Barry Diller, Chairman of IAC and Expedia Group, addresses whether generative AI chat interfaces threaten to disintermediate Expedia's travel booking business.
Opinion
Diller: Google's search monopoly treats dependent web businesses like serfs
“Google, absolute monopoly on search, and all your traffic, I mean, at least half your traffic, if you were healthy, would come from people coming directly to you. But the other half, Without which you wouldn't be able to survive came from Google and Google ove…”
Insight
Diller: Cash payouts beat stock-based compensation for developed corporate enterprises
“For developed enterprises, it's not the best route. The best route is, to me, a much simpler one. If you create value working in a project, or you create value to whatever degree you create it, You should share in that value on a cash basis, meaning any time p…”
Insight
Diller calls using unvested equity handcuffs for employee retention "ridiculous"
“I've heard a retention arguments from time immemorial, decades of, well, we do this to retain people. I think that's ridiculous. You retain people, people stay in your enterprise because they like what they do, and there's opportunity there. A handcuff, so to …”
Opinion
Diller: Tech giants like Netflix and Apple have ended Hollywood's hegemony
“Those tech companies essentially have now taken over the old hegemony of quote, Hollywood, and now Netflix and Apple and Amazon.”
Insight
Diller: Algorithms and predictive research are "worthless" for creative content decisions
“Well, I don't think algorithms can help here. None of us know what's going to happen with the dread and wonderful word AI, but I don't think that, that predictive research Is certainly in the arena of content, worthless. It cannot tell you anything of real val…”
Opinion
Diller: The scale of Las Vegas entertainment is impervious to AI disintermediation
“There's no way to disintermediate the experience. I mean, again, if we're in a simulation, we can go into that route, but there's no way as humans, you can find an experience that's going to divert you from all the entertainment offerings that a Las Vegas has …”