What is it with media and Internet chiefs? Today we salute four titans of these power industries--like colossal planets, inexorably moving towards a perfect Venn eclipse--via portraits that can be as unflattering as they are captivating.

First, there is Vanity Fair's The Best of Enemies piece on John Malone and Barry Diller, rendered with language as deliciously overblown as the egos of the subjects themselves.

Diller is no less than Malone's Frankenstein, elevated from salary man to mogul by the über-mogul himself: "The psychological subtext could not be missed: Malone, the dull-as-dirt, American Gothic bean counter, was living through Diller, the mercurial, garrulous, bold showman. This Middle American in his R.V. had a glamorous and flamboyant alter ego."

Then we have Henry Blodget's near-bludgeoning of Terry Semel, calling the ex-Yahoo! chief the worst Internet CEO ever for "cataclysmic blunders" during the latter half of his five-year tenure. Semel may have given Yahoo! its mojo early on, baby, but then came the M&A missteps: Blodget rates the failure to buy Google as a $150 billion mistake, and it goes on from there.

What better segue for current Yahoo! chief Jerry Yang, recipient of an excoriating open letter in yesterday's NY Times. The epistletory flaying includes likening Yang's contempt for his shareholders to that of Bob Nardelli's while at Home Depot, booing the missed merger opportunity with Microsoft and his onerous severance package poison pill, and ultimately, betting that Yang's days as CEO are numbered.

Gents, this InBev's for you.

Jeff Heilman

6/16/08