'People in their 20s really never used dating apps until Tinder:' Match Group CEO talks about the changing dating scene at IGNITION 2018

mandy ginsberg match group ceo ignition 2018

Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg was interviewed Monday at Business Insider's IGNITION 2018, where she discussed the changing scene of online dating and the tech industry's "bro culture."
Companies under Match Group include Tinder, Hinge, and Plenty of Fish, online dating platforms that Ginsberg said are helping the company transform dating.
Ginsberg has taken steps within her own company to ensure she's treating women equally to men in the male-dominated tech industry.

Just a few days into Mandy Ginsberg's new role as CEO of Match Group, she already found herself embroiled in an ongoing bitter legal fight with Bumble that had the companies fighting for control of the online dating scene.

It's been almost a year since Ginsberg took control of Match Group's collection of online dating platforms, but the lawsuits are ongoing. At Business Insider's IGNITION 2018 conference on Monday, Ginsberg said that the online dating industry is "fiercely competitive," but has been by Match Group-owned Tinder.

"Tinder really was a category changer ... people in their 20s really never used dating apps until Tinder," Ginsberg said on stage. "We have to protect our innovations."

Match Group sued Bumble back in July for infringing on its patented "swiping" motion that has become an essential and widespread feature of dating apps. The two companies are fierce rivals — Bumble's co-founders were former Tinder employees, and multiple lawsuits have been exchanged back and forth.

Nevertheless, Match Group is the biggest player in the online dating sector, and is expected to bring in $1.7 billion this year thanks to its lineup of dating apps that include Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, and Match.com. Tinder on its own has an estimated 50 million users, which bests Bumble's 37 million customers.

Tinder has grown to include more than 300 employees working on solely on the app, Ginsberg said Monday. Match Group as a whole has more than 1,000 employees, a large workforce in which Ginsberg has advocated gender equality and representation. Ginsberg shared on Monday that she recently ordered an audit of Match Group to ensure male and female employees were being paid equally for the same work.

"You have to think about how women are taken care of," Ginsberg said. "There's a lot of work we have to do as a company and as an industry to make sure people in underrepresented communities are being represented."

Although the auditors found her employees were paid equally across the gender binary, Ginsberg says the company "can still do better." With 40 percent female employees, Match Group's gender breakdown is significantly better than the norm across the tech workforce, but not yet in line with the general population's gender breakdown.

While some company CEO's may shy away from making significant internal changes so quickly, Ginsberg says she's not afraid of Match Group becoming a "disrupter" in the industry. Changing the "bro culture" in tech, Ginsberg said, could "change the whole landscape."

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