Big Technology Podcast - How Gen Z Dates Online — With Tinder CEO Jim Lanzone

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

Jim Lanzone is the CEO of Tinder. He took over the world’s most popular dating app last summer, in the heart of the pandemic, and is starting to evolve its product to give people new ways to connect. Lanzone joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss how Gen Z wants to date online, how their behavior differs from millennials, and how that factors into his product vision. We also talk about the business of Tinder, whether Lanzone lets his kids use the app, and where its next challenger might come from.

Hello and welcome to the big technology podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuanced conversation, of the tech world and beyond. Our guest today is Jim Lanzone. He's the CEO of Tinder and someone who I've known for quite some time, dating back to his days running CBS Interactive. Jim, welcome to the show. It's great to be here. Great having you. You've made quite a move going from a content company to a dating app. Your personal story is interesting. But I first want to ask you, who are your users when it comes to Tinder? Is it Gen Z? Is it millennials? Is it older folks? Who's using this app? Because it originally started, you know, I started my generation with millennials. But, you know, I imagine the young kids want to date as well.

So who's using it? Well, there's definitely been a generational show. shift. I mean, Tinder started in August 2012. And so that was right in the heart of millennials. We've definitely been generational shift where Gen Z has made it their own over the past couple years. And so, you know, about half the user base is probably Gen Z at this point. But, you know, one of the, and I'm still relatively new, so I, you know, don't take credit for this. But Tinder is pretty much number one in every age group and, you know, even, even Gen X and older. It also depends by country because we're, you know, we operate in 190 countries. We're number one, I think, in over 115 countries. And in some of those, like India, Japan, it's big, but there's a little

bit of a nuanced, you know, difference. It's a little more matrimony driven, whereas the trend and many in many other places is less so. So it kind of depends. You guys are in 190 countries? Yeah, we basically operated. Wow. So, I mean, not with like an office, but like we're available everywhere except like North Korea and Iran and I was going to ask, where are you banned?

So those two countries? I see. I think we were banned in Pakistan too, actually. Are people in those three countries still using Tinder, but just like having a VPN? Like contraband? Yeah. I think there are people in various countries like that, you try to sneak out. I see, people are going to want to date.

You know, that's just how it goes. That's right. You have food, shelter, and I think we're next. Yes, that's right. So when it comes to generations, I mean, obviously all generations date a little bit differently. But from my understanding, the breakdown between the way that millennials date and Gen Z dates or even uses your platform is pretty interesting. So can you share a little bit in terms of the distinctions between millennial and Gen Z? And I imagine those two are your biggest group of users.

I think I heard you on a previous podcast where like Gen Z is what 50% of your user base or something like that. So yeah, yeah, if you could give us like a little sense as to like what the numbers are and the differences in behaviors. Yeah, I mean, exact numbers are always secondary research. So it's a little hard to understand percentage of that generation. But the, I mean, I actually answered in two ways. One is Gen Z has these fundamental differences. But what we're seeing is that everyone is starting to share those differences coming out of COVID. Or they actually started to happen during COVID, which is kind of best explained as what I would call less transactional, less of a hurry to kind of get to the date.

and figure out, you know, what's happening there and making a little bit more about the journey than the destination is how I would put it. That's definitely been a generational shift pre-COVID for Gen Z where it's more about getting to know somebody first before deciding if there is that spark. And then, you know, again, what happened with COVID was at first nobody could go anywhere. And so you were forced into this virtual world, things like video chat became important during that time where prior to COVID, kind of like Zoom or, you know, WebEx or Blue Jeans, like, nope, we had them, but people weren't using them. And it was kind of true of video chat as well on dating apps. Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong. But I think that if somebody asked somebody else to video chat before the pandemic that they met on a dating app, they would be viewed as a creep or a weirdo.

I don't know about creepy. I just think people were like, what? What? Why would I do that? Right. And it was true in the work world. I mean, we would do phone calls. We would do video calls with like six people in a room. You would do anything except do a video, you know, like we wound up all doing COVID.

So that became, I think, a trend for almost every age group. And what we would see is, you know, remember last summer, things opened up a little bit. But instead of kind of going back to, hey, let's go meet for a drink and let's get to this, It was like, hey, let's go hiking. Or we saw, you know, you've heard me say, we had a 3x increase in mentions of roller skating. And people just want to do activities together to get to know each other. Hmm.

Yeah, I've heard a lot about roller skating. I feel like roller skating has had the biggest unheralded pandemic boom out of any recreational activity. If you go to Santa Monica Beach, it's amazing to see that rollerblading is still a thing. Yeah, yeah. But recently, after a long time now, after being vaccinated, It went to the church of eight wheels in San Francisco. Have you heard of it?

No. It's an old church that's been converted into a disco roller derby. I think that's a topic for another, a disco roller skating rink. First of all, yeah, my wife would be all over that. It's pretty cool. I had a disco bag, disco ball in the middle of the church and, you know, stained glass windows, but obviously it's no longer in use. Oh, is it true like, oh, this is a real San Francisco experience.

Yeah, totally radical. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay. Put roller skating aside for a moment. So they went more activity based. Yeah. So look, so I think those are the, those are the two major trends there. And, you know, that dovetail with me coming in here and everything I love to do is product innovation and product development and getting to know the user base right away. It definitely led to a lot of the things that were starting to launch on Tinder. Yeah. So what are you starting to launch? Maybe we go there. Well, I'll give you the quick version. The quick word is the big one is we're launching video, which is a video and profiles. Video and profiles.

And I do think that's an important nuance because we're not, some people have said, oh, is that to compete with social media? Absolutely not. I think it's a 180 from social media. The point on Tinder is not to broadcast yourself or to attract followers or for us to attract attention to monetize through advertising. You know, we're a subscription-based service trying to provide value. but, you know, people are three-dimensional.

They're not one-dimensional. It's not just about a photo and a little bio. And definitely is time that we gave people the tools to do that. And so, yeah, the way we're doing it is letting people upload video straight out of their photo library. We have an editing tool that you edit it down. And it will show up in the Tinder card stack, which is how you swipe through Tinder for those who don't use it.

And videos will show up seamlessly right alongside photos. Yeah. So you're not going to make it mandatory that someone puts a video. But if they want to use Vindy a video as their profile picture, they can. That's right. That way it's also seamless by generation, right? You would imagine Z is going to do a lot of it. And older people may be more hesitant to do so.

But either way, they'll see it. And now we'll kind of advertise it to other users within the app. Right. What else do you have cooking? So down that pathway of roller skating and video chat and get to know you, you know we saw that it wasn't just about swipe left swipe right what they're really saying is swipe maybe or swipe possibly and want to find out more about other people and they want to share experiences with them as a way to do that but they're they're very open to doing that

virtually and not just offline so we're doing as we're launching an explore tab or hub within the app that will be the home to all kinds of different activities to do together, ice breakers to participate in together, and will become this very robust part of Tinder, again, getting beyond the one-dimensional swipe, left, swipe, right, chat, and meet, and giving people all these richer ways to authentically express who they are and then get to know other people. And so one example of that is another thing we're launching. This one's called Hot Takes, which is a pre-match, it's almost speed dating, but in a way, but there are questions that we will present to you, and then we're going to match you

with somebody else who chose that same topic. And then for someone who chose the same answer as you, throw you then into a chat, you have a 30-second countdown to see if there's a match, and then you decide whether to match or not. And that's on the back of one we did last month called Vibs, which is kind of similar, which over 10 million people used. It was appointment viewing. It was actually, you had to go online at that time of that event. 10 million people did it.

And then last year we had Swipe Night, which over 20 million people viewed, which was like a choose-your-own-adventure TV show, essentially within Tinder, that increased match is 26%. So people were really into this idea of having some activity to do together to figure out whether there's a spark, not just do it based on a photo and a bio. So, and I've been wrong about tech product decisions a lot throughout my career, as you could probably attest if you've read stuff that I've written. I'm a little skeptical of the fact that this is going to be something that lasts outside of the pandemic. I think that when people can worry about getting, you know,

getting the coronavirus from others in real life, then, you know, going on all these adventures sounds pretty appealing. But when life returns to quote unquote normal and you are able to just go meet somebody at a bar because they're open and you don't need to go in with a mask, then potentially, and you don't have to wait for warm weather to meet someone, then potentially things just revert back to normal.

So I'm curious from your perspective, you know, these are obviously big changes to the product. What about people's behavior? And you said this starts with Gen Z. So maybe we can think about that. them? What about people's behavior? Need you to believe that this is going to be a permanent change and not just something that, you know, felt like a fun thing to do during the pandemic, but no one really wants to spend time trying

to meet people in the digital world and hang out with them when they can actually go out and be outside or inside in a bar or restaurant together. Well, there's a reason that Tinder, I mean, if you think about the history of the internet, it's very rare that you've had product market fit at a level that Tinder had. Uber. I mean, there's very few that were at that level. One of the reasons is, Jim, let me tell you. I remember hearing the first time about Tinder. My roommate, I was living in Brooklyn at the time. My roommate, I'd never seen his eyes light up about this because he came out. He's like, dude, this guy from Brooklyn, dude, there's this app. You got to hear about it. You know,

and it's just like, all you do is swipe. It was a revolution. And it quickly picked up and turned, I think probably into the world's most prominent dating app. But, okay. I definitely turn into that. But if you think about, you know, what happened over those, the last 10 years is you've gone from online dating, being 5% of creating 5% of relationships to its now pre-pandemic was already over 40% of relationships were being started online. And it's by far the number one way. The second way, the most common way people meet is through friends. we know the work world's going away as a pure place that people should be meeting people to date and you think about all the different places in life I mean a bar was one of the most

inefficient ways to meet somebody you know unless you're the guy your friend with that accent sounds like he's somebody who would be in 19 to Roxbury that's right but um but you know look online dating had already replaced that so if you talk about what was normal before the pandemic online dating was already number one and it's not just for relationships also for marriages, right? And there's actually, it's one of the most unsung thing about Tinder is there's a chance it's the number one source of marriages, which is odd. It's not always how people think about Tinder. But I think one of the great things about Tinder is it's not judgmental about the outcome. It could be for the person who wants to meet someone in the bar. It could be

someone who wants to get married. Our job is to match you with the right person. And, and so that is what we do. Now people, especially Gen Z as we talked about, what's normal for them pre-pandemic was already slowing things down, getting to know people, in virtual relationships being extremely authentic to them and different than what that can be in a gaming environment, for instance, where they'll hang out. Why I heard a stat recently where in Fortnite people actually spend more time in their own development area where they can just kind of chill with their friends as their avatars and actually in the battle royale mode. And so if you think about that, actually when it comes to Tinder, if you guys can build an experience that resembles that where people feel

normal meeting each other online and hanging out, then potentially you take advantage of that trend. Is that where you're going with this? That's 100% where we're going. But again, I think it's super important to draw the distinction that unlike probably any other type of app, our job is not to keep them here. We're building those experiences in service of connecting you with the right person. And again, not just to go play tennis. Like, not for friendship. There are other apps for that.

Ours is for that spark, right? The Tinder gets its name from. And, you know, that's why we're doing it. And so I do think that's extremely valid and it was already headed that way. Like with a lot of things, I came out of streaming most recently. Streaming was already the trend. COVID accelerated it, right? Remote work was probably the trend and COVID accelerated it.

So, you know, again, I don't think we're going back, but Tinder like, like, let's say like Uber, where you're connecting to get a ride in the real world, you know, Tinder has a real world component where we leave you at the, you know, the time at which you're going to decide to go meet up in real life. And we've done our job up to that point in many ways. So, so I don't think the real world coming back slows dating down or online dating down. I think that they work together. and that has just changed a little bit. Right. So I go back to my question that I asked earlier, which is if coming back to normal doesn't slow anything down,

then, you know, and I understand there's a need to do product innovation and keep people engaged in the app. But why do you think? Because it seems like the experiences that you're talking about, especially, you know, these hot, what are they called hot takes? It seems like those will actually keep people in the app longer. And I guess like.

I'm curious, like, I just want to just finish this thought. Why does it, you know, why is that going to, why do you think that will take off as opposed to the, you know, excuse the expression, but like quick and dirty way that people would use Tinder beforehand? Well, work backwards. I think the majority of people have a hard time. I mean, I think there's more than more, more than one thing. What is to your point? You may feel very comfortable talking to strangers. A lot of other people aren't.

and they would love, especially young people, they would love to have a way to have ice breakers or to have an activity. Think about another way. In real life, going to a movie or a concert and then going to get a drink versus just going to get a drink. You're like, hey, who are you? Right.

You have something to talk about. But in the case of Swipe Night, going back, you know, a year. Right. It was, hey, we both chose the same pathway through. And Swipe Night is this Choose Your Adventure, game. Yeah, I mean, for anyone, you know, I don't know how many people listening saw the Bander Snatch episode of Black Mirror, where it was the Cheezerone adventure episode.

Yeah. This was a, I say this coming out of the TV industry, a way better version of that. Okay. They should have been studying what Tinder did. And I wasn't here for it, so I'm not taking credit for it. But it, it was really cool. And you would wind up with a series of decisions that you made along your decision tree. And then you'd wind up with a certain ending.

And so you would get matched up with people who chose some of those same pathways. And it would make people pissed. They'd be like, how would you defend Zane on that thing that he did? Or, you know, you wind up in this same outcome. And that drew that, that caused a 26%. That's huge increase in matches. You know, it can, it's interesting because, you know, we talk about the pandemic. What's the pandemic?

How's pandemic going to change behavior? I don't know if this is going to fade away. way, but I've definitely heard from lots of people that they are going to be more selective in terms of who they spend their time with after this. And I think before there was a feeling that life is just going to be unlimited, especially among young people. I think people have a much better sense of their own mortality now and don't want to, you know, just go out on a date with anyone.

And if these experiences can create deeper interactions with people, then potentially you get to a place where you're then serving that need. Does that sound right to you? 100%. Yeah. So I won't just restate what you said, but to add to it, I also think what's important to people is, you know, the idea that or the hope that they find somebody awesome who is unexpected. And dating apps have been pushing this. I mean, you know, if you look at the increase in interracial marriages that have happened because of dating apps and people just getting outside of their normal social circle or bar scene in Brooklyn or their friends, you know, to meet someone new and different from a different culture or just who they didn't, you know,

know, know before. And another version of that is if you really get to know somebody, could be within our app and different experiences we give you or, you know, later, you're going to increase your chances of finding the right person, you know, instead of just going off your assumptions at the beginning. So I think that's another reason people are really, leaning into that part of these things and we need to give you know again we're not creating these in the hopes that people use them we're doing it to respond to what we're seeing what they what they

need yeah all right let's take a quick break i want to come back and ask you a few more questions about people on tinder's behavior and then maybe we go to the business side of this thing so let's take a break we'll be back right here on big technology podcast with jim lanzone He's the CEO of Tinder. Hey, everyone. Let me tell you about The Hustle Daily Show, a podcast filled with business, tech news, and original stories to keep you in the loop on what's trending.

More than 2 million professionals read The Hustle's daily email for its irreverent and informative takes on business and tech news. Now, they have a daily podcast called The Hustle Daily Show, where their team of writers break down the biggest business headlines in 15 minutes or less and explain why you should care about them. So, search for The Hustle Daily Show and your favorite podcast app, like the one you're using right now. And we're back here on the big technology podcast with Jim Lanzone.

Good guy, CEO of Tinder. He and I know each other for a while. Jim, I think the first time we met was at a, was at Levi Stadium where the 49ers play. There was a panel about, I don't know what it was, like fantasy football or something like that. I think was it. Do you remember this? Super Bowl was coming. Oh, Super Bowl was in the Bay Area.

And there was a fun discussion. it's actually interesting real life and virtual life and how they they blend that was part of the discussion and there was a moment where I asked the group is e-sports the same as in real life sports and everyone had their own what would do you remember what your answer to that is or what would you say today yeah I'd say the answer is probably somewhere in the middle in the middle yeah so we had where where because I remember talking to you know like I think one of the differences from a spectator point of view, right? And I don't think there's a huge difference

from a gamer point of view. The athlete is the athlete. And I would say that about chess, you know, as well. Yeah. It's gone crazy during the pandemic because it's probably because of Queens Gambit. But I think the spectator side is different, you know, and it's not quite as broad, probably.

Well, the thing that I think that's interesting, we had like the head of operations at EA up there who was talking about how, you know, the audience is growing and eventually will exceed that of regular sports. And I thought that was interesting. But anyway, so I- A niche though probably. I mean,

meaning like you get there in a different way, I would assume. Yeah. And so my perspective is that e-sports isn't anything close to the actual game. And we had a younger former 49er player who was up there who was like, esports is sports, no difference between the person playing a video game and what I do professionally. And then Lynn Swan, the Hall of Fame, wide receiver, by the way. Right.

Okay. Yeah, he was in the audience. And I was like, I wonder what Lynn Swan has to say. And Lynn gave me this look and then walked out of the room. And I was like, I just pissed off Lynn Swan, future Hall of Fame or not even Future Hall of Fame wide receiver. He comes back in the room with a folding chair. And I'm like, oh, it's about to get interesting. He puts the chair on the stage and he goes, they're not.

fleets. I was like, oh, we have an answer. So anyway, that was a fun first interaction. I'm glad we, I'm glad I made it through. I thought I was in some trouble there. Okay, so I want to ask you, let's get back to Tinder. Sure. Interesting hearing about these experiences.

I like the term swipe maybe or people trying to get to know each other beforehand. You mentioned, I think you've mentioned before 10% of marriages in the might be traced back to Tinder. You know, I had a conversation with your predecessor who, after years of having Tinder, deny the fact that it was a hookup app, had basically said, this is a hookup app. So I'm kind of curious, like, what your perspective is on, you know, is it a hookup app? Is it a relationship app? Is it something in the middle?

I have some, like, maybe sociological or views of that, where I actually, I actually think this goes back to the product market fit. I think when Tinder hit the scene, which I remember, I knew the founders, I'd worked at IAC, I pretty much knew everybody involved in the creation of Tinder. And, you know, I'm close to people with benchmark and who had gotten involved later too.

The VC firm that funded. You know, I think that the innovation, the innovations of double opt-in and swiping and all these things were so powerful hole and that there was more to glean from that. I don't think it was purely superficial. I just think it was another form of hitting the senses than what had been for 50 years before that of, you know, singles ads and newspapers leading up to Match.com and all the others,

which is I like to go for long walks in the beach, you know, descriptions of yourself. And so, and it was geolocated. And so what happened in my view is that I just think the product market was so significant and led to hookups because that's totally valid that, oh, I like this person, I'm going to go meet them and then that would happen. And so I think at its core, what Tinder is great at

is matching people. And what's interesting is that's now led to it being also number one for creating relationships. I think we hit the entire spectrum. And by the way, you know, people who are really in each other on night one could want of getting married. I mean, it's the whole thing. Yeah.

That's our job. So I actually think, believe it or not, I actually think the hookup thing is more of a titillating question to people, especially older people. I don't think that that's thought of as much by Gen Z. And they'd just like to giggle around that subject matter. But the truth is, and if you think about another way, like, why is that even relevant? connecting people as it's relevant. They take it where they want to take it.

And everything can happen. I mean, there was an article last week in BuzzFeed. The woman reviewed what she called hookup apps, which included us, Bumble, hinge, I think plenty of fish. The comment section was filled with people saying that they'd met their significant other partner on Tinder. Michelle Obama last year said, don't, if you want to find, you know, get married, get off Tinder. and she got, you know, I love Michelle Obama, but she got hammered with the world reacting to that.

So I think either way our business model stays the same and our job is to make a great connection and you take it where you want to take it. Yeah, I've always thought that people who call Tinder a hookup app are off base and that you're right. I mean, most relationships in general, you know, they don't start with someone saying, this is going to be the person I marry and they develop.

And so why not online as well? It seems like it mirrors the behavior that we have. And it's interesting that you point out that, like, you know, this is something that comes from, you know, potentially older people. And I'm curious what you make of there's like a whole generation of folks. And this was just on a podcast that you did with Howard Linsen, folks who are like, yo, if I was on Tinder, I would have crushed it, you know. And they talk about there's maybe there's a little bit of jealousy of, you know,

from people who have, who are. beyond, you know, the age or whatever, the life station where they would use the app who want to denigrate it and just call it a hookup app. So it's just more efficient and effective. It is, you know, maybe the difference between having the ability to have groceries delivered right to your house or a car brought right to you versus just hoping you wave your hand out and see what happens. It's just, it really works.

At the end of the day, it really just works. Yeah. Okay. I want to ask you a little bit about behavior and makeup on the app, makeup of the demographics. So I've heard you say that there's far more men than women on the app. Are you able to share that breakdown? On all dating apps. Yeah. Every single one. Yeah. I mean, even, you know, Bumble, my understanding is that the percentage of women is still in the 30%. Not it's not 30, but it's in the 30s. Yeah. So yours is too. It's probably a bit higher than ours. but there's obviously just by law of numbers there are more women on Tinder they just have a higher percentage but either way it's a lower percentage than you would think it's no it's not 50-50 and yeah I mean I'm still diving in all the reasons for that and I think it's a big opportunity for us in terms of how do you solve this for for women in a really good way it's the same way that I think there are there's a lot we can do for LGBTQ plus and there's you know different demographics.

Yeah. Another thing that I've heard is that, so wait, just to confirm, so your numbers are like 30%. Men are, it's, it's women are 30 in the 30s, men are in 60%. Basically true for almost every app. Now, that's not true. That's United States. Like if you, you know, if you go to Scandinavia, it's closer to 50, 50. If you go to India, it's lower than 65, 35 or whatever the actual number is.

I don't, I can't remember exact number. let's call it in that range. And also true in Asia, where, you know, which are our largest growth markets right now are in Asia. And, yeah, I just think that's a societal thing. And it's, it's being solved by the younger generation, just has fewer hangups about this.

But, yeah, generally speaking. Yeah, yeah, that was an interesting thing. To me, that kind of jumped out. And I was like, go ahead, curious what Jim thinks about this. Another thing that I've heard, this didn't come from you guys. or maybe it did, I don't really remember, is that like five or 10% of the men on the platform get like 90% of the attention or the interest?

I don't think that's anywhere close to true. And I think that sounds like it's an old data point. Okay. So yeah, I don't believe that that's true. So it's fairly evenly spread out people's interest in each other. So the marketplace is working, essentially. if you think about it we have a hundred marketplaces you have you know what I mean like just every every different same-sex community where by the way even a way higher percentage than

for heterocouples met online it's that's more like 70% yeah by the way and I also think it's interesting you've probably seen this stat too that people who meet through these apps generally speaking, have longer and happier relationships. And I actually think the more I'm, I spend more time I spend with it, the more I understand why, you know, which is it's not just some happenstance meeting or a meeting of convenience from your, you know, your job or your school. It's a pretty, pretty intentional. You're actually matched with somebody. Yeah, definitely. Are, are, are Jed Z and millennials dating each other or do they generally stick to their demographic? I mean, I think it depends what age range people said. I mean, I would say for the most part, people are,

probably within their age range. One thing that I heard is that Gen Z is the millennials put, and this I think came from your team, millennials put a lot of care into their profiles and make sure they have the perfect shot where a Gen Z is less intentional. Again, I'm generalizing here, obviously, you know what I mean? Yeah, of course. I would say, I would argue that that is very far from true. Really?

Okay. Meaning everybody puts a ton of work into that profile. Okay. which if you think about is one reason why we need to expand the number of things that you're able to do to express yourself versus just have the bio and just have a few photos, right? Totally. By the way, just to the else point, we're also launching, which I didn't mention earlier, within our Explorer tab, the ability to basically take the steering wheel a little bit and decide, you know, which category you want to, you know, essentially swipe through. at any given time. So you can go to pet mode and just go through people who are also like dogs.

You can go to just your university. You can go through people just who are also thrill seekers like you are. If you're in certain activities, there's actually a lot of those that are going to be launched with that part of the app. Now, once you get in there, it's still lean back and we're going to still use our technology to match you. But it just gives people a little bit more control over the tend to. experience, which they've said they want as well.

Yeah. It matters to them, I think, is what the underlying thing is here. For sure. So, okay. So I was off on that one. We had a question on Twitter, actually, along these lines. Someone asked, oh, what is the percentage of people that end up having a conversation after matching?

I don't know if you can share this. I'm sure it's proprietary. But I'm going to ask you anyways. They said that they've heard from a competitor that only 7% of people actually chat after matching. Is that used to true? Sounds like that's a competitor. Obviously, the number is way higher.

And I will give you a couple interesting stats, which is that during COVID, the number of messages increased by 20 percentage points higher than baseline. So not just in terms of going with the user growth, but 20 points over that. The number of messages within or the length of those conversations increased 32%. Okay. So basically the trend has been longer, more, and that continued even during the first summer of love, which was last summer. Okay. It wasn't just during shutdown.

Yeah, we'll see what happens in this summer of love. It should be interesting. But it makes sense. Yeah. Fred Wilson just called it analog summer today. I like that. He was thinking everything's going back analog. Yeah.

I think there will be some things that will stay. we had another question do you think the addition of face to face video messaging so people going on face time either through your app or on you know facebook messenger or apple is that going to change the likelihood that they're going to meet offline do you have any thoughts on that one increase the likelihood they'll meet offline because you video chat I guess the question is are people going to be less eager to meet offline if they're if they video chat Again, I would actually argue that this question is likely generational because if you talk to any younger, younger Genzi especially, they don't use the phone. What?

They use FaceTime only. Oh, they're not like talking. They're using the phone, but they're using it to video chat. Yep. Ah, okay. So this is the trend no matter what. Yeah. And again, it's also the trend that these kids have entire.

relationships virtually over face time for the even meet in real life with not just romantic like with friends yeah and that happened during lockdown too that that that really like mushroomed as a trend so yeah I mean I think that essentially what I look at is the ultimate thing is always going to be able to meet in person I mean I'm sure right as we head towards this VR world and yeah you know an avatar not even VR like even in the gaming world like I was talking about with the with the fortnight stuff in the game world there's going to be real relationships i mean my friend's son was telling me that his two best friends and this kid's 14 are 19 and 25 and he's only ever talked to them on discord holy those are his best friends that's wild and i think it's totally the

trend that you're going to have virtual relationships too at the end of the day there's going to be the offline component we do the baton pass at that point yeah so you have said that you've learned a lot from your kids' friends about what's going on. Yeah. So one of the things I love to ask people who work as tech executives is whether they allow their kids to use the products that they work on. Have you thought about whether you're going to let your kids use Tinder? Well, see, that's a compliment because you're assuming my kids are younger than they are.

I have a 20-year-old who just finished a sophomore year of college, and I have an 18-year-old daughter and my son is straight and my daughter is gay and they are both on Tinder using it absolutely and to be honest A it's inspirational to me to to make it better in all kinds of ways better safer just all these things and then also it really you know again I think for people who don't have kids or didn't meet that way It's why people were defending that they met this way. I actually feel great about them using it at this point. And I see my kids' friends on it as well.

You know, my son's friend just took a girl on to, he matched with her and she wanted to take him in an Oakland A's baseball game and she almost got in a fight at the game. Nice. It's a great first day. Another fan. Wow. Interesting match. that's not this guy's he's not a fighter right well sometimes it's good to have one person in the

relationship throw the punches so so yes i'm absolutely having them use it it was a lot easier when i was doing streaming and they were just watching that's right you know did you have to sit them down and be like all right kids i got to tell you about this company that i'm thinking about working at oh you don't think that kids that age know what tinder is no i'm sure they knew what it was but like when you say hey this is the company that i'm thinking about running what was that discussion like yeah they think it's super cool that was cool yeah so does my my wife thinks it's super cool you know i've been married 23 years and i yeah uh and you know look and there's been a few of yeah so my wife is super supportive my kids think it's awesome their friends think it's even

more awesome um yeah yeah you became the cool dad pretty quick it's just one of those iconic internet internet brands you know and it's it means something it's not a boring old brand at the same time There's so much that hadn't been done with Tinder, you know, just from in that you've, you've been, you know, you've used it in the past. Like, you know, it's not, you know, it's still in many ways resembles the same product it was years ago. Yeah. But what I've found, and it's been a little surprising, is there's been way more ability to innovate than I even expected coming in. And that really accelerated the past few months to where I now have a multi-year product roadmap. We're going to have to make some Sophie's choices if we have any more good ideas.

Wow. Okay. So we're already at that stage. Great. Share the roadmap with us. By the way, I'll let's tell you the employees of Tinder, most of whom are young, you know, their 20s and early 30s and live in L.A. and Palo Alto are just so passionate about the mission, you know, to them, there's also no giggling about Tinder. It's real. And whether they're on the user experience team or they're on the trust and safety.

safety team. I mean, they're in it to win it. They really. Oh, yeah. I mean, I've covered the company for many years at this point, because I came into BuzzFeed writing about social media and communications, Tinder. And the dating apps fell right into that bucket. And I've spent time with the employees. And you're right. No joke. A lot of them have become very successful by working so hard and turning it into what it is today. So all right, when we come back, let's talk, now we just segueed into it kind of perfectly. Let's talk about the business. If that That's cool with you. So why don't we do that when we're back here on the big technology podcast with Jim Lanzo,

CEO of Tinder. And we're back here for one last final segment of the big technology podcast. Where's the time gone? Where was Tinder CEO, Jim Lanzone? Jim, it's great having you. Thanks again for making the time for me. I appreciate you joining on the show. Absolutely.

So business-wise, I'm curious from your perspective, what is the competitive landscape that Tinder plays in. Who are your main competitors? Yeah, it's interesting. Look, I'd say that there's been interesting segmentation of the market, right? In one way, you know, Bumble, obviously the team there came out of Tender. Really has been around almost as long. They've been around only 18 months less time than Tender.

So we've always been competing with Bumble's positioning, which is its own interesting carve off of Tinder, because we also have always let women make the first move. They don't only get to make the first move. And that's become their marketing positioning. But from a product point of view, you know, I'd just objectively come into this category to say there's a lot in common between the two apps, probably more room to differentiate in the future.

You know, Hinge, which is really great up-and-comer and Justin's a great entrepreneur, and we've become close because we're both part of Match group. super talented and you know theirs is designed to be deleted is absolutely focused on you know I like to say that we're for any kind of relationship and very fluid and non-judgmental

about what that could mean you know they're very dedicated towards a much more you know serious relationship is what they're for which you know Bumble actually has moved the other way and they have advertising in Europe now

that says if just for one night or a lifetime Ah, okay. Interesting. We've never done. Right. And, you know, and then there's also, you know, by country, you know, Bumble also owns Badoo, which actually has more subscribers than Bumble does. Bumble proper does.

And then, you know, within Mastrop, you see different ones for different demographics or, you know, like BLK for the black community. just both for the Hispanic community. So it's been interesting to see kind of how that happens. Is there one that's going to win or is it, do you, so obviously Tinder's the top right now, but do you see, you know, this, do you see one coming out on top and staying there or is it going to be just sort of how much of the market can you chop off? And if there is going to be one that's going to win or even not, what is it that it's going to

take to win in the online dating game. I really hate cliched answers, but I have to give you one, which is, I mean, Tinder is by far number one today. Yeah. I walked into that. I didn't do that. Yeah. And again, I think largely on the basis of an incredible original innovation and product

market fit. And then they created the great business model with Tinder Plus and gold in 2016, 2017. that created the business that it is today, the product market fits so strong, it is skipped generations and now become something that everybody's using and is number one in over 100 countries for every generation.

Like with anything, right? If Nike hadn't kept innovating, I'm sure somebody else would be Nike today, but they kept innovating that they weren't, right? Yeah. You and I have seen that in many different categories, Spotify with Apple Music, Facebook and Myspace,

Google, which, I mean, literally, if you go back to the Yahoo designs on that homepage, it was, they put a Google search box next to it with a link to Google. Brilliant move. Yeah. Just kidding. So if we don't listen to customers and deliver for them and innovate on their behalf, then you can lose. If we can do that, then, and listen to them, especially as people change and generation

change or coming out of COVID. And I really do think that one of the things that I can bring to the table was taking the governors off and actually just pushing the envelope of innovating better and faster. You know, that's what I love to do. And there's just a lot more that we can do. And I think you're going to see it from us. The thing that usually takes out an incumbent is a threat they saw, not from right in front of them, but that's something that comes out of nowhere. Yeah. And so.

Great. Yeah, it's talked about it. Yeah. Yeah. So I wonder for you what that could be. And I'm starting to think maybe it is like these little universes that people hang out in, mentioned the Fortnite thing a couple times. Another thing, I'm curious if you've heard this, that Scott Galloway, friend of the podcast has brought up is maybe Peloton creates a dating app where you're already using the product and you have an affinity for like working out and being fit. And maybe you want to meet other people who are in the same area as that. So, or same mindset as that. So I'm curious what you think about those versus, like, saying, oh, how are we going to beat bubble? Yeah, look, I, first of all, Peloton's awesome. I have one.

I go back to IEC days of John Foley, who's the founder. We both worked there together. Yeah. Yeah, I think it would be very hard for a company that's, first of all, I heard this great Steve Jobs quote. They said to Jeff Ralston one time after they bought their companies, like, whatever it was, they wanted to add all these things. And he goes, you people, think you can do everything, like you have to choose and look at Facebook dating. I mean, theoretically, that could take off.

But, like, it's not so easy to focus and deliver something dedicated that is, even if it's related but different than what you do, like, and even go back to Google. I mean, they've pretty much have gone after almost every vertical in the history of the Internet and tried to do it. The things that work best for Google are utility. Right? Even Maps is a utility. That is what they're great at. They can do it. Do it at scale. Machines can go to work. But they really haven't directly threatened other than owning the traffic flow to people in verticals. And I think our expertise and our history and experience taken together, we can't do everything either. And we won't. But connecting people for that spark is something that we do better than anybody else. It's not easy. It's expensive. and history matters and understanding how to do it really well. And I think brands matter, right? So if we take our eye off the ball from a branding point of view, and I also have a new CMO, by the way, which we're not going to do,

then people can come in that way too. So anyway, look, I really believe in only did paranoid survive, like big time. So we are not going to ever relax and we'll keep our eye on everything. But if we listen to this user base, we'll be fine. And if we don't listen to them, we're host. I mean, I think it's pretty, I think it comes down to that. Totally. When it comes to listening to the user base, do you have to think about the tradeoff

that you're going to make between user experience and making money? So Tinder, I think, used to be like a fairly simple interface. Now you mentioned, I think, Tinder Plus and gold. There's all these different things that you can end up, you know, paying for. Sometimes, you know, companies go down that route. and it takes like a free product and, you know, gloats it with all these, you know, pay type of things. I think that's especially happened in the online dating world and ends up, you know, diluting the user experience to the point where it opens the door for someone else. So do you think about that and how do you consider the tradeoffs between making money and user experience?

I mean, I'm thinking also with big technology, how many ads do I put in before people start tuning out? So, but sorry, go ahead. Well, the way, so I drew this a long time ago because in the search industry, I remember this was at the time when you would shade the ads and the FTC would get involved. If you didn't call it out a sort of way now, the ads have no shading and you don't know what's what. But we always knew that there was a difference between maximizing and optimizing revenue, right? And those lines would cross at a certain point.

If you just made as much money as possible, there's an impact to the user experience. and then people don't come back and you have no one to monetize it's the same thing for however many minutes of a half an hour that you'll monetize in streaming for the ad-based model uh and then you know that in freemium and that's how we invented cb cell access was freemium we had 40 million users a month watching the last five episodes for free we're like well wouldn't you know 10% or 20% of those people pay us a monthly subscription to get more and you know and not have ads would be a part of that. So, you know, we run a very at Tinder a very simple freemium model, I think three tiers of subscriptions and you get more of each tier, similar to I had an ad

free tier and a tier with ads and streaming. Premium subscription models, I think, are some of the easiest and most straightforward models online. And the good news is you actually don't change what you do to deliver it, right? You just have to try and create more value. value. And it works itself out. So I actually feel pretty good about being in this model. Yeah. Has anything so, it's interesting coming from your position, you are working in content, moving now to subscription, dating. Has anything surprised you about making that move over? Like in terms of like the types of decisions you make or what it's like to even run a company doing something like this or does it have lots of parallels believe or not i would argue i look i've

only done consumer internet for you know for 20 plus years uh you know the only major transition that happened was web to mobile right that changed a lot and then for me it was that to o t which became 80 you know 80 percent of our almost 90 percent of our volume started coming straight back from the TV. But other than those shifts, what I would say is, believe it or not, consumer apps have way more in common than they do different. And at the edges, it's dating at the edges, it's streaming, it's Star Trek. You know, it's NCIS or the Super Bowl. On the back end, there's a lot that goes into it that maybe is different. Operating at scale, though, is the same. And I actually think, if you think about, you know, managing a consumer base, user acquisition, user retention,

these are all pretty similar, running a subscription product, pretty similar. The nuances, though, in that last 5% to 10% are very unique in terms of actually what makes this market different from others. So that's been my learning curve and just everything from the jargon to actually all of your assumptions coming in. But that's what's made it fun, I'd say. Yeah, there's some truth to the fact that like at the, I think what did you say at the extremes, like the internet ends up turning into dating and content and you've been at the top of the heap with content. Now you're working at the top of the heap and dating and we're going to bring some content in. So I think it's fascinating. Jim, you seem energized and excited to be doing this work. And I appreciate you stopping by and helping or letting me pick your mind and helping our listeners hear a little bit about what goes on inside. tinder hq so thank you for joining awesome buddy that was fun super fun thanks to everybody for listening

as we record we're now the number five uh podcast and tech news in the u.s so appreciate you rating and sharing the podcast if you uh if you enjoy this one maybe you can share and rate it that'll be great if it's your first time listening you want to subscribe we do these conversations every wednesday uh and i think that's about it thank you to nate gawatney for doing the editing Red Circle for hosting and selling the ads. And thanks again to all of you for listening. We will see you next Wednesday.