Tinder Swipes Left On Its Own CEO: Chris Payne Steps Down After 5 Months

Tinder just swiped left on its own CEO. Chris Payne is leaving the popular dating company after holding his position for only five months. But was Payne’s breakup with Tinder a mutual one, though?

The dating app is in a scramble as it tries to find someone to replace Payne. After just holding his position for five months, it looks like Tinder’s chief executive is the one who’s swiping left on the company — not the other way around. Payne will be replaced by the co-founder and former CEO of Tinder, who previously stepped down in March after he was literally pushed out of his position.

Chris Payne realized that his relationship with Tinder wasn’t going to be a long-term one, much like the relationships among the app’s users. Tinder board member Matt Cohler spoke to Re/Code about Payne’s relationship with the dating app. According to him, “it wasn’t going to be a long-term fit.”

According to both Payne and Cohler, it was more of a mutual breakup. Looks like all good things must come to an end.

“It’s only been a few months, but everyone came to the realization, the board and Christopher, and all greed it wouldn’t work out long-term. Given that, we thought we might as well take action on this sooner than later.”

Payne echoed the same sentiments when he spoke out about stepping down. He wanted to make his break up with Tinder quick and clean as possible, again like the relationships on the dating app.

“I enjoyed my time at Tinder but we mutually determined that this wasn’t going to be optimal and thought that a quick transition served everybody best.”

Sean Rad was previously rejected by media corporation IAC in favor for the more experienced Payne. But now that Tinder’s current CEO, Rad is back, and he’s not sure how he’ll lead the company, according to Cohler.

“One of the things the board has to navigate is how much the company has to conform to the leader or vice versa. In this case, it became clear that both would have to contort themselves too much to make it really work and in this kind of a company that is growing so quickly, everything needs to happen quickly. I’m proud of the fact that everyone around the table had the maturity to look the situation in the eye and take action.”

Tinder has gone under fire this week when it was featured in a Vanity Fair article about dating in the social media world. The company went on an epic Twitter rant after realizing that they were overreacting. Tinder released a statement, although they weren’t really apologizing to the writer Nancy Jo or the magazine. They were just admitting that they made a mistake.

“Our intention was to highlight the many statistics and amazing stories that are sometimes left unpublished, and, in doing so, we overreacted.”

Tinder is a dating app that allows users to determine whether they find others attractive. “Swiping right” indicates you like the person, while “swiping left” means you don’t find the user attractive. When a mutual attraction is formed, both users are alerted and then can message one another.

[Image via TechCrunch/Flickr]