Sean Rad Out as Tinder CEO

This is eerily similar to what happened at Twitter. I just finished reading the book Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton and the parallels are frightening. Now I&#x27;m not sure how much of that book is true or fabricated, but the book claims that first Jack Dorsey was kicked out as CEO and replaced by Ev Williams. Then Williams was kicked out as CEO and replaced by Dick Costolo. Just like with Tinder, Twitter was a giant success (by any measure) when the CEOs were pushed out against their volition.<p>According to the book, the fatal flaw is board control. Even though Ev Williams was the largest shareholder (an assumption), he didn&#x27;t have board control. He only had 3 out of 7 seats. And so he was forced out against his will.<p>Now Zuckerberg (at Facebook) never lost board control and hence was not pushed out by the VC board. The major conclusion seems to be it&#x27;s imperative to maintain board control or you&#x27;ll most likely be vulnerable to being replaced by professional management - even if you create a successful company.<p>The other interesting parallel is Benchmark. According to the book, Benchmark was one of the vcs to push out Ev Williams. It&#x27;s been reported that Benchmark is now on Tinder&#x27;s board.

Its very telling of IAC what they are pulling. I have spoken to Sean a few times (way in the past) and its insulting what they are doing. Hes created a great company (and has done so several times- orgoo, adly, etc.) He has proven his worth and IAC is getting greedy. Yes, there appears to have been slight mistakes lately, but this is a guy who has created a company worth over a billion- Give him some slack. The fact they are pulling this shit is ridiculous, when tinder likely has more value than IAC itself if it wasnt for the public market. If tinder was private, its valuation would likely trump that of IAC. I only wish him the best- Honestly my advice to him would be to drop it and move on. Hes a talented dude (obviously) who should focus on creating his next big win. I am rooting for him.

Honest question - was Sean Rad ever the &quot;CEO?&quot; That is, given that Tinder was an IAC unit, does the concept of a &quot;singular&quot; chief executive have any meaning? Or was his position more akin to that of a vice president of a business unit of a larger corporation, subject to the whims and direction of the IAC CEO, Gregory Blatt?

The moral of this story is that you don&#x27;t support a high-level executive that calls your users &quot;sluts&quot; and still keep your job as CEO. It was immensely bad judgment that made Rad a bigger liability for the company than whatever value he could provide going forward.

Matt Cohler was brought in to fire Sean. Keep this in mind when you hear the next VC sound bite about &quot;standing behind the entrepreneur.&quot;

How does one monetize a 10% ownership of an entity that is majority owned by a public company? Unless there is a spinoff, or the public company sells that particular asset, I don&#x27;t see how Sean makes his money on this. IAC can just continue to use Tinder to grow their own market cap, which in turn helps IAC shareholders but not Tinder shareholders or &#x27;founders&#x27;<p>This could be the worst cap table of all time.

Apparently the board swiped left.

<i>Occupying a keynote slot at the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit</i><p>That in and of itself may highlight part of the problem. I&#x27;ve known a handful of people on those lists, and it rarely ends well. I don&#x27;t know if reversion to the mean, or a shift in focus, but the success hasn&#x27;t lasted for them.

Once Rad is out, will he end up with 10% equity? I&#x27;m asking to figure out whether he&#x27;ll get rich from Tinder&#x27;s meteoric success, assuming the company continues to do well.<p>(Is it even possible for Rad or any other founder to cash out their shares before a liquidity event like IPO or acquisition? I know the answer used to be &quot;no,&quot; but Airbnb seems to have changed that in recent years, and I&#x27;m quite unsure how it works now.)

Downvote me at will, but frankly i&#x27;d be more interested if it was the CEO of the local liquor store. Since when are dating sites relevant to the technology sector?