Diane Von Furstenberg still thanks the clueless guy who sat next to her on a flight to Pittsburgh one day in the 1970s. The gentleman, noticing her perusing a newspaper, asked the designer, “Why does a pretty girl like you read The Wall Street Journal?” — unaware that she was on the front page. She told Bloomberg BusinessWeek chairman Norman Pearlstine during a Q&A at the 92nd Street Y, “And I looked at him and I thought, ‘Jerk.’ But I said nothing. I talked to him. I never told him, ‘Here I am.’ I didn’t say anything. And it was one of the biggest satisfactions I’ve ever had in my life . . . But of course, every time I speak, I tell this story.”