Control Hardwired or Walk Away

"I’d told Ralph and Brian that I’d promised myself to never again sign an employment agreement and that I’d report to a board, but not to an individual. QVC was a public company, and the other major owner was John Malone’s Liberty Media. Malone had become the overlord of cable media. He controlled the largest cable network, and with Liberty, he owned most of the programming. He was known both as the Cable Cowboy and, in a swipe from then–vice president Al Gore, as the Darth Vader of media. He was and always has been the smartest person in media, with an extraordinarily subtle and ingenious mind in the body of an outdoorsman conservationist libertarian who’s never met a tax he wanted to pay. I didn’t want to ever be stuck between them and would only agree to a three-way partnership where any two members could decide an issue, as long as I was one of the two. This made them more than uncomfortable, but I was adamant—I’d never do anything again where I wasn’t in some position of control."

"The prerequisite for my agreeing was that John Malone would give me a bulletproof lifetime proxy on Liberty’s controlling interest in Silver King as well as a large ownership stake in it and eventually HSN. Control, my hard-ass mantra, would be hardwired, but it sure was small beer."

"I was now a mogul manqué. I’d made two attempts at the big time and failed at both. And lost QVC in the bargain. *Congratulations, Barry, you are now really and truly independent and under no one’s thumb other than your own. Yes, you presciently forged your way into the beginnings of e-commerce, but now you’ve got no job and no prospects*. I was back where I started after leaving Fox, except now I was nationally known damaged goods. With a stone-cold blood oath I resolved I’d never do anything again where I didn’t have hard and absolute control, even if it was owning a corner delicatessen. And that wasn’t too far from what was in my future."

"With the nerve of a cat burglar, I told Marvin, “Since I don’t know you very well, you would have to agree never to speak to a single person in the company other than me. And while I’ll surely be in touch with you informally about the state of the company, I will formally agree to meet with you once a year.” I had been so scarred by Martin Davis’s behavior that I wanted these extreme protections, particularly with someone who had already interfered willy-nilly with the people at Fox. He wasn’t happy about such distancing, but he did agree."