Grindr: Joel Simkhai

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2023

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On the premise that a smartphone could vastly improve his love life, Joel Simkhai built one of the most popular dating apps in the world. In 2008 he was living in LA and looking for an easy way to meet other gay men. He saw the early potential of the GPS-enabled iPhone, and a year later, launched Grindr: an app where users could determine if a potential date - or a quick hookup - was down the block or ten miles away. With no background in coding or app design, Joel bootstrapped Grindr into a global phenomenon –all the while dealing with technical meltdowns, safety issues, and criticism about toxicity on the app. Grindr was eventually sold, and Joel moved on; but last year launched another queer hookup app “for today” - called Motto.

This episode was produced by Casey Herman, with music by Ramtin Arablouei.

Edited by Neva Grant, with research help from Katherine Sypher.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Guy Rise here on the Wisdom from the Top Podcast.
0:03.1	I talk to leadership experts in some of the world's greatest business leaders about how
0:07.2	they lead, innovate, and transform the people around them.
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0:14.4	shows probably for you.
0:16.4	Listen now to the Wisdom from the Top Podcast from Luminary and NPR.
0:21.2	Ah, the Bahamas.
0:25.2	What if you could hang out with celebrities living a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean
0:29.2	with all your best friends and have it be 100% paid for?
0:32.5	FTX Founder Sam Bankman Fried made that dream a reality, but U.S. prosecutors say he was
0:37.6	hiding a dark secret.
0:39.2	Barely 30th young crypto billionaire became a powerful financial figure, but in just one
0:44.0	month, his exchange would collapse, and SBF would find himself in handcuffs.
0:49.5	It's one of the most dramatic faults from Grace and represents one of the most spectacular
0:53.4	failures of corporate control in American history.
0:56.3	Another exclusive tape of Sam and his former girlfriend and business partner, Caroline
1:00.1	Ellison, who later admitted something had gone very wrong inside their operation.
1:05.3	From Bloomberg and Wondery comes Spellcaster, a new six-part docu-series about the meteoric
1:10.6	rise and fall of FTX, and its founder, Sam Bankman Fried.
1:15.0	Follow Spellcaster wherever you get your podcast.
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