WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: Tinder Loving Care? 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.600 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.560 job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio. 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:20.200 And how the tech are you? It's time for a 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:24.280 classic episode. This episode originally published on September twenty three, 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:29.600 two thousand fifteen. It is called Tinder Loving Care and 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:35.120 it is of course about the app designed for dating 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:41.120 slash hooking up Tinder enjoy. I really hope you guys 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.240 swipe right on this episode, and that is in fact 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.400 a reference to the topic I will be discussing today. 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:53.280 That topic is Tinder, the dating app, and you probably 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.240 heard about it. I'm pretty sure most of you are 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:58.120 aware of what Tinder is. Some of you may be 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.680 active Tinder users. It's a dating app that you download 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.800 to a mobile device and when you fire it up, 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.640 it shows you pictures of people who also have the 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:12.399 app installed on their mobile devices and who are within 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:16.480 your general location a radius that you have set, so 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:20.680 let's say it's five miles. You will see other profiles 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.240 in there that are somewhere within that five mile range 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.640 of people who also have Tender, and it will match 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:30.320 you up with the preferences you've set. So for example, 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.960 if you are a man seeking a woman, it will 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.080 show you the female profiles, but it won't show you 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.399 the male profiles. And the way the app works is 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.280 you look at this picture and if you think that 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:45.600 person is attractive, if you think I would like to 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.480 speak with this person, I think, uh, this, this person 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:51.800 has a look that appeals to me, you would swipe 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:55.360 right on the screen, and that essentially is like giving 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:59.680 that person a check saying you are a CUTEI petuity. 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:02.960 If the person's picture doesn't do anything for you, you you 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:06.280 swipe to the left and say you are going to 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.000 the heap. I do not want to speak with you. 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:11.480 You are not interesting to me, you don't appeal to me. 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:14.480 Whatever reason. Maybe it's just that you know you're like, 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.959 you know, I don't like that hairstyle very much. It 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:20.919 could be something as simple as that. And you only 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.280 get to talk to someone if they have looked at 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:27.400 your profile, and also they swipe right on your picture. 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:30.480 So in other words, if you give a person a 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:33.240 check mark and they look at you and give you 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:37.359 a check mark, then a line of communication can open up. 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:41.440 Otherwise one party will continue to be perpetually unaware of 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:44.960 the other party, and it doesn't indicate that someone has 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.280 swiped right or left for you again, you only know 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:50.720 if you both swipe right, which takes a lot of 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:53.760 the pressure off obviously. So once you both swipe right, 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:56.520 you can chat and set up a time and place 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.040 to meet. You can actually go on a date and 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.120 just have a nice time, or maybe you just want 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.359 to meet in person. See if sparks are flying right 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:08.560 on the get go. The app relies very heavily on 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:12.880 Facebook integration. It pulls in photos and your likes from 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:15.680 various pages that you visited, So if you like a 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:19.440 lot of different pages for bands or movies or brands 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.280 or whatever, those will pop up in the profile as well. 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.080 Uh it'll also just give a really brief overview of 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:30.720 a person's personality. There's also some integration with Instagram to 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.400 help fill out that profile with other pictures. You can 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.680 actually select I think up to six pictures to represent 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:40.440 yourself within your tender profile, so somebody can take one 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:42.680 look and they might say, all right, well that's the 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:44.760 representative photo, but let me look at a couple of 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.480 others before I decide. And just like we often find 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:54.640 in real life interactions. The app focuses on physical attraction first, 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.200 but let's be fair, that's what we do in real life. 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:00.920 I mean, if you are at a an event and 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.720 you see someone who catches your eye, often physical attraction 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.680 is the first indicator that inspires you to go and 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:11.119 try and have an interaction with that person. And then 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.280 from there things might develop further and you might find 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.920 that you really like that person, or you might find 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:20.719 that you're completely incompatible and it would just be a 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.800 total mistake to try and have any sort of relationship 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:28.159 with that person. But ultimately that physical attraction is often 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.600 the first step that leads us to those interactions. It's 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:35.160 not always the case, but it often is. So anyway, 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.120 today I'm going to talk about where Tender came from 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.839 and how it's business model works. Because the technology itself 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:46.479 is incredibly simple. It's essentially GPS toho determine where your 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.679 location is and where people are in relation to you, 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:55.400 and it's this app matching or profile matching software. Not 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.239 a lot to it, not terribly complicated, but the behind 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:03.440 the scenes stuff is really interesting. Now, the general story 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:08.159 of Tinder, the one that you know is generally pushed 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:11.720 uh to to kind of give it a sort of 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:19.320 campus mystique, This idea of of young, young entrepreneurs developing 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.000 a really powerful app in in like a dorm room. 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.000 There's this kind of image of that with Tinder. But 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.320 that's not exactly what happened. Now, there were two entrepreneurs, 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.400 Sean rad and Justin Matine, who built the app, and 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.719 they tested it at the University of California, and they 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.520 launched it in two thousand twelve with just three people 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:44.280 as their initial seed test group, and by the end 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.040 of the week the app had more than a thousand 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.200 active users, and Rather and Matine were just twenty seven 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.400 when they launched Tinder. But the story doesn't really start there. 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:56.440 It's not like these are two post grads who happened 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:58.599 to come up with a cool idea and try it 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:02.560 out of the college. The narrative or tender isn't just 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.440 about that. It's really more about how Tinder is part 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:12.359 of a much much larger organization called Interactive Core or 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:17.760 i a C. Now i a C is, at least 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:21.680 according to their website anyway, a leading media and internet 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:27.320 company focused on the areas of search applications, online dating media, 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.279 and e commerce. That's a direct quote from their site. 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.159 And it's a big company. There are more than a 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.960 hundred fifty brands or products that are under that umbrella, 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:40.159 and you would recognize these names. These are not small names. 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:43.960 For example, Match dot com and okay Cupid, so you've 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:48.479 got some major dating sites there. There's also video, there's 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.120 college humor and about dot com, so these are these 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:56.600 are big brands that are under this this company. So 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.600 to understand where Tinder is and why it hasn't been 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:04.160 snapped up by someone like Google or Twitter or Facebook, 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.520 you need to know what I A C is and 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.480 where it comes from. So this is starting to sound 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.000 like a little bit of a bait and switch, I understand, 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:15.480 but I promise I'm going to get back to tender 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.560 a little further in for the moment. Let's first take 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:23.520 a look at I A C. And it's storied history. 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:29.200 So this is gonna get weird and complicated because history 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:33.960 is never as straightforward as you might imagine. So we 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.840 have to look at before I A C. So I 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:39.679 guess b I A C if you're trying to create 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.560 a new nomenclature for this. So before there was an 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:46.600 I A C. There was a company called Silver King Broadcasting. 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:49.640 And before there was Silver King, there was the Home 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:54.280 Shopping Network, And before there was the Home Shopping Network, 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:58.200 there was the Home Shopping Club. But don't worry, that's 0:07:58.240 --> 0:07:59.720 as far back as I'm gonna go or else. We 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.760 just keep on tracing all the way to the roots 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:06.480 of the discovery of fire. So back in nineteen one, 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:11.680 former attorney Roy Spear and a radio and television executive 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:17.360 named Lowell White Bud Paxson launched the Home Shopping Club 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:21.800 in Florida. Paxson had actually discovered that there was a 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:24.800 market for selling stuff live on television. He had ended 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:30.000 up with a whole bunch of avocado green can openers, 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.280 and he told one of the guys running one of 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.880 the shows that that was airing on a television network 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.200 that he owned or television station I should say that 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.319 he owned. Hey, can you try and mention these things 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:43.840 on the air so we can try and sell some 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:45.880 of them. And discovered that they were able to sell 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.680 almost two hundred in an hour, and he thought there 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:50.959 might be something to this. We can make this a 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.760 whole business. Now. At first this was limited to broadcasting 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.840 just in the state of Florida. But over a few 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.160 years they got bigger and bigger, and by night five, 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:05.479 the Home Shopping Club now known as the Home Shopping Network, 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:11.920 began to broadcast across the entire United States. In nineteen six, 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.320 the Home Shopping Network or hs N if you prefer, 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:21.760 established a subsidiary company, and that was called Silver King Broadcasting. 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.360 The purpose of this company was to secure over the 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:29.920 air time for the Home Shopping Network, so for places 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:33.559 that didn't have cable, but we're getting over the air broadcasts. 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:36.319 This made a lot of sense. You know, you wanted 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.280 to to target as many different markets as possible, so 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:43.720 the company actually started buying up television stations in order 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.880 to get more Home Shopping Network content out in front 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:49.520 of more viewers. And that was the birth of the 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:54.600 Silver King Broadcasting Company. Things get even more weird from here, 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.080 but I promise we're gonna get to tender. So in 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:02.040 n I remember in n six, that's when Silver King 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:06.320 Broadcasting comes into being in the Home Shopping Network spun 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:11.400 Silver King off as a separately traded public company. So 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:15.600 now Silver King Broadcasting is a related but separate company 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:22.079 all on its own in in Barry Diller, if you 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:23.839 don't know who Barry Diller is. At some point I 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:28.040 shall have to do a full profile on him. He 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:32.320 created the Fox Broadcasting Company, among other things. In he 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:37.800 bought controlling interest in Silver King Broadcasting. Then it became 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:43.040 silver King Communications and it merged with the Home Shopping Network. 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:46.560 So just three years after Home Shopping Network spends off 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.560 Silver King, Silver King and Home Shopping Network merged together. 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.240 And this new company also merged with another one, Savoy 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.760 Pictures Entertainment. And this new mega company became known as 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:04.240 a just In Incorporated. So Home Shopping Network Incorporated essentially. 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:09.720 But then HSN Incorporated got hungry. It went on a 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:14.240 buying frenzy. It started acquiring companies left and right, which 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.600 when you think about it, seems only appropriate for the 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:21.000 Home Shopping Network. Now. The shopping they did was on 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:25.600 the huge scale. They bought Ticketmaster, They bought the TV 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.679 assets of Universal Studios, including USA Networks and the Sci 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.640 Fi Channel that was before it became Siffy, and also 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.840 Match dot Com and Match dot Com would end up 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:39.600 being a really important acquisition for them. They were already 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:44.840 looking at ways to go beyond television and radio. At 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:49.800 that point, the company changed its name to USA Networks Incorporated. Now, 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:53.040 in the two thousand's USA Networks Incorporated began to sell 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.240 off some of its television companies and production units. It 0:11:56.320 --> 0:12:01.079 also began to acquire more online companies, including big ones 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:05.920 like Expedia, and it changed names again to USA Interactive 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:09.320 in two thousand two to reflect the fact that now 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.120 it was looking at more internet and technology companies and 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:15.680 less at television. Then in two thousand three had changed 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:20.440 its name again, finally becoming Interactive Corps, and in two 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:24.199 thousand four four it became I a C. Slash Interactive Corp. 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.760 So I a C continue grabbing up companies and spawning 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.320 new brands as well. Some of the other companies that 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:36.200 they acquired included stuff like lending Tree. Trip Advisor asked 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:42.480 Jeeves Urban Spoon. Really, if you had a burgeoning internet company, 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:46.640 you were in good shape because someone somewhere is looking 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:49.520 to scoop you up, whether it was a company like 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:53.559 Amazon or something like I a C. You had if 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:55.680 you had a good idea, you just had to wait 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:57.600 around long enough to get scooped up. That's why a 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:02.400 lot of these companies that are um the startups, they 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:04.720 don't worry so much if they don't have a way 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:08.240 of generating revenue, because if they can demonstrate that they 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:11.600 are interesting enough, some other bigger company will come and 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:13.480 buy them, and then they don't have to worry about 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.079 how to generate revenue. That's the bigger company's problem now, 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:20.800 and everyone who made that stuff has become a millionaire. Man, 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.800 I'm in the wrong business at any rate. The company 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.359 I a C. Eventually spun off some of these properties, 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:32.440 including spinning off the Home Shopping Network. So once again, 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:36.360 Home Shopping Network creates Silver King Broadcasting. Silver King Broadcasting 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:39.800 merges with Home Shopping Network. Then I a C, which 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:43.000 grew out of Silver King Broadcasting, spins off Home Shopping Network. 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.280 This is a weird story. They also spun off Ticketmaster 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.800 around that same time, and in two thousand eleven, I 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:54.360 a C created a startup incubator called hatch Labs. So 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:58.040 this is a lot like Google's x Labs, the branch 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.880 of Google that's all about research, ch in development and 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:05.080 rapid prototyping of various products and services, all about let's 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:10.160 let's look at big risk, big reward type stuff. Um, 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.480 where can we come up with the next awesome idea 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.040 in house rather than having to go out and buy 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:16.800 it all the time, not that they were going to 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.360 stop buying stuff, but this way they could also develop 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:23.560 it within the company. Now, hatch Labs allows people to 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:27.000 develop and test ideas for new products and services and companies. 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:29.520 And because I a c. Owns it, it gives I 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.760 a C. A large stake in anything that comes out 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.520 of hatch Labs. We'll be back with more tender loving 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:51.000 care after these brief messages. So this is the company 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.080 as hatch Labs is the organization that served as the 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:58.280 incubator for Tinder. So it wasn't that Tinder sprung up 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.880 due to pure pluck an enthusiasm and had actually an 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:06.320 enormous corporation behind it when they had a long history 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.320 in online dating services because they had own match dot 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.440 Com and okay Cupid for so long. But that's not 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.120 the story you often hear when people talk about Tinder. 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:17.240 It sounds like it's a much more kind of grassroots 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.040 sort of thing. That's not exactly the case. But none 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.600 of that is to take away from the innovation and 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.440 the clever positioning of Tinder. By the way, it's a 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:29.240 product that people like and it does exactly what it's 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.800 supposed to do. It's just not a little plucky startup 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.720 the way some people imagine it to be. In fact, 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:40.440 venture capitalists have been denied investment opportunities in Tender because 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.160 I A. C. S. Steak in Tender is so great 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.800 that they don't want anyone else coming in and getting 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.280 any sort of majority share in this. And this is 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.000 not a Tinder itself. It's not a publicly traded company, 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:58.760 although it does act as its own entity. So anyway, 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.600 Sean Rad was working for hatch Labs and he was 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:05.800 developing ideas. He was working on a product called cardify UM, 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:10.040 but he also had an idea kind of fermenting in 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:15.000 his mind about a location based dating app, and he 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:18.960 originally started calling it Matchbox. This was not one of 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.600 his formal projects, and in fact he didn't really begin 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:25.640 working on it in earnest until hatch Labs held a hackathon. 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:28.560 This was not actually that long after shan Rad had 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:32.320 joined hatch Labs. He had joined as a general manager UM. 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:36.440 So the hackathon was an event in which employees could 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:40.680 prototype new ideas rather than work on their regular projects, 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:43.440 and it lasted a few days, so it gave you 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:45.800 a chance if you had an idea to develop that 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:48.240 idea and pitch your idea to the company and say 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:50.840 this is something I think we should do. Uh. And 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.840 it gave you the freedom to do that and take 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:56.960 your workload, your regular workload, off of your shoulders while 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.400 you're prototyping. So Rad worked on Matchbox that one of 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:02.960 these hackathons and then switched back to his normal work 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:07.240 duties trying to get Cartify off the ground. But Cardify 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:12.159 was met with some resistance from iTunes. They were delaying 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:16.000 putting it into the iTunes Store. And this has happened 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.560 quite a few times with lots of different apps across 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.520 lots of different you know, types of apps, whether it's 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:26.520 a game or a service or whatever. Sometimes Apple wants 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:32.120 changes or has objections. Sometimes they don't really give you 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.000 necessarily the best feedback for you to figure out how 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:38.000 to adjust your products so that it can be featured 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:42.280 in the iTunes Store. And because the way iOS works, 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:46.520 if you have a regular, un jailbroken, you know phone, 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:50.720 you pretty much are stuck with whatever's in the iOS store. 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:56.520 You can't sideload any apps without doing something pretty drastic 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:58.760 to your phone, at least drastic in the eyes of 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:01.479 your average phone user. I'm sure a lot of you 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.720 guys out there and tech stuff land have phones that 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:09.080 you have freed from the shackles of manufacturers and carriers, 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:11.040 and you can load whatever you want on it. But 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:14.760 for the average consumer that's not the case. So that 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:18.199 puts people who create apps in a difficult situation. The 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:20.840 place where you want to be is on iOS because 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.080 so many people are you're using iPhones. Even though Android 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:28.160 has a greater market share, it's also more i would say, dilute. 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.159 It's harder to get noticed um, whereas Apple, like the 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:36.160 people who have iPhones are I would I would think, 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:40.159 based upon the studies I've seen, are more likely to 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.919 adopt your app and pay for it than the Google 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.480 site is. In general. Obviously, case by case it could 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:52.760 be very different. So because of this delay, that gave 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:58.240 Rad the opportunity to switch back over to Matchbox to 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:00.880 to work on that again, and it got a big 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:03.040 push to move into production. And the one of the 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:06.320 earliest things they did was they changed the name. I A. C. 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.640 Didn't want the app to be so closely associated associated 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.240 with match dot com. They wanted it to have its 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.200 own identity and not be confused with Match dot Com. 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.760 They didn't want people to think that Matchbox was Match 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:22.120 dot Com in app form, so they changed the name 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:26.560 to Tender. Now, Justin Matine came up with the idea 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:30.080 to test Tender at a college campus. This is not 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:33.479 that different from how Facebook got its start when it 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:37.520 first began, and actually, if you remember your Facebook history, 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:41.200 Facebook essentially started out as a way for college students 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.359 to find like minded folks in order or to you know, 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:48.520 to go find date or socializing. It wasn't just to 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.879 keep in touch with the people, you know. It was 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:53.719 also meant as a way to meet new people. So 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.879 this is very much in that same vein. So the 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:00.359 two colleges they picked were h the University of Southern 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:04.520 California and u C l A. And as I said earlier, 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:08.320 the popularity of the app skyrocketed pretty quickly, going from 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:10.760 three hundred to a thousand users within a week and 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:14.520 then just growing from there. Now my team would become 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:18.000 the chief marketing officer for Tinder, but he stepped down 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.760 in September two thousand fourteen in the wake of a 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:25.040 sexual harassment lawsuit which was leveled by Tender vice president 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:30.400 of marketing and uh at least sometimes credited co founder 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:35.240 Whitney Wolf. I say sometimes credited because that whole story 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:40.560 is incredibly complicated. There are people who protest her being 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:43.919 called a co founder, although she was allowed to, you know, 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:46.600 she was given the blessing by Shaan Rad to call 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:49.640 herself co founder at least on a few occasions. There's 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:51.719 some people who say that she was not really a 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:55.520 co founder, but she certainly was there from the earliest days. Um. 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:57.520 And there are other people who say, no, it's perfectly 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:00.600 legitimate for her to call herself a co founder. Uh. 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:05.800 It's a really complicated issue, and it gets even more complex. 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:10.840 Wolf had either resigned from Tinder or been forced from Tinder, 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:15.800 depending upon whose account you listen to, and so she 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:21.040 leveled this lawsuit against Tender and Matine specifically to say 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:23.840 that she had been sexually harassed and that that harassment 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:27.560 had led to her leaving the company, whether she was 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:31.120 forced out or resigned or whatever. And she presented as 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:35.359 evidence in this lawsuit some pretty nasty text messages from Matine, 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:40.040 I mean really vile stuff. And tech Crunch actually ran 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:42.200 a really long piece that I recommend if you want 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.200 to hear more about this story. They ran a long 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:48.160 piece about the lawsuit, and it gets really complicated because 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:52.000 people obviously could not talk about this openly. It was 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:56.280 all an ongoing lawsuit at the time, but ultimately Mateine 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.480 left the company as well. Uh He and Sean rad 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:02.640 remained those friends. They had been best friends for years 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.240 before Tinder, so they remained friends. Wolf would go on 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.960 to found a Bumble, which is another dating app, and 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:12.359 the lawsuit itself was settled out of court for an 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:18.520 undisclosed sum. Now, since its launched, Tender's popularity had become insane, 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:21.080 so within two years by two thousand the end of 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:23.760 two thousand fourteen, in other words, the app had been 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:28.399 downloaded forty million times, showing a six percent growth in 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:31.560 two thousand fourteen alone, and that there had been more 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:36.120 than one billion profiles checked out every day by two 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:39.360 thousand fourteen. That means people are swiping left or right 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:42.479 more than a billion times a day. Actually, I think 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.719 it's close to one point two billion. That means that's 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:49.480 about fourteen thousand profiles per second that are being looked 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:53.440 at and judged. Those billion swipes would lead to about 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:58.600 fourteen million matches per day. Per every twenty four hours. 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:02.160 So you know, one billion, one point two billion profile 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:06.399 views and fourteen million matches. That's a the pretty small percentage, 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:10.000 but still fourteen million, that's a lot of people meeting 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:15.920 somebody through this this app, So it's pretty interesting. Now. 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:20.480 Sean Rad became the CEO of Tinder, and that was 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:22.879 still when it was still under the umbrella of I 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:25.879 A C. But he's the CEO, But in two thousand 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:28.879 and fourteen he was removed from that position by I 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:32.639 a C. S Sam Yeagan. Sam Yagan was sort of 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:35.480 in charge of all the digital dating stuff over at 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:38.639 I a C. And it became it was something of 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:42.240 a shock to Rad. I think it was partly as 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:46.920 a response to the fallout with the sexual harassment lawsuit. 0:23:47.680 --> 0:23:53.359 So Yeagan then removes Rad and Rad ends up transitioning 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:55.760 into the role of president and member of the board. 0:23:56.880 --> 0:24:01.080 The I A C would bring on Christopher Payne, who 0:24:01.080 --> 0:24:04.040 had worked as an executive over at eBay, to take 0:24:04.119 --> 0:24:08.240 over as CEO, but in March two thousand fifteen, Pain 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:11.000 would step aside. Both Pain and I A sa C 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:14.000 would say that this was not a good fit, that 0:24:14.160 --> 0:24:16.120 it was not a good long term fit. For him 0:24:16.160 --> 0:24:20.160 as CEO, so who replaced Christopher Paine to take over 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:23.960 the role of CEO of Tinder Sean Rad So. Sean 0:24:24.040 --> 0:24:27.880 rad returns to CEO duties in March two thousand fift 0:24:28.960 --> 0:24:34.320 Uh not. First, we're moving away from the stuff going 0:24:34.359 --> 0:24:37.520 on at the top levels and the executive side of Tender. 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:40.680