WEBVTT - Tinder Loving Care? 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:12.280 Tech with Technology with tech Stuff from Stuff toom. Hey 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:17.160 there everyone, this is Jonathan Strickland with Tech Stuff and 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:21.000 I hope you are enjoying our episodes. This is a 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:23.640 repetition for some of you, but we have gone to 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.560 once a week publication for the time being. In the 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:29.639 future we will go back to two times a week, 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:33.320 but right now, once a week every Wednesday, new episode. 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:37.280 And I really hope you guys swipe right on this episode, 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:40.600 and that is in fact a reference to the topic 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:44.879 I will be discussing today. That topic is Tinder, the 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.960 dating app, and you probably heard about it. I'm pretty 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:51.199 sure most of you are aware of what Tinder is. 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.040 Some of you may be active Tinder users. It's a 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.320 dating app that you download to a mobile device and 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:01.120 when you fire it up, it shows pictures of people 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.600 who also have the app installed on their mobile devices 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:08.840 and who are within your general location a radius that 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:13.080 you have set, so let's say it's five miles. You 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:15.760 will see other profiles in there that are somewhere within 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.120 that five mile range of people who also have Tender, 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:23.320 and it will match you up with the preferences you've set. So, 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:27.399 for example, if you are a man seeking a woman, 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.559 it will show you the female profiles, but it won't 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.559 show you the male profiles. And the way the app 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:36.760 works is you look at this picture and if you 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:39.120 think that person is attractive, if you think I would 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:41.880 like to speak with this person, I think, uh, this, 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.800 this person has a look that appeals to me, you 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.400 would swipe right on the screen, and that essentially is 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.800 like giving that person a check saying you are a 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:56.360 CUTEI petuity. If the person's picture doesn't do anything for 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.440 you, you you swipe to the left and say you are 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.280 going to the heap. I do not want to speak 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:04.600 with you. You are not interesting to me, you don't 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.800 appeal to me. Whatever reason. Maybe it's just that you 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:11.080 know you're like you know, I don't like that hairstyle 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:13.359 very much. It could be something as simple as that. 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:16.520 And you only get to talk to someone if they 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.839 have looked at your profile and also they swipe right 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:23.799 on your picture. So in other words, if you give 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:26.399 a person a check mark and they look at you 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:29.360 and give you a check mark, then a line of 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:33.639 communication can open up. Otherwise, one party will continue to 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:37.359 be perpetually unaware of the other party, and it doesn't 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:41.400 indicate that someone has swiped right or left for you. Again, 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.239 you only know if you both swipe right, which takes 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:46.800 a lot of the pressure off obviously. So once you 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.200 both swipe right, you can chat and set up a 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.360 time and place to meet. You can actually go on 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:56.440 a date and just have a nice time, or maybe 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:58.360 you just want to meet in person. See if sparks 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.400 are flying right on the get go. The app relies 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:05.320 very heavily on Facebook integration. It pulls in photos and 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:09.000 your likes from various pages that you visited. So if 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.520 you like a lot of different pages for bands or 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:15.000 movies or brands or whatever, those will pop up in 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.680 the profile as well. Uh it'll also just give a 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.880 really brief overview of a person's personality. There's also some 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.320 integration with Instagram to help fill out that profile with 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.000 other pictures. You can actually select I think up to 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:33.320 six pictures to represent yourself within your tender profile, so 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:35.320 someone can take one look and they might say, all right, 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.160 well that's the representative photo, but let me look at 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.240 a couple of others before I decide. And just like 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:46.080 we often find in real life interactions, the app focuses 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:51.000 on physical attraction first, but let's be fair, that's what 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:52.920 we do in real life. I mean, if you are 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.680 at an event and you see someone who catches your eye, 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.920 often physical attraction is the first indicator that inspires you 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.720 to go and try and have an interaction with that person. 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.560 And then from there things might develop further and you 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.160 might find that you really like that person, or you 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:14.240 might find that you're completely incompatible and it would just 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.880 be a total mistake to try and have any sort 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:21.320 of relationship with that person. But ultimately that physical attraction 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.880 is often the first step that leads us to those interactions. 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.960 It's not always the case, but it often is. So anyway, 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:31.960 today I'm going to talk about where Tinder came from 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:35.679 and how it's business model works. Because the technology itself 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:40.280 is incredibly simple. It's essentially GPS TOHO determined where your 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.479 location is and where people are in relation to you, 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:49.240 and it's this app matching or profile matching software. Not 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.120 a lot to it, not terribly complicated, but the behind 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:57.240 the scenes stuff is really interesting. Now. The general story 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:01.960 of Tinder, the one that you know, is generally pushed 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:05.520 uh to to kind of give it a sort of 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:13.120 campus mystique. This idea of of young, young entrepreneurs developing 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:17.920 a really powerful app in in like a dorm room. 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.800 There's this kind of image of that with Tinder, but 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:24.359 that's not exactly what happened. Now, there were two entrepreneurs, 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:28.240 Sean rad and Justin Matine, who built the app, and 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.520 they tested it at the University of California, and they 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.320 launched it in two thousand twelve with just three people 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:38.080 as their initial seed test group, and by the end 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:39.839 of the week the app had more than a thousand 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.120 active users, and rather Matine were just twenty seven when 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:46.200 they launched Tinder. But the story doesn't really start there. 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:50.280 It's not like these are two post grads who happened 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:52.400 to come up with a cool idea and try it 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:56.320 out at a college. The narrative or Tender isn't just 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.320 about that. It's really more about how Tinder part of 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:06.359 a much much larger organization called Interactive Core or i 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:12.000 a C. Now I a C is, at least according 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:16.200 to their website anyway, a leading media and internet company 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:21.120 focused on the areas of search applications, online dating, media, 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.080 and e commerce. That's a direct quote from their site. 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:26.960 And it's a big company. There are more than a 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.919 hundred fifty brands or products that are under that umbrella, 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.960 and you would recognize these names. These are not small names. 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.760 For example, Match dot com and okay Cupid, so you've 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:42.280 got some major dating sites there. There's also video, there's 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.920 college humor and about dot com. So these are these 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:50.400 are big brands that are under this this company. So 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.480 to understand where Tinder is and why it hasn't been 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:58.000 snapped up by someone like Google or Twitter or Facebook, 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.320 you need to know what I A C is and 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.320 where it comes from. So this is starting to sound 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:06.839 like a little bit of a bait and switch, I understand, 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.279 but I promise I'm going to get back to tender 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.400 a little further in for the moment. Let's first take 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.320 a look at I A C. And it's storied history. 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:23.000 So this is gonna get weird and complicated because history 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:27.760 is never as straightforward as you might imagine. So we 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:30.640 have to look at before I A C. So I 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.480 guess b I A C if you're trying to create 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.400 a new nomenclature for this. So before there was an 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:40.400 I A C. There was a company called Silver King Broadcasting. 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.440 And before there was Silver King, there was the Home 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:48.080 Shopping Network, And before there was the Home Shopping Network, 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:52.000 there was the Home Shopping Club. But don't worry, that's 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:53.560 as far back as I'm gonna go or else. We 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:56.560 just keep on tracing all the way to the roots 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.360 of the discovery of fire. So back in nineteen one, 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:05.480 former attorney Roy Spear and a radio and television executive 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:11.160 named Lowell White Bud Paxson launched the Home Shopping Club 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.600 in Florida. Paxson had actually discovered that there was a 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:18.640 market for selling stuff live on television. He had ended 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:23.760 up with a whole bunch of avocado green can openers, 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.120 and he told one of the guys running one of 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.680 the shows that that was airing on a television network 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.000 that he owned or television station I should say that 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.200 he owned. Hey, can you try and mention these things 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:37.679 on the air so we can try and sell some 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:39.680 of them? And discovered that they were able to sell 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:42.480 almost two hundred in an hour, and he thought there 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:44.760 might be something to this. We can make this a 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.560 whole business. Now. At first this was limited to broadcasting 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.640 just in the state of Florida, but over a few 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.960 years they got bigger and bigger, and by nine five 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.680 the Home Shopping Club now known as the Home Shopping 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:04.600 Network began and broadcast across the entire United States. In 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.640 nineteen six, the Home Shopping Network or hs N if 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:13.280 you prefer, established a subsidiary company, and that was called 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.760 Silver King Broadcasting. The purpose of this company was to 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:22.480 secure over the air time for the Home Shopping Network, 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.640 so for places that didn't have cable, but we're getting 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.040 over the air broadcasts. This made a lot of sense. 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:31.840 You know, you wanted to to target as many different 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.439 markets as possible, So the company actually started buying up 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.440 television stations in order to get more Home Shopping Network 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.680 content out in front of more viewers. And that was 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:47.000 the birth of the Silver King Broadcasting Company. Things get 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:49.760 even more weird from here, but I promise we're gonna 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:55.640 get the tender. So in nine remember that's when Silver 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:59.440 King Broadcasting comes into being in the Home Shopping Network 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:05.040 on Silver King off as a separately traded public company. 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:08.960 So now Silver King Broadcasting is a related but separate 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:15.839 company all on its own. In in Barry Diller. If 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:17.600 you don't know who Barry Diller is, at some point 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:21.280 I shall have to do a full profile on him. 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:26.120 He created the Fox Broadcasting Company, among other things. He 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:31.640 bought controlling interest in Silver King Broadcasting. Then it became 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:36.840 silver King Communications and it merged with the Home Shopping Network. 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.360 So just three years after Home Shopping Network spends off 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:44.400 Silver King, Silver King and Home Shopping Network merged together, 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.040 and this new company also merged with another one, Savoy 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:53.600 Pictures Entertainment. And this new mega company became known as 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:59.000 hs IN Incorporated, So Home Shopping Network Incorporated essentially. But 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:04.760 then HSN Incorporated got hungry. It went on a buying frenzy. 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:09.040 It started acquiring companies left and right, which when you 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:13.320 think about it, seems only appropriate for the Home Shopping Network. Now. 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.400 The shopping they did was on the huge scale. They 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:21.360 bought Ticketmaster, They bought the TV assets of Universal Studios, 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:24.640 including USA Networks and the Sci Fi Channel that was 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:29.280 before it became Siffy, and also Match dot Com and 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:31.840 Match dot Com would end up being a really important 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.360 acquisition for them. They were already looking at ways to 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:39.600 go beyond television and radio. At that point, the company 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.800 changed its name to USA Networks Incorporated. Now, in the 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.480 two thousand's USA Networks Incorporated began to sell off some 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:51.319 of its television companies and production units. It also began 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:56.319 to acquire more online companies, including big ones like Expedia, 0:11:56.480 --> 0:12:00.199 and it changed names again to USA Interactive in two 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.400 thousand two to reflect the fact that now it was 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:07.040 looking at more internet and technology companies and less at television. 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:10.200 Then in two thousand three had changed its name again, 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:15.240 finally becoming Interactive Corps, and in two thousand four four 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:18.880 it became I a C slash Interactive Corp. So I 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:23.240 a C continue grabbing up companies and spawning new brands 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:25.800 as well. Some of the other companies that they acquired 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:33.320 included stuff like lending Tree. Trip Advisor asked Jeeves Urban Spoon. Really, 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.960 if you had a burgeoning internet company, you were in 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:41.280 good shape because someone somewhere is looking to scoop you up, 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.240 whether it was a company like Amazon or something like 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:48.320 I a C. You had if you had a good idea, 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:50.400 you just had to wait around long enough to get 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.360 scooped up. That's why a lot of these companies that 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:57.640 are the startups, they don't worry so much if they 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.679 don't have a way of generating revenue, because if they 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.559 can demonstrate that they are interesting enough, some other bigger 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:06.640 company will come and buy them and then they don't 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:08.640 have to worry about how to generate revenue. That's the 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.679 bigger company's problem now, and everyone who made that stuff 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:15.640 has become a millionaire. Man, I'm in the wrong business 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.880 at any rate. The company I a C. Eventually spun 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:23.280 off some of these properties, including spinning off the Home 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:27.840 Shopping Network. So once again, Home Shopping Network creates Silver 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.760 King Broadcasting. Silver King Broadcasting merges with Home Shopping Network. 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.280 Then I a C, which grew out of Silver King Broadcasting, 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.479 spins off Home Shopping Network. This is a weird story. 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.800 They also spun off Ticketmaster around that same time, and 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.440 in two thousand eleven, I a C created a startup 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:49.160 incubator called hatch Labs. So this is a lot like 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:53.360 Google's x Labs, the branch of Google that's all about 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:57.600 research and development and rapid prototyping of various products and services, 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.480 all about let's let's look at big risk, big reward 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:05.160 type stuff. Um, where can we come up with the 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.120 next awesome idea in house rather than having to go 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:10.280 out and buy it all the time. Not that they 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:12.440 were going to stop buying stuff, but this way they 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:16.120 could also develop it within the company. Now, hatch Labs 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.360 allows people to develop and test ideas for new products 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.840 and services and companies, and because I a c owns it, 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.800 it gives I a C. A large stake in anything 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:30.280 that comes out of hatch Labs. So this is the 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.440 company that is hatch Labs is the organization that served 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.120 as the incubator for Tinder. So it wasn't that Tinder 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.080 sprung up due to pure pluck and enthusiasm and had 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.960 actually an enormous corporation behind it when they had a 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.520 long history in online dating services because they had owned 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.680 match dot com and okay Cupid for so long. But 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.200 that's not the story you often hear when people talk 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:56.200 about Tinder. It sounds like it's a much more kind 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.160 of grassroots sort of thing. That's not exactly the case. 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.280 But none of that is to take away from the 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:04.600 innovation and the clever positioning of Tinder. By the way, 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.440 it's a product that people like and it does exactly 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.560 what it's supposed to do. It's just not a little 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.200 plucky start up the way some people imagine it to be. 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:19.040 In fact, venture capitalists have been denied investment opportunities in 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.240 Tender because I a c S steak in tender is 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:25.000 so great that they don't want anyone else coming in 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:29.680 and getting any sort of majority share in this. And 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:31.960 this is not a Tinder itself. It's not a publicly 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:36.080 traded company, although it does act as its own entity. 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:40.960 So anyway, sean Rad was working for hatch Labs and 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:43.560 he was developing ideas. He was working on a product 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:48.400 called cardify UM, but he also had an idea kind 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:53.080 of fermenting in his mind about a location based dating app, 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:58.360 and he originally started calling it Matchbox. This was not 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:00.680 one of his formal projects, and in fact, he didn't 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:04.000 really begin working on it in earnest until hatch Labs 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:07.440 held a hackathon. This was not actually that long after 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:10.120 shan Rad had joined hatch Labs. He had joined as 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:14.800 a general manager UM. So the hackathon was an event 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:19.080 in which employees could prototype new ideas rather than work 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:21.760 on their regular projects. And it lasted a few days. 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:24.800 So it gave you a chance if you had an idea, 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:27.160 to develop that idea and pitch your idea to the 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.360 company and say this is something I think we should do. Uh, 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:33.240 And it gave you the freedom to do that and 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.400 take your workload, your regular workload off of your shoulders 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:40.000 while you're prototyping. So Rad worked on Matchbox at one 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:42.440 of these hackathons and then switched back to his normal 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.560 work duties trying to get Cartify off the ground. But 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:51.040 Cardify was met with some resistance from iTunes. They were 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:55.280 delaying putting it into the iTunes Store. And this has 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:57.720 happened quite a few times with lots of different apps 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.000 across lots of different you know, types of apps, whether 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.800 it's a game or a service or whatever. Sometimes Apple 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:11.600 wants changes or has objections. Sometimes they don't really give 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.360 you necessarily the best feedback for you to figure out 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.240 how to adjust your products so that it can be 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:21.959 featured in the iTunes Store. And because the way iOS works, 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:26.200 if you have a regular, un jailbroken, you know phone, 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:30.399 you pretty much are stuck with whatever's in the iOS store. 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:36.200 You can't sideload any apps without doing something pretty drastic 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:38.439 to your phone, at least drastic in the eyes of 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:41.119 your average phone user. I'm sure a lot of you 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:44.399 guys out there and tech stuff land have phones that 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:48.760 you have freed from the shackles of manufacturers and carriers, 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:50.679 and you can load whatever you want on it, but 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.359 for the average consumer that's not the case. So that 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.840 puts people who create apps in a difficult situation. The 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:00.520 place where you want to be is on iOS because 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.760 so many people are you're using iPhones. Even though Android 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:07.840 has a greater market share, it's also more I would say, dilute. 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.840 It's harder to get noticed um whereas Apple, like the 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.840 people who have iPhones are I would I would think, 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:19.840 based upon the studies I've seen, are more likely to 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:23.600 adopt your app and pay for it than the Google 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:27.160 site is. In general. Obviously, case by case it could 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:32.439 be very different. So because of this delay, that gave 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:37.919 Rad the opportunity to switch back over to Matchbox to 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.520 to work on that again, and it got a big 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:42.720 push to move into production. And the one of the 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.000 earliest things they did was they changed the name. I A. C. 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.320 Didn't want the app to be so closely associated associated 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:51.920 with Match dot Com. They wanted it to have its 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.840 own identity and not be confused with Match dot Com. 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:58.440 They didn't want people to think that Matchbox was Match 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.800 dot Com in app for so they changed the name 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:06.240 to Tinder now justin. Matein came up with the idea 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.760 to test Tender at a college campus. This is not 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:13.159 that different from how Facebook got its start when it 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:17.200 first began, and actually, if you remember your Facebook history, 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.840 Facebook essentially started out as a way for college students 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:24.040 to find like minded folks in order or to you know, 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:28.200 to go find date or socializing. It wasn't just to 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.560 keep in touch with the people, you know. It was 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.399 also meant as a way to meet new people. So 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.520 this is very much in that same vein. So the 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.720 two colleges they picked were the University of Southern California 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:44.200 and u C l A. And as I said earlier, 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:48.000 the popularity of the app skyrocketed pretty quickly, going from 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:50.439 three hundred to a thousand users within a week and 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:54.280 then just growing from there. Now Mateam would become the 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.800 chief marketing officer for Tinder, but he stepped down in 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:00.880 September two thousand fourteen in the way of a sexual 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:04.800 harassment lawsuit which was leveled by Tender vice president of 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:10.840 marketing and UH at least sometimes credited co founder Whitney Wolf. 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:16.880 I say sometimes credited because that whole story is incredibly complicated. 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:21.560 There are people who protest her being called a co founder, 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.120 although she was allowed to. You know, she was given 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:27.240 the blessing by Sean rad to call herself co founder 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:29.920 at least on a few occasions. There's some people who 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:32.159 say that she was not really a co founder, but 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.280 she certainly was there from the earliest days um, And 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:37.960 there are other people who say, no, it's perfectly legitimate 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.600 for her to call herself a co founder. It's a 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:45.800 really complicated issue, and it gets even more complex. Wolfe 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:50.520 had either resigned from Tinder or been forced from Tinder, 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:55.479 depending upon whose account you listen to, and so she 0:20:55.880 --> 0:21:00.720 leveled this lawsuit against Tender and Matine specifically to say 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:03.480 that she had been sexually harassed and that that harassment 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:07.240 had led to her leaving the company, whether she was 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:10.800 forced out or resigned or whatever. And she presented as 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:14.640 evidence in this lawsuit some pretty nasty text messages from 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:19.159 the teen I mean, really vile stuff, and tech Crunch 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:21.560 actually ran a really long piece that I recommend if 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:24.520 you want to hear more about the story. They ran 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:26.800 a long piece about the lawsuit, and it gets really 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:30.920 complicated because people obviously could not talk about this openly. 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:34.840 It was all an ongoing lawsuit at the time, but 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:38.520 ultimately Mateine left the company as well. Uh He and 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:41.399 Sean Rad remained close friends. They had been best friends 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:45.600 for years before Tinder, so they remained friends. Wolf would 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:49.200 go on to found a Bumble, which is another dating app, 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:51.919 and the lawsuit itself was settled out of court for 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:56.920 an undisclosed sum. Now, since its launched, Tinder's popularity had 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.480 become insane, so within two years by two thousand the 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:03.040 end of two thousand fourteen, in other words, the app 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:07.920 had been downloaded forty million times, showing a six growth 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:10.959 in two thousand fourteen alone, and that there had been 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:15.600 more than one billion profiles checked out every day by 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:18.760 two thousand fourteen. That means people are swiping left or 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:22.040 right more than a billion times a day. Actually, I 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:25.240 think it's close to one point two billion. That means 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:28.640 that's about fourteen thousand profiles per second that are being 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.800 looked at and judged. Those billion swipes would lead to 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:38.280 about fourteen million matches per day, per every twenty four hours, 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:41.840 So you know, one billion, one point two billion profile 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:46.080 views and fourteen million matches. That's a pretty small percentage, 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:49.680 but still fourteen million. That's a lot of people meeting 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:55.600 somebody through this this app so it's pretty interesting now. 0:22:55.640 --> 0:23:00.199 Sean Rad became the CEO of Tender and I was 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:02.560 still when it was still under the umbrella of I 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:05.600 A C. But he's the CEO. But in two thousand 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:09.040 fourteen he was removed from that position by I A C. 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.760 S Sam Yeagan. Sam Yeagan was sort of in charge 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:15.639 of all the digital dating stuff over at I A C. 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:19.800 And it became it was something of a shock to Rad. 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:23.560 I think it was partly as a response to the 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:30.240 fallout with the sexual harassment lawsuit. So Yeagan then removes 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:33.760 Rad and Rad ends up transitioning into the role of 0:23:33.840 --> 0:23:37.520 president and member of the board. The I A C 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:41.560 would bring on Christopher Payne, who had worked as an 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:45.480 executive over at eBay, to take over as CEO, but 0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:48.920 in March two thousand and fifteen, Payne would step aside. 0:23:49.200 --> 0:23:52.000 Both Paine and I A s C would say that 0:23:52.119 --> 0:23:54.159 this was not a good fit, that it was not 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:57.280 a good long term fit for him as CEO, so 0:23:57.359 --> 0:24:00.240 who replaced Christopher Paine to take over the role of 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:04.600 CEO of Tinder Sean Rad. So Sean Rad returns to 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:12.080 CEO duties in March two thou at first we're moving 0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:15.159 away from the stuff going on at the top levels 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:18.760 and the executive side of Tender. Let's look at their 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:21.760 business model. At first, there were no pathways to generate 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:27.520 revenue directly from Tinder. The original app was free to download, 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:30.560 it was free to use. You could swipe an unlimited 0:24:30.640 --> 0:24:34.479