8 ms·

Tinder's Forgotten Woman: Whitney Wolfe, Sexism, and Startup Creation Myths

149 points by dbloom 12y ago

minimaxir 12y ago
Despite the linkbaity headline, this article actually adds new information and context to the controversy. Also, NSFW Instagram images.
- hyperliner 12y ago
  Yes people. Please flag [EDIT, as in write "NSFW" when applicable. Thanks shawnz]. The article feels that is going to be serious, which it kind of is, but then the pics. What was the point of that? The writer could not have simply mentioned the pics?
  - minimaxir 12y ago
    This is one of the very few contexts where those types of images are completely relevant, but I'm surprised there wasn't a warning in the article.
  - optimusclimb 12y ago
    I think the expression, "a picture is worth a thousand words" applies. Sometimes points merit reinforcing. I'm guessing the author thought that adding the pictures added impact. I'd say it did. Too easy to gloss over phrases like "twitter account littered with misogynist/immature/whatever pictures". Also, great article, I thought.
  - redthrowaway 12y ago
    The pictures, from the Instagram account of the men accused of misogyny, are directly pertinent to the purported misogyny of the people in question. Why shouldn't they be included?
  - hyperliner 12y ago
    I don't disagree with optimus. It's just about lacking the flag.
    - shawnz 12y ago
      I think people thought you meant "flag" as in reporting the article, not "flag" as in writing NSFW in the title.
    - hyperliner 12y ago
      My bad.
  - bashinator 12y ago
    Agreed - this article has imagery that's inappropriate to display in many locations, and should be indicated as such in the title.
- dang 12y ago
  We tried to edit the title to make it less linkbaity, but only partly. If anyone can suggest a better one (i.e. accurate and neutral), we can change it again.
  - dbloom 12y ago
    It looks like the URL of the article has an alternative (older?) headline in it: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-02/tinders-forgotten-woman-whitney-wolfe-sexism-and-startup-creation-myths http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-02/tinders-forg... "Tinder's Forgotten Woman: Whitney Wolfe, Sexism, and Startup Creation Myths"
    - dang 12y ago
      Ah yes, the "extract alternative title from URL" trick. My title fu is failing me, though. Is this one really better?
      - robg 12y ago
        I think so, it's certainly more descriptive of what's contained therein. EDIT: The generic "women" in the current title is certainly more misleading and may be contributing to the penalty being assessed by those who haven't read the piece. The article only discusses one woman.
        dang 12y ago
        Ok, we changed it (from "The Truth About Tinder and Women").
msie 12y ago
Pretty shocking revelations. Was this ever revealed before? Only because of Wolfe's firing?
- saraid216 12y ago
  s/firing/lawsuit
- minimaxir 12y ago
  The author had done an article on Tinder last year: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-05/dating-app-tinder-catches-fire http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-05/dating-app-t... It's likely that current events help explain some oddities in Tinder's past.
  - msie 12y ago
    Interesting differences in reporting between the two articles. 1) Rad is given more credit in the first with development of Tinder than in the second article where Munoz is now mentioned. 2) Wolfe isn't mentioned at all in the first: Mateen is credited with the idea of seeding the app at sororities and fraternities.
    - mercer 12y ago
      > That bothered me, but I didn’t have the space to tell the whole story in the magazine. It seems like the reporter was aware that something was off, but only discovered the new details through Munoz (who might not be entirely objective as a source either?). I can't tell whether it was shoddy journalism or just something that, at the point of the first article, wasn't too relevant. Either way it reminds me once again of how factually incorrect many articles I read might actually be.
henryw 12y ago
Interesting that Tinder is owned by the company behind Match.com.
- robg 12y ago
  Not just owned, but incubated by their employees. That completely blows me away that IAC is so, so good at rebranding for different audiences.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    Yeah, the most interesting part of this article is that, if true, it seems like Tinder was kind of a pseudo-startup, a subsidiary of an established corporation given a more media-friendly backstory by positioning it as a startup. In retrospect I'm surprised that kind of thing isn't more common. (Or maybe it is?)
    - potatolicious 12y ago
      This sort of thing is, in my experience, quite common, but rarely successful. Large companies are aware of the innovator's dilemma and try to form skunkworks teams to find the Next Big Thing. But the problem is that most seem unable to assemble the right people, and give them the right autonomy, to really enable them to behave in a startup-like manner. Instead it just becomes recruitment joke where recruiters say "it's like a startup in a big company!" while the candidate rolls their eyes.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - _delirium 12y ago
        Right, though that's a different case I think. You're talking about trying to replicate some kind of innovative startup environment within a big company. My read here is a bit different, that IAC had an idea for how to enter this space, knew what they wanted to build there and even assigned employees to start building it, but needed a better media story than "Match.com launches hookup app". So instead they cooked up a hot startup led by young cofounders launching a new "dating" app— but where the startup happens to be an IAC subsidiary and implementing the IAC market strategy, which is omitted from the branding. In a way I think it's the opposite story of skunkworks. Those try to replicate a startup-like independence while also emphasizing the parent brand's ultimate credit for any output (e.g. ZFS was developed by a Sun skunkworks and proudly claimed by Sun). Here it looks like IAC wanted exactly the opposite: a fake startup that didn't really have independence and instead just implemented IAC's strategy for this vertical, but which emphasized its own brand and kept quiet about the parent brand. One other area I can think of where that's fairly common recently is in fake microbrews launched by the big brewing companies. The recipes and market positioning are entirely dictated by the parent company, but there's a kind of microbrewing identity that is presented to the public.
rayiner 12y ago
The "Tinderslut"[1] comment says a lot about how Rad and Mateen view the women who use their app. It's consistent with Wolfe's claim in her complaint that Mateen told her it would be "slutty" to be a female Tinder co-founder, because it was an app people used to hook up. As an aside, Mateen exhibits the textbook Madonna-whore dichotomy. To him, women are either someone he can see being a wife (Wolfe pre-breakup), or a whore/bimbo/slut (the women on his Instagram feed). When she rejected him, in classic fashion she went from the former bucket to the latter. This is a case study for a gender-studies paper. [1] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tinderslut http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tinderslut
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  >says a lot about how Rad and Mateen view the women who use their app // Isn't the point of the app to enable promiscuity. "Slut" is a word for a promiscuous woman, sometimes used for a prostitute, sometimes used of men (in UK at least). Surely they viewed the women who use the app as wanting to have free and easy sexual encounters, ie behave like sluts? When the slang that associated their app with the actions of those using it, viz "tinderslut", was popularised were they not justified to consider that an achievement - the app was clearly notorious for enabling promiscuous behaviour, exactly the behaviour it was designed for. There seems little controversial in them calling active users of their app sluts (men or women). For me there is much to hate about the app morally but it seems rather silly to get upset that the designers of the app that people use to seek out promiscuous sex consider their users to be in to promiscuous sex?!
  - serge2k 12y ago
    Why is this much to hate about this app morally?
  - potatolicious 12y ago
    "Slut" is a derogatory term, it has connotations and meanings well beyond the most literal definition of "promiscuous person". Calling Tinder user "sluts" is no more appropriate than calling my Chinese users "chinks", or my gay users "faggots". It seems intentionally obtuse to pretend that the term doesn't have a gigantic truckload of derogatory connotations behind it.
WoodenChair 12y ago
While the allegations are shocking, it was irresponsible for the journalist to add the little bit in the very last paragraph on the third page about one of the founder's former startups having an FBI investigation as a kind of final pot-shot. How was that relevant to the thrust of the rest of the article? What did it add? Was it fair to include it without elaborating?
- bigdubs 12y ago
  I was struck by that too, the "I wasn't going to mention this before, but now, here it is." nature of it was strange.
  - coryl 12y ago
    Modern journalism isn't really even journalism anymore, its more like blogging. Publish whatever it takes to get the most attention.
- RickS 12y ago
  Worse still is the implication that he was complicit in the uploading or transmission of illegal images. Any messaging or image based app is going to have to deal with that - young apps are especially vulnerable to abuse because it's expected that they not have robust security or a large enough staff to close the floodgates. While the dude's clearly a jerk, his first startup sounds like it died a death that was out of his hands, not a result of his being a predator.
- MattGrommes 12y ago
  It seemed like he learned a number of odd things about the founders during his research and now that they were in a lawsuit and were confirmed as being giant dicks he felt justified in throwing a few rocks. The "take note lawyers" bit and the bunch of juvenile social media pictures were the same way, not needed except to fill in the picture he was painting.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
austenallred 12y ago
"Here is the truth as I see it, having spoken to nearly everyone who was involved in the project: What made Tinder Tinder was the work of a team:" You could replace "Tinder" with any company and find that the above statement holds true. Twitter isn't Jack or Ev or Biz, it's the combination of the three. Facebook was mostly Zuck, but not all. Apple was indeed [very] heavily influenced by Steve Jobs, but Apple wasn't Steve Jobs. I've found the idea of a single genius founder being behind anything is largely a myth; they're just the public face of a company that is doing great things in the background.
dbloom 12y ago
It's ironic that Mr. Rad went to such great lengths to keep his friend Mr. Mateen from facing the consequences of his behavior for so long. Because by putting his friend above his company, he ended up hurting both even more. If Rad had just forced his friend Mateen to resign earlier on for "creative differences" before his behavior got out of hand, everyone -- including Mateen! -- would have been strictly better off. And this definitely isn't the first time that this has happened (Rap Genius, and I'm sure there are others too...) TL;DR: Do your sexist, racist friends a favor by getting them out of your workplace. (By the way, to be clear, I don't feel bad for any of these guys. They deserved what happened. But this sort of thing really shouldn't be happening again, and again, and again...)
jjsz 12y ago
Does one really lose the freedom to express themselves once they are VC backed founders? Tinder is a hook up app, and yes, perhaps Tinderslut is too revealing and direct about what any female or male users do with it, but, if he were to use promiscuous tinderian and have a gender neutral tone: would there be that much controversy? If I love naked women and art do I have to throw naked men and art in the mix to not be called a misogynist? The author exaggerated his article with those pictures. Tinder, being male dominated, will naturally have a slight chauvinistic culture. She wasn't pushed aside for being a female, the author hasn't provided evidence to support such a claim. As one of my favorite YouTuber said in his video [1], "if a women has a skill and passion for something she is already pursuing it." Thus, to not be brushed aside she had to battle for relevancy like anyone else does with skillful work instead of lightly accepting her irrelevancy and looking for the media to gain an undisclosed agreement. Edit: As usual, anything not supporting the usual response gains downvotes. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_dRt00ufp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_dRt00ufp4
- jw_ 12y ago
  He said a lot more than that, from the article. You are still free to say whatever you want, and people are free to call you an asshole and distance themselves from you.
- pauleastlund 12y ago
  Not to pile on, since you've already been downvoted, but have you actually read the abusive texts that started this whole shitstorm? Nothing in this article speaks well to Justin's character, but I don't think any of it would be getting attention if it weren't for the can of batshit misogynist crazy he opened up on a female co-worker. I think the social media behavior documented here is pertinent context for those allegations.
  - jjsz 12y ago
    Just researched for a bit and saw them. The author shouldn't have focused on her departure for simply being female and should have mentioned the texts. I conclude that he's an extremely sexist asshole, but not misogynistic. An overall hate would be mean not to be able to appreciate the art he's into. Nevertheless, due to the texts and the CEO ignoring the behavior, her outcry to the media was justified and needed. Hopefully she gets a hefty sum for her troubles.
jpeg_hero 12y ago
So they were dating? IAC is screwed. Dating an direct report is essentially sexual harassment in the eyes of the court. I am adding "anti-fraternization" policy to my employee handbook today. Seriously, does anybody know how to handle the hr on discovering a supervisor / direct report are dating? I've been told that best practices is to immediately suggest one or the other resign, and if they don't, fire both for violating policy. How does one handle this situation?
- rayiner 12y ago
  This is usually handled in large companies by moving the lower-ranking employee out of the management chain of the higher-ranking one. At smaller organizations, someone is asked to leave.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Someone should tell Bill & Melinda Gates. You can make all the policies you want but human nature does not care much for policies. The best cure is an immediate transfer to another department of either of the two. That way you avoid all the claims of favoritism and possible fall-out in case the relationship goes sour. Also make sure that managers know that such relationships should immediately be reported to upper management. (Hard if the 'upper management' is in fact one of the parties). Any evidence of pressure from the higher-up should result in immediate termination. Again, that's pretty tough but it is much better than the possible alternatives.
  - nostrademons 12y ago
    Or Sergey Brin & Amanda Rosenberg, or Larry Page and Marissa Mayer. That said, in all three of those cases they were dating an indirect report. That's still a bit of a no-no, but nowhere near as problematic as dating a direct report. Your manager has a huge influence on your career; the company CEO dating someone who works for the company is a little dodgy and will cause morale problems elsewhere, but it's much harder to argue direct influence when they don't directly interact in the course of the workday.
    - deleted 12y ago
jacquesm 12y ago
Off-topic: That photo of her looks like she was hit in the face on the left hand side. One eye much wider than the other, big swelling.
afterburner 12y ago
"a mere early employee" Founder or nothing these days, eh?
surprised12 12y ago
Hmmm so i wondered if this reporter went through many other successful start-up guys in their early to mid 20s (even late 20s) instragram and twitter feeds would he find similar stuff? Their actions aren't right, but they are not surprising based on age and level of success.
- mwetzler 12y ago
  Misogyny is pretty ubiquitous in the current state of the world. Most people get away with it under the "that's just the way boys are" blanket of protection you just mentioned. It's unfortunate that it takes a case like this for people to question if slutshaming is accetable behavior. It's very brave of her to file the lawsuit. Whatever shitparade the other founders and dealing with, I'm sure hers is ten times worse.
michaelochurch 12y ago
What seems like a side story is actually, I think, quite indicative. Tinder isn't a real startup, but a manufactured success for a couple of well-connected douchebags (who behave as if they're above the law). It's the Disneypreneur phenomenon (http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/silicon-valley-and-the-rise-of-the-disneypreneur/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/silicon-valle...). If you look into it, both of these guys are invaders from the MBA culture. These phony startups, that are actually pre-arranged by powerful players in the mainstream corporate/McKinsey world, are becoming a lot more common and they're often difficult for genuine, old-style startups to compete with. (They blow up big, suck up a lot of talent and attention, then fail and lose credibility, so their inferior capability still leads to a both-lose outcome.) This is going to blow up big in a couple of years: this massive proliferation of propped-up junk businesses and pseudo-startups run by incompetents. We're already seeing the embarrassing-but-not-yet-devastating fuckups. We haven't seen an Enron yet. But that's going to come, and it's going to have massive effects (and probably negative ones, on good and bad players) on the startup scene.
- jessaustin 12y ago
  Can you provide other examples of this phenomenon?
  - michaelochurch 12y ago
    Snapchat and Clinkle. Evan Spiegel should have been fired after the frat emails surfaced. As for Clinkle, that's been around for years and hasn't produced jack shit because it's not even a real company-- just a scam.
    - nostrademons 12y ago
      Also Xobni, Webvan, Color, Cuil, Digg. However, I'd say that all these examples basically disprove your theory about them making it harder for "real" startups to compete. Webvan flamed out miserably, but that didn't stop Peapod (and now Instacart, Google Shopping Express, and Amazon Prime) from taking off. SnapChat didn't exactly hurt WhatsApp's chances. Cuil has had a negligible impact on DuckDuckGo - it just flamed out, pivoted beyond recognition, died, and the founder went back to her job at Google. Digg's death throes proved a huge boon for Reddit, and their audience started increasing massively. As a startup founder, you are best off just ignoring the well-funded competitor who's doing everything wrong. Let them pave the path, legitimize the marketplace, pump millions of dollars in ad spending into the noosphere - and then quietly save your cash, talk to real customers, build the product that people actually want, and provide a breath of fresh air for the people that were burned by your celebrity dunce competitor.
bearnun 12y ago
There is something interesting about the fact that conversation is, again, revolving around the men in this scenario instead of the woman. Just an observation. EDIT: Referencing top comments.
- jlees 12y ago
  The article does as well. In this case, I suppose the heart of the story is about how douchebaggy the guys are -- there seems to be no question that Wolfe deserves credit for what she's done, but since she declined to comment, we only have the actions of the men involved to work from.
jessaustin 12y ago
...depicting IAC Chairman Barry Diller "as a penis." I wish I could believe this isn't the actual reason that Mateen is gone.
tzs 12y ago
> She says that Mateen, whom she dated ...and now I have no reason to believe either her allegations or his defenses. People are simply unreliable witnesses in matters concerning former romantic partners that they are not on good terms with.
- mrjaeger 12y ago
  Except that there are explicitly documented text messages of him doing exactly what she described http://www.businessinsider.com/tinder-lawsuit-and-sexual-harassment-text-messages-2014-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/tinder-lawsuit-and-sexual-har...
  - tzs 12y ago
    OT, but how come some of the screenshots show an airplane icon AND wifi signal strength? I thought the point of airplane mode was to disable ALL radios on the phone (cellular, wifi, and bluetooth).
    - nialo 12y ago
      On at least some Android phones, it's possible to turn wifi on normally after turning on airplane mode. I'm not sure, but I think that turning on airplane mode just sets all the radios to be off, it doesn't force them to stay off.
    - mrgn 12y ago
      ... Using wifi in airplane mode is a great way to save battery life or prevent calls while using wi-fi. I do this all the time. You can try it yourself (just turn on airplane mode, then turn on wifi) or read more from Apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1355 http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1355 It seems in worrying about wifi, you missed the point of the exhibits submitted, though. You can read the rest of those here: http://www.rezlaw.com/News-Events/06-30-14_Complaint_with_Exhibits-1.pdf http://www.rezlaw.com/News-Events/06-30-14_Complaint_with_Ex...
tzs 12y ago
Here's a copy of the complaint: http://www.rezlaw.com/News-Events/06-30-14_Complaint_with_Exhibits-1.pdf http://www.rezlaw.com/News-Events/06-30-14_Complaint_with_Ex...

149 points by dbloom 12y ago

Despite the linkbaity headline, this article actually adds new information and context to the controversy. Also, NSFW Instagram images.

hyperliner 12y ago
Yes people. Please flag [EDIT, as in write "NSFW" when applicable. Thanks shawnz]. The article feels that is going to be serious, which it kind of is, but then the pics. What was the point of that? The writer could not have simply mentioned the pics?
- minimaxir 12y ago
  This is one of the very few contexts where those types of images are completely relevant, but I'm surprised there wasn't a warning in the article.
- optimusclimb 12y ago
  I think the expression, "a picture is worth a thousand words" applies. Sometimes points merit reinforcing. I'm guessing the author thought that adding the pictures added impact. I'd say it did. Too easy to gloss over phrases like "twitter account littered with misogynist/immature/whatever pictures". Also, great article, I thought.
- redthrowaway 12y ago
  The pictures, from the Instagram account of the men accused of misogyny, are directly pertinent to the purported misogyny of the people in question. Why shouldn't they be included?
- hyperliner 12y ago
  I don't disagree with optimus. It's just about lacking the flag.
  - shawnz 12y ago
    I think people thought you meant "flag" as in reporting the article, not "flag" as in writing NSFW in the title.
  - hyperliner 12y ago
    My bad.
- bashinator 12y ago
  Agreed - this article has imagery that's inappropriate to display in many locations, and should be indicated as such in the title.
dang 12y ago
We tried to edit the title to make it less linkbaity, but only partly. If anyone can suggest a better one (i.e. accurate and neutral), we can change it again.
- dbloom 12y ago
  It looks like the URL of the article has an alternative (older?) headline in it: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-02/tinders-forgotten-woman-whitney-wolfe-sexism-and-startup-creation-myths http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-02/tinders-forg... "Tinder's Forgotten Woman: Whitney Wolfe, Sexism, and Startup Creation Myths"
  - dang 12y ago
    Ah yes, the "extract alternative title from URL" trick. My title fu is failing me, though. Is this one really better?
    - robg 12y ago
      I think so, it's certainly more descriptive of what's contained therein. EDIT: The generic "women" in the current title is certainly more misleading and may be contributing to the penalty being assessed by those who haven't read the piece. The article only discusses one woman.
      - dang 12y ago
        Ok, we changed it (from "The Truth About Tinder and Women").

msie 12y ago

Pretty shocking revelations. Was this ever revealed before? Only because of Wolfe's firing?

saraid216 12y ago
s/firing/lawsuit
minimaxir 12y ago
The author had done an article on Tinder last year: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-05/dating-app-tinder-catches-fire http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-05/dating-app-t... It's likely that current events help explain some oddities in Tinder's past.
- msie 12y ago
  Interesting differences in reporting between the two articles. 1) Rad is given more credit in the first with development of Tinder than in the second article where Munoz is now mentioned. 2) Wolfe isn't mentioned at all in the first: Mateen is credited with the idea of seeding the app at sororities and fraternities.
  - mercer 12y ago
    > That bothered me, but I didn’t have the space to tell the whole story in the magazine. It seems like the reporter was aware that something was off, but only discovered the new details through Munoz (who might not be entirely objective as a source either?). I can't tell whether it was shoddy journalism or just something that, at the point of the first article, wasn't too relevant. Either way it reminds me once again of how factually incorrect many articles I read might actually be.

henryw 12y ago

Interesting that Tinder is owned by the company behind Match.com.

robg 12y ago
Not just owned, but incubated by their employees. That completely blows me away that IAC is so, so good at rebranding for different audiences.
- _delirium 12y ago
  Yeah, the most interesting part of this article is that, if true, it seems like Tinder was kind of a pseudo-startup, a subsidiary of an established corporation given a more media-friendly backstory by positioning it as a startup. In retrospect I'm surprised that kind of thing isn't more common. (Or maybe it is?)
  - potatolicious 12y ago
    This sort of thing is, in my experience, quite common, but rarely successful. Large companies are aware of the innovator's dilemma and try to form skunkworks teams to find the Next Big Thing. But the problem is that most seem unable to assemble the right people, and give them the right autonomy, to really enable them to behave in a startup-like manner. Instead it just becomes recruitment joke where recruiters say "it's like a startup in a big company!" while the candidate rolls their eyes.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - _delirium 12y ago
      Right, though that's a different case I think. You're talking about trying to replicate some kind of innovative startup environment within a big company. My read here is a bit different, that IAC had an idea for how to enter this space, knew what they wanted to build there and even assigned employees to start building it, but needed a better media story than "Match.com launches hookup app". So instead they cooked up a hot startup led by young cofounders launching a new "dating" app— but where the startup happens to be an IAC subsidiary and implementing the IAC market strategy, which is omitted from the branding. In a way I think it's the opposite story of skunkworks. Those try to replicate a startup-like independence while also emphasizing the parent brand's ultimate credit for any output (e.g. ZFS was developed by a Sun skunkworks and proudly claimed by Sun). Here it looks like IAC wanted exactly the opposite: a fake startup that didn't really have independence and instead just implemented IAC's strategy for this vertical, but which emphasized its own brand and kept quiet about the parent brand. One other area I can think of where that's fairly common recently is in fake microbrews launched by the big brewing companies. The recipes and market positioning are entirely dictated by the parent company, but there's a kind of microbrewing identity that is presented to the public.

rayiner 12y ago

The "Tinderslut"[1] comment says a lot about how Rad and Mateen view the women who use their app. It's consistent with Wolfe's claim in her complaint that Mateen told her it would be "slutty" to be a female Tinder co-founder, because it was an app people used to hook up. As an aside, Mateen exhibits the textbook Madonna-whore dichotomy. To him, women are either someone he can see being a wife (Wolfe pre-breakup), or a whore/bimbo/slut (the women on his Instagram feed). When she rejected him, in classic fashion she went from the former bucket to the latter. This is a case study for a gender-studies paper. [1] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tinderslut http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tinderslut

pbhjpbhj 12y ago
>says a lot about how Rad and Mateen view the women who use their app // Isn't the point of the app to enable promiscuity. "Slut" is a word for a promiscuous woman, sometimes used for a prostitute, sometimes used of men (in UK at least). Surely they viewed the women who use the app as wanting to have free and easy sexual encounters, ie behave like sluts? When the slang that associated their app with the actions of those using it, viz "tinderslut", was popularised were they not justified to consider that an achievement - the app was clearly notorious for enabling promiscuous behaviour, exactly the behaviour it was designed for. There seems little controversial in them calling active users of their app sluts (men or women). For me there is much to hate about the app morally but it seems rather silly to get upset that the designers of the app that people use to seek out promiscuous sex consider their users to be in to promiscuous sex?!
- serge2k 12y ago
  Why is this much to hate about this app morally?
- potatolicious 12y ago
  "Slut" is a derogatory term, it has connotations and meanings well beyond the most literal definition of "promiscuous person". Calling Tinder user "sluts" is no more appropriate than calling my Chinese users "chinks", or my gay users "faggots". It seems intentionally obtuse to pretend that the term doesn't have a gigantic truckload of derogatory connotations behind it.

WoodenChair 12y ago

While the allegations are shocking, it was irresponsible for the journalist to add the little bit in the very last paragraph on the third page about one of the founder's former startups having an FBI investigation as a kind of final pot-shot. How was that relevant to the thrust of the rest of the article? What did it add? Was it fair to include it without elaborating?

bigdubs 12y ago
I was struck by that too, the "I wasn't going to mention this before, but now, here it is." nature of it was strange.
- coryl 12y ago
  Modern journalism isn't really even journalism anymore, its more like blogging. Publish whatever it takes to get the most attention.
RickS 12y ago
Worse still is the implication that he was complicit in the uploading or transmission of illegal images. Any messaging or image based app is going to have to deal with that - young apps are especially vulnerable to abuse because it's expected that they not have robust security or a large enough staff to close the floodgates. While the dude's clearly a jerk, his first startup sounds like it died a death that was out of his hands, not a result of his being a predator.
MattGrommes 12y ago
It seemed like he learned a number of odd things about the founders during his research and now that they were in a lawsuit and were confirmed as being giant dicks he felt justified in throwing a few rocks. The "take note lawyers" bit and the bunch of juvenile social media pictures were the same way, not needed except to fill in the picture he was painting.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

austenallred 12y ago

"Here is the truth as I see it, having spoken to nearly everyone who was involved in the project: What made Tinder Tinder was the work of a team:" You could replace "Tinder" with any company and find that the above statement holds true. Twitter isn't Jack or Ev or Biz, it's the combination of the three. Facebook was mostly Zuck, but not all. Apple was indeed [very] heavily influenced by Steve Jobs, but Apple wasn't Steve Jobs. I've found the idea of a single genius founder being behind anything is largely a myth; they're just the public face of a company that is doing great things in the background.

dbloom 12y ago

It's ironic that Mr. Rad went to such great lengths to keep his friend Mr. Mateen from facing the consequences of his behavior for so long. Because by putting his friend above his company, he ended up hurting both even more. If Rad had just forced his friend Mateen to resign earlier on for "creative differences" before his behavior got out of hand, everyone -- including Mateen! -- would have been strictly better off. And this definitely isn't the first time that this has happened (Rap Genius, and I'm sure there are others too...) TL;DR: Do your sexist, racist friends a favor by getting them out of your workplace. (By the way, to be clear, I don't feel bad for any of these guys. They deserved what happened. But this sort of thing really shouldn't be happening again, and again, and again...)

jjsz 12y ago

Does one really lose the freedom to express themselves once they are VC backed founders? Tinder is a hook up app, and yes, perhaps Tinderslut is too revealing and direct about what any female or male users do with it, but, if he were to use promiscuous tinderian and have a gender neutral tone: would there be that much controversy? If I love naked women and art do I have to throw naked men and art in the mix to not be called a misogynist? The author exaggerated his article with those pictures. Tinder, being male dominated, will naturally have a slight chauvinistic culture. She wasn't pushed aside for being a female, the author hasn't provided evidence to support such a claim. As one of my favorite YouTuber said in his video [1], "if a women has a skill and passion for something she is already pursuing it." Thus, to not be brushed aside she had to battle for relevancy like anyone else does with skillful work instead of lightly accepting her irrelevancy and looking for the media to gain an undisclosed agreement. Edit: As usual, anything not supporting the usual response gains downvotes. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_dRt00ufp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_dRt00ufp4

jw_ 12y ago
He said a lot more than that, from the article. You are still free to say whatever you want, and people are free to call you an asshole and distance themselves from you.
pauleastlund 12y ago
Not to pile on, since you've already been downvoted, but have you actually read the abusive texts that started this whole shitstorm? Nothing in this article speaks well to Justin's character, but I don't think any of it would be getting attention if it weren't for the can of batshit misogynist crazy he opened up on a female co-worker. I think the social media behavior documented here is pertinent context for those allegations.
- jjsz 12y ago
  Just researched for a bit and saw them. The author shouldn't have focused on her departure for simply being female and should have mentioned the texts. I conclude that he's an extremely sexist asshole, but not misogynistic. An overall hate would be mean not to be able to appreciate the art he's into. Nevertheless, due to the texts and the CEO ignoring the behavior, her outcry to the media was justified and needed. Hopefully she gets a hefty sum for her troubles.

jpeg_hero 12y ago

So they were dating? IAC is screwed. Dating an direct report is essentially sexual harassment in the eyes of the court. I am adding "anti-fraternization" policy to my employee handbook today. Seriously, does anybody know how to handle the hr on discovering a supervisor / direct report are dating? I've been told that best practices is to immediately suggest one or the other resign, and if they don't, fire both for violating policy. How does one handle this situation?

rayiner 12y ago
This is usually handled in large companies by moving the lower-ranking employee out of the management chain of the higher-ranking one. At smaller organizations, someone is asked to leave.
jacquesm 12y ago
Someone should tell Bill & Melinda Gates. You can make all the policies you want but human nature does not care much for policies. The best cure is an immediate transfer to another department of either of the two. That way you avoid all the claims of favoritism and possible fall-out in case the relationship goes sour. Also make sure that managers know that such relationships should immediately be reported to upper management. (Hard if the 'upper management' is in fact one of the parties). Any evidence of pressure from the higher-up should result in immediate termination. Again, that's pretty tough but it is much better than the possible alternatives.
- nostrademons 12y ago
  Or Sergey Brin & Amanda Rosenberg, or Larry Page and Marissa Mayer. That said, in all three of those cases they were dating an indirect report. That's still a bit of a no-no, but nowhere near as problematic as dating a direct report. Your manager has a huge influence on your career; the company CEO dating someone who works for the company is a little dodgy and will cause morale problems elsewhere, but it's much harder to argue direct influence when they don't directly interact in the course of the workday.
  - deleted 12y ago

jacquesm 12y ago

Off-topic: That photo of her looks like she was hit in the face on the left hand side. One eye much wider than the other, big swelling.

afterburner 12y ago

"a mere early employee" Founder or nothing these days, eh?

surprised12 12y ago

Hmmm so i wondered if this reporter went through many other successful start-up guys in their early to mid 20s (even late 20s) instragram and twitter feeds would he find similar stuff? Their actions aren't right, but they are not surprising based on age and level of success.

mwetzler 12y ago
Misogyny is pretty ubiquitous in the current state of the world. Most people get away with it under the "that's just the way boys are" blanket of protection you just mentioned. It's unfortunate that it takes a case like this for people to question if slutshaming is accetable behavior. It's very brave of her to file the lawsuit. Whatever shitparade the other founders and dealing with, I'm sure hers is ten times worse.

michaelochurch 12y ago

What seems like a side story is actually, I think, quite indicative. Tinder isn't a real startup, but a manufactured success for a couple of well-connected douchebags (who behave as if they're above the law). It's the Disneypreneur phenomenon (http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/silicon-valley-and-the-rise-of-the-disneypreneur/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/silicon-valle...). If you look into it, both of these guys are invaders from the MBA culture. These phony startups, that are actually pre-arranged by powerful players in the mainstream corporate/McKinsey world, are becoming a lot more common and they're often difficult for genuine, old-style startups to compete with. (They blow up big, suck up a lot of talent and attention, then fail and lose credibility, so their inferior capability still leads to a both-lose outcome.) This is going to blow up big in a couple of years: this massive proliferation of propped-up junk businesses and pseudo-startups run by incompetents. We're already seeing the embarrassing-but-not-yet-devastating fuckups. We haven't seen an Enron yet. But that's going to come, and it's going to have massive effects (and probably negative ones, on good and bad players) on the startup scene.

jessaustin 12y ago
Can you provide other examples of this phenomenon?
- michaelochurch 12y ago
  Snapchat and Clinkle. Evan Spiegel should have been fired after the frat emails surfaced. As for Clinkle, that's been around for years and hasn't produced jack shit because it's not even a real company-- just a scam.
  - nostrademons 12y ago
    Also Xobni, Webvan, Color, Cuil, Digg. However, I'd say that all these examples basically disprove your theory about them making it harder for "real" startups to compete. Webvan flamed out miserably, but that didn't stop Peapod (and now Instacart, Google Shopping Express, and Amazon Prime) from taking off. SnapChat didn't exactly hurt WhatsApp's chances. Cuil has had a negligible impact on DuckDuckGo - it just flamed out, pivoted beyond recognition, died, and the founder went back to her job at Google. Digg's death throes proved a huge boon for Reddit, and their audience started increasing massively. As a startup founder, you are best off just ignoring the well-funded competitor who's doing everything wrong. Let them pave the path, legitimize the marketplace, pump millions of dollars in ad spending into the noosphere - and then quietly save your cash, talk to real customers, build the product that people actually want, and provide a breath of fresh air for the people that were burned by your celebrity dunce competitor.

bearnun 12y ago

There is something interesting about the fact that conversation is, again, revolving around the men in this scenario instead of the woman. Just an observation. EDIT: Referencing top comments.

jlees 12y ago
The article does as well. In this case, I suppose the heart of the story is about how douchebaggy the guys are -- there seems to be no question that Wolfe deserves credit for what she's done, but since she declined to comment, we only have the actions of the men involved to work from.

jessaustin 12y ago

...depicting IAC Chairman Barry Diller "as a penis." I wish I could believe this isn't the actual reason that Mateen is gone.

tzs 12y ago

> She says that Mateen, whom she dated ...and now I have no reason to believe either her allegations or his defenses. People are simply unreliable witnesses in matters concerning former romantic partners that they are not on good terms with.

mrjaeger 12y ago
Except that there are explicitly documented text messages of him doing exactly what she described http://www.businessinsider.com/tinder-lawsuit-and-sexual-harassment-text-messages-2014-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/tinder-lawsuit-and-sexual-har...
- tzs 12y ago
  OT, but how come some of the screenshots show an airplane icon AND wifi signal strength? I thought the point of airplane mode was to disable ALL radios on the phone (cellular, wifi, and bluetooth).
  - nialo 12y ago
    On at least some Android phones, it's possible to turn wifi on normally after turning on airplane mode. I'm not sure, but I think that turning on airplane mode just sets all the radios to be off, it doesn't force them to stay off.
  - mrgn 12y ago
    ... Using wifi in airplane mode is a great way to save battery life or prevent calls while using wi-fi. I do this all the time. You can try it yourself (just turn on airplane mode, then turn on wifi) or read more from Apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1355 http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1355 It seems in worrying about wifi, you missed the point of the exhibits submitted, though. You can read the rest of those here: http://www.rezlaw.com/News-Events/06-30-14_Complaint_with_Exhibits-1.pdf http://www.rezlaw.com/News-Events/06-30-14_Complaint_with_Ex...

tzs 12y ago

Here's a copy of the complaint: http://www.rezlaw.com/News-Events/06-30-14_Complaint_with_Exhibits-1.pdf http://www.rezlaw.com/News-Events/06-30-14_Complaint_with_Ex...