Barry Diller

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE: Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp chalks up $6 billion in annual revenues from Web sites such as the HSN home-shopping network, Ticketmaster, Match.com, Ask.com, and Evite. And power spouse von Furstenberg’s expanding fashion empire brings in revenues of nearly $200 million a year from 56 countries.

MOGUL RELATIONS: Diller’s plan to break up his IAC conglomerate into five separate pieces, or “Baby Barrys,” was an acknowledgment that his strategy of the past 13 years wasn’t working any longer. But the bold move threatened to strip control from his biggest shareholder and erstwhile friend, Liberty Media’s John Malone, who had held a majority vote under IAC’s old corporate governance. Malone sued to push Diller, 66, and von Furstenberg, 61, off the IAC board, and his people piled on testimony that portrayed Diller as enjoying lavish perks and compensation without delivering commensurate results to shareholders. It proved to have no effect on the outcome: in March the judge ruled in favor of Diller.

OFFICE DIGS: A stairway lined with 3,000 Swarovski crystals winds through DVF’s headquarters, in a former meatpacking plant. Four blocks away, Diller sits in one of his five executive offices that take up an entire floor of the iconic IAC building.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: Von Furstenberg recently collaborated with DC Comics to create a fashion line inspired by Wonder Woman.