The transformation that has taken place at Match Group since I first began working here, 12 years ago, is incredible to contemplate. Back then dating websites were accessible only from a desktop or a laptop. They often required monthly fees and a lot of patience from users, who scrolled through profiles and waited for responses. Online dating also carried a definite stigma, so if a couple had met on Match, they often lied and said they’d met “through friends.” Although the sites had rudimentary matching algorithms in their early days, most users relied on “open search”: They read many profiles that might have little relevance in hopes of finding someone they really wanted to meet.
A version of this article appeared in the July–August 2019 issue (pp.35–39) of Harvard Business Review.
