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Sean Rad

28 statements across 4 episodes · 6 bullish · 4 bearish · 4 people on the record · first statement Dec 7, 2016 by Kara Nortman · said 14 times in 9 episodes since 2016 · across every show →

On the record as a speaker too: Sean Rad's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.

Mentions by year

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (8), Brian Norgard (4), Mark Mullen (1), Kara Nortman (1)

tap a year for its mentions
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002244201620172018201920202021202220232024episodesmentions per episode
2024 2 mentions in 1 episode
2021 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 4 mentions in 1 episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode
2017 5 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
2016 1 mention in 1 episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Sean Rad, oldest first

Dec 7, 2016
Assertion Partly supported
Nortman recruited Sean Rad to IAC before he created Tinder
“I went in and recruited Sean Radd into IAC and gave him his first business plan, which turned into something completely different. It wasn't Tinder. He took it and very much made it his own, but it was something I got involved with the day-to-day of in the fir…”
Kara Nortman Dec 7, 2016 ▶ 8:36 20VC: How To Assess Founder Psychology, Why Talking About Financial Returns In The First Meeting Is Always Wrong & How To Allocate Time Amongst A VC Portfolio with Kara Nortman, Partner @ Upfront Ventures
May 26, 2017
Insight
Sean Rad argues shared company values are more important than company mission
“I think values within a company, within a society, are more important than a common mission, or a common because I think the mission changes. As companies grow, as societies grow, but the values, and, you know, we, you know, we might disagree on the mission, a…”
Sean Rad May 26, 2017 ▶ 19:49 20VC: Tinder's Sean Rad on Why Humility Is The Key Trait For Founders To Have, Why Today's Incumbents Are Stronger Than Any Before Them & How Leaders Need To Scale With The Scaling Of Their Company
May 26, 2017 positive
Disclosure
Harry Stebbings sourced his first SPV investment through his Tinder girlfriend's father
“You not only got me my first girlfriend, but also originated my first deal through an SPV through her father, so thank you for that.”
Harry Stebbings May 26, 2017 ▶ 2:34 20VC: Tinder's Sean Rad on Why Humility Is The Key Trait For Founders To Have, Why Today's Incumbents Are Stronger Than Any Before Them & How Leaders Need To Scale With The Scaling Of Their Company
May 26, 2017
Insight
Sean Rad explains the psychological insight behind Tinder's double opt-in mechanism
“And I just realized if I knew that she liked me and she knew that I liked her, it would sort of take all the fear away, but there was no safe way to capture that data point.”
Sean Rad May 26, 2017 ▶ 3:35 20VC: Tinder's Sean Rad on Why Humility Is The Key Trait For Founders To Have, Why Today's Incumbents Are Stronger Than Any Before Them & How Leaders Need To Scale With The Scaling Of Their Company
May 26, 2017 bearish
Opinion
Sean Rad argues app fatigue is the primary hurdle for mobile startups
“The excitement levels for consumers have been depleted. People don't want to download the next new app. So I think the bar has been raised extremely high for what the consumer will look at and say is cool and differentiate and want to tell their friends about.”
Sean Rad May 26, 2017 ▶ 9:44 20VC: Tinder's Sean Rad on Why Humility Is The Key Trait For Founders To Have, Why Today's Incumbents Are Stronger Than Any Before Them & How Leaders Need To Scale With The Scaling Of Their Company
May 26, 2017
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Sean Rad predicts user interfaces will shift to predictive answer engines
“So I think what ends up happening over time as technology gets better is that We enter a world where the consumer has to do less work to get the result. And then I think as a result, interfaces are going to start to shift from interfaces where I input informat…”
Sean Rad May 26, 2017 ▶ 15:43 20VC: Tinder's Sean Rad on Why Humility Is The Key Trait For Founders To Have, Why Today's Incumbents Are Stronger Than Any Before Them & How Leaders Need To Scale With The Scaling Of Their Company
May 26, 2017 positive
Disclosure
Sean Rad prioritizes humility above all other traits when evaluating founders
“And I think a lot of my investment thesis is formed out of what I've experienced building Tinder and kind of reflecting on what values got us here. And to me, I gravitate towards founders and teams that are number one, Humble. They have a healthy degree of hum…”
Sean Rad May 26, 2017 ▶ 4:52 20VC: Tinder's Sean Rad on Why Humility Is The Key Trait For Founders To Have, Why Today's Incumbents Are Stronger Than Any Before Them & How Leaders Need To Scale With The Scaling Of Their Company
May 26, 2017 neutral
Insight
Sean Rad says top tech companies begin as passion projects, not missions
“Evan Spiegel in, in starting Snapchat or Uber and Twitter and all these companies that tend to have an impact on society. Or Facebook, they start out as little passion projects. They don't start out as missions to kind of change the world.”
Sean Rad May 26, 2017 ▶ 8:03 20VC: Tinder's Sean Rad on Why Humility Is The Key Trait For Founders To Have, Why Today's Incumbents Are Stronger Than Any Before Them & How Leaders Need To Scale With The Scaling Of Their Company
May 26, 2017
Insight
Sean Rad explains why modern tech giants are harder to disrupt
“The incumbents today were the disruptors. So they understand very, very well what it feels like and why disruption can happen to the incumbent because they did it. So I think they're, they have their guards up.”
Sean Rad May 26, 2017 ▶ 10:40 20VC: Tinder's Sean Rad on Why Humility Is The Key Trait For Founders To Have, Why Today's Incumbents Are Stronger Than Any Before Them & How Leaders Need To Scale With The Scaling Of Their Company
Jul 26, 2019 positive
Assertion Supported
Norgard: Tinder succeeded by stripping dating down to a photo and binary opt-in
“One of the interesting stories around Tinder was just Radical simplicity. It brought the online dating pretender. You had to fill out all these forms and menus, and you had to talk about future goals and whether you like long walks on the beach. And I remember…”
Brian Norgard Jul 26, 2019 ▶ 10:39 20VC: Former Tinder CPO Brian Norgard on His Biggest Product Takeaways from Launching the Top Grossing App in the World, The Top 10 Reasons Why Products Fail Today & How The Best Founders Assess Risk and Use It
Sep 9, 2024
Insight
Sean Rad: Companies must continuously relearn to stay focused on core strengths
“And every lesson we learned, the lesson was always focus. Focus on your mission. Focus on what you're good at. Stop trying to be something you're not. Every company needs to continuously fucking relearn that.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 0:19 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024
Disclosure
Rad: Lives well below his financial means to avoid wealth complications
“And it took me a while to see this, but I live a life that is much less than I can afford to live. Because I don't want chains.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 46:53 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024
Disclosure
Rad: Has quietly founded four companies since leaving Tinder
“I've started four companies since Tinder.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 51:27 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024 negative
Opinion
Sean Rad: Outsourcing dating to AI agents is the stupidest idea ever
“I think that is a very sad idea. I think the journey Is part of the reward. Me actually talking to someone, getting to know them, helps me learn about myself, helps me learn about them. It's not about a transaction. Romance is a journey. It's not just an ends …”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 44:51 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024
Insight
Sean Rad: Founders perform better when separating identity from their company
“Founders are better when their company is not them because it's not about you.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 1:36 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024
Insight
Sean Rad: The greatest CEOs build companies that run without them
“So I think truly great leadership, you know, the greatest CEOs are the ones that. Are they're always available, killing, you know, pushing the company forward, but are building organizations that if they step away, can run without them.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 3:14 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024 negative
Opinion
Sean Rad: Bumble is elitist and its women-first model hurts women
“Bumble. Is elitist. Why, you know, women go first. Women have all the control. Why? Who are, you know, like that, that is a, I actually, I'm not even sure that's good for women.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 41:31 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024
Insight
Sean Rad: Capital alone does not create innovation or prevent disruption
“Money, money doesn't solve, money doesn't create innovation. I think if money resulted in innovation, then You would never have disruption.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 1:03:31 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024
Assertion Open
Sean Rad: Tinder banned employees from using terms like dating or marriage
“We actually had a rule. You were not allowed to say dating at Tinder. You were not allowed to call Tinder a dating app. You're not allowed to say marriage because we weren't about that.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 15:53 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024
Assertion Contradicted
Sean Rad: Tinder enforced a rule to redesign the entire app yearly
“When I was there, when the team was there, we had a rule that every year we had to redesign the entire product because we didn't want people to get bored and stagnant, and we didn't want to become complacent as a team.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 0:07 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024
Insight
Sean Rad: Excess capital causes startup failure by stifling creativity
“There's many startups that actually failed because they raised too much money and they threw money at the problem and they threw people at the problem and they didn't actually tussle or force themselves to think out of the box or get creative and find new ways…”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 1:04:12 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024 positive
Disclosure
Sean Rad made an early, major investment in SpaceX
“Probably SpaceX. Invested a lot in SpaceX very, very early.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 55:01 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024
Disclosure
Tinder's executive team threatened to quit unless Sean Rad returned as CEO
“There was one point where the entire executive team, unbeknownst to me, went to the board and basically said, if Sean doesn't come back in the CEO role, we're all quitting.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 27:31 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024
Insight
Sean Rad: Product-market fit is an iterative process, not a static moment
“So product market fit isn't one moment in time. Product market fit is a constant iterative process.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 13:25 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024 positive
Disclosure
Sean Rad: Tinder investors encouraged founders to take secondary liquidity
“So we did take money along the way and our investors wanted us to do that because I think they realized that. That if we alleviated some of that pressure, then we can go even harder.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 1:05:15 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024 negative
Insight
Sean Rad: Abundance of modern dating options leads to lower relationship commitment
“I think because we have more options than we have had in any moment in history, that increasingly we have the ability to switch and give up.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 58:50 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024 positive
Insight
Sean Rad outlines the linear progression of thriving romantic relationships
“To me, it's like one thing leads to another. When you have honesty, you have trust. When you have trust, you have laughter. When you have laughter, you have sex.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 1:01:09 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 9, 2024 neutral
Insight
Sean Rad: Tinder only charged for features that would degrade ecosystem quality
“Our perspective on paid features was the only reason we would charge you Is if charging you for that feature made the ecosystem better, meaning if we gave that capability to free to everyone, it would actually dilute the quality of the ecosystem.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 38:57 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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