Keep pulling the thread on Justin McLeod.
In 2015, Hinge executed a major pivot, which involved laying off half of the company and rebooting the app from scratch.
Hinge experienced 40% growth last year and is currently the only major dating app that is growing, while others are shrinking.
Justin McLeod believes AI represents the next major technological disruption for the dating industry, unlike VR/AR which he thinks will not be disruptive until they reach 70-80% population adoption.
Justin McLeod's thesis is that AI will transform dating apps to feel more like a personal matchmaking service and less like a social media platform.
Hinge recently deployed a new LLM-powered recommendation algorithm that increased both matches and dates by approximately 15%.
Hinge will not launch a virtual girlfriend or AI companion feature, as its CEO believes such products are "playing with fire" and contribute to the loneliness epidemic.
Justin McLeod predicts the shift to AI will be a more significant transformation for the dating industry than the previous shift to mobile.
Following its 2015 pivot, Hinge changed its primary success metric to "actual great dates" and introduced the "We Met" survey to measure this outcome.
The fastest-growing user segment for Hinge is the 18 to 25 age group.
Match Group made a strategic investment in Hinge in 2017 and acquired the remainder of the company at the end of 2018.
Hinge does not consider Tinder a direct competitor because the two apps target different user mindsets, with Hinge focusing on intentional relationships and Tinder on more casual connections.
The emergence of AI has prompted Hinge to shift from a decentralized organizational structure to a more centralized one to better coordinate a major product transformation.