The Exchanges

Q What do you do with it? Do you do like dividends? Is it buybacks? Is it acquisitions? What does one do when you have this free cashflow machine that you do?

A Yeah. So one thing I can say is very clearly, we're not going to hoard cash for acquisitions. If there are acquisitions that are interesting at some point that we want to do, We'll, we'll deal with that at that point, but I don't think it's the right thing to do to kind of just hoard cash and, and, and hope that something happens. We really believe there's a huge organic opportunity here, and, and that's what we're really focused on. We're gonna kind of look at what is the right approach to get cash to our shareholders at the time when we are doing it. We're not quite there yet. We have debt. We're paying down that debt. We want to get down to 1.5 to two X. Uh, EBITDA on, on the debt. We'll get there soon, but not yet. Uh, and then we'll kind of, you know, at a board level, make a decision on what is the right approach. Um, but in general, you know, we've never kept a lot of cash on our balance sheet, and I don't think we're gonna, uh, you know, just choose to keep a lot of cash for, for no reason.

AI assessment note: “We're paying down that debt. We want to get down to 1.5 to two X.”

Q I'm so sorry to sound like such a venture capitalist, but Do you then make margin on the prep that you provide on the tests? Is that not an amazing answer?

A We don't, we don't, we don't make money on, um, uh, on HIV tests cause CDC actually sends those to people for free. Um, and we don't make money on prep cause we don't sell prep. Uh, there are companies that do sell prep. We just do education and marketing plan. Um, but we, but my point on that is like, we already play a role in healthcare for people. And so there are things in health and wellness that we can build on where we will make money. Um, totally hypothetically, you know, you can imagine that a lot of gay men use various compound drugs, um, that are quite popular these days, whether it's ED medications, or hair care products, or skin care products. Um, you know, I think that's one area, for example, that we can play in, um, where we can provide our users with a really good experience, and the margins are also really great.

AI assessment note: “we don't make money on prep cause we don't sell prep”

Q What are the other things on top of, like, the insertion point of the hookup app that's a really natural extension that you can overlay?

A Totally. So I, well, there's two things that Grindr is already really big in, in, in small ways, but plays a really big part. One is travel. Uh, four and, um, sorry, uh, 25% of Grindr users, so one in four, uh, is traveling in any given week, uh, which is a really remarkable, um, thing to, to think about, given that, you know, in the U.S., average person It takes two vacations a year in a car to visit like family, 60 miles away or something. Um, so, but it makes sense, right? Like we have an audience that is high disposable income, um, that, that is usually single or if not single, doesn't have children. And so travel is a big part of their life. Um, so there's a lot we can do in that, uh, whether it's, Hey, we're like, let's allow somebody on their profile to say, I'm going to Coachella. This year, and let's start connecting about the fact that we're all going to be at Coachella together, right, in, in the spring, uh, or whether we're going on this cruise together, and let's kind of all connect about it before we get on the cruise, to hear the top 50 hotels that people really, um, like to stay at when they go to various cities, and maybe we do a deal with those hotels and create special packages and experiential ways for people to stay in them that right now are not available. Um, The second area where there's a lot of connection already is, is health. Grindr really did an ama…

AI assessment note: “there's two things that Grindr is already really big in... One is travel”

Q the beginning. I mean, it's extraordinary, George. I said at the beginning, what a great business it is, and what a fan I am of it. But like, I think it's a hundred and twenty million of free cash flow on three hundred million of revenue, give or take, and I might be getting this slightly wrong, but kind of ballpark. How are you so efficient? When everyone else isn't.

A Yeah, so there's, like, three things that make us, I think, very different. One is we don't spend any money on marketing, and the reason is, is we don't do any acquisition marketing. Um, so our marketing is focused on, on brand building, and we do a lot of stuff in social, narrow casting to, again, gay and bi men. Um, but, uh, it's a lot of storytelling, um, but we don't do, kind of, pay our user acquisition. We don't have to. All I use acquisition is through word of mouth and kind of the brand building approach. Number two is we have a tiny team. I'm a really, really big believer in super lean organizations that get a lot of stuff done. We have a very audacious mission, and my expectation is that people who are here work super hard to deliver results. Grindr has less than a 150 full time employees. We are very, very efficient. You know, our revenue per head is very high. It's over two million bucks per full time employee. Um, and that's something I'm really proud of. Um, we are actually nowhere near the peak capacity we were at when I joined. We had 225 people at the very peak when I first joined, um, and we had some transition on staff, and we've seen a ton of productivity improvements in our team, and I think there's still a lot more to be gained, right? So, like, I'm a huge believer in using AI in work, and I want us to be, you know, in a world where a lot of our code is wr…

AI assessment note: “there's, like, three things that make us, I think, very different. One is”

Q Okay, if we take that then, they are powered by advertising engines, which are incredible free cash flow machines. Does Grindr become an advertising engine like they are?

A We have an advertising business, and we'll talk about that in a minute, but I also think it's actually pretty cool that we are a social network that has a monetization engine that subscriptions, right? Because that's pretty unusual, um, and subscriptions are pretty good, good business to be in. Um, we do have an ad business. Um, the ad business actually is how Grindr got started. So Grindr was profitable from day one. Because it was a bootstrapped company that just one founder built from scratch, and, and he always made money on it, and ads were the primary way he did that in the early days. So we always had an ad business. You know, in 2018 to 2022 period, there was a big underinvestment in our ad business, and so it was not growing really well. We started to change that in 23, and those investments actually helped us To have a really strong year in ad, in the ad business, um, this year. Uh, ads are about 15% of our revenue in, in total, but obviously on a margin basis, they're even higher percentage, because it's a very profitable part of the business, and we don't have to pay the Apple and Google taxes on that revenue. Um, but, um, we want that business to be bigger, and we're gonna continue investing in that. Today, most of our ad business is what we call third party ads. Meaning we use networks, um, like Upfolio or Google, et cetera, to, to source those ads. Um, we do have…

AI assessment note: “we want that business to be bigger, and we're gonna continue investing in that.”

Q What are the other things on top of, like, the insertion point of the hookup app that's a really natural extension that you can overlay?

A Totally. So I, well, there's two things that Grindr is already really big in, in, in small ways, but plays a really big part. One is travel. Uh, four and, um, sorry, uh, 25% of Grindr users, so one in four, uh, is traveling in any given week, uh, which is a really remarkable, um, thing to, to think about, given that, you know, in the U.S., average person It takes two vacations a year in a car to visit like family, 60 miles away or something. Um, so, but it makes sense, right? Like we have an audience that is high disposable income, um, that, that is usually single or if not single, doesn't have children. And so travel is a big part of their life. Um, so there's a lot we can do in that, uh, whether it's, Hey, we're like, let's allow somebody on their profile to say, I'm going to Coachella. This year, and let's start connecting about the fact that we're all going to be at Coachella together, right, in, in the spring, uh, or whether we're going on this cruise together, and let's kind of all connect about it before we get on the cruise, to hear the top 50 hotels that people really, um, like to stay at when they go to various cities, and maybe we do a deal with those hotels and create special packages and experiential ways for people to stay in them that right now are not available. Um, The second area where there's a lot of connection already is, is health. Grindr really did an ama…

AI assessment note: “there's two things that Grindr is already really big in... One is travel”

Q the beginning. I mean, it's extraordinary, George. I said at the beginning, what a great business it is, and what a fan I am of it. But like, I think it's a hundred and twenty million of free cash flow on three hundred million of revenue, give or take, and I might be getting this slightly wrong, but kind of ballpark. How are you so efficient? When everyone else isn't.

A Yeah, so there's, like, three things that make us, I think, very different. One is we don't spend any money on marketing, and the reason is, is we don't do any acquisition marketing. Um, so our marketing is focused on, on brand building, and we do a lot of stuff in social, narrow casting to, again, gay and bi men. Um, but, uh, it's a lot of storytelling, um, but we don't do, kind of, pay our user acquisition. We don't have to. All I use acquisition is through word of mouth and kind of the brand building approach. Number two is we have a tiny team. I'm a really, really big believer in super lean organizations that get a lot of stuff done. We have a very audacious mission, and my expectation is that people who are here work super hard to deliver results. Grindr has less than a 150 full time employees. We are very, very efficient. You know, our revenue per head is very high. It's over two million bucks per full time employee. Um, and that's something I'm really proud of. Um, we are actually nowhere near the peak capacity we were at when I joined. We had 225 people at the very peak when I first joined, um, and we had some transition on staff, and we've seen a ton of productivity improvements in our team, and I think there's still a lot more to be gained, right? So, like, I'm a huge believer in using AI in work, and I want us to be, you know, in a world where a lot of our code is wr…

AI assessment note: “One is we don't spend any money on marketing... Number two is we have a tiny team.”

Q I mean this with total respect to you and other colleagues in the industry. There's been relatively little innovation in the market, I think, over the last years. The simple swipe functionality all cross and tick, but other than that, segmentation on customer groups. Would you agree with that, or am I being harsh?

A Yeah, I fully agree. Whether it's for us or for other companies, innovation has been dramatically limited. Um, Except for maybe Hinge, which has had a little bit more innovation, um, kind of along the way. I think, you know, I built an AI company in 2019, 20 20, and then sold it, and so I had some AI experience coming into this, this job, and that was one of the more exciting things about what was possible, because we have so much rich data about our users, whether it's from their behavior patterns in the app or their chat history, and so only obviously with their consent, but if we use all that data, To create better matches for them between what they want and what we know other users want, we can really reshape how dating happens, at least in our community, and I'm really psyched about that.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I fully agree. Whether it's for us or for other companies, innovation has been dramatically limited.”

Q This is a hypothetical situation. I am a young CEO and I do not have your years of wisdom. You are an angel investor in my company. If you were to teach me how to be a good manager, What would you say I should know from the 20 years that you have learned?

A Yeah, so I think there's a difference between being in the details and micromanaging people. I stay really, really close to details. And, and I need everybody else on my team to be really close to details. Like, if someone comes to me and says, like, I don't actually know this number, that raises a lot of red flags for me because, like, it's a pretty crucial number for you. Like, how can you not know it? So being in the details on the numbers and what is happening in the business is different from letting other people make decisions. And I think it's really crucial to let other people make decisions and guide them to the right decision if they're not making the right decision. Uh, but not to micromanage them.

AI assessment note: “there's a difference between being in the details and micromanaging people.”

Q Do you not worry that you will offend your stakeholders being the customers? If you think about it, maybe a more Democrat audience in terms of your user base, do you not worry that maybe like I have LPs, I'm a fund manager. And I, I'm always wary of saying something that might upset my stakeholders.

A Totally. And look, the decision I made when I took this job was I'm, I don't make political statements today at all. I do make statements related to issues that we as a company really care about, and we have a list of things we really care about. We are really devoted to marriage equality around the world, and we spend money on that, and we will always be very comfortable saying things about that topic. We really care about decriminalization. Um, because there's still 60 countries around the world where it's illegal to be gay, um, and we obviously care about it being changed, uh, and in countries even where it is legal to be gay in many places, it's still really hard to be gay, and so addressing those issues we really care about, so we'll make statements on that. Um, thirdly, we care about access to healthcare and equal access to healthcare for our users, especially when it comes to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, but General access to healthcare as well. Um, and then lastly, we really care about access to family formation, um, right, and, and that's a big topic for us as well. So those topics we will make statements on, and I will speak to those as well, but broader political topics actually don't make statements on right now because it is not my job. My job is to be the best CEO I can be for Grindr, and things I might say that distract me from being Doing that jo…

AI assessment note: “Totally. And look, the decision I made when I took this job was”

Q I mean this with total respect to you and other colleagues in the industry. There's been relatively little innovation in the market, I think, over the last years. The simple swipe functionality all cross and tick, but other than that, segmentation on customer groups. Would you agree with that, or am I being harsh?

A Yeah, I fully agree. Whether it's for us or for other companies, innovation has been dramatically limited. Um, Except for maybe Hinge, which has had a little bit more innovation, um, kind of along the way. I think, you know, I built an AI company in 2019, 20 20, and then sold it, and so I had some AI experience coming into this, this job, and that was one of the more exciting things about what was possible, because we have so much rich data about our users, whether it's from their behavior patterns in the app or their chat history, and so only obviously with their consent, but if we use all that data, To create better matches for them between what they want and what we know other users want, we can really reshape how dating happens, at least in our community, and I'm really psyched about that.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I fully agree. Whether it's for us or for other companies, innovation has been”

Q Did having children change how you think about the style with which you lead?

A I think what I would say is the opposite. The way I think about my employees and what I learned from them really shapes, um, Things about how I approach my kids, but things I learn about being a dad also do shape how I think about my employees because, you know, so much of our behavior patterns are formed when we're young and we don't really appreciate that. And so I sometimes notice, um, things about my team members in their behavior patterns. And then before I would have never thought about it this way, but I'm like, oh, they must have really picked this up when they were young. Because I'm noticing my kids pick certain things up now when they're really young, or I read about how XYZ behavior by parents results in this type of behavior in children, and I'm like, oh, this is probably what's happening with my employees as well. So that I've definitely kind of learned on, and I have a totally new appreciation for helping my team members understand their behavior patterns and, and where they came from and, and how we can work around those, right? Because again, I don't, Believe you can change everything about yourself. You can change some things, but not all, but you need to build structures around each person to make them be successful.

AI assessment note: “things I learn about being a dad also do shape how I think about my employees”

Q This is a hypothetical situation. I am a young CEO and I do not have your years of wisdom. You are an angel investor in my company. If you were to teach me how to be a good manager, What would you say I should know from the 20 years that you have learned?

A Yeah, so I think there's a difference between being in the details and micromanaging people. I stay really, really close to details. And, and I need everybody else on my team to be really close to details. Like, if someone comes to me and says, like, I don't actually know this number, that raises a lot of red flags for me because, like, it's a pretty crucial number for you. Like, how can you not know it? So being in the details on the numbers and what is happening in the business is different from letting other people make decisions. And I think it's really crucial to let other people make decisions and guide them to the right decision if they're not making the right decision. Uh, but not to micromanage them.

AI assessment note: “there's a difference between being in the details and micromanaging people.”

Q What does that mean for how perception is changed? It's just an increase in revenue multiple. What does that actually mean?

A It would be an increase in the EBITDA multiple, right? Where we are valued of EBITDA. And you know, the reality is that Facebook's EBITDA multiple is much higher than, um, you know, uh, dating products, even EBITDA multiple. And so I don't know, I'm not a stock analyst. That's up to analysts to kind of figure it out. But I think just thinking of this business as purely a Comp to Tinder or a comp to Bumble is not the right approach. Just because users also don't use us that way. I mean, people are in the product way longer. They do way more in the app. They stay with the app over time for much longer time periods. Even when they are in a relationship, they still stay in the app because it's the social network for them. So just thinking of us as Tinder, it doesn't make any sense.

AI assessment note: “thinking of this business as purely a Comp to Tinder or a comp to Bumble”

Q Why would you worry about failing and doing that?

A Well, I, um, you know, kids are really important to me. So, like, I'm a very unusual gay guy in that sense. Like, I always knew I wanted children. Um, frankly, coming out was partly difficult because I'm like, wow, what's that gonna mean to my ability to have kids? Because when I was going through this whole coming out process, like, surrogacy was not a thing yet. Gay men having children was not that common at all. Um, and so having kids was a very big deal to me, and you know, what my husband and I agreed on is, if we're past 45, we're not gonna have more children, because we just felt like, you're too old. And, and, and, you know, after having two kids, and given how much we, time we spent on our children, and how important they are to us, like, you know, I, like, I'm probably the only Russell 3000 CEO that, like, regularly shows up at school, um, is that, like, almost every dinner with my children, like, six to seven pm is, like, massively sacred, and yes, sometimes I'm not there, but, like, 90% of the time I'm there, um, and so they're really critical to me. Uh, I don't know if I could do that with two more kids, because kids are a lot of work, and, and I just don't know if I have more in me to be able to give as much time to my Two kids that I already have, two more children that I would want to have, and be as good at the job I do. I don't know if there's enough of me for…

AI assessment note: “I don't know if I have more in me to be able to give”

Q What do you do with it? Do you do like dividends? Is it buybacks? Is it acquisitions? What does one do when you have this free cashflow machine that you do?

A Yeah. So one thing I can say is very clearly, we're not going to hoard cash for acquisitions. If there are acquisitions that are interesting at some point that we want to do, We'll, we'll deal with that at that point, but I don't think it's the right thing to do to kind of just hoard cash and, and, and hope that something happens. We really believe there's a huge organic opportunity here, and, and that's what we're really focused on. We're gonna kind of look at what is the right approach to get cash to our shareholders at the time when we are doing it. We're not quite there yet. We have debt. We're paying down that debt. We want to get down to 1.5 to two X. Uh, EBITDA on, on the debt. We'll get there soon, but not yet. Uh, and then we'll kind of, you know, at a board level, make a decision on what is the right approach. Um, but in general, you know, we've never kept a lot of cash on our balance sheet, and I don't think we're gonna, uh, you know, just choose to keep a lot of cash for, for no reason.

AI assessment note: “We have debt. We're paying down that debt. We want to get down to”

Q To what extent does product quality actually matter with Grindr? And I don't mean that rudely, but when you under invest in product, when you've got a team in Taiwan, when you've got an audience that has a very visceral problem, it's a home for them. Great, but it doesn't need to be amazing.

A It's been a known thing in the gay community that like Grindr has, you know, challenges as a product. Um, I want us to be a world-class product, right? I want people to open up Grindr, open up Uber, Compare the two and being like, yup, Grindr is as good of a product as, as Uber is from the UX and the UI experience perspective from usability standpoint and from technology capability standpoint. Uh, I think our community deserves nothing less. We have this incredible relationship with our users, um, and we really appreciate it. Um, they are people who really care about quality. Why shouldn't the product that they so rely on be as good as humanly possible? So that's the product I want us to be. Are we there yet? No, but we will be. We've done a lot of work over the last four years, both before I showed up here and since then, on making the quality of this product a lot better, and we'll continue to do that. We just said publicly that we ran a big bug bash in September, bashed over three-fourths of all the known bugs, which I'm like really happy about, but there's still a lot more work to do, and we'll continue to do that. Do I think it'll impact our bottom line in the near term? I don't think so. But over the long term, I think it will, because I think people, you know, we want more people to subscribe to the product and the better the UI and the UX and the user experiences, the m…

AI assessment note: “Do I think it'll impact our bottom line in the near term? I don't think so.”

Q Okay, if we take that then, they are powered by advertising engines, which are incredible free cash flow machines. Does Grindr become an advertising engine like they are?

A We have an advertising business, and we'll talk about that in a minute, but I also think it's actually pretty cool that we are a social network that has a monetization engine that subscriptions, right? Because that's pretty unusual, um, and subscriptions are pretty good, good business to be in. Um, we do have an ad business. Um, the ad business actually is how Grindr got started. So Grindr was profitable from day one. Because it was a bootstrapped company that just one founder built from scratch, and, and he always made money on it, and ads were the primary way he did that in the early days. So we always had an ad business. You know, in 2018 to 2022 period, there was a big underinvestment in our ad business, and so it was not growing really well. We started to change that in 23, and those investments actually helped us To have a really strong year in ad, in the ad business, um, this year. Uh, ads are about 15% of our revenue in, in total, but obviously on a margin basis, they're even higher percentage, because it's a very profitable part of the business, and we don't have to pay the Apple and Google taxes on that revenue. Um, but, um, we want that business to be bigger, and we're gonna continue investing in that. Today, most of our ad business is what we call third party ads. Meaning we use networks, um, like Upfolio or Google, et cetera, to, to source those ads. Um, we do have…

AI assessment note: “Over the long term, I want us to have a much bigger direct ad business.”

Q What does that mean for how perception is changed? It's just an increase in revenue multiple. What does that actually mean?

A It would be an increase in the EBITDA multiple, right? Where we are valued of EBITDA. And you know, the reality is that Facebook's EBITDA multiple is much higher than, um, you know, uh, dating products, even EBITDA multiple. And so I don't know, I'm not a stock analyst. That's up to analysts to kind of figure it out. But I think just thinking of this business as purely a Comp to Tinder or a comp to Bumble is not the right approach. Just because users also don't use us that way. I mean, people are in the product way longer. They do way more in the app. They stay with the app over time for much longer time periods. Even when they are in a relationship, they still stay in the app because it's the social network for them. So just thinking of us as Tinder, it doesn't make any sense.

AI assessment note: “thinking of this business as purely a Comp to Tinder or a comp to Bumble”

Q Well, it's a good answer though. Uh, final one. What question are you not often or ever asked that you think you should be asked?

A It's surprising to me how little people talk to me about my upbringing in the Soviet Union. I learned this when I was first starting to raise money for, for companies, kind of talking to VCs. I saw this bifurcation. This is, you know, 10 plus years ago, and so VCs were like older and kind of were young adults in the 19 eighties, had a very different thought about my background versus VCs who were younger. Because Uh, younger VCs never lived in a world where there was a real tyranny that they were like confronted with. There are real tyrannies in the world. China is a complete and not a tyranny, obviously. Um, but we don't think of it that way because it pretends to have free market economics, which it really doesn't, but people think it does. Um, and, uh, and, and, but people who are kind of, or who are older and who like saw the Soviet Union and remember it, realize what real tyranny is like. And so they have, I think, a different appreciation for people who like grew up in that environment, uh, and both like what it means to have left that environment and be in a free place now and what it takes To do that, but also just like how it shapes your brain and the choices that you make. So that's the piece where, like, it's a really big part of who I am and how I make decisions, but a lot of people I think don't fully get and don't ask me as many questions as they probably should.

AI assessment note: “how little people talk to me about my upbringing in the Soviet Union.”

Q Has it ever hurt you on a broader level? I saw also there was like, I can't remember what it was, and this is why the danger of media was like, Some tweets that you sent, like, upset people. Like, does that really get you into trouble, or is it like, people get over it?

A Um, I mean, people get over it, obviously, and you have to have right people behind you. You know, when I was taking this job, I actually told the big shareholders. At this point, Grant was still private, so they're kind of the owners, like, look, I'm a conservative guy. I'm Republican. I'm also gay. I'm very social, uh, like, on, uh, on these social issues of being gay. I'm very liberal and libertarian. I'm libertarian on some other issues as well. But You know, on a lot of stuff, I'm pretty conservative. Um, and I don't, I don't think there's a conflict on those things. Um, and, and people knew that, and they were okay with it. I also knew that, like, some people are gonna have a problem with that, and we need to be prepared for that. Um, because unfortunately, we are in a world where people are not willing to appreciate differences of opinion, right? Like, you have to be exactly down this line, and that's true on both sides. Like, you, you have to be all in on this side, or all in on that side, and I don't think that makes any, any sense.

AI assessment note: “people get over it, obviously, and you have to have right people behind you”

Q What happens with Tinder and Bumble? I'm just interested to hear your thoughts.

A I don't buy at all the notion that young people don't want a date of Uh, of, of online channels. Like they do everything else online. Like they don't want to date online. That doesn't make any sense. They want different experiences in the products that, that, uh, than what is offered today, but that's different from they want to do things online. Uh, and so I think ultimately they'll figure things out or new online dating products will arise that will meet users needs. Um, I don't know if Bumble and Tinder will be able to figure that out. You know, Clearly, Hinge is doing a lot of things really well and is growing super nicely and, and both in revenue and in user attraction, so there is a way to build online dating products for straight people that work. Um, so I don't know what Tinder specifically and Bumble will do, but I'm very bullish about the online dating opportunity as a whole. I think it'll continue to do very well.

AI assessment note: “I don't know what Tinder specifically and Bumble will do”

Q How do you guide them without micromanaging them?

A You ask tough questions. You raise the hypotheticals of what could happen if the decision that they want to make happens and get them to understand what the problem might end up being. Because ultimately you as the founder and the CEO know the full picture and they don't. What you can bring to the table is they want to do X. They don't understand how that X impacts Y and Z over here that they're not thinking about. Only you can do that. But that does not mean you tell them, Hey, you are wrong. And this is the answer. I think that's like a really big kind of factor, at least in, in my view. Uh, and, and that's a pretty big learning kind of experience. Secondly, uh, that I think is really crucial to kind of how I would do things different now is you've got to know what you're not good at. And get the right people around you. That's different from, oh man, I'm really bad at this, and so I need to change this. The idea that a grown adult is going to change everything about themselves is very low probability. Like, it's probably not going to happen. Um, you can pick, like, one thing you really want to change, and I'm going to work on this really hard. But man, in a series A company where cash is running out, and your product market fit might not quite be there, and your team is causing problems, and your investors are yelling at you, like, Trying to change everything about yourself …

AI assessment note: “You ask tough questions. You raise the hypotheticals of what could happen”

Q also have the specific word that you said was hookup app. And I remember I had Sean Rad from Tinder on the show and like, there was this like visceral, um, objection to any hookup app from him. It was like, don't you dare call us a hookup app. Do you mind being a hookup app? And how do you think about that, like, hookup app to super app transition?

A Um, so, look, in gay culture, sex is a really critical part of who we are, right? Even like the term homosexual, like, the reason we are different than the majority is because of sexuality, and I think we are far more open about sexuality, we are far more willing to engage in Sexual activities with people and then be able to have, you know, friendships with them. Like it's very not common for people to hook up and then develop a friendship in the straight world. It's very common in the gay world for that to be the case. And so I just, I think the way we look at sex is very, very different, but it's a very core part of, of who we are. Um, and, uh, for that reason, kind of that makes Grindr very unique because that's the thing that people really want to solve for in any given day and Grindr lets them solve that. So we have actually no qualms about Being viewed as a hookup app, and we actually are leaning more into it. The really big product we're going to be launching, you know, worldwide sometime towards the end of next year, it's now live in two markets today. It's called RightNow, which is actually making the hookup experience better and more easy for a user to access. And this is a way for people who are looking for a RightNow encounter, whether it's hookup or otherwise, can kind of Get into that right now mode. And then they're only talking to people who are in that mode as …

AI assessment note: “we have actually no qualms about Being viewed as a hookup app”

Q Which will have a more impactful hit on revenue, or like, addition to revenue, travel or healthcare, do you think?

A Look, these are both zero to one products, right? Like, I don't know if they're gonna work, and I say this to investors all the time, like, if they work, they can be massive, but you gotta understand that we're starting at scratch, and they might not work. With that caveat, I think if healthcare works, um, it will be very large, because if you just do the, the math on it, right, like, a compound ED medication costs a hundred to a 130 dollars per month subscription, um, and, you know, people, I think, average Kind of lifetime value of a user is six months. That's a pretty, uh, for HIMSS because HIMSS is public. Um, so it's a pretty significant kind of dollar value in a year on that subscription. So if, if those things work, I think from the revenue perspective, they'll be producing.

AI assessment note: “With that caveat, I think if healthcare works, um, it will be very large”

Q Has it ever hurt you on a broader level? I saw also there was like, I can't remember what it was, and this is why the danger of media was like, Some tweets that you sent, like, upset people. Like, does that really get you into trouble, or is it like, people get over it?

A Um, I mean, people get over it, obviously, and you have to have right people behind you. You know, when I was taking this job, I actually told the big shareholders. At this point, Grant was still private, so they're kind of the owners, like, look, I'm a conservative guy. I'm Republican. I'm also gay. I'm very social, uh, like, on, uh, on these social issues of being gay. I'm very liberal and libertarian. I'm libertarian on some other issues as well. But You know, on a lot of stuff, I'm pretty conservative. Um, and I don't, I don't think there's a conflict on those things. Um, and, and people knew that, and they were okay with it. I also knew that, like, some people are gonna have a problem with that, and we need to be prepared for that. Um, because unfortunately, we are in a world where people are not willing to appreciate differences of opinion, right? Like, you have to be exactly down this line, and that's true on both sides. Like, you, you have to be all in on this side, or all in on that side, and I don't think that makes any, any sense.

AI assessment note: “I mean, people get over it, obviously, and you have to have right people”

Q Do you think we have freedom of speech? I had the founders of Andrew on the show recently, and an intercom, we talked about it. Do you think we are in a society where freedom of speech is pleasant?

A Look, I grew up in the Soviet Union, where literally, like, if people knew what you believed in, you could go to jail. I remember evenings where my great grandfather, who, like, had fought in World War II, and he was a general in World War II, would turn on a radio and try to find Voice of America on the radio to listen to what actually was happening in the world, and we all knew that if, If anyone ever got a hand on his radio, he'd be arrested, even though he was like a, you know, a seventy-five-year-old, um, Soviet hero, right? And so I know what not having freedom speech truly means from that perspective. Obviously, that is not the world that we live in today. Has there been a little bit too much self-censorship and or censorship from other sources in the last decade? Yes, absolutely. Um, I think the pushback against it has been pretty strong, and I think we're gonna end up in a pretty good place, all things being equal. And, and, you know, I, I don't like saying I'm a free speech absolutist. The same way you don't yell fire in a crowded theater, right? That the freedom of speech doesn't protect that. But at the same time, you know, as much as I despise the idea of burning the American flag, because I think this is the greatest, most amazing country in the world that has ever existed and probably will ever exist. And, you know, part of my mission in life is to do everything …

AI assessment note: “I know what not having freedom speech truly means... Obviously, that is not the world”

Q It's amazing how far a British accent can take you. Um, literally. Uh, my question to you is, for those that don't know, what is Grindr, and how did you come to be CEO of Grindr, the public company today?

A So Grindr is the largest network of gay and bi men in the world. Started out as a product for hookups and casual dating in 2009. Took over the gay world in a very viral way. I remember when I first saw Grindr on a friend's iPhone in 2009, I was building a company on Blackberry, so I didn't have an iPhone. And the next day I went and got an iPhone because I'm like, whoa, this is like way too good. I have to have this. Um, and there's some estimates like Grindr sold half a million iPhones in the, in the first year it was around, et cetera, kind of in early adoption. Um, and over time it grew bigger and bigger. I mean, we're at over fourteen million Active monthly users now. And so we have a much broader spectrum of audience now than just people who are looking for a hookup. Um, it's still, it's now the largest source of gay relationships in the United States. Um, so four in 10 gay relationships start on Grindr. People spend on average an hour a day in the app, which is really remarkable. Um, and we had a hundred and twenty five billion approximately messages sent in the app last year. Um, that's about 50 messages Per person per day, um, which is more than WhatsApp messaging in a given day, uh, per, per user. Um, so it's a, it's become like a very critical network for gay and bi men all over the world, and by the way, in a 190 countries and territories all over the world.

AI assessment note: “So Grindr is the largest network of gay and bi men in the world.”

Q To what extent does product quality actually matter with Grindr? And I don't mean that rudely, but when you under invest in product, when you've got a team in Taiwan, when you've got an audience that has a very visceral problem, it's a home for them. Great, but it doesn't need to be amazing.

A It's been a known thing in the gay community that like Grindr has, you know, challenges as a product. Um, I want us to be a world-class product, right? I want people to open up Grindr, open up Uber, Compare the two and being like, yup, Grindr is as good of a product as, as Uber is from the UX and the UI experience perspective from usability standpoint and from technology capability standpoint. Uh, I think our community deserves nothing less. We have this incredible relationship with our users, um, and we really appreciate it. Um, they are people who really care about quality. Why shouldn't the product that they so rely on be as good as humanly possible? So that's the product I want us to be. Are we there yet? No, but we will be. We've done a lot of work over the last four years, both before I showed up here and since then, on making the quality of this product a lot better, and we'll continue to do that. We just said publicly that we ran a big bug bash in September, bashed over three-fourths of all the known bugs, which I'm like really happy about, but there's still a lot more work to do, and we'll continue to do that. Do I think it'll impact our bottom line in the near term? I don't think so. But over the long term, I think it will, because I think people, you know, we want more people to subscribe to the product and the better the UI and the UX and the user experiences, the m…

AI assessment note: “in the near term? I don't think so. But over the long term”

Q Got you. So just so I understand, you don't think that infrastructure models, basically you open AI to Anthropics, will subsume the application layer?

A Long term, I don't think you're gonna need an Asana with AI. You're gonna just have an AI, like, TBD, how you engage with it, that's going to tell every, many other AIs what to do, right? So you can have a lot of agents that are specific, and there's going to be one agent that's kind of telling all the other agents what to do, and you're going to be talking to that one agent. But it's going to take a while to get there. So my initial perspective was, oh, like, we'll be able to get to like that one agent quickly and like, and let's go work on that. But actually, I think you're going to need these like smaller agents first that are more narrow in their nature before we can go to the one big agent. So as an example of kind of how to think about this from Grindr perspective, we're going to have more success building a feature like that summarizes your Chat history with somebody and gives you a really nice kind of summary, like you've talked to this guy for six months and here are all the things you learned about him that are helpful for you to have as a summary versus, you know, a bot that is able to talk to a person for you, right? It's going to take a lot more time to get the latter done versus the former. And, and there's a lot of benefit to kind of launching these smaller features that will be benefiting users with AI. Um, while we work on kind of the more transformative AI fea…

AI assessment note: “Long term, I don't think you're gonna need an Asana with AI.”