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Sean Rad. Swiped left by his investors.
Rad was getting ready to deliver one of the keynote addresses at Forbes “30 under 30” conference last month when he received a phone call from one of Tinder’s investors the day of his speech letting him know that he was no longer a part of the company he founded.
Looking down at his phone, Rad saw IAC’s Sam Yagan calling. Through one of the more convoluted arrangements in tech startups, Barry Diller’s IAC owns a majority of Tinder, making Yagan, IAC’s digital dating point man, Rad’s de facto boss. The overlord got right to the point: Rad was out as CEO of the company he had started, one which has managed to nail four of the hottest themes in tech today: social discovery, gamification, location and messaging.
A dazed Rad tried to process what he’d just heard. “I went through every stage of mourning at once—fear, a bruised ego,” he now says, reflecting. “I started thinking about the company and my whole future.” And with that he walked to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, posed in the green room for Instagram shots with supermodel Petra Nemcova and then bounded onto the stage with me, where for 30 minutes he gave 1,500 top young entrepreneurs a master class in how to create a viral phenomenon.
Here’s another viral phenomenon: Viral phenomenon’s CEO out because his investors hate him.
In fairness, I feel awful for the guy. He created a product that completely revolutionized online dating, was in line to make millions (if not billions) of dollars off of it, then got dragged through an ugly sexual harassment case involving his CMO Justin Mateen and his ex-girlfriend and then they lay this shit on him.
To read the entire Forbes story, click HERE..
[via Forbes]
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Brian McGannon
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Creating an app to help people fuck and then getting fucked yourself. Ironic PGP
After reading the Forbes article, I think this is actually a pretty shrewd business move. It’s clear that they don’t want Rad out of the picture entirely, they just want an Eric Schmidt type of babysitter with some more experience and a different outlook to make sure that the founders don’t screw the pooch in some type of way.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t be pissed as well if it were me, but it might not be a negative for Rad or Tinder in general.
All I took from the Forbes article is that I need to learn how to develop apps immediately.
This is simply business politics. He’s not getting completely booted; the executive branch is just getting reshuffled.