affinity for that. And a narrative storyteller is very much the opposite of that. There’s no commonality there. There’s more a magnet repellent.
Tech and media companies seem to want to collaborate, but it seems like the pairs that succeed are the exceptions, not the rule. It’s hopeless. Collaboration is hopeless. It doesn’t mean one can’t buy the other, but I would not put them in the same room.
What turns you off when you’re talking to a potential job candidate or young person? Someone with too many specific goals.
What advice would you give people early in their career? Is there anything that you would tell young readers of Fast Company? Yes. Begin.