Ep. 66: Teachable Moment, with IAC’s Barry Diller

“Local travel, meaning travel 100 to 600 miles from where you live by car, is fairly robust and is almost back to pre‐COVID levels. … We're not seeing and won't see air travel, certainly not international air travel. … We’re not seeing it yet because people feel unsafe. Travel is probably one of the last to actually get back the robust growth.”

As Chairman and Senior Executive of Expedia Group – which includes a dozen top online booking sites – Barry Diller knows travel trends. As Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC – which includes such websites as OKCupid, Tinder and Match – he knows internet dating habits. As a legendary movie and television producer and executive, he knows what will entertain people. One thing he doesn’t know, however, is how this crisis will resolve.

“There's one faction that says, ‘I want to go back to work. Stop telling me what to do.’ And then the people who are saying, ‘absolutely not. You must social distance,’” he tells Mike. “I think the mess –and it is a mess – of the next couple of months is going to teach us many things. So I don't have the answer, but I do have this, and I think I share this with a lot of people: I've got a lot of questions.”