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"You can't deny Tinder is what the world wants," Rad told the Evening Standard, adding that Tinder has managed to solve"the biggest problem in humanity: that you're put on this planet to meet people."
The so-called "free writing prospectus" filed with the SEC however on Wednesday, is not to clarify Rad's outrageous comments, but rather the number of users that Tinder has, which the article thankfully (for Match's sake) had attributed to an analyst:
"Mr. Rad is not a director or executive officer of the Company and was not authorized to make statements on behalf of the Company for purposes of the article. The article noted that "Analysts believe the [Tinder] app, which launched in 2012, has around 80 million users worldwide and records 1.8 billion "swipes" a day." While these statements were not made by Mr. Rad, the Company notes that they are inaccurate and directs readers to the Preliminary Prospectus, which states that for the month of September 2015, Tinder had approximately 9.6 million daily active users, with Tinder users "swiping" through an average of more than 1.4 billion user profiles each day."
Had Rad himself been the one to mistate the numbers it's unclear if the CEO would have violated the pre-IPO quiet period, which bars company executives from publicly discussing the company's business. The filing clarifies that Rad is not a company director or officer or authorized to make statements in its behalf.
Match, the owner of online-dating properties including Tinder, is set to IPO this week. Match has set a price range of $12 to $14 a share and plans to sell 33.3 million shares.
In an infamous example, Google CEO's Larry Page and Sergey Brin broke the quiet period in an interview with Playboy. It's rumored that that misstep is the reason Brin and Page rarely do media interviews.
In the wide-ranging interview, which was included in the SEC filing, Rad put his foot in his mouth discussing his affinity for smart women, while flanked by his VP of communications Rosette Pambakian:
"He continues: 'Apparently there's a term for someone who gets turned on by intellectual stuff. You know, just talking. What's the word?' His face creases the effort of trying to remember. 'I want to say 'sodomy'?'
Rosette shrieks: 'That's it! We're going to be fired' and Rad looks confused. 'What? Why?'
I tell him it means something else and he thumbs his phone for a definition. 'What? No, not that. That's definitely not me. Oh, my God.'"
Rad also spoke to the Evening Standard about hook-up culture, which he says has been caused less by Tinder and more by feminism, "because now women are more independent and pursuing their desires. And that leads to both parties being more sexually active. It's not because of Tinder."