Prediction: Diller and Malone Will Settle

Next week, Barry Diller and John Malone will lock horns in a Delaware court over Diller's attempt to split up IAC -- and thereby wrest it from Malone's control.

How will it end? Michael Wolff, who dissects the Malone/Diller partnership-cum-feud in April's Vanity Fair, thinks he knows:

"[W]hile anything can happen in court, it is also likely that these two know each other well enough to play the game to a relative draw: Malone, in other words, will never find himself sitting in Diller's chair in Diller's building, but he won't go away empty-handed."

Then again, maybe he'll win outright; Diller sounded notably pessimistic in a discussion with CBS's Les Moonves and Variety's Peter Bart earlier this week.

In any case, it's worth reading Wolff's piece for his characterization of Malone as a "thuggish" "man without qualities," a "kind of James Bond villain -- a nihilist, a solipsist, a weirdo" who lacks friends and is, emotionally, "as cold as a witch's tit." All of which, naturally, inspires envy in his fellow moguls.