Meet the Jewish founders of Tinder
Finding dates used to require approaches such as hiring matchmakers, signing up for dancing and cooking classes, attending synagogue, asking friends for help, or, for the least energetic, merely creating a cursory profile on sites such as JDate.
But now, thanks to apps such as the uber-popular Tinder, it takes just one finger and a smartphone to maybe, just maybe, find your one-and-only.
Launched in 2012, Tinder may now be millennials’ most popular source for matchmaking — possibly even more than friends introducing friends.
Two of the app’s three creators are Sean Rad and Justin Mateen, two Jewish 27-year-olds from Los Angeles who set up shop in West Hollywood with their other co-founder, Jonathan Badeen. (Despite their full work and social schedules, both Rad and Mateen said they make sure to be at their parents’ Shabbat dinner tables every Friday.) They declined to reveal how many millions of people have downloaded Tinder, but they are competing with the most successful matchmaking apps (see: Hinge) in “creating introductions,” Tinder’s raison d’etre.
Available for free on Apple and Android operating systems, Tinder works like this: If Ted, 22, wants to meet someone new, the app starts by pulling information from his Facebook account — first name, age, interests, friends and photos. Then Ted can write a brief description of himself, choose which photos to post and — voila! — time to Tinder.
One after another, pictures of young women — if that’s who he’s looking to meet — will appear on Ted’s screen, along with their first names and ages. Ted can also see whether they have friends or interests in common.
Clicking on the profile photo of one — say, Victoria, 23 — Ted scrolls through a few more pictures, reads her bio (she describes herself as “compassionate and adventurous” and has an Instagram account) and sees that their mutual Facebook friend is someone he has never met in person. Not sufficiently intrigued, Ted swipes his finger to the left, sending Victoria into the Tinder netherworld. He will never see her again.
Next up is Beth, 21. Bad photo. Easy choice. Swipe left.
Then Jamie, 22. Cute face but strange smile. Swipe left.
It has been only seven seconds since Ted swiped left on Victoria, and he’s coming up on his fourth potential match: Sara, 21. She’s very pretty, has four mutual friends, loves Dave Matthews Band, and she last used the app five minutes ago (Tinder shows that), so she’s definitely actively looking. Swipe right.
Suddenly, a new screen pops up with a picture of Ted and Sara and the words “It’s a Match!” This means Sara must have seen Ted’s profile and swiped right, too. This allows them to send direct messages to each other, share some jokes, exchange phone numbers and then, who knows what?
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Mateen, a Brentwood High School graduate who also attended USC, has always been the more social of the two founders. In college, he hosted events with major performers, including Snoop Dogg. Mateen and Rad first met in high school, but they didn’t become close until they took the same mathematics class at USC, where they tested the app’s pilot version among college students.</p>
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Mateen is also the central figure in a discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Tinder earlier this summer by Whitney Wolfe, the company’s former vice president of marketing. She claims, among other things, that Mateen sent her abusive texts following the end of an on-and-off romantic relationship and that the company pushed her out, stripping her of her co-founder title. Mateen has been suspended by the company pending an internal investigation, and he said he could not comment on the lawsuit.</p>
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Tinder is free and has no advertisements, so although the company has plenty of users, it doesn’t yet produce any revenue. But, according to a report in The New York Times earlier this summer, the company has been valued at about $500 million by venture capital research firm CB Insights. </p>
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Rad would not disclose Tinder’s “discovery” formula — how the app determines which users are presented as potential matches — but proximity, mutual friends, interests and potentially even past swiping activity all impact who the user sees and who sees the user. Rad said Tinder does not take religion into account when suggesting matches, but that it may reconsider that in the future.</p>
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One aspect of the app, the inability to retract an errant left swipe, led to the company’s coining the hashtag #YOSO —“You only swipe once” — a warning to users who have a quick trigger, or finger. Although both founders said they won’t budge on its #YOSO rule anytime soon, Rad stopped and thought for a few moments about where he would be had he accidentally swiped left on his current girlfriend.</p>
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“My life would probably be very different right now,” he said, contemplating. “Crazy.”</p>
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