"These are the hottest girls I've ever seen!"

Sean Rad—29 and recently single—is bowed over his iPhone, eyes inches from the screen, totally enamored with the latest version of his groundbreaking dating app, Tinder. Information technology'south a Monday evening in mid-October at Craig'due south, a dimly lit West Hollywood hot spot where paparazzi runway every arriving Uber, and Rad can't believe how attractive the women in his Tinder feed are. He swipes through endless photos while sipping his usual muddied martini, smile like a kid. "What the fuck?!" he says. "This is basics!"

The deliciously addictive Tinder is as much cultural miracle every bit dating app—a strikingly simple tool that lets you motion picture through photos of nearby users. Swipe right to annals a "similar" or left to skip ahead to the adjacent one. If the other person swipes right on your flick besides, the app alerts both of you to a match, and from at that place, either political party tin initiate a conversation—and perchance more. Information technology'south a transformational interaction model that now leads to 1.three million dates per week. Rad is especially pumped this night because he'due south testing out a new algorithm that'due south designed to brand more than matches, and and then far it'southward performing in overdrive. Rad himself worked to refine these changes, which may explicate why, as I open up Tinder on my own phone and get-go swiping, he critiques my every flip. "Yup, yup, yup," he says agreeably as I like a serial of profiles, but and then I swipe left on one, and Rad's elbows bound off the tabular array. "What!? She was hot!" he yells. "Oh, my God, how did yous say no to her?" He grabs my phone and starts shuffling through photos on my behalf—movie after motion-picture show, complete with running commentary. "Have you e'er seen this many hot girls?" he says. "Information technology'due south like five hot girls in a row!" He finally stops on one. "Wow, she'due south gorgeous. She'south a DJ! This might exist your wife."

Tinder has ballooned to nine.6 million daily active users, accounting for some 1.4 billion swipes per day. And these aren't just teens looking for a hookup: A recent Tinder survey found that eighty% of users are seeking more than a one-night stand up—a highly engaged, advertiser-friendly audience. Tinder is role of Match Group, which was created as a division of Barry Diller'due south IAC and includes other dating sites, such as OkCupid and Friction match.com. In November, IAC spun off Lucifer Group every bit role of an initial public offering that raised around $400 million at a roughly $3 billion valuation. Tinder is cardinal to Match Group'due south appeal; as the S-one SEC prospectus notes, Rad'due south app has "risen to calibration and popularity faster than any other product in the dating category" and particularly appeals to young users. If Tinder were a freestanding operation, according to one recent estimate, its valuation could be more than $1 billion.

Despite his company'due south fast success, Rad has endured an unusually bumpy few years, including reams of skeptical press, a sexual harassment lawsuit, and even his temporary ouster as Tinder's CEO. Public scrutiny has been intense, and a perception lingers that the business is some kind of glorified frat house that's solely devoted to the promotion of coincidental sex. To Rad, this kind of criticism is "total bullshit."

Rad insists that his vision for Tinder is much grander than merely facilitating romantic connections. He plans to build it into a robust advertisement vehicle and subscription service, and also believes it has applications beyond dating. He envisions a "social discovery" platform that volition connect people in means other services cannot. "We take the potential to grab a massive audience as big every bit Instagram'southward or Snapchat'southward, but the value we're giving is and then much greater than whatsoever of these social apps," he says. "The matches made on Tinder can change lives. The Snapchat photo from two hours agone—who gives a fuck?"

It'southward jolting to hear the CEO of a major visitor speak so bluntly, but Rad is e'er this unfiltered. In some ways, it's what makes him a perfect administrator for Tinder: his youth, his energy, his intuitive grasp of the app's cadre audience. It's as well, in the eyes of some critics, what makes him a liability. What colleagues depict every bit Rad'south "raw" leadership style has gotten him into trouble at a company where professional and personal lines are ofttimes blurred. But it has also helped him build Tinder into a phenomenon, and rather than endeavor to recalibrate his personality every bit his company matures, Rad has decided to embrace his rambunctious approach.

As we're swiping over our drinks, Rad shows me his Tinder profile, which includes a bio that reads "founder and CEO of Tinder—aye, the app you lot're using." Past existence then open about his high-profile identity, he knows he'south taking a risk, since his private conversations could end up getting leaked. Merely Rad is repelled by the idea of hiding who he is. "I can't stand up false people," he says. "I'm allergic to people who don't speak their minds and aren't true to themselves. Equally Tinder has grown, I've learned that I tin can be myself."

But can he? Or will he demand to rein in his controversial personality to rocket Tinder to the next stratosphere of growth?

After Sean Rad was removed as CEO of Tinder in early on 2015, "I was incredibly upset," he says. "Merely I was a big boy about it."Photograph: David Black; Grooming: David Stanwell for Wella Professionals at Solo Artists

Early i afternoon at Tinder'southward Los Angeles headquarters, Rad and 3 other executives are gathered around a table in a small, stuffy room with bare white walls and a fake found. On a piece of paper precariously taped to the door, somebody has scrawled "CEO Office" in blue Sharpie. The depressing setting is temporary. The company has just moved into this space in one of IAC's L.A. buildings, on the Sunset Strip beyond from notorious former celeb hangout the Viper Room, and right now decor is not a priority. The vibe is pure startup: Tinder T-shirts and hats grow, and at that place are ii types of kombucha on tap in the kitchen.

Rad is wearing lite-washed denim, a striped blue button-down, and a pair of tan high-tops—a deviation from his regular dark James Perse T-shirts. His assistant brings him a Coke every bit he settles in to watch his team spar. On the calendar for today's product meeting are five potential new features, which Rad wants to narrow down to ane. They go down the list, with execs arguing the pros and cons. Rad cuts in every 45 seconds, offering blunt feedback. "This isn't 10x better," he says of ane messaging feature; "this is a game changer!" he exclaims of another. "These meetings can get heated," cofounder and production VP Jonathan Badeen tells me later on. "While I'm head of product, Sean's very much the caput of production. He's the big-idea guy."

An hour later, the group has nixed only one of the five options. But that'due south progress: Rad tells me later the coming together was "more creative" than usual, and that the focus is commonly on the "1000000 and one things we accept to urgently get done" in the short term. Though Tinder'southward swipe-to-like concept seems virtually ludicrously unproblematic, "You'd be shocked if y'all knew how much time we still spend on the swiping physics," he says.

At the moment, Rad's focus isn't just on improving Tinder'south core functionality, it's on how to augment the app'due south entreatment and generate revenues that match its outsize cultural influence. Launching new features is a big part of that strategy. Three weeks prior to today's coming together, Tinder introduced Super Like, which enables yous to push-notify people that y'all've liked them—a virtual, flirty nudge. Early on tests accept been promising. Users are three times more likely to match with someone they Super Liked, and on average those conversations concluding seventy% longer.

Super Similar is included equally office of Tinder Plus, the company'south premium subscription service, which is a primal element of its monetization strategy. The basic app is complimentary, but for a monthly fee, Tinder Plus gives members unlimited swipes and five Super Likes per day (nonsubscribers get only one Super Like and a finite number of swipes every 24 hours), the option of undoing an adventitious swipe, and other features. Rates brainstorm at $nine.99 per calendar month, and Tinder is brazen plenty to charge $xix.99 for anyone thirty or older, like surge pricing for finding your soul mate. "How much would you pay me to meet your wife?" Rad says, justifying the value suggestion. "Ten 1000 dollars? Xx thou dollars? Some people would probably give me their entire net worth." Tinder likewise makes money from advertising, of course, with companies such as Bud Low-cal paying more than than $1 1000000 per campaign for placement in users' feeds.

In addition to Super Similar, Rad spearheaded a major overhaul of the app that rolled out in Nov and includes the new algorithm. Users tin can now create handles and spider web-based profiles, and also add together education and career info to profiles. Tinder uses that information to pair couples based on compatibility rather than just spitting out photos at random. It'south all function of a push toward making Tinder a full-featured social network. Rad and Badeen say more tools are on the way that volition help facilitate chat and in-person experiences.

Currently no other app is as successful at helping strangers meet in the existent world, and information technology'due south easy to think of ways that Tinder's interface could be helpful. LinkedIn has built a concern valued at $32 billion out of connections and communication, withal as Rad points out, "LinkedIn sucks for meeting new people. It's actually incommunicable to meet people on LinkedIn." Imagine a Tinder for business, where you could network with a elementary swipe. Rad ticks off a list of other applications Tinder could go after, including local recommendations and event-discovery tools.

It's a seductive pitch; information technology's as well unclear how serious Rad is almost diversification given how much room for growth all the same exists in the dating market. He boasts that he could dream up v,000 ideas that he could "guarantee at least 100,000 users" would adopt, but "that's pointless. The hard thing is figuring out what works for 90% of our audience." For Sam Yagan—who served as Lucifer Group CEO after selling OkCupid to Diller for $xc one thousand thousand in 2011 and is on Tinder's board—information technology's about staying focused. "Should nosotros do Tinder for business, Tinder for enterprise?" he says. "I don't wake up every forenoon thinking that this dating affair is too modest."

Those close to Rad depict a magnetic quality that seems as if it has an on/off switch. It tin be discomfiting if you don't know him. Rad, who has nighttime eyes and an intense look resembling a young David Blaine, is prone to disappearing into his telephone if you don't keep his attention, even during a one-on-one conversation. Only he can too turn on a rakish charm. At one indicate, Rad describes a contempo interaction he had at New York's Soho Business firm. After overhearing four young women discussing Tinder, he slid over to chat. At first, he didn't even ID himself equally the company's CEO. "Everyone is nervous to talk to a girl or a guy," Rad tells me. "I never had a problem with it."

Rad's off-kilter charisma traces back to Bel Air, California, where he grew upwards in a large, wealthy family. His parents, Iranian immigrants, own an electronics manufacturing company that works with behemoths like Samsung. Rad recalls raucous Fri night dinners with aunts and uncles and cousins and their "big egos and voices. You had to speak up—nobody was afraid to call bullshit on something you said. There wasn't always room for my voice." He studied business at the University of Southern California but dropped out after two and a half years, in 2006. Rather than join his family's company, Rad headed out on his ain. "I wanted to be principal of my own fate," he says. He created 2 successive startups, one of which, a social media marketing company called Adly that helps celebrities and influencers monetize their brands, became a small-scale success (Rad has since sold his stake in the concern).

In early 2012, he landed as a general director at Hatch Labs, a New York–based incubator funded in part by IAC. Hatch cofounder Adam Huie remembers Rad's sly confidence during his interview. When Huie asked Rad how he would build out one of the incubator'due south products, "Sean was merely similar, 'I'll figure it out.' Wait, what? But what technology would you use? 'Don't worry! I'll get information technology washed.'  " Huie recalls Rad as beingness "half pompous, but 100% super-convincing." He got the job.

In his first week, Rad learned he'd be competing in an incubator-broad hackathon. In a reply-all bulletin responding to an email welcoming him to the incubator, Rad wrote, "Can't wait to meet you all at the hackathon—after I destroy you guys! I'm gonna win this matter!" He was correct: Rad and his partner in the contest, Hatch engineer Joe Munoz, triumphed with an idea for a service that would let users click through photos of potential matches—a rough version of what would eventually become Tinder.

Rad was by no stretch Tinder'due south sole creator; a team of designers, engineers, marketers, and business leaders deserve credit for building out the app in the ensuing year, especially Jonathan Badeen, who added the swiping mechanism. Justin Mateen, Rad'due south best friend, started working with the visitor later that twelvemonth (he also began dating Tinder employee Whitney Wolfe). Rad's "undying belief" in Tinder pushed the squad forward, says Ryan Ogle, an engineer who later became CTO. "Sean was always like, 'This is going to be the greatest matter ever! We are going to change the globe!' " Ogle recalls with a laugh. "Tinder was zero really at the time, and I was like, 'Okay, Sean, we'll run into. You're really excitable.' "

When it began rolling out at college campuses in 2012 and throughout 2013, appointment took off, hitting 100,000 users past February. Rad believes Tinder caught on considering it "removed the rejection and fearfulness" from dating—you're only told when you get a match. He likes to say information technology'due south akin to locking eyes with someone at a bar. By 2014, Tinder had reached 350 million swipes per day.

Inside the company, though, things were not going as smoothly. Tinder ran into challenges as the staff and product scaled. Spam and bots began to overwhelm the app, and its technical infrastructure struggled to go along up. Meanwhile, IAC, recognizing Tinder'southward growing influence, was angling for more control. The phrase bandied near internally was that these were "good bug to have." That is, if the servers crash, that's a good problem, considering it means appointment is booming; if IAC is fighting for more than ownership, that's also good, because it ways Tinder is valuable. But at a sure signal, yous accept to acknowledge that issues are problems and they need to exist dealt with. For any startup, says Ogle, "if you don't fix [these kinds of issues], you're going to impale this popular thing you created."

Perhaps Tinder'south biggest "good problem" was cultural. The startup has always had a piece of work-hard, play-difficult atmosphere. "It was this super-open, beautifully chaotic identify where everybody is close," one one-time employee tells me. "People would hang out later on piece of work, drink together, work out together. It had a heartbeat." Arguably, that surround was beneficial given that the company's sole product was built around the idea of connecting people. But it also proved to exist an Hr nightmare. The relationship between Rad's best friend Mateen and Wolfe (by that indicate a marketing VP) concluded badly, and their breakup spilled over into the office. That spring, Wolfe and Tinder parted ways, and in June she filed a lawsuit against the visitor accusing executives of denying her role in Tinder's founding and fostering an environment hostile to women. The suit was settled out of court that September for around $1 million, and non long afterward, Wolfe started a competing dating app called Bumble.

Today Rad acknowledges that he mishandled what turned into a very public dispute. He says he should have washed a better job keeping Mateen and Wolfe's relationship issues out of the workplace, and that being friends with both of them fabricated the situation much more difficult. "In a startup, anybody is close," he says. "It'due south hard to hold them answerable, because how are you going to tell [friends], 'Hey, you fucked upward'?" (Mateen, who resigned last September but remains a close adviser, did not respond to requests for comment; Wolfe says, "In that location is no bullshit in what I'm about to say: I genuinely practise wish Sean well and really hope for his connected success.")

The experience devastated Rad, and it contributed to a growing perception that Tinder's culture was problematic. For a loftier-profile company trying to found itself as a serious business organisation-world contender, this was an issue. Effectually the time Wolfe filed the lawsuit, Tinder's board started talking most bringing in a more than seasoned executive to oversee things. Match Group CEO and Tinder executive chairman Greg Blatt, the quondam head of Match.com, recalls that Rad was already struggling to set a consistent agenda for his employees, and Blatt says he didn't desire to exit Tinder's hereafter up to "complete trial and mistake" equally Rad learned how to pb. "Some CEOs are indecisive and it takes them a while to go to a determination," says i executive who works closely with Rad at Tinder. "Sean'due south style is the verbal opposite: He'll make a very quick decision and then he'll alter his mind later. Being the visionary—that'due south a central component of existence CEO. Just it's but ane piece."

Blatt, Yagan, and Rad talked about the situation over the course of several months. "There were times Sean was skillful [with bringing in someone to supervene upon him every bit CEO], and in that location were times where he wasn't," Blatt says. Rad contemplated quitting, only decided against it because he would take felt guilty abandoning his team. Finally Rad delivered an ultimatum to the Tinder board. "You guys have two choices," he recalls telling them. "Y'all can take a chance on me and teach me to be the leader that I need to become. Or you can say yous're not willing to take the chance and commit to that piece of work—and find somebody else."

They plant somebody else. In March 2015, Tinder appointed Christopher Payne CEO, with Rad staying on as president. A veteran of Microsoft and eBay, the new leader was brought in to, every bit Payne puts it, "ratchet up the level of accountability. The visitor had gone through a tumultuous period." Ane would expect Rad to greet Payne with skepticism, simply one-time and current employees (including Payne) say that he could not take been more than supportive. "I was incredibly upset," Rad says. "But I was a big male child virtually information technology. It was tough for me personally, but I had to agree with the lath. It was a determination we fabricated together." At the first all-hands coming together, a source who was there describes Rad as being characteristically enthusiastic: "This is happening! Chris is starting, and you're gonna beloved him!"

Rad kept his head down working on product and marketing, while Payne tried to set a more structured company strategy. "It's much easier to piece of work in a globe where information technology's more laissez-faire," Payne says. "Like, 'We'll practise this! Nosotros'll do that!'  " Taming Tinder'due south freewheeling atmosphere and undisciplined approach proved challenging. Payne, then 46, struggled to fit in, partly because he wasn't the target demographic. "I was definitely not a user of Tinder [before I joined the visitor]," Payne says. "I've been married 18 years!"

And while many sources tell me they adore Payne, there were conflicts that went deeper. One recalls how when Payne decided to let a handful of employees go, he fabricated Rad do the firing, which strained their relationship. Payne never fully earned the support of the executive team, a situation that was exacerbated, co-ordinate to a source close to the company, by rumors that he wanted to move Tinder to San Francisco (Payne says he had no intention of relocating). "A new level of discipline was imposed, and that no doubt ruffled some feathers," says Blatt. By August, 5 months into Payne'south tenure, the board had ousted him. "It's non until the actual orchestra is playing that yous know whether things are gelling," Yagan says.

Ultimately the board decided that Tinder'due south unique culture needed Rad at the helm. Just months after losing his job, he suddenly found out he was getting it back. "For improve or for worse, my identity is tied to this company," he says. "I have way more to lose [than anyone if Tinder fails], and then why would I adventure somebody else fucking it up?" On August 12, 2015, Rad over again walked into the Tinder office as the company's CEO. As he came through the door, employees met him with a standing ovation.

2 months into Rad's comeback, what's remarkable is how little Tinder'southward culture seems to take changed. The cofounder withal runs his company with a sort of amped-up kineticism, encouraging what CTO Ryan Ogle describes every bit the "wild spirit" of the early days and letting things run "just plenty [on the edge] without devolving into anarchy." That arroyo has helped Tinder stay nimble. But multiple company executives tell me that no official policy has been put in identify to assist prevent some other state of affairs like the hostile-workplace lawsuit. (Blatt says parent company IAC already had appropriate HR policies even earlier the suit.)

And for a company that's working to move beyond its bro-ish image, Tinder employs surprisingly few women. "Tinder from its very inception was meant to be a female-friendly application," says Badeen. "We see female person users as possibly our near important." To get a woman's perspective, Rad tells me he often calls his female person assistant into meetings. And in the iv meetings I attend, all of which are filled entirely with men, I discover an almost comical addiction they have of citing anecdotes from girlfriends or ex-girlfriends for a female point of view. At the time of my visit, the company employed just one female person executive (they have since hired ii more). Otherwise, Tinder's male executive team is on its own. Rad compares the dynamic to the rom-comWhat Women Want, where Mel Gibson has the ability to read women's minds.

As bad as all of this looks, Tinder'due south defenders fence information technology's perfectly normal in startup country, and nigh every current and former female employee I talk to praises Rad'due south leadership. Most say they dear Tinder'southward culture despite its dude-centricity. "Obviously nosotros deal in the concern of gender, then people care what the women of Tinder think," says the company's female on-staff sociologist, Jess Carbino, whom Rad recruited to do user-behavior enquiry after they matched on Tinder. "Information technology'due south a very pro-women civilization—we're not wallflowers cowering in the corner at all. I don't experience bad ever saying, 'Hey, I don't think this is right for women.' "

In general, executives seem to believe that Tinder'south uninhibited style is an essential office of its success. "I experience like in that location's zilch I can't say at this visitor," says Phil Schwarz, who replaced Mateen every bit CMO. "The minute that open dialogue goes away, yous're dead." Rad argues that bluntness is cardinal to how he provides feedback. "For a menstruum of fourth dimension [following the lawsuit] I felt suffocated, like I couldn't talk," he says. "Only I am who I am, and I'g proud of that. If people don't meet it, they tin can go fuck themselves."

The afternoon after Match Group's IPO, Rad is sitting at a serenity bistro near IAC's New York headquarters, trying to explain the sudden crazy turn things have taken. "The past 48 hours were honestly the worst two days of my entire life," he says.

Earlier that morning, Rad was at the Nasdaq to help ring the opening bell. Surrounded by dozens of Match Grouping colleagues, Rad, wearing a blackness adapt and a big smile, clapped loudly and exchanged a high-5 with Badeen as confetti shot into the air. Information technology should've been a joyous moment, the culmination of nearly iv years of work. Instead it was "bittersweet," Rad tells me. "What a twenty-four hours today, but what a fucked-upwards calendar week."

Rad's lack of tact had once again landed him in problem. The mean solar day before the IPO, in a at present-infamous interview with the London Evening Standard, Rad was quoted discussing diverse un-CEO-like topics, boasting that a supermodel had once begged him for sex and—in one widely mocked moment—misusing the term "sodomy." "We're going to be fired," his publicist jokes in the article. To which Rad replies, "What? Why?"

The piece wasn't just embarrassing; it risked angering the SEC, which restricts corporate executives from making certain kinds of public statements leading up to an IPO. The commodity cited engagement figures that dramatically differ from what's in Match Grouping'south SEC prospectus. Hours after the article came out, Match Group responded with the highly unusual movement of filing a statement with the SEC that disavowed itself of Rad's comments—and of Rad himself. He "is not a manager or executive officer of the [Match Group] and was not authorized to brand statements," the company wrote. Information technology was a brutal public spanking.

At the eating house, Rad is unshaven and a bit haggard, having taken a red-eye to make the opening-bell ceremony. He has come directly from a frank coming together with Blatt, who he says has been extremely supportive (the two men stood next to each other for a photograph afterward the ceremony, which could be interpreted every bit a vote of conviction). Over saccharide-loaded coffee and a salad, he tells me he wants to explain what happened.

I decide to just come out and ask Rad the obvious question: Is he going to lose his job as CEO of Tinder? Once again? "No, no, absolutely not," he says. "I promise." Rad, who barely touches his nutrient, is more careful than usual, constantly jumping on and off the record. He clearly feels burned by the contempo bad printing. "Merely please don't fuck me," he says at ane indicate. At another he tells me, "I don't know what I'm allowed to say. I'm learning now."

Rad insists that in the interview some of his more explosive quotes were taken out of context (an Evening Standard editor says the publication stands by its story). "It's fucked up, considering I'm dealing with all of these stereotypes," he says. "Considering I'grand a successful guy in tech I must be a douche bag. Because I run a dating app I must be a womanizer. At the aforementioned fourth dimension, I fucked up. I should know better every bit a CEO."

That flash of insight suggests he could now adopt an image more than in keeping with the top executive of a hot company with large plans and enthusiastic investors. Is Sean Rad finally fix to abound upward? Well . . . perhaps. Though he describes the incident as a "wake-up call," he too says that "information technology'south non that I'm always going to cease being myself. It'southward that I've got to get better at framing what I'yard trying to say. My responsibility every bit a CEO—and to myself—is to continue being myself. I've got to do amend. Because these fucking last few days were a lark. What has really sunk in is that I need to leave very petty room for misinterpretation of what I'm trying to say." He says doing that paper interview was "irresponsible" and that "I volition never put myself in that position again." When it comes to running his business concern, Rad seems less certain that things need a rethink. "Y'all saw my manner—that is how I e'er communicated with the team," he says. "The merely thing that's changed is I am more articulate about what I want and who nosotros are as a visitor."

Rad takes a last sip of coffee and insists on getting the check ("Greg is paying for information technology," he jokes). We walk together to the eating house's forepart door, where he gives me a hug. "Promise me, delight, if there'due south something [I said that] you lot call back is going to destroy my life, merely telephone call me," he says. "Give me an opportunity to clarify." The CEO says adieu, so walks slowly across the street toward the IAC building, his head buried in his phone, his fingers madly tapping.