The Man Who Came Between Diller And Malone
Evil queen and IAC CEO Barry Diller used to get along great with his gruff sugar daddy John Malone of Liberty Media, making business dates and talking about deals together. Then Greg Maffei came along, from the kill-or-be-killed culture of software maker Oracle, and became Malone's new "point man." All of a sudden, "everything got much more contentious" between Malone and Diller, an IAC board member testified yesterday, in a trail where Diller and Malone are struggling for control of the company. Now Diller is just a spurned partner "looking for a divorce," Maffei said. [NYT, WSJ]