The Perfect Algorithm for Finding Love? with Christian Rudder | What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast

I'll ask you as a woman. So when you look just like this, I put pictures of men up. Yeah. Do you think that, like, 40 something year. old men are more attractive than 20 something year old men? I was going to say something. I don't want to say what I'm going to say. No. Say what you're going to say. How tall is he when he stands on his wall?

Oh. This is what now. with Trevor Noah. I was saying to Trevor. before you got here that, like the OkCupid marriage success. rate is, like, higher than a Tinder female set when we were recording. Oh, we are recording. No waiting for this thing. Oh, no. Oh, we were wrong. We are.

We are saying this. Okay. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate y'all for inviting me on. It was like I was telling Lindsey when she let me. And first I was like, is this a scam? I'm going to get mugged if I show up to this thing. Like, why? Because I was just, you know, not pregnant. I didn't think it was real. Okay. Help me understand why. Because in my head, I go, Christina, this is. Oh, this is the other thing that you said, right? Right before you walked in. Christian, was we going? You are probably not credited. for a shit ton of the work that has given us.

insight into things that we previously didn't have insight into. I mean, it's just. it has been a while since I've done like, any media, and I was like, you know, it was it was just very, extremely flattering. Okay. Which we know, it's like he's been quiet. Yeah, yeah. Just like, try to lay very low. And what what prompted that? I'm here, I mean, and y'all must have much, much, much, much. Especially you have such a thick skin like I just because just like, I just can't deal with Twitter and, like, all of the stuff, just like people talking at you. And it just bothered me. So I was like, you know what?

I'm good. Okay, well, you know what? We should we should jump into that. But I just want to set the scene a little bit, you know, for for people who aren't familiar with you. I think. there are a bunch of people who won't be familiar with you. Of course. Yeah, sure. But then there are a ton of people who should be not just familiar with you, but almost grateful to you. Super grateful because they are probably in a relationship, or they are married, or they could even be the product. of the work you've created.

You know what I mean? Yeah. So just so I don't butcher it, like, you know, you're one of the people who basically started OkCupid. Yeah. So help me break this this down like you, because we live in such an app age now. Of course. Take us. Take us back a little bit. What was OkCupid when you started it? And, like, what was this world? Oh, gosh. So we started OkCupid in 2003. And it had its which is obviously like so old for the internet, and it actually had its origins. We all worked at SparkNotes, the like study guide site, before, and we had a little part of SparkNotes called Spark Match,

which was just like because we were like SparkNotes is for kids. who aren't doing well in school or like high school and college. Like, what else can we do to keep them occupied on our website? And so it was just, you know, you look at, you fill out. a profile almost like like a bio type of thing, you know, old school. And you can just browse human beings instead of like, content on the internet. And that's like in 1999, that was something that just didn't exist. Right. And, SparkNotes was super popular, actually crashed because we didn't know what we were doing. And so we kind of like bookmark that in our minds.

And then when we left SparkNotes, we decided to relaunch OkCupid or launch. OkCupid, which is basically just like the same thing with a different name. Yeah. And it was just, you know, a place to message and find other people. Which in 2003, you couldn't really do online. I used to try to, like, find someone I knew. in high school or something in 2002 or 3 and just couldn't do it. I didn't. I didn't dare do that because when I was using the internet around that time, first of all, we had dial up. Yeah, sure. You know, the whole like. Yeah, I remember like that whole thing.

Yeah, yeah. Like, your computer was fighting everything. to get into this place called the internet. Yeah. So I didn't search for anyone. I would go to one web page if I was lucky and just stay there. And then the closest I came to it was like chat. Yeah, yeah, just like chat. Like IRC. Exactly. AOL messenger, AOL. Yeah. We didn't really have. I think we had IRC or like it was the lightest chat clients that you. could imagine because the computers were so they were so basic, of course.

Yeah. So basic. But that's that's part of the reason I wanted to talk to. you specifically, and I wanted to have you on is because, you know, we're in 2025, we are living in a world where everyone feels like. they are inundated by everything, and most of it seems to be digital. Yeah. You know, so, our politics, our, our matchmaking, our work, finding, our working.

You know, if it's not from the office, our connecting, our talking. to our parents, kids, our everything is in this world. And I thought, who better to have this conversation with than. somebody who was sort of like at the genesis of it all. and in many ways. one of like the forefathers of the thing that we're now in, you know, like. I always wish you could actually go and get like, Benjamin Franklin and, and all of those people, not just to, to actually, like, yell at them. Listen, know inventors. Yes. But you know why. You know why? Because everyone has ideas of what they would want or what they would say. Well, the Founding Fathers.

never intended the Founding Fathers, if you look at their writing, but it would be so great to sit with them and go, hey, did you intend this? Yeah. Like, okay, look at the world now and tell me what you intend. And in a way, I feel like you were one of the founding fathers. I think of the way the internet has connected people. You know, so. maybe we we started this because. Because you have a you were saying something. interesting just before Christian got here. You were talking about OkCupid and and the matches in particular. Oh, I was saying that. now looking at it compared to maybe like the tinder's and the bumble's.

and on the grinders and, you know, the swiping like those type of things. OkCupid kind of had like this analog feature in this digital world. because you had to write about your about yourself, what you music, you were into your interests. What's your favorite books? I mean, do people even read books? Now you go to ChatGPT. They like? No, but it's just like, you know, it was you had to be really intentional. and thoughtful and creative, and it showed so much about yourself. by creating that profile. And I think I think a lot about Myspace. Yeah, my, my Myspace and stuff like that.

And then, then somebody would have to come and read about you. It wasn't like, you know, it's different when you go. and you need to put in some time is that retweets and thoughts. and, but someone have to sit down and really pictures or thing. But you'd have to read about this person and then make your decision. Right. It's an interesting thing to watch happen because, it's definitely the case. that in kind of OkCupid today and just for, I guess, background, you fill out a profile, you write about your favorite books. you write about, I don't know, what do you want out of life? Just, I don't know, whatever how you describe yourself,

what you're looking for. And then there's photos. And then there were also match questions where it could be things like, do you want to have kids? Or, you know, how do you feel about abortion rights? Or, and, and including also crazy things like what kind of humor you. might like or whatever. And everything's sort. of like compacted down to just the photo with Tinder and Bumble. And I think you know, the online dating industry is, is kind of hurting. And I think part of it is that, that you've lost so much, compressed. Yeah. It made it like this quick, quick hit you know, it's and people can go through.

and look through tons of hot people. and have these, like, pinging and all of this stuff. But it's delivering probably worse matches or something now. So it's, it's an interesting topic of conversation with my friends, you know, who helped me start OkCupid? If the time is right to try to do something else and kind of read. like telescope at all, back out again where you actually ask people to do more. and say more about themselves and just like a cool selfie. Or if you if you were giving dating today A-grade.

like online dating today, where would you grade it? What do you think we had right now? I mean, first of all, online dating is way more popular than it ever was. Yeah, no, but I'm saying that it's probably not like, I know, I just want to sound like a hater. No no no no no no no, I got the biggest hair in the world. Okay, so if you want to become. And here you have got, you got you got a tag team. Lots of hateration in this dance. Right. So this is a great word. Don't don't don't don't. That's a new verb I've heard on a long time.

You know, I would give it, like, a C-minus, I guess. I think with, with points for being more popular, which is there is something inherently good about that. Like more people are using it, it meets more people's needs to some degree. Right. But I feel like there's a lot of people that are very dissatisfied. And if you go look at like the, the, the monthly active user. numbers like Tinder was that I think 13,000,000 in 2019. And this is like eight now, which is like a massive drop off. You know, that's like kind of Facebook levels of sort of becoming a dinosaur.

Yeah. And that's like it's just interesting. It's a weird thing because there's definitely. just as many single people as they're everywhere. And it's not like there's a plan B. The other apps are not really absorbing those missing, say, 5 million people like the industry is just shrinking overall. Whereas you if you look at, say, Facebook and its decline, then you had Instagram to sort of replace that. You have TikTok and like social media is as strong as ever. Yeah. People are migrating. Yeah. They just they just change where they're going. But here people are. when they change what they're doing, they're just like, I'm out. I give up. Yeah, or whatever. I'm just going to meet people at work or like in real life,

which is, you know, or through TikTok or not meeting people at all. I don't speak about like my friends who every one of my close. friends who's single, I get a text, I'm quitting the apps. Yeah, I'm quitting the apps. And it's not like they're meeting people in real life. because you go out and the men are swiping. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean? So it's just like a lot of people just surrender to be like, maybe I won't meet. Yeah. So I'll, I'll, I'll speaking from personal experience as someone who's used the apps. Right. I'm young Cristiano.

I'm not like married people. I'm young. I sometimes use the apps. I'll tell you what I think it is. I think often times will make it seem like it's, This nefarious thing that people do. Oh, people can just swipe. People can just. But I think in a way, it's. a byproduct of the culture that we live in, in the same way. that Amazon makes people shop more because you can shop more. Yeah. In the same way that like anything that allows you to do something. more will make you do it more. Right? So once they made bigger bags of potato chips, people ate more potato chips.

Yeah. It's just like, what are we going to do as people? The same thing goes for the dating apps. And it's that you you aren't in this thing because you're an asshole. Most people are using it because they're searching for something. They're looking for this magical love story that they've all been told about. And now someone said, hey, here's an app to help you find it. Here's the app that you're looking for, right? And so what you do is you then start to swipe. And in a weird way, I think a lot of people experiences, they go, if I do it more, I'm more likely to get to my end goal.

You know, put in the work. Yeah. So you can't like swipe three people. What, you've only swipe three people. Yeah. No there could be more. Keep on going. Keep. Right. Yeah. And I think what it creates is a world where. we've we've applied efficiency to something that isn't efficient. Love isn't efficient. Yeah I definitions aren't efficient. You know, when I think of every solid friendship. that I have in my life, like where I love the people dearly, it was a gradual game of attrition, you know, like rocks. bumping into each other in like, a tumbler.

And slowly over time, we became pebbles in each other's lives. But there was no, like, instant. And all of a sudden we're there, you know, and I and I actually, you know, I'm shocked that you're shocked that we wanted to have you on, you know, because. I'll tell you why you took data. that really no one had taken before. And you didn't just you just look at the data, you synthesized it. And I, you know, in your book Data Classroom, you wrote something really poignant for me. And you said, and I'll paraphrase it, so forgive me if I if I butchered,

but essentially what you were saying was, you're going for a long time in society, we've relied on how people feel, how they think, and how they feel. So you do a survey, how do you feel about a woman president? And people will tell you how they feel, or they'll tell you how they want you to think they feel right, or how they want to think that they know exactly, exactly. But then data shows you what they feel. You know, data doesn't show you like people go like, oh, I'm a healthy eater. I eat this many meals a week or I eat this much ice cream.

No, the data actually shows you what people do or don't eat. and what they actually do or don't do. And and so I think. you know, when we look at. like what you did with data, Christiana said it so beautifully before you came. She said, she said, this is the man who's responsible for so many of the studies that have revealed. the world to us in ways that we didn't previously know, in particular, your work around racial preferences and dating. Yes. Which was so illuminating to black women. And it's it's so much discourse. It really has. He talked about how,

black women and Asian men were like the least matched, and you were digging into that. And I don't want to paraphrase you wrongly, but you you talk about like, we can't take racism out. There's no way of rhythmically shaming that, that the site just revealed how people really felt. Yeah. In ways. that were maybe some people felt before, like some black women felt like maybe I'm. lacking love. Asian men felt, you know, I'm being overlooked in ways. And you showed the data that prove that that was true.

Yeah. And and that's very nice to hear because, you know, like publishing that stuff, it feels dicey to be talking about race in a public way. I do it. It's not like I have any first hand experience of any of this stuff. And we just decided to put it out there in the world. And we did get feedback from people. that were like very grateful that we were just helping. Maybe put a not. not a name, but maybe a number to their experience of like, you know, am I. whatever. My friends are having a different kind of experience than I am on your app. And this helps me understand why?

Because it's it's nothing with me. It's like this. It's the people who come to the app that bring all of their. prejudices or just like this kind of sociological, like baking that goes on for your entire life. about what's attractive and what you should want. And yeah, those were my favorite things to work on, for sure. Like looking at how different racial groups. messaged each other, how they how they rate each other. So like, swipe left, swipe right. What's interesting is. it's it's like that phenomenon, for example, of black women. getting fewer messages than, say, Asian or white women.

It's much less a thing outside the United States. When you look at the data from other places like the UK. Yeah, the UK was like 98%, I think, if I remember correctly. Yeah, they were getting 98% of the messages. Yeah, exactly. And in other parts to again, like 97 point something positive. Right. And just for your readers, kind of our listeners context like I think it's probably probably like 50%. I think or 60% of in the US the ratio would be of like contacts. I'd say from, from black women to I. Would you say that dating websites.

are the most honest space of data that tells us where society actually is? I mean, obviously I have, you know, skin in that game, so to speak. It's like I did so much work with it myself. But I do think so because, like, there's no real incentive to, like, lie. to the app itself. Like you want to find somebody that you're actually going to be attracted to. So it, it there's no pose, you know, like on Twitter or whatever. You can say these things. You can kind of take these very strident stances. You can make your opinions out to be something.

maybe a little different than what they really are in practice. Whereas like on a dating app, it doesn't really do you any good. I don't know, just, for example, pretend that you're really. into Asian men if you're not, because what happens when you do that? Well, now you're on a date with a guy that you're not. Maybe that into you and it makes the app work less well for you, right? So we always felt very good about our data integrity. just compared to the other things that people go and do on the internet. where they're everyone's, you know, everyone's a dog or whatever.

Yeah. You know. Yeah, I don't, I don't know, I do think dating apps provide an incredible window into, into. The thing I found in ruminating was age. Oh, yeah. You work on age. How man, it was like 20 year olds. Yeah, just all the way down there. Okay, first of all, I don't like how you said that in, like, a literary way. I think I said it, you know, in fiction, you know, you in fiction when. I'm trying to be less judgmental. Yeah. I did this to me, like 20 year olds. I know, because it's like women with age. I don't want to get this wrong, but it was just like women age.

corresponded with their age. Sure. So, like, they're like 25 to 25 year olds if if that. Yeah, exactly. Goes with time men. It didn't matter what age. Right? That average age was 20 times exactly like like a kind of an important. extra point on that is like, so if you ask women, like part. of signing up for OkCupid and Tinder, all these things is like kind of. what is the age range that you're into also. Right. So the app consent to filter and show you stuff. So if you ask women, they give you the very sensible answer. If you're 30, you're. maybe open to 28 year old guys, to 35 year old guys, whatever it is some range.

Right. And men actually do the same kind of thing. They sort of they take their age. and they subtract a few years and they add a few years. So like, all right, cool. I'm good with this band. So both men and women answer that question more or less the same way. Like what age are you into if you ask them that? But then if you look at who they actually go out and message, like you were saying, like for women, well, they're actually know themselves better or they're more honest. with themselves or more honest that the app like, you know, if you're 25, you messaged 25 year olds, if you're a 30 year old, you messaged 30 year olds. But man, yeah, like like we were just saying like it's all 20 year olds.

Even for 50 year old dudes, you've had to work so much with data, you know, and the something you do in the book. And I'd love to know if you still have these opinions. Like you, you're very honest about acknowledging. the limitations that data has, because data can only tell us what has happened, but we don't necessarily know why the thing has or hasn't happened. Right. And I think at one point you even talk about it uses like the compounding effect. I think that you speak about like where you go, everything that you're measuring is within the context of something else, you know.

So if you say, I think the analogy you gave is like, if you stand at the corner. of like Fifth Avenue in New York, Fifth Avenue in like 50 something. or 60th Street, and you say, what do people in New York look like? You'll say, oh, they're all pretty slim and wealthy, and there's a lot of Louis Vuitton and that's New Yorkers. Yeah. It's like, no, but that's where you were measuring from. And so in interpreting where you measure from or in understanding where you measure. from, you come to realize the limitations of the information that you have. Right. And so let's let's jump into this example.

because I wrecked my brain thinking about this. First of all, because I defend men, I defend men fiercely because I know. when Christy, I was going to go with this and I was like, I have to fight. I have to fight for my brethren, right? Men. Them need me, right? So here's what I was. I was I was intrigued by and it's I mean, jokes aside, in terms of defending. Yeah. Does the data tell us that men. think 20 year old women are the most attractive.

and women generally date in and around their age range, or they find the men around their age more attractive or is the data telling us. that society doesn't allow for a woman. to date, like whatever age men she wants? It seems to me there's a possibility that a woman to exactly. what you said don't just know themselves better, but know the world better. And I can only say this from personal experience with the women in my life. Like friends, they go like, I can't date a 20 year old man.

What will people say? What? All my friends. I'm going to come up with a 2025 year old. I'm 40. I'm rolling up with like this little toy. Even the word toyboy. Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm rolling up for this little toy boy. What am I, sugar mama and I, what does he know about the world, and what is he going to help me with? My kids? He's one of my kids. And there's all these other friends. But do you get them? Like. I mean, I do think there's something to your point about. There's, like some enablement of guys going after 20 year. old girls or liking them. It's like, fine, if you're 40 and you're dating a 25 year old, sort of.

And and I can see why that wouldn't be the case. if you flipped the genders and, and you can't know everything about love. And I know we're not talking exactly about love here, but you can't know everything about that. And like these, the data. and therefore like the algorithms that are sort of grinding it all up, like they just ultimately don't know you as well as, you know yourself. Just looking back on where the world is now. and where it was when in 2015, when I left OkCupid. Like we actually had a kind of like machine learning program to try to improve. our, our algorithm and try to find people even more perfect matches.

that we actually ended up shutting down because we felt like in our tests, like. no matter how much work we put into improving the algorithm, like the ultimate arbiter was always. the person who was going on the date or sending the message or whatever. Oh yeah, and we stopped trying to guess what was going to, you know, make people into pebbles or, you know, to use your metaphor, like, because people don't change so much and there's so many weird. things about people, like how they laugh or the way they carry themselves, or like a look in their eye that you just can't get to,

through a computer, at least. Yeah. And so, yeah, we just kind of we always tried. to be aware of what we couldn't know, I guess, if that makes sense. And I know I'm kind of ranging from your initial question, but like, I do think it's it's interesting. what people go and do in these. sort of bite sized units of like just clicking on someone and yeah, guys, click on 20 year olds. Yeah, yeah, they're hotter, I guess. And women don't do that because you were doing all of this machine. learning stuff pre the AI advancements.

we have now, which are like kind of mind blowing and yeah, terrifying. And you know, yeah, that's a different conversation. Yeah. How do you think now using the technology we have now. Do you think you guys could have different results. Like how how can the algorithm be game to us in ways that are unexpected? I mean, if I were to start a new dating app like today, you have to use some kind of AI, but I don't. I again, I don't think I would try to make, you know, the perfect match. Have, you know, ChatGPT figure out.

exactly the right person for me in the world, because I just think that's like a losing game. Like, I mean, we've all been set up by friends. that think, oh my God, Jenny's perfect for you. You got to meet her. And, you know, you sit down and you're just like, or whatever, and or maybe she hates you, you know, who knows? I think the AI component would be better served where like, the app. can, like, have a conversation with you to get to know you better. so that it can let you control. more of your own experience rather than making the algorithm stronger. I guess it makes your voice in the algorithm stronger. Does that make sense? Like, that's what I'd like to see happen.

Because I think kind of getting back to what we were saying a second ago. with the Tinder and bumble's of the world, the algorithm is all powerful. It's just like to use your potato chip example. It's like if you think of Tinder is like an infinite can of Pringles, you're just taking one off the top of your set. And just once you pop, you can't stop. Right? So like and it just does all the work. It's the it's the silo. Right. But I think if you can make the algorithm, make you your voice and your thoughts and what you really want more subtle. and more powerful within the mix of how it's showing you people,

I think that would be really cool. Almost like a life coach. Like if people could put up with that. Yeah, yeah, I think it'd be pretty cool. We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break. And, you know, in a lot of the stuff you do, what is your writing or whether it's your work and even speaking to you now, you have a very human quality to you. that I don't necessarily associate with a lot of people in the world of tech.

Right. Well, thank you. You know, and I know, I know, but I noticed that even in your writing, your writing is full of doubts. Your writing is full of. like, assuming that you don't know what's going to happen, assuming that you don't have the answer, assuming that the thing could be wrong, it. it seems like you are cut from a different cloth, because now. we live in a world where tech tells us they know everything. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like when you talk to Sam Altman, we had an episode with him on the podcast.

Sam, I did not see, like, even, like, a hint of doubt. He was like, AGI, baby, we're getting artificial general intelligence. It's going to make the world better. No more cancer, normal poverty. We're doing. And I'm just like, you know, on the flip side, yeah. No, no, no, really, he just has that you you approach that differently. You have like a doubt. So I'd love to know like what doubts do you have about tech in dating? Wow. Well. Tech in dating.

I mean, I do. doubt, probably like most people that have used these apps, whether it's, like, healthy to have that infinite can or just to know that. if I don't like this person or choose not to talk to this person in front of me, oh, there's always somebody else and you can just go through like that. I'm definitely can admit that might not be healthy psychologically over like the. ten years of doing that or something. Right? Like it'd be very hard to settle down with someone if at least theoretically, there's always the possibility that there's someone better. I also doubt there's going to be a significant improvement in.

an algorithm that's going to be better than people's, like, personal tastes. And so you guys all know, like there's just style and. all different kinds of things about a person. that you just can't reduce and hopefully never can reduce to, some radio buttons or whatever it is, like on a, on a phone. The one thing I like and I'm proud of, even still, I mean, ten years of. distance between me and working in the industry is like, I love the dating apps, even for all their flaws.

And as frustrated as people get with them now, they're trying to create something in the real world, you know, like Facebook, Twitter or TikTok. The goal of all of those things always, it's. just to get you to use TikTok more right. Eventually to make more money or whatever. Yeah. Like, yeah, keep it digital. Thank you. Twitter wants to keep your ex wants to keep you there. Right. Arguing with someone if that's how it goes. But whatever. Whereas Tinder even the shallowest possible experience. The goal isn't they don't want you, the people sitting in an office. working on the app. They don't want you to sit there and just swipe infinitely.

That doesn't really get them anywhere either. They want you to go out and find someone that you like, you know, and you go home with them. or have a relationship with them or whatever it is. And I love that about it. Like, I think that's something that I'm proud of, that it's it's created, you know, a lot of a lot of frustration and a lot of like, heartbreak. and a lot of dumb, sure, very douchey behavior out there in the world. But it's also created families and couples and all of these things. And like, and obviously, I'm not saying any of these things are perfect. They're frustrating. And people have always hated dating and being single, and people have always.

hated dating dating apps. I hated OkCupid at the time, used. just like the complaints were just like, pile up, you know, just like they hate Tinder or they hate Bumble. Now, you know, it's like a. that's a common, permanent thread, I think of, of thing. But it's cool that it does create something actual real in the world. So I think that makes a lot of sense. Like. I think people. hate dating and they'll hate dating apps because for the most part, as humans, we hate searching, but we love finding.

Yeah, but we don't realize that finding is the conclusion of searching. Yeah. And the rejection component is obviously pretty. Yeah, yeah. Our little monkey brains love to finish a task. Yeah. So we love to know we got to the end of something. You know, it was a book. You know, there's that feeling and you may not even realize you feel it. But when you get to the last page. of a book, there's a there's a strange sense of relief. and and completion and peace that comes with it. Yeah, yeah. The peace for sure. It has ended. Yeah. Watch a TV show and see how you feel when they right to be continued.

Yeah. You don't live if we're honest about it. You don't live. You like go into the world just a little a little like left on edge. You know, you don't you don't have the, the, the, it's the same. It's the same reason I feel like we have funerals and. Yeah, but like the finishing of can I tell you. Like I remember when it was, when was my grandmother's funeral. I remember thinking my whole life was like, funerals are stupid. The person's dead. Why are we going anywhere with them?

They're dead. Let's just carry on with our lives. And it was only when I. When I. Because I didn't get to go. Because during Covid, but during my grandmother's funeral. that I realized what a funeral really is for. It's the closure. It's like the final confirmation that this person is, in fact, no longer. with us, and you're going to see them go away to be no longer with us, right? Right. So when you're on a dating app. and to your point, there's three more, right? Yeah. Who would stop looking? Why would you stop looking? Yeah.

What kind of person would you be that you you stopped. Whereas before it was like, who are you dating? Well, I'm dating Christiana. Why? Well, she's the only girl in the village. We're done, we're done. There's only five girls in the village and four of them are married. All right, Christiana, let's do this thing. Yeah. You would. And then the village got a little bit bigger and I got a little. But now we've made it infinite as well. And so I wonder, like, yeah, it's hard to make, like, almost any decision you make feels like settling. Yes. Right. Yes. But I but I wonder if you were to start a dating app. Can you make a healthy dating app.

in a world that demands that the apps make as much money as they do? Because everything's about the money? No. Right, right, right. And I think that's like, you know, yeah, they're all like Grindr, Bumble, Tinder, which is owned by match, which also owns OkCupid, and tons of other things like, yeah, they're all public companies. Yeah, I see which at that time owns Match and Tinder. And before it was spun off into a public company, bought OkCupid in 2011, they were great partners. I really liked everyone there, but definitely.

the timbre changed overnight of, you know, how did you do yesterday? Yes. How did you do this week after the earnings, baby? Oh yeah. But it comes down to the day like information is coming in real time. about how much money you're making. So I do. Yeah I think I think for, for there to be a healthier. dating app, I think it would have to be privately held. I, I actually on this new, this thought experiment we're doing with a new dating app. Right. How does that look in this time where. I think politically people are so polarized?

Yeah. Because like ten years ago, if a woman goes on a date with a guy. and he says he's a Republican, it means very different things. And like a post, right? If he wait. Yeah. Oh, Red Hat universe, you sit across from a guy and he says he's a Republican. in the red pill. You're like, right. And they were that guy. Theoretical guy would also probably be disgusted by a liberal. Yeah. How does that even look in this? Like where people really wear their politics now in ways that. I think can be quite cumbersome to just even font families.

on, even when I get along well, let alone strangers. I mean, I think that's actually a really good insight into maybe why current. the current leaders are on the decline, because they just don't really gather much of that information at all. Yeah, you can put it in your profile, I guess, but like at least as far as I know, you can't search by politics, just for example. Yeah. Hinge I think you can is one of the few. And hinge, I think by no coincidence is kind of ascendant now. It's actually possible. they actually are doing to be the number two. kind of about a out of really from nothing like 2019.

That was tiny and it's just grown. And so I think leaning more into that. hinge style model of learning more. Yeah. You would have to have you would have to gather more information, ask people questions, have them slow down. Like, I remember when we were trying to compete with Tinder at OkCupid. Like it was tough because we tried to ask all these complex things like, you know, how religious are you? It's like a pretty complicated question. And also, there's some religious people that don't care. if their partner is religious and there's something about to an atheist.

Yeah. Exactly. Right. And so and so neither of you, both of you are okay with the other way, right? Yeah. And and some people are very religious and need the other person to meet them. They're right. And you just have to start gathering that information. and then segmenting your matches, you know, or. maybe you find someone who's MAGA and is okay with someone who isn't, you know, for example, you know, people are unpredictable in some ways. So there's a there's a part of your work that speaks. to how we don't actually know what's good for us.

Right. And a lot of research has shown us. that humans are terrible predictors of the future. We generally are. But in some of your work, when you looked at some of the data, there's. a part of the book that I remember that I, that I really, really loved, and it said. you found in. the data it was less important whether or not. a Republican was dating a Republican or a Democrat was dating a Democrat. What was more important was whether or not both people agreed. on whether or not they should be engaged in politics. Right. And that became a greater determining factor.

for whether or not those people would actually get along. And I thought that was a beautiful insights. into like how we see these things. Like you just said, no, oh, I'm with an atheist and I was just a Christian. I would argue what will happen over time, whether he likes it or not, is. your husband Lewis is going to be he's he's there's going to be. spirituality that comes into his life whether he likes it or not. I mean, my youngest daughter is always like Jesus. Yeah, it was like Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Amen, Amen.

But this but what I mean is, like you, I have yet to see a world. where people are not affected by the people around them. Yeah, they rub off on you. Yeah. I mean, more like, interested in reasoning. There you go. Well, I would contribute to a which now I might I say, you. know, it's just I, you know, I just have a stomach virus. No one is customer happy. So yeah I think but yeah. And so like when, when I look at that I look at that work that you did there. Right. And I see the data, I almost go.

How much should we trust what we think. connects us to people and what separates us? Because it seems like from the work you were doing, the data showed that that wasn't true. Republicans and Democrats actually could make a really good couple, but it was the fact that they thought that they couldn't that made them. not be able to. Sure, sure. Exactly. And that's very well said. But but I think I guess that's where computers can kind of. do a lot of work that a normal human being couldn't do, where it's like. you can gather all this information, your political affiliation.

You can also gather how much that matters to you, how engaged you are politically, and then behind the scenes, the server, the algorithm can learn what actually makes the difference. Yeah, you know, and then act on that. But unless you have that information, you know, even. in the kind of like primitive days of 2014 or whatever, we did tons of experiments and tests and our always sort of honing our, our match algorithm until we decided we had it to where. the best that we could get it.

But you have to. start you have to take in that information to make that even possible. And like, you might end up with unexpected sort. of predictors of relationship success or at least conversational success, which is all these apps can really, you know, manage or measure. But there are predictors, you know, like like you just said, like how strongly you feel about politics. Does it turn out, it turns out matter. But if the app doesn't know that question, then it can't use it. And so I think that's what you've lost in the sort of swiping model now. Yeah, that hinge is bringing back a little of and I think.

at some point another Apple will figure out a way. to make that sort of palatable to a busy person on a phone today, to learn more about them and then figure out what is going to matter. in a relationship that person is going to have. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. It's actually and this is where maybe algorithms could be quite useful. Like maybe because of like the culture I grew up in, I realized that, like, personalities don't really matter when it comes to relationships.

It's always been about like the values you have and how you rank them. Okay. So like, yeah, it's like a worldview. It's like, yeah, if you value like imagine it's family kindness. Oh damn, I like this. So it's like if we both value money, number one. Yeah. Money we're more likely to get along. It's not just the values are there's a matching values and how we rank them. Because often, like I think my cultural background I saw that marriages it didn't work. It was a ranking of those values was a complete mismatch. So maybe the man cared about money. Yeah.

And the woman cared about family. Right. But she also cares about money. But maybe money was like number five and it was his number one. So I always find couples, you know, like they're like, opposites attract. I'm like, what are their values? How do they rank them? If there's a matching in the rank of those values, that's a couple that's gonna last for a long time. And I think what the algorithm can do is figure out, yeah, that's what like computers. Yeah. What do the values what does travel value. What does this imagine a person how do they rank them. Let's cause a match. And the reason arranged marriages I think was so successful back in the day.

It's because you're in this very insular world. You're likely to have the same values. because you were raised in similar environments. But now in this world where it's like we're so global and cosmopolitan, we're poorest, we're being influenced by different things. Just on our phone. And I think what an algorithm can then do is like, bring it back. It's bring do that work for you. Because it's the thing I asked my husband. before we got married was like, what do you value is like, oh, you know, family, kindness, community know?

Okay. So in those things like, well, what do you feel most strongly about? And when I passed out, we matched. Even though, like, again, I'm not sure about dinosaurs. And this man is like very, very historical and science based. Right. But amazing. But ultimately like we both value family, community. and kindness and we will hold ourselves to and a sense of duty. Right? So he's just like, I'm always like, you're my best friend. He's like, you know, my best friend. You're my wife.

I can get rid of friends. I can't get rid of the wife. And I'm like, from a background where duty is, I'm the eldest daughter. I take that duty so seriously. It sounds like you and your husband both know yourselves really well too. Which is important. But I think, like, just again, working on our theoretical dating app. here, like, what you could do is you ask people to do essentially. that same ranking that you just described kindness, religion, whatever it is, people can order little tiles just for the mental model. But then over the course of maybe continuing to use the app, you can ask like there's questions you can ask about family, for example,

that will help us understand how important family actually is. How much time do you spend doing this or whatever, how often you talk to your mom, which way your mother in law move in with? Exactly. You could ask these like sort of components of that value, right. And kind of get. insofar as you can approximate. the observed, like the real truth behind whatever this person is saying, because most people probably will say family or whatever. because they think of themselves as a good person. And generally that's kind of how society works. Right? And then you can kind of have a, the sort of true.

value ranking underneath the hood. And then then you'd also have a third measure, and now you know how well that person knows themselves to you. You'd have what they say their values are, what their kind of inferred values are, and then how well those two things match. It would be an interesting way to understand somebody. How much do you think. what I mean, for lack of a better term, the focus on pictures and the sort of like display of ourselves. How much do you think that. that has negatively affected our ability to partner up with people?

Because I know in the early stages of OkCupid, the picture was really tiny, tiny. There was a tiny, tiny picture, and you found that while people who were, let's say, quote unquote better looking attracted more matches and. more people messaging, for the most part, it was like a gentle curve in a way. Yeah. And then when the picture blew up, all of a sudden the attractive people got. way more interest. Yeah, they get like more levers on the pixel. So to. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's definitely affected it I think in a lot of ways.

the focus on photos on dating apps for sure is is a negative thing. Like, like we've said a couple of times there, there's. so much more to a person than, I don't know, just their face. Like a headshot, basically. Right. at the same time, like we've discovered, we actually tried to turn the pictures off. of OkCupid. for a day just to see what would happen, and we could turn the pictures off like, totally on the oh yeah, this was like 2013 maybe really as an experiment. Shut them all down. All the all the thumbnails, everything went well. Yeah.

And as you'd expect, like the messaging environment was actually a lot healthier. Definitely attractive. Attractiveness wasn't a component because you couldn't tell. what the person looked like that you were trying to talk to you. At the same time, people hated it. And we got so much feedback that day, we knew we were going to turn them back. on, but people were just freaking out. Even though we explained it wasn't broken, we were doing this on purpose, and I just people are visual and they kind of have we. Yeah, they they have to have the photos. So it's like you kind of got to meet them. You have to meet like a dating app can only meet people where they are.

Right. Like we can't force people. We actually tried another adventure into this world like we tried to launch. This was this was what we tried to launch a blind dating app, like where we take a photo and we would scramble it digitally. Right? And this is so stupid in retrospect, but but like, you know, we thought that you could have a scrambled photo and you people could. browse and, you know, you could, you would learn a lot more about people. And you could said it was it was very slightly pretender. So it was like a little bit more immediate. You could see the scrambled photo and somebody. and maybe even go see them that night, meet them that night.

It was a total bomb, like, yeah. Like what, 10,000 people, I think, who tried it. Yeah, yeah. When we had, we had a quarter million downloads. and it was like 10,000 dates or something like that. Yeah, I was just it just was terrible. And yeah, people just don't. They're just not up for it, you know? But what I liked about the learnings. was this, this, this is probably one of my favorite things to discover. From the data. you turned off the pictures, right, people? There was like a dip for a moment.

People just didn't message anyone. Then at some point it became normal. It was like almost at the same rates of messaging. And then people actually started exchanging. numbers and people started hooking up and etc. and this is only in like a space of, I don't know, 24, 48 hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the tiny amount of time. But then all the people who didn't exchange numbers and didn't agree. to hook up once the pictures came back on, they just ghosted each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like it was like the lights coming on the last call or whatever number. Everyone's like, oh yeah, yeah, that was my favorite story.

I was like, wait, what exactly? No, it was you would see. conversations that at least based on the data, you would expect to keep going or whatever, and it was just a total dead stop. Yeah. Picture came on and people were like, oh my God. Yeah. And this leads me to see, I love this imaginary app we're making, right? Because when I was on the apps long. before I've been married, like, I don't know, seven, eight years now, I remember feeling that.

the men being on Instagram. was really shaping how they thought women should look in real life. Yeah, definitely. Does that make sense? Definitely. Because also, you men are seeing more hot people than they've ever seen before. Yeah. Women too. Like I look at I'm like, oh my gosh, it's gorgeous. You're just yeah these beautiful people. And I think it changed dating because there's just like, I can actually. there's physically somebody that's fine tuned to what I precisely want.

And I definitely, you know, guy who was on the show, your Instagram face talked about like the proliferation of this beauty. started on Instagram, changing what women did in real life. with their bodies and their faces to match this beauty standard. And I'm interested in about this app. Could we game the algorithm in a way that plays to countering that, countering. the fact that, like depending on how much time a man spends on Instagram, right. Oh, this is a man or even a woman's use of certain sites.

informing how they behave. Because, you know, I know all the apps talk to each other and they're spying on us. Yeah. No, you you never did that. Of course. Yeah, but, like, then create this machine learning algorithm, rhythmic thing. that can shape a man's preferences. in a way that nudge him in the right direction, accounting for that. Or if it's a man that is not on Instagram at all, you're like, oh, you haven't been destroy my mind. Yeah. I mean, that might work.

Something that gets very hard is. when the app tries to do something, tries to change people's behavior. And actually, we got a lot of criticism or commentary, I guess I'd say about this in the wake of publishing the racial data. that we were talking about, the very beginning, I'd be like, well, why can't you guys do more to make, again, Asian men more attractive to white women or whatever it is? You know? And the fact is, you, there's very little you can do to like, move people because. first of all, they've had whatever, however many years of their life. or how many hours scrolling through Instagram.

super hard to undo that. And also, if you don't deliver to people. what at least they think they want, they're just going to leave. It's not like you have to use. Yeah, a dating app or Tinder or whatever. You just do something else. And, and so, like, if you're showing, some guy's been on Instagram hardcore. and he's looking for that look and you're like, hey, man, check this out. This is better. However you want a friend, this is different. This is different. I think I really like her. Some people might be up for that kind of thing,

but a lot of dudes are just going to like, what are the girls on here, ugly? I'm out. You know what I mean? Like, it's hard. It's very hard to. You kind of have to let the users drive what you give them, which is can be bad. Obviously you're reinforcing some negative shit that way, right? But, but but otherwise you just end up with a situation where people are gone. That's so interesting to me because I've always felt. and the public discussion is that these apps are changing our behavior. Oh, I think that's definitely true. And they can that's like it's making you angrier.

It's making you argue more, it's showing you their stuff. But it's like almost an unpredictable ways. Like I think I don't know any of the founders of, say, Twitter or Facebook, but I think if you would ask them in 2006 or whatever, is Facebook going to make people really angry. and is it going to become the world's greatest propaganda tool of all time? Mark Zuckerberg probably would have been like, what are you talking about? I don't want that. I just want to like, have he probably genuinely wanted friends to meet friends or whatever. or make money, you know, and be powerful, which a lot of people are like that.

Apps definitely change the world. So I'm definitely wouldn't say that. They change behavior, but there has to be some component of them that is delivering. what what those people want. Yeah, they're like amplify, amplify the crap that you already bring to the table. We already are like, it's, you know, don't go anywhere because we got more. What now? After this.

As a data expert, I'd love to know how much you allow. the data to influence how you then move in the world. You know, I definitely try to live more by intuition and just. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I think just getting back to this, like, perfect love algorithm or whatever, like, I just, I genuinely think that's impossible to create a computer program. that's going to predict with any real defensible set of, certainty, like who person A is, which, which of all the person B's out there who A is going to love.

You know, if something is possible. And I think. there's just a lot more to life. I mean hopefully for, you know, I mean for not that much longer but like. then like a phone or whatever, you know, and the internet for sure. And so I just, I really try to. it's honestly, I am one of those tech people. who try to stay away from all of that stuff. I like the like ability of data to like, tell stories. It's actually just working with my child. on an assignment about the Beatles evolution that songwriters and you know,

we have our date night from 64, Sergeant Pepper, 67, Abbey road 69. And you can actually go through and see in the data of the songs like how. how they've grown, how they grew as songwriters. and just looking at the complexity, the instrumentation and the chord changes. And you can actually quantify it as like a little mini data closet. It was fun to do. Yeah. So I do enjoy that stuff, but back to one of your points. Like, I think you can be overly certain about a lot of things. if you're just looking at numbers, because numbers aren't very subtle, right? They're just sort of facts that can be easily compared. and you can decide which one is bigger or better or whatever it is.

But so little in life can actually be quantified down to a number, like outside of the world of sports. You know, you can try and you can pretend that. like a 9.3 really captures how attractive someone is. But we all know that's not really true, right? Like 29.3 is. there's going to be a different opinion from every person that sees these two. theoretically identical people. Right. So I just. yeah, I think that's I also try to stay away from that, from data for that sense of the false sense of certainty about things. What do you think it was that.

you got from the data that made you want to share the data with the world? Because that's that's something I found anomalous, one, because it had never been done before, and then two, because it hasn't. been done since. Yeah, it was a like time. It's interesting to me that you you had all of this data. that told so many truths, and you put it out. It's arguably like one of the biggest studies on dating, on relationships, on race, on gender, on age, way bigger than any Gallup or Pew Research.

Yeah. So those are like a few hundred people. Thousand people hear it. Yeah, yeah. And this is and this is like that's what I mean. But like, what made you put it out because, you know, Facebook gods it. with their lives until they're testifying in front of Congress. They don't tell us any of their data. Right. You know, we only found out they knew that Instagram was bad for young girls. when they're in trouble. You know who else tells us the truth? Who? Pornhub approved us. Yeah, they do to that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They'll tell you. The only people like people in Nigeria, I'll say, yeah,

this is actually what you show to people are the same. They all like, yeah, it's true. The same thing. But that's the only other place like we get that. Yeah. But what do you think it was. What like what were you hoping to achieve. by revealing something that has been kept secret for so long? You know, and I guess there was like that period. 2009, 2010 where data seemed revelatory. And this is pre Cambridge Analytica and the whole kind of. engineering of the first Trump candidacy and fake news and all of that stuff. And there was just it was like, sounds corny.

I was like a hopeful period, I guess, for the internet. You know, there was hope and change. Airbnb. Yeah. Yeah. Uber. You mean I can just get a car? I don't have to, like, wait 20 minutes? Yeah, you know what I mean? Like that whole vibe, especially in New York, was it's just different. And so we had all this data. We thought it was really interesting. about how. what people thought was attractive, about how different races. would interact on our, on our website or our app. And you know, we kind of didn't have anything to lose either. Like we were just like, all right, let's just do this. Like Facebook is $1 billion or whatever trillion dollar company.

Maybe now they obviously have a lot to lose, and they're heavily scrutinized. And in 2010, we were sort of under the radar. Online dating wasn't even remotely as cool as it is now. And obviously it's not even that cool that. so so it was like mostly weird even in 2010, you know? And so we figured it would just be it would be interesting. It was like the perfect, like cocktail party conversation, you know, and yeah, it was, it was I guess it was just like, it was like a view into people.

that was just only coming into existence. You know, the internet obviously. had been around for a while, but like, there weren't websites. that did the kinds of things that we were doing until 2010 or whatever. And so, you couldn't have learned these things in 1999, even though the internet existed then and like, we just thought it was cool. and we could find out what people thought was hot and talk about it. and maybe make fun of it a little bit and make fun of ourselves. Yeah, I don't know. It's weird, though, to look back because it totally the door completely closed.

Yeah, basically right after data closed came out. And that was one blind spot in the book. where I was thinking about this some of the way over here. The entire. tone of the book is like, how interesting data is, how great it is, how it could lead to these different understandings of couples, of people, of systems, whatever. But, you know, come 2015, 2016, I was completely ignorant of the fact that. data could be used. It always had a marketing component for Facebook or whatever you all, but they use their data to sell ads to people. But I never thought it could be used to.

like sell ideas or sell like a worldview, like end mass to people as it as. it was in 2014, 1516 by the Cambridge Analytica and Steve Bannon. And it's still to this day, it's going on now. It's full on. Right. Exactly. And so like, it's. just never occurred to me that you could have. these macro political changes, for example, through data and through these algorithms that could be manipulated in that way. So, you know, and I guess in some ways maybe it's good that. these companies are locking their stuff up because then nobody else can go.

I don't know if I would want Facebook to publish, publish all of their data. because then people could go, oh, that's interesting. More people think that's interesting because you think when we know the data. behind something within more able to go in and manipulate those weak points. Right. Exactly. Yeah. That what you think and then go spin or whatever. Yeah. What I did love about your book, is for me reading the data and stuff, it made me think about how we can, like, interrogate our choices, like, because the data is like this truth serum telling us things about ourselves.

that we deny. It made me think about when I look at my screen time. Use on my iPhone and when it's just like, just shows me the hours, you know, like, but, you know, like. I spent that much time on Instagram, you see it, it shows you yourself. It does in a way. And it helps you be real with yourself too, right? Yeah. Which is like always good know. And I think culturally we can be quite delusional. Like every side is very high minded right now. Every side has got it right. But what data just says, well, this is what you saying.

This is like what you're actually doing. And it leaves you to just interrogate your choices whether you change or not. I still think that's the. Yeah. I mean, the first step to change is going to be to do the investigation. Right? So yeah, like I'm the same way too. I'll, I'm whatever screen time you're like goddammit. And then you go and do the same thing, but at least it's there. At least you understand what's going on. What you're deniable. Like, do you feel like you're following. Right. Exactly. So yeah, I like that part about it. One part of it is did I ever come with them? If you have your phone open on, like, CarPlay.

or if you, it counts to this screen time, but it's not screen time. Oh, yeah. So let's say you're navigating. Yeah. It counts. That is screen time. And for me that's not what I mean by screen time. Yeah I want you to tell me, Trevor, you used your phone for four hours today. Yeah, I drove the flowers. No, I'm sitting there depressed, I think, because. No, that's the other side of data that we have to be careful. I have, I think of how many people data has made them, 10,000 steps. And it's it's not true. It's not a real thing. Yes. Walk and better.

It's better to walk more than to walk less. Eight glasses. Where's the date? It's not the data, dude. You get. I'm saying, what's the dark side of it I like? I have, a low baby, and we use, a monitor, which I won't promote the company because I didn't give it to me for free. But basically, it tells me her heart rate, her oxygen saturation, tells me how long she sleeps for. Yo. What? Yeah, oxygen. Is it like a pad that. No, no, it's on her foot. This is insane. Yeah. Oxygen saturation. It tells me, if she's having wiggly sleep.

It tells me if she's having, like, restless sleep. Tells me when she's in deep sleep. And this is like the dark side of data. Yeah, it's kind of like. Do you find that useful? That just seems like. Oh, I'm don't know. I'm always worried my babies are going to die, so I like, I like she is telling me I'm like a I'm contract. So I like I like going into this thing. But like I remember before I had that with my first son, if I wanted to know. if he had a good night's sleep, I was obviously there. A but I look at him, I'd be like, oh, he seems a bit cranky now.

My immediate index is like, let me go into this app because sometimes. it'll tell me she's wiggly on the app and I'll go upstairs, Whereas I would probably just leave her to be wiggly, wake up. She maybe cry a bit and go back to sleep. Like that's probably what would have happened in my mind right? But now I have this app that I'm looking at. Oh my God, she's got 98% oxygen saturation, which is perfect. Why is it not 100? Now I have this information that is actually no, it can be not. So yes, confusing is actually making me more paranoid.

And yeah, I think from it. that that's how this hyper data world can like be quite dark for. Oh, I would actually love to know. So when you're designing an app, we're all users. Most people have used a dating app. How do you find. the balance between putting the person in front of us, who you think. we should see, versus putting the person in front of us that we want to see? That's is a great question, and that's something I think most people don't really.

they don't understand how how the the back end of these things works. Because like also we have to think about the person. that we're like their experience too, right? Yes. Like the person woman that are showing you. Yeah, exactly. So one of the very first things we learned. about having a dating site is that there's this thing we called the focus problem. So guys just want to see the hottest women, right? And so if you just go by what. the guys are sort of telling you they want, they want to see the highest. rated women in just a giant stack or a grid or whatever it is.

But if you go and do that and you kind of, try to meet their need. without any other consideration, well, what happens? Those women get tons of messages from tons of randos, their inbox explodes. It feels gross. And they leave. And then now you're left with. if you just showed all the tens, now you're left. with nines and eights and so forth, and you end up in this death spiral. Because also the guys don't get any messages back home. So you have to kind of look at it as a, as a pair of people always, not just what are we doing for Trevor today? It's like, what are we doing for Trevor and this person?

And everyone is in relation to another person? Yeah, you have to think of it like that. Because otherwise, you know, we could show you the. and hottest women in the database, but. that's not going to be good for you ultimately, and it's not going to be good for them if we do it for everyone. Right. We and I think most apps do this at this point to, we would do sort of like, hotness sort of collar. So if you're a, an eight or whatever, like the picture just on the picture. Right. This would be one of the components.

We would, we would show you nines, eights and sevens with maybe a few tens. and maybe some fives and whatever, you know, just to really reduce people. That way they're seeing someone like themselves. You're seeing people like yourself. And that's the optimal sort of band for, for there actually. being a productive conversation between the two of you. And then we would also. throw in information and, you know, like the. kind of classic matching stuff of like, you know, how important is religion to you. or how important is politics or whatever, those kinds of things that would be maybe. a third would be the questions about the two of you.

A third would be this attractiveness matching. And then we would throw in a healthy dose of just like randomness, you can't just give people what they want, because you're an. apple explode, you'll end up with this focus. problem thing where you're just showing everybody, you know, women like saying hot people to you, and you'd have the same problem sort of in the reverse. So you've got to be careful and manage your, your. stack of profiles if you're doing it that way. I've always been interested by how, you know, the data shows us that. most people create other people's. attractiveness by where they think they're attractive.

Is. It's funny, just generally like because everyone. and again, we live in a world where depending on how people say it, some people will be crude and just like assholes about it. And then some people will like overly sort of fake about it. No, I, I don't even see whether someone. Yeah, to be honest with you, until I know them, I don't whatever, whatever it is, whatever. But for the most part, when you just look at the data. and the honesty, get it away from what people tell you. Yeah, there is generally that ban. Yeah, where people go, oh no, I'm out of their league and they're out of my league. Yeah.

So okay, let me, let me ask you then a few things before we let you go. It's like, you on the back end of this, everyone is trying. I assume everyone's trying. to find their fairy tale, their story, their journey, whatever it may be. Right? What are some of the tips that you would give somebody. who is on a dating app to try and maximize the experience, not maximize the hookups, not maximize, you know, but just something real? Yeah, something real where you go like, oh, hey, you know, this thing. So let's start with like the picture, right?

Is it better for somebody to have a Photoshop picture? Is a better for them. to have a group picture, a sunset picture, a silhouette picture. Let's start with that. Just like the most basic definitely wouldn't do group. That just introduces the logistical problem. of trying to figure out who you're messaging, right? Okay. Some people love the group that I know. I always think it's a mistake. Yeah, I guess you're it's like you're trying to flex that you have friends, which is kind of like the reverse of what you're really trying to do. You know, I think in general, my advice would be. something that we've talked about already, and it's just like, you really are.

You just need that one vote, you're running for office and you just need one vote. So. being yourself is super corny, but it's also true, kind of. accepting the fact that maybe you're going to get a lot of no's. out there and being okay with that. Because I think if you start engineering your profile. to increase the number of likes or whatever yeses that you get, it is going to be more noise like, because you're going to have. you are ultimately only going to find one person, right.

So what is it a value to have 100 people messaging you at the time, 99 to just 99 more people, eventually you're going to have to kind of like, get to know with, right. And so I would just say really. bring out the things that make you unique. I mean, this is all like grandmother stuff. I mean, like, you know what? Grandmothers were right? Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of grandmothers, right? Yeah. It's nice to actually see where grandma meets up with. Yeah, yeah. What's that like? Yeah. With a grandmother of of the ages that I think is a real thing with even.

my wife's parents are from an arranged marriage, and, you know, they're super happy, as are all of their siblings. And, you know, I think there is something to that shared worldview. And having that system was designed to bring them together. People have a common, sociological context, right? And yeah, yeah, they knew that that was what really matters. Right. And I think they're right. And and, anyway, to get back to your question, like, I think. doing the things that make you unique foreground those things don't try to like,

bury the lead, so to speak, and don't leave it for that second or third message. I think, be willing to take more risks, I'd say, especially for people. who tend to get a lot of messages if you think someone's kind of cute, but maybe they're not normally your type, go for it more. Because I think ultimately that stuff is so unpredictable, especially people's digital representations of themselves. is so different than what they were actually like. when they're sitting in front of you. Many fish have been captured. Yeah, that's exactly it's not true. But the opposite is true too. Right where?

I'm sure I'm sure there's a lot of people that are. Oh, yeah, way more lamely than they would be in real life. The first time I met my husband, because we met on Twitter and, like, kind of clicked his profile. But then when I saw him, I'm like, oh God, he's hot. Always. He doesn't like his pictures. He's like, it was like a headshot thing kind of thing. I don't know, he's better. Good looking man. I should have dressed up more, but you know what I mean? So it's just like, it's so interesting that you. Yeah. You say that. Yeah. So I guess, anyway to the during it to a few things I think.

But as much of yourself out there. as you're comfortable doing like your authentic self, take more risks with the people that you say yes to or at least engage. with and be willing to accept that the process generally sucks. It's not necessarily the app's fault, it's. just how being single and trying to dating, right. And that it part of it is going to be lame. or boring or terrible or awkward or worse, maybe. And it's just how it goes and you can't kind of give up. And again, like, I think dating apps are very, very far from perfect and there's.

tons of very great ways to meet people that you're really going to. I didn't meet my wife on a dating app, so I'm not trying to show for these things, but I think. if you're going to be in that game, so to speak, which people are, whether we like it or not, it's just like it's just like being in the world. It's like having a phone. Yeah, yeah. You can't not have a phone. Yeah, yeah. And so like just I guess. if you're going to be in that game, try to gamify it as much as you can. Don't I don't sit and try to play numbers like I know. a lot of guys will just be like, well, I swipe right on everybody because nobody writes me back.

So I'm just kind of like, you know, spray and pray type of deal. spray, you know, just just like, wait, actually, actually on that point. Yeah. Does that change anything in how the app actually sees you? That's something I've always wanted to know. So for those people who are swiping on everything yeah, that's a great question. I, I it should I doubt it does because I think. I just don't think the algorithm behind a Tinder or Bumble, they put that kind of work into it to make that happen. And that's no slight against those companies.

I think they just had different priorities. I think in that sort of hack developed after I left OkCupid. and after OkCupid was a thing of just basically just like power swiping. right on everybody and just seeing what happens. But definitely it should I mean, kind of to our point, earlier. where you were saying, like, if you have spent an hour on the app. and you're like one person, that should be very powerful. I think it should. Yeah, I agree, as opposed. to liking a thousand or whatever, but I doubt that actually gets in there. But it should. That's another good tweak for a dating app. 2 or 3.0 you like? We'd like to business if we if you can make it better for everyone.

Make it better for everyone. Christian, thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for not, you know, thinking it was a scam. Thank you. You see, you put yourself out there. You thought it was a risk and you took a chance. Oh, I had a great time. Yeah, yeah. You know, and if you regret it afterwards, that's fine. Great first day. we. Do what Now with Trevor. Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Thomas Yamin and Jody Avigan.

Our senior producer is Jess Hackel.