Tinder’s new CEO asked employees a simple question about success. Their answers exposed a bigger problem
Source: Fortune ·
Tinder's new CEO is overhauling how employees measure success and using AI to improve the dating experience.
From the source
When Spencer Rascoff became CEO of Match Group in February 2025, and CEO of Tinder in July of that year, he inherited a dating empire whose flagship app had spent more than a decade relying on the same formula that made it famous. Tinder’s swipe-left, swipe-right experience had revolutionized online dating, but the company had struggled to keep pace with changing consumer expectations. In 2024, Tinder’s paying user base declined 7% while revenue grew just 1%. “In a lot of ways Tinder had lost product market fit with its users because it hadn’t innovated,” Rascoff told me recently. The company, he acknowledged, had “rested on its laurels for a long time.” Rascoff, who previously led Zillow, set out to revive Tinder’s culture of innovation. One of his first moves was to ask employees a deceptively simple question about what success looked like. He recalls receiving blank stares. Those who offered answers frequently pointed to quarterly profitability targets promised to Wall Street.…