1993 New Yorker piece on Barry Diller’s search

1993 New Yorker piece on Barry Diller’s search for his future and that of television, cable, and technology. This article is a time capsule of the optimism surrounding technology in the early 90s. Note that no one saw the internet coming then…the word doesn’t even appear in the article even though most of the things hoped for by the media barons came to pass on the web without their involvement. This interesting exchange between Diller and Steve Jobs happens about halfway through: “After studying NeXT’s brilliant software and graphics — ‘It’s the most magical computer,’ Diller says — he recalls telling Jobs, ‘You’ve made this thing too hard. It shouldn’t be this hard.’ ‘No,’ Jobs answered. ‘It’s like learning to drive. It takes two months.’ ‘No, it takes very little time to drive,’ Diller said. ‘A computer is not that — it’s hard. Why make it harder?’”

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