Whitney Wolfe, Tinder's co-founder and former VP of marketing, filed a lawsuit on June 30 accusing Justin Mateen, company co-founder and chief marketing officer, of harassing her with comments, emails and text messages that are racist, sexist and otherwise inappropriate. The two had a brief romantic relationship.
Wolfe added in her complaint that she was stripped of her co-founder title which was seen by Mateen as a big joke. She described the actions of the company's senior executives as something that resembles a frat-like behavior and recalled that incident when she was labeled a "whore" right in front of Tinder's CEO, Sean Rad.
The lawsuit settlement was confirmed by InterActiveCorp (IAC), the company which owns Tinder. Wolfe's legal representatives also confirmed the resolved case. There was no comment made on the sum of money involved in the settlement.
"Whitney's lawsuit against Tinder has been resolved (without admission of wrongdoing)," said John Mullan, a partner at Rudy, Exelrod, Zieff & Lowe. "She is proud of her role as a co-founder of Tinder and of the role she played in the app's success. She is now pleased to be able to focus her energy, talents, and ideas on exciting new opportunities."
Tinder is a dating app for smartphone users where they can meet new people at the movement of a finger. Wolfe says she came up with the name "Tinder" in mid-2012. The app allows chatting to begin between two people after they have shown mutual interest while viewing each other's photos that are found on the dating service. According to App Annie, the free, ad-less Tinder app is ranked as one of the nation's 100 most-downloaded apps. It made 10 successful matches a day in June. Recent reports say that it now makes up to 12 million daily matches.
Mateen joined Tinder in late 2012 and became Wolfe's boss in the company. He was then suspended at the emergence of the lawsuit. Several blogs reported that he is no longer connected with the company.
In a November 2012 meeting, Wolfe was designated as a company co-founder. However, Mateen expressed that having a "girl founder" has diminished the value of the company. In November 2013, Mateen and Rad stripped off Wolfe with her co-founder title.
When the romance was put to an end, Mateen called Wolfe a "desperate loser" in the midst of a marketing meeting. He also said that Wolfe is an alcoholic and has been sending her a litany of harassing texts.
The lawsuit is the latest example of the plight of women in the male dominated tech industry. Other companies such as Kleiner Perkins and GitHub also faced allegations of treating women poorly.
