Rejection is tough. Just a few days after Tinder lashed out in a choreographed and ill-advised Twitter attack over a silly magazine story about its app, the company has fired its short-lived CEO. Yes, Tinder’s now-former chief executive Chris Payne is having a tough week.
Tinder and Payne broke up on Wednesday, pretty much before they even got started. Payne replaced Tinder co-founder Sean Rad as CEO in March, but apparently, it just wasn’t a good match. “It’s only been a few months,” said board member Matt Cohler, “but everyone came to the realization, the board and Christopher, and all agreed it wouldn’t work out long-term.”
Whether or not all this relationship drama is at all related to this week’s Twitter drama over that Vanity Fair “Dating Apocalypse” article remains entirely unclear. On one hand, it’s hard not to ignore the absurdly public tantrum that Tinder’s social media team threw over a little bit of journalism. On the other hand, Payne and the board are now insisting publicly that the breakup was mutual. Nobody’s officially connecting the two events—but when they happened within 48 hours of each other how can you not wonder?
So Tinder and Rad are back together. Despite the sexual harassment accusations that led to his demotion last November, the 29-year-old will return as CEO.
[Re/code]