IAC's Barry Diller - The Able Thrive

“Nobody knows anything. Myself included.”

Barry Diller is a household name in the investing community. I’ve come to learn not knowing Diller and InterActive Corp (IAC) should raise suspicions to anyone claiming to be an investor. 

I knew enough to acknowledge he was a big deal. I knew as much as a person in a cocktail party talking about monetary policy after watching one documentary. You know what I mean, we’ve all done it before. 

I should disclose I am a shareholder of IAC at the point of writing this essay. How can I own something I have a sub-base level understand of, you ask? 

I could tell you I thought I knew enough of the important stuff to pull the trigger. I might be wrong in thinking I knew enough. But I’m not lying. The unusual way Diller ran IAC intrigued me so I made a small bet in the panicked buying spree I had in the first half of 2020. 

It’s still a small position and I got to experience both the Match Group and Vimeo spin-offs. I have the ~500 page tomes of financial bibles from the mail to prove this histor…