Tinder CEO Sean Rad on his cringeworthy interview: 'I f----d up. I should know better as a CEO'
Right before the IPO, Tinder CEO Sean Rad did a bit of press, and ended up having to put his foot in his mouth.
In a cringey interview with the Evening Standard, Rad bragged about an instance when a supermodel begged him for sex, misused the word "sodomy" when he meant "sapiosexual," and said that Tinder has managed to solve "the biggest problem in humanity: that you're put on this planet to meet people."
The interview didn't really do Rad any favors as far as his public image.
In fact, right after the interview, Match Group filed an update about it with the SEC. The so-called "free writing prospectus" filed with the SEC was to clarify the number of users that Tinder has, which the article thankfully (for Match's sake) had attributed to an analyst. The update served to separate Match Group from Rad and his comments.
But in a new interview with Fast Company that was conducted back in November but published on Monday, it looks like Rad is trying to rehabilitate his image.
Though he says some quotes in the London Evening Standard interview were taken out of context, Ran told Fast Company: "It's f-----d up, because I'm dealing with all of these stereotypes. Because I'm a successful guy in tech I must be a douche bag. Because I run a dating app I must be a womanizer."
He also took responsibility for his words, though, adding: "At the same time, I f----d up. I should know better as a CEO. It's not that I'm ever going to stop being myself. It's that I've got to get better at framing what I'm trying to say. My responsibility as a CEO - and to myself - is to continue being myself. I've got to do better. Because these f-----g last few days were a distraction. What has really sunk in is that I need to leave very little room for misinterpretation of what I'm trying to say."
Match Group went public in November, after pricing its initial public offering at $12 per share. Its market cap today is $3.35 billion.