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BadGimp

(4,009 posts)
Wed Jul 8, 2020, 03:06 PM Jul 2020

Barry Diller Has No Time for Talk of a World Changed by Pandemic

LINK

(Bloomberg) -- Forget working from home and Zoom meetings. Barry Diller is betting the future looks a lot like the past.

A billionaire who made his fortune first as a Hollywood mogul and more recently in online dating, Diller is predicting that life pretty much returns to normal once there’s a coronavirus vaccine. Families will again take vacations and managers will send employees to conferences.

He’d better hope so, because one of his companies -- Expedia Group Inc., the online travel agency -- depends on it.

“You cannot live in this moment where we project the future based on present circumstance,” Diller said in a Bloomberg “Front Row” interview. “I think relatively little changes.”

Few chief executives share his view. Many are preparing for a world permanently altered by the pandemic, touting the virtues of video conferencing and discussing plans to downsize real estate.


While I think he's guilty of some very self-serving projection, at least he links a "return" to a vaccine. IMO anyone who does not get that is in for a very jarring awakening and a lot of frustration.

Full disclosure: I'm a big admirer of Barry Diller and his IAC team
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Barry Diller Has No Time for Talk of a World Changed by Pandemic (Original Post) BadGimp Jul 2020 OP
Of course it's not forever soothsayer Jul 2020 #1
I think we're in for 2naSalit Jul 2020 #2
Or mutates to more deadly SoonerPride Jul 2020 #3
True. 2naSalit Jul 2020 #4
Nope. Things will not pretty much return to normal. PoindexterOglethorpe Jul 2020 #5
I read the article and didn't have a big problem with what he said BannonsLiver Jul 2020 #6

soothsayer

(38,601 posts)
1. Of course it's not forever
Wed Jul 8, 2020, 03:08 PM
Jul 2020

Even the ‘1918 Spanish flu of 1917’ wasn’t forever.

Might be done sooner if our leaders would lead.

2naSalit

(86,048 posts)
2. I think we're in for
Wed Jul 8, 2020, 05:14 PM
Jul 2020

a minimum 5 year window with this virus unless it mutates itself to harmless before that.

2naSalit

(86,048 posts)
4. True.
Wed Jul 8, 2020, 05:21 PM
Jul 2020

There is such an abundance of opportunity for multiple mutations that I'm thinking it's going to be absolutely devastating no matter which way it goes.

PoindexterOglethorpe

(25,746 posts)
5. Nope. Things will not pretty much return to normal.
Wed Jul 8, 2020, 05:38 PM
Jul 2020

A lot of things will be very different once this is finally over, meaning if we get a good, effective, and long-lasting vaccine.

I like to make this analogy:
Say it's 1939, and we're planning a trip to Europe next spring. It's going to be great! We're planning to visit London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, maybe some other places.
Then September rolls around and WWII breaks out. Clearly we won't be going to Europe next spring, but maybe the war will end quickly and we can go in 1941.
But the war doesn't end quickly, as you all know. The soonest we might get to Europe will be 1946. If we ever do take our trip, it will be to a Europe that is vastly changed forever. It's going to be like that with this pandemic. Even if the countries that are doing such a good job of controlling this don't experience a second wave, even they are probably going to be profoundly transformed. But a lot of countries, not just the United States, are going to have a lot of deaths. Just give Brazil, India, lots of countries in Africa time. They'll be putting up numbers that will make us look like amateurs. Assuming they actually do valid reporting, which is somewhat iffy.

No, things will not return to "normal".

BannonsLiver

(16,161 posts)
6. I read the article and didn't have a big problem with what he said
Wed Jul 8, 2020, 05:44 PM
Jul 2020

It may be unrealistic and he has a profit motive in it being that way but it’s okay to have a couple people out there who aren’t doomsayers or locked into Stockholm Syndrome with the virus, and who aren’t completely crazy either. As far as travel and a future return to whatever he thinks is normal, He may be right, he may be wrong. My money’s on somewhere in the middle. Either way, I didn’t mind hearing what he had to say. He seems like a decent guy in many respects.

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