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

Trevor Noah 0:00 [upbeat music] I'll ask you as a woman.

Speaker 0:05 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 0:05 So when you look, just like, let's say I put pictures of men up.

Speaker 0:08 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 0:09 Do you think that, like, 40-something-year-old men are more attractive than 20-something-year-old men?

Speaker 0:16 The ... I was gonna say something. I don't wanna say what I'm gonna say.

Trevor Noah 0:18 No, say what you're gonna say.

Speaker 0:19 [laughs] How tall is he when he stands on his wallet? [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:24 [laughs]

Speaker 0:30 I'm so bad.

Trevor Noah 0:31 [upbeat music] This is What Now? With Trevor Noah.

Speaker 0:39 [upbeat music] I was saying to Trevor before you got here that, like, the OkCupid marriage success rate is, like, higher than the Tinder.

Trevor Noah 0:55 But you must say it when we're recording.

Speaker 0:56 Oh, we are recording.

Trevor Noah 0:57 No.

Speaker 0:57 We're rolling

Trevor Noah 0:58 We're waiting for this thing.

Speaker 0:58 Oh, no.

Trevor Noah 0:59 We, we are-

Speaker 0:59 I thought we were rolling

Trevor Noah 1:00 ... we are, we are saying this.

Speaker 1:01 Okay. Sorry.

Trevor Noah 1:02 We are. [laughs]

Christian Rudder 1:03 Well, I'm, I really appreciate y'all inviting me on. I was like... I, I was telling, um, Lindsay when she let me in, at first I was like, "Is this a scam? Am I gonna get mugged if I show up to this thing?"

Speaker 1:12 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 1:12 Like, wait, why-

Trevor Noah 1:12 Why would we mug you?

Christian Rudder 1:13 'Cause I was just like... No, not for, no, I didn't think it was real.

Trevor Noah 1:16 Okay, help me understand why you s- ... 'Cause in my head, I go, Christianna, this is... Oh, this is the other thing that you said r- right, right before you walked in, Christian, was we were 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.

Christian Rudder 1:35 I, it's just, it has been a while since I've done, like, any media, and I was like, you know, it was-

Trevor Noah 1:39 Oh

Christian Rudder 1:39 ... it was just very extremely flattering.

Trevor Noah 1:40 Okay. Okay. Well-

Speaker 1:41 Which, well, which we know-

Christian Rudder 1:42 Yeah

Speaker 1:42 ... it's 'cause we're like, he's been quiet for-

Christian Rudder 1:44 Yeah, yeah

Speaker 1:44 ... the last 10 years

Christian Rudder 1:44 ... kind of just, like, tried to lay very low. Yeah.

Speaker 1:45 And, and what, what prompted that? I'm curious.

Christian Rudder 1:48 I mean, and y'all must have much, much, much, much, especially you, such a thick skin. Like, I just, 'cause just, like, I just can't deal with Twitter and, like, all of the stuff, just, like, people talking at you-

Trevor Noah 1:57 Oh.

Speaker 1:57 Yeah

Christian Rudder 1:57 ... and about... It just bothered me, so I was just like, you know what? I'm good.

Speaker 2:00 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 2:01 Okay. Well, you know what? We- we- we- we should, we should jump into that, but I- I- I- I just wanna 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.

Christian Rudder 2:13 Of course, yeah. For sure.

Trevor Noah 2:14 But then there are a ton of people who should be not just familiar with you, but almost grateful to you.

Speaker 2:20 Super grateful

Trevor Noah 2:20 ... because they are, uh, probably in a relationship, or they are married, or they could even be the product-

Christian Rudder 2:27 [laughs] Yeah

Trevor Noah 2:28 ... of the work that you've created.

Speaker 2:30 That's true.

Christian Rudder 2:30 Output.

Trevor Noah 2:30 Do you know what I mean?

Christian Rudder 2:30 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 2:31 So ju- just so I don't butcher it, like, y- you know, you, you're one of the people who basically started OkCupid.

Christian Rudder 2:36 Yeah. Mm-hmm. For sure.

Trevor Noah 2:37 So help me break this, this down. Like, you ... 'Cause we live in such an app age now.

Christian Rudder 2:41 Of course.

Trevor Noah 2:41 Take us, take us back a little bit. What was OkCupid when you started it, and, like, what was this world?

Christian Rudder 2:47 Oh, gosh. So we started OkCupid in 2003, um, 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 SparkMatch, which was just like ... 'Cause we were like, SparkNotes is for kids who aren't doing well in school or like-

Trevor Noah 3:05 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Christian Rudder 3:05 ... 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.

Speaker 3:14 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 3:14 You know, old school. And you can just browse human beings instead of, like, content on the internet.

Speaker 3:20 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 3:20 And that's like, in 1999, that was something that just didn't exist, right? And, um, SparkNotes was super popular. It actually crashed, 'cause we didn't know what we were doing. And so we-

Trevor Noah 3:28 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 3:28 ... kind of, like, bookmarked that in our minds, and then when we left SparkNotes, um,

Christian Rudder 3:32 we decided to relaunch OkCupid, or launch OkCupid, which is basically just, like, the same thing with a different name.

Trevor Noah 3:38 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 3:38 And it was just, you know, a, a place to message and find other people, uh, 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.

Trevor Noah 3:51 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.

Christian Rudder 3:57 Yeah. Sure.

Trevor Noah 3:57 You know, the whole, like, brr.

Speaker 3:59 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 3:59 I remember that well.

Trevor Noah 4:00 Brr. Like that whole thing.

Christian Rudder 4:01 Yeah.

Speaker 4:01 [imitating modem]

Trevor Noah 4:02 Yeah, yeah. Brr.

Speaker 4:03 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:06 Like your computer was fighting everything to get into this place called the internet.

Christian Rudder 4:09 Yeah, fighting to get there.

Trevor Noah 4:10 So I didn't search for anyone. I would go to one webpage if I was lucky and just stay there, and then the closest I came to it was, like, chat.

Christian Rudder 4:18 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 4:18 You know? Just, like, chat.

Christian Rudder 4:19 Like IRC or-

Trevor Noah 4:20 Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 4:21 AOL Messenger.

Christian Rudder 4:22 AOL.

Trevor Noah 4:22 AOL.

Christian Rudder 4:22 Exactly. AIM. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 4:23 Yeah, we didn't really have ... I think we had IRC.

Christian Rudder 4:25 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 4:26 Like, it was the lightest chat clients that you could imagine-

Speaker 4:28 Yeah

Trevor Noah 4:28 ... 'cause the computers were so ... They were so basic back then.

Christian Rudder 4:31 Of course, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 4:31 They were so basic. But that's, that's part of the reason I, I wanted to talk to you specifically and I wanted to have you on is because, you know, we- we're in 2025. We are living in a world where everyone feels like they're inundated by everything, and most of it seems to be digital.

Christian Rudder 4:51 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 4:52 You know?

Christian Rudder 4:52 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 4:52 So, uh, our politics, uh, our, our matchmaking, our work finding, our working.

Speaker 5:00 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 5:00 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, I always wish you could actually go and get, like, Benjamin Franklin and, and all of those people. No, just to, to actually, like-

Speaker 5:22 Edison

Christian Rudder 5:22 Yell at them

Trevor Noah 5:23 ... no.

Speaker 5:23 All the inventors.

Trevor Noah 5:24 Yes.

Speaker 5:24 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:24 But you know why? You know why? Because everyone has ideas of what they would want-

Speaker 5:28 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 5:28 ... or what they would say.

Christian Rudder 5:29 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:29 "Well, the Founding Fathers never intended. The Founding Fa... If you look at their writing." But it would be so great to sit with them and go, "Hey, did you intend this?"

Speaker 5:37 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:38 Like, okay, look at the world now and tell me what you intend. And in a way, I feel like you're one of the Founding Fathers-

Christian Rudder 5:43 Oh, thank you

Trevor Noah 5:43 ... of the way the internet has connected people. You know, so m- maybe we, we start with this, 'cause Christianna, you were saying something interesting just before Christian got here. You, you were talking about OkCupid and, and the matches in particular.

Speaker 5:56 Oh, I was saying that now looking at it compared to maybe, like, the Tinders and the Bumbles and, on the Grinders and, like, you know, the swiping, like, those type of things. OkCupid kind of had, like, this analog feature in this digital world-

Christian Rudder 6:09 Yes

Speaker 6:09 ... 'cause you had to write about yourself

Christian Rudder 6:10 Yes. Yeah, you had to write about yourself. Yeah

Speaker 6:11 ... what, your music you were into, your interests, what's your favorite books. I mean, do people even read books now? You go to ChatGPT.

Christian Rudder 6:16 [laughs]

Speaker 6:17 And you're 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.

Christian Rudder 6:28 Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 6:28 Like, 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 on tweets-

Christian Rudder 6:36 Yeah, you had to put in some time. Yeah

Speaker 6:37 ... it's like retweets and it's just this thoughts and-

Christian Rudder 6:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Speaker 6:40 ... but you, someone would have to sit down and really ... Pictures were a thing, but you'd have to read about this person-

Christian Rudder 6:44 Yeah. Right

Speaker 6:44 ... and then make your decision.

Christian Rudder 6:46 Right. It's an interesting thing to watch happen because, uh, it's definitely the case that in kind of OkCupid's heyday, and just for, I guess, background, you filled out a profile, you write about your favorite books-

Speaker 6:55 Yeah

Christian Rudder 6:55 ... 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.

Speaker 7:02 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 7:02 And then there's photos, and then there were also match questions where it could be things like, do you wanna have kids, or, uh, you know, how do you feel about abortion rights?

Speaker 7:09 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 7:09 Or, and, and, and including also crazy things like what kind of humor you might like or whatever. Um, and everything sort of, like, compacted down to just the photo-

Speaker 7:18 Mm

Christian Rudder 7:18 ... with Tinder and Bumble. And I think, you know, the, the online dating industry is, is kinda hurting, and I think part of it is that, that you've lost so much, um-

Speaker 7:28 Yeah, it's compressed

Christian Rudder 7:29 ... yeah. It made it, like, this quick, quick hit, you know? It's, uh, and, and people can go through and be- look through tons of hot people and have these, like, pinging and all of this stuff. Um, but it's delivering probably worse matches or something now.

Speaker 7:41 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 7:41 Um, so it's, and it's an interesting topic of conversation with my friends, you know, who helped me start OkCupid, um, if, if the time is right to try to do something else and kind of re- like telescope it all back out again-

Speaker 7:52 Oh, yeah

Christian Rudder 7:52 ... where you actually ask people to do more and say more about themselves than just, like, a cool selfie or whatever.

Trevor Noah 7:56 If you, if you were giving dating today a grade-

Christian Rudder 8:00 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 8:00 ... like online dating today, where would you grade it? What, what, what do you think we're at right now?

Christian Rudder 8:05 I mean, first of all, online dating is way more popular than it ever was when-

Trevor Noah 8:09 Yeah. No, but I'm saying actually-

Christian Rudder 8:10 ... OkCupid was at its prime.

Speaker 8:11 Not, not, not-

Christian Rudder 8:12 I know. I just don't wanna sound like a hater, you know? Like-

Trevor Noah 8:14 No, no, no. I, none of that. Christiana's got the hate-

Speaker 8:16 Hey, let me tell you something. Biggest hater in the world.

Christian Rudder 8:18 [laughs] Okay. All right.

Speaker 8:18 So if you wanna become a hater, you have an ally-

Christian Rudder 8:21 All right. We gotta, we gotta tag team

Speaker 8:22 ... lots of hateration in this dance, all right? So-

Christian Rudder 8:24 Hateration is, is a great word.

Speaker 8:26 Don't, don't, don't, don't hold back.

Christian Rudder 8:28 All right. That's the best, best new verb I've heard in a long time.

Speaker 8:30 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 8:30 Um, you know, I would give it, like, a C minus, I guess.

Speaker 8:33 Okay.

Christian Rudder 8:33 Um, I, 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, um, the, the monthly active user numbers, like, Tinder was at, I think, 13 million in 2019, and it's, like, 8 now, which is, like, a massive drop-off. You know, that's, like, kind of Facebook levels of sort of becoming a dinosaur.

Trevor Noah 9:00 Yeah.

Speaker 9:00 Mm.

Christian Rudder 9:00 And that's, like, it's just interesting. It's a weird thing because there's definitely just as many single people as there ever were, and it's not like there's a plan B. Um, the other apps are not really absorbing those missing, say, 5 million people. Like, the industry is just shrinking overall, whereas you ha- if you look at, say, Facebook and its decline, then you had Instagram to sort of replace it. You have TikTok-

Trevor Noah 9:18 Yeah

Christian Rudder 9:18 ... and, like, social media is as strong as ever.

Speaker 9:20 Yeah, people are migrating to other places.

Christian Rudder 9:21 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."

Speaker 9:27 I give up.

Christian Rudder 9:28 Yeah, or whatever. I'm just gonna meet people at work, or, like, in real life, which is, you know, or, or through TikTok.

Speaker 9:33 Or not meeting people at all-

Christian Rudder 9:34 Right, or not meet, yeah

Speaker 9:34 ... if I speak about, like-

Christian Rudder 9:35 Exactly

Speaker 9:35 ... a lot of my friends who every one of my close girlfriends who's single, I get a text saying, "I'm quitting the apps."

Christian Rudder 9:42 Yeah.

Speaker 9:42 "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. [laughs]

Christian Rudder 9:49 Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the time.

Speaker 9:50 You know what I mean? So it's just, like, a lot of people just surrender to be like, "Maybe I won't meet somebody."

Christian Rudder 9:54 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 9:55 So I'll, I'll, I'll, speaking from personal experience, as someone who's used the apps, right? I'm young, Christiana.

Speaker 10:01 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 10:01 Not like you, not like you married people. I'm young.

Christian Rudder 10:03 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 10:04 As someone who's used the apps, I'll, I'll tell you what I think it is. I think oftentimes we'll make it seem like it's, um, 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-

Christian Rudder 10:20 Mm.

Speaker 10:20 Mm

Trevor Noah 10:20 ... because you can shop more.

Christian Rudder 10:22 Right.

Speaker 10:22 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 10:23 In the same way that, like, anything that allows you to do something more will make you do it more, right?

Speaker 10:27 Mm.

Trevor Noah 10:27 So once they made bigger bags of potato chips, people ate more potato chips.

Speaker 10:31 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 10:31 It's just, like, what we're gonna 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.

Speaker 10:47 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 10:47 And now someone said, "Hey, here's a app to help you find it. Here's the app that you're looking for," right?

Speaker 10:51 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 10:51 And so what you do is you then start to swipe. And in a weird way, I think a lot of people experience this. They go, "If I do it more, I'm more likely to get to my end goal."

Speaker 11:01 Mm.

Trevor Noah 11:02 You know?

Christian Rudder 11:02 Right.

Trevor Noah 11:02 Put in the work.

Speaker 11:03 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 11:03 Sure, sure, sure.

Trevor Noah 11:04 So you can't, like, swipe three people. What, you've only swiped three people?

Speaker 11:07 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 11:07 No, there could be more. Keep on going. Keep on-

Christian Rudder 11:09 Right. Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 11:10 And I think what it creates is a world where we've, we've applied efficiency to something that isn't efficient.

Speaker 11:15 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 11:15 Love isn't efficient.

Christian Rudder 11:16 Yeah.

Speaker 11:17 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 11:17 I definitely agree with that.

Trevor Noah 11:17 Connections 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.

Speaker 11:28 Mm. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 11:28 You know, like rocks bumping into each other-

Speaker 11:30 Yeah

Trevor Noah 11:30 ... in, like, a tumbler, and slowly over time we became pebbles in each other's lives.

Speaker 11:34 Mm.

Trevor Noah 11:34 But there was no, like, instant and all of a sudden-

Speaker 11:36 Mm

Trevor Noah 11:36 ... we're there, you know? And I, and I, and I, I actually, you know, I- I'm shocked that you're shocked that we wanted to have you on.

Speaker 11:42 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 11:43 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 11:44 No, because I'll, I'll tell you why. You took data that really no one had taken before, and you didn't just, you didn't just look at the d- the data, you synthesized it. And I, I ... You know, in, in your book Dataclysm, you wrote something really poignant for me, and you said, and I'll paraphrase it, so forgive me if I, if I butcher it. But essentially what you were saying was you were going, "For a long time in society, we've relied on how people feel." How they think and how they feel. So you, 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.

Christian Rudder 12:19 Right.

Trevor Noah 12:20 But-

Christian Rudder 12:20 Or how they wanna think that they think, right?

Trevor Noah 12:21 Exactly.

Speaker 12:21 Mm.

Trevor Noah 12:22 Exactly. But then data shows you what they feel.

Speaker 12:24 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 12:25 You know? Data doesn't show you w- like, you ... 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-

Speaker 12:36 Mm

Trevor Noah 12:36 ... 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."

Speaker 12:50 In particular, your work around racial preferences and dating-

Trevor Noah 12:55 Yes

Speaker 12:55 ... which was so illuminating to Black women, and it's, it- it sparked so much discourse [laughs] online.

Trevor Noah 12:59 It really has.

Christian Rudder 13:00 Yeah.

Speaker 13:00 You talked about how, um, Black women and Asian men were, like, the least matched.

Trevor Noah 13:06 Sure.

Speaker 13:06 And you were digging into that, and I, I don't wanna paraphrase you wrongly, but you c- you talk about, like, we can't take racism out this. There's no way of-

Trevor Noah 13:13 Yeah, you can't

Speaker 13:13 ... algorithmically-

Trevor Noah 13:14 Yeah

Speaker 13:14 ... gaming that, that the site just revealed how people really felt-

Trevor Noah 13:19 Yeah

Speaker 13:19 ... in ways that were, maybe some people felt before. Like, some Black women felt like, "Maybe I'm unl- lucky in love." Asian men felt, you know, "I'm being overlooked in ways." And you showed the data that proved that that was true.

Christian Rudder 13:31 Yeah, and, and, and that's very nice to hear-

Speaker 13:33 It-

Christian Rudder 13:33 ... 'cause, you know, like, publishing that stuff, it feels dicey to be talking about race-

Speaker 13:37 Yeah

Christian Rudder 13:37 ... in a public way, a white dude. It's not like I have any firsthand experience of any of this stuff, and we just decided to put it out there in the world. Um, 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-

Speaker 13:53 Yeah

Christian Rudder 13:53 ... of, like, you know, am I, whatever, my friends are having a different kind of experience than I am on your app.

Speaker 13:59 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 13:59 And this helps me understand why. Because it's n- 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.

Speaker 14:14 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 14:14 Um, and yeah, those were my favorite things to work on-

Speaker 14:18 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 14:18 ... uh, for sure, like, looking at how different racial groups message each other, how they, how they rate each other-

Speaker 14:22 Mm

Christian Rudder 14:22 ... so, like, swipe

Christian Rudder 14:23 left, swipe right. Um, what's interesting is y- it's, it's like that phenomenon, for example, of Black women getting fewer messages than, say, Asian or white women. Um, it, it's m- much less a thing outside the United States when you look at the data from-

Speaker 14:38 Oh, interesting

Christian Rudder 14:38 ... other places like the UK.

Trevor Noah 14:39 Yeah, the UK was like-

Speaker 14:40 Yeah

Trevor Noah 14:40 ... 98%, I think, if I remember correctly.

Christian Rudder 14:43 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 14:43 They were getting 98% of the messages.

Christian Rudder 14:44 Yeah, exactly.

Trevor Noah 14:45 And then in other parts, they were getting, like, 97-point-something percent.

Christian Rudder 14:47 Right. And just for your readers context or 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-

Speaker 14:57 Yeah

Christian Rudder 14:57 ... I'd say, from a, from Black women to a white woman.

Trevor Noah 14:59 Would, would you say that dating websites are the most honest space of data that tells us where society actually is?

Christian Rudder 15:07 I mean, o- obviously, I have, you know, skin in that game, so to speak. It's like I, I did so much work with it myself.

Trevor Noah 15:13 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 15:13 But I do think so because, like, there's no real incentive to, like, lie to, to, to the app itself. Like, you, you wanna find somebody that you're actually gonna be attracted to, so it, it, you, there's no pose. You know? You, 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 to, I don't know, just for example, pretend that you're really into-

Trevor Noah 15:41 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 15:41 ... Asian men if, if you're not.

Speaker 15:43 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 15:43 Because what happens when you do that, well, now you're on a date with a guy that you're not maybe that into-

Speaker 15:48 Mm

Christian Rudder 15:48 ... and it makes the app work less well for you.

Trevor Noah 15:50 Right.

Christian Rudder 15:51 So we, 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.

Trevor Noah 16:01 Yeah, yeah.

Christian Rudder 16:01 You know? Yeah. I don't, I don't know. I, I do think dating apps provide an incredible window into, into people's preferences.

Speaker 16:07 The thing I found illuminating was age.

Christian Rudder 16:10 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 16:10 Your work on age, how men, it was, like, 20-year-olds.

Christian Rudder 16:13 Yes.

Speaker 16:14 It didn't matter-

Trevor Noah 16:14 Just all the way down the line as well.

Christian Rudder 16:15 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 16:15 Okay. First of all, I don't like how you said that in, like, an accusatory way.

Speaker 16:17 [laughs] I, I think I said it in a curious way.

Trevor Noah 16:19 Your inflection. No, your inflection-

Speaker 16:21 I said it in a curious way

Trevor Noah 16:21 ... went accusatory.

Speaker 16:22 I'm trying to be less judgmental these days.

Christian Rudder 16:23 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 16:23 Your, your eyebrows are doing this to me, like, 20-year-olds.

Speaker 16:25 I, no, 'cause it was, like, women with age, I, I, I don't wanna get this wrong, but it was just, like, women, age corresponded with their age.

Christian Rudder 16:32 Sure. So like-

Speaker 16:33 So if they're, like, 25, they're into 25-year-olds. If they're 30-

Christian Rudder 16:35 Exactly

Speaker 16:36 ... it, it goes with time. Men, it didn't matter what age.

Christian Rudder 16:39 Right. But it-

Speaker 16:39 The average age was 20 in terms of attractiveness.

Christian Rudder 16:41 E- 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-

Trevor Noah 16:50 Yeah

Christian Rudder 16:50 ... right? So the app can kind of filter and show you stuff. So if you ask women, they give you the very sensible answer. If you're 30, you're maybe up, 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. They're like, "All right, cool. I'm good with this band."

Speaker 17:08 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 17:08 So both men and women answer that question more or less the same way.

Speaker 17:12 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 17:12 Like, what age are you into, if you ask them that.

Speaker 17:14 Mm.

Christian Rudder 17:14 But then if you look at who they actually go out and message, like you were saying-

Speaker 17:17 Mm

Christian Rudder 17:17 ... like, for women, well, they actually know themselves better. They're more honest with themselves. They're more honest with the app. Like, you know, if you're 25, you message 25-year-olds. If you're a 30-year-old-

Speaker 17:26 Mm

Christian Rudder 17:26 ... you message 30-year-olds. But men, yeah, like, like we were just saying, like, it's all 20-year-olds-

Speaker 17:30 Mm

Christian Rudder 17:30 ... even for 50-year-old dudes.

Trevor Noah 17:32 You've had to work so much with data, you know? And there's something you, you, you do in the book, and I'd love to know if you still have these opinions. Like, you, 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, use it like the, 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.

Speaker 18:01 Mm.

Trevor Noah 18:02 You know? So if you say, uh, the, I think the analogy you gave is, like, if you stand at the corner of, like, Fifth Avenue in New York, Fifth Avenue and, 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."

Speaker 18:15 Mm.

Christian Rudder 18:15 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 18:15 "And they all own a lot of Louis Vuitton," and that's New Yorkers.

Christian Rudder 18:18 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 18:18 It's like, no, but that's where you were measuring from.

Speaker 18:21 Mm.

Trevor Noah 18:21 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.

Christian Rudder 18:28 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 18:29 Right? And so let's, let's jump into this example. I, 'cause I wrecked my b- brain thinking about this. First of all, 'cause I defend men.

Speaker 18:36 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 18:36 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 18:37 I defend men fiercely, 'cause I know where Christiane is gonna go with this.

Christian Rudder 18:40 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 18:41 And I was like, "I have to fight-

Speaker 18:42 I do. I do

Trevor Noah 18:42 ... I have to fight for my brethren, right?"

Speaker 18:44 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 18:44 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 18:45 Mandom need me, right?

Speaker 18:46 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 18:47 So here, here's what I was, I was, I was intrigued by, and it's, I- I mean, jokes aside, in terms of defending.

Christian Rudder 18:52 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 18:53 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 man she wants?

Christian Rudder 19:16 Sure.

Trevor Noah 19:16 It seems to me there's a possibility that a woman, to exactly what you said, n- 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 will my friends say? I don't wanna come up with a 20, 25-year-old. I'm 40, I'm rolling up with, like, this little toy..."

Speaker 19:36 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 19:36 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 19:36 "To even the word toy boy."

Speaker 19:38 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 19:38 You know? "I'm rolling up with this little toy boy. What am I, a sugar mama?"

Speaker 19:41 Mm.

Trevor Noah 19:41 "And I, what does he know about the world? And what, is he gonna help me with my kids? He's one of my kids," and there's all these other frames. So but do you get what I'm saying? Like-

Christian Rudder 19:49 No, no, I mean, I do think there's something, to your point, about there, there's, like, some enablement of guys going after 20-year-old girls or liking them.

Trevor Noah 19:57 Yeah.

Speaker 19:57 Mm.

Christian Rudder 19:57 It's like fine if you're 40 and you're dating a 25-year-old.

Trevor Noah 19:59 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 19:59 I mean, 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.

Trevor Noah 20:09 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 20:10 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 i- 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.

Trevor Noah 20:47 Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Christian Rudder 20:47 And we stopped trying to guess what was gonna, you know, make people into pebbles or to, you know-

Trevor Noah 20:52 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Christian Rudder 20:52 ... 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-

Speaker 21:02 Yeah

Christian Rudder 21:03 ... um, through a computer, uh, at least yet. 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, 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-

Trevor Noah 21:23 Yeah, yeah.

Christian Rudder 21:23 Because they're hotter, I guess. And women don't do that.

Speaker 21:25 'Cause you were doing all of this machine learning stuff pre the AI advancements-

Christian Rudder 21:31 Mm-hmm

Speaker 21:31 ... we have now, which are, like, kind of mind-blowing-

Christian Rudder 21:34 Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure

Speaker 21:35 ... and terrifying and-

Christian Rudder 21:36 Definitely. Yeah, that's-

Speaker 21:36 You know, that's a different conversation.

Christian Rudder 21:38 Yeah.

Speaker 21:38 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 aren't expected?

Christian Rudder 21:49 I mean, if I were to start a new dating app, like, today, I, you would have to use some kind of AI.

Speaker 21:54 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 21:54 But I don't, again, I don't think I would try to make, you know, the perfect match. Have-

Speaker 21:58 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 21:58 ... you know, ChatGPT figure out exactly the right person for me in the world, 'cause I just think that's like a losing game. Like, I mean, we've all been set up by friends-

Speaker 22:06 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 22:06 ... that think, "Oh my God, Jenny's perfect for you. You gotta meet her," and, you know, you sit down and you're just like, "Ugh," or-

Speaker 22:11 Yeah

Christian Rudder 22:11 ... or whatever, and, or maybe she hates you, you know? Who knows?

Speaker 22:13 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 22:13 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-

Speaker 22:18 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 22:18 ... so that it can let you control mo- more of your own experience. Rather than making the algorithm stronger-

Speaker 22:24 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 22:24 ... I guess it makes your voice in the algorithm stronger.

Speaker 22:27 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 22:27 If that, does that make sense?

Speaker 22:27 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 22:28 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 22:28 Like that's what I'd like to see happen, um, because I think, kind of getting back to what we were saying a second ago, with the Tinders and Bumbles of the world, the algorithm is all powerful. It's just, like, to use your potato chip example is, like, if you think of Tinder as like an infinite can of Pringles, you're just taking one off the top-

Trevor Noah 22:45 Yeah.

Speaker 22:45 Yeah

Christian Rudder 22:45 ... and you sit and just eat.

Trevor Noah 22:45 Once you pop, you can't stop.

Christian Rudder 22:46 Right. [laughs]

Speaker 22:47 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 22:47 Exactly. So, like, and, and it just does all the work. It's the, it's the silo, right? Um, 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.

Trevor Noah 23:05 Yeah, yeah.

Christian Rudder 23:06 I think it'd be pretty cool.

Trevor Noah 23:07 We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break. You know, in, in a lot of the stuff you do, whether it's 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.

Christian Rudder 23:32 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 23:33 Right?

Christian Rudder 23:33 Well, thank you.

Trevor Noah 23:34 No, and I-

Speaker 23:34 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 23:34 No, it's fair.

Trevor Noah 23:35 No, but I, I notice this even in, in, in your writing. Your writing is full of doubt. Your writing is full of n- 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, it seems like you are cut from a different cloth, because now we live in a world where tech tells us they know everything.

Christian Rudder 23:58 Yeah.

Speaker 23:58 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 23:58 You know what I mean? Like, when you talk to Sam Altman-

Christian Rudder 24:01 Yeah

Trevor Noah 24:01 ... we had an episode with him on the podcast. Sam, I did not see, like, a, even, like, a hint of doubt. He was like, "AGI, baby. We're getting artificial general intelligence. It's gonna make the world better. No more cancer, no more poverty. We're doing it."

Speaker 24:13 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 24:13 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 24:13 And I was just like, "Wait, wait, wait."

Christian Rudder 24:14 So you're on the flip side.

Trevor Noah 24:15 Yeah. No, no, no, really.

Christian Rudder 24:16 Exactly.

Trevor Noah 24:16 He just has that. You, you approach that- ... differently. You, you have, like, a doubt. So I'd love to know, like, what doubts do you have about tech in dating?

Christian Rudder 24:26 Wow. Uh, 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-

Trevor Noah 24:37 Yeah

Christian Rudder 24:37 ... or just to know that if I don't like this person or choose not to talk to this person in front of me, well, there's always somebody else, chk-chk-chk-chk, and you can just go through. Like, it, that, I'm definitely can admit, that might not be healthy psychologically over, like, the 10 years of doing that or something.

Trevor Noah 24:52 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 24:52 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 gonna be a significant improvement in an algorithm that's gonna be better than people's, like, personal tastes, as, as you guys all know. Like, there's just style and, uh, all different kinds of things about a person that you just can't reduce, and hopefully never can reduce-

Speaker 25:15 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 25:16 ... to some radio buttons or whatever it is, [laughs] like, on a, on a phone. The one thing I like and am proud of, even still having, uh, 10 years of distance between me and working in the industry is, like, I, I love that 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, TikTok, the goal of all of those things, always, is just to get you to use TikTok more, right? Or, um, to eventually to make more money or whatever.

Trevor Noah 25:43 Just to keep you digital.

Speaker 25:43 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 25:43 Yeah. Like, yeah, keep you digital. Thank you. Twitter wants to keep you, or X, wants to keep you there, right? Arguing with someone if that's how it goes.

Trevor Noah 25:49 Uh-huh.

Christian Rudder 25:49 But whatever. Um, whereas Tinder, even the, the shallowest possible experience, the goal isn't, they don't want you, the people sitting in a 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?

Speaker 26:05 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 26:05 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.

Trevor Noah 26:12 Mm.

Christian Rudder 26:12 That it's, it's created, uh, you know, a lot of, a lot of frustration and a lot of, like, heartbreak and a lot of, I'm sure, very douchey behavior out there in the world.

Speaker 26:20 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 26:20 But it's also created families and, 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 on dating apps. They hated OkCupid at the time. We used to just, like, the complaints would just, like, pile up, you know?

Speaker 26:36 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 26:36 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 26:36 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 the thing. But it's cool that it does create something r- actual, real in the world, so.

Trevor Noah 26:48 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.

Christian Rudder 27:00 Yeah.

Speaker 27:01 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 27:01 But we don't realize that finding is the conclusion of searching.

Christian Rudder 27:03 Yeah.

Speaker 27:04 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 27:04 And the rejection component is obviously pretty heavy as well.

Speaker 27:06 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 27:06 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 27:06 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 27:06 Our little monkey brains love to finish a task.

Christian Rudder 27:09 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 27:10 So we love to know we got to the end of something.

Speaker 27:12 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 27:12 You know, it was a book. You know, there's that feeling, and you, you may not even realize you feel it.

Speaker 27:16 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 27:16 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.

Speaker 27:24 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 27:24 Yeah, the peace for sure.

Trevor Noah 27:25 It has ended.

Christian Rudder 27:26 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 27:27 Watch a TV show and see how you feel when they write, "To be continued."

Christian Rudder 27:30 [laughs]

Speaker 27:32 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 27:33 You, y- you don't live.

Speaker 27:33 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 27:34 If we're honest about it, you don't live. You, you, you, like, go into the world just a little, a little, like, left on edge, you know?

Christian Rudder 27:41 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 27:41 You, you, you don't, you don't have the, the, the, the... It's, it's the same, it's the same reason I feel like we have funerals.

Speaker 27:49 Yeah. They're like the finishing of it, I mean.

Trevor Noah 27:50 J- can I tell you, like, I, I remember when it was, when, when was my grandmother's funeral. I remember thinking, my whole life I 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, 'cause 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.

Speaker 28:11 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 28:12 It's like the, the final confirmation that this person is, in fact, no longer with us, and you're gonna see them go away to be no longer with us, right?

Speaker 28:19 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 28:19 Right.

Trevor Noah 28:20 So when you're on a dating app, and to your point, there's three more.

Christian Rudder 28:25 Right.

Speaker 28:26 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 28:26 Who would stop looking? Why would you stop looking?

Speaker 28:30 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 28:30 What kind of person would you be that you, you, you stopped? Whereas before it was like, "Who are you dating?"

Christian Rudder 28:35 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 28:35 "Oh, I'm dating Christiana." "Why?" "Well, she's the only girl in the village." [laughs]

Speaker 28:38 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 28:39 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 28:39 "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."

Christian Rudder 28:45 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 28:46 You were the, and then the village got a little bit bigger.

Christian Rudder 28:48 Sure.

Trevor Noah 28:48 And it got a little... But now we've made it infinite

Trevor Noah 28:50 as well. And so I wonder, like-

Christian Rudder 28:52 Yeah, it's hard to make, like, almost any decision you make feels like settling.

Trevor Noah 28:55 Yes.

Speaker 28:56 Yes.

Christian Rudder 28:56 Right?

Speaker 28:57 Yes.

Trevor Noah 28:57 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? 'Cause everything's about the money now.

Christian Rudder 29:08 Right, right.

Speaker 29:08 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 29:08 Right?

Christian Rudder 29:08 And I, and I think that's, like, uh, you know, uh, yeah. They're, they're all, like Grindr, Bumble, Tinder, which is all owned by Match, which also owns OkCupid and tons of other things. Like, yeah, they're all public companies.

Trevor Noah 29:22 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 29:22 IAC, which at that time owned Match and Tinder 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?"

Trevor Noah 29:35 Yes.

Christian Rudder 29:35 "How did you do this week?" Like, they're-

Trevor Noah 29:36 Quarterly earnings, baby

Christian Rudder 29:37 ... Oh, yeah, but it comes down to the day, like, information's 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.

Speaker 29:50 Yeah. I, I actually, on this new, this, this thought experiment we're doing with a, a new dating app, right? How does that look in this time where I think politically people are so polarized?

Trevor Noah 30:02 Yeah.

Speaker 30:02 'Cause, like, 10 years ago, if a woman goes on a date with a guy and he says he's a Republican, it means very different things in, like, a post-Roe v. Wade-

Trevor Noah 30:12 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Christian Rudder 30:12 Oh, for sure

Speaker 30:13 ... Red Hat universe. You sit across from a guy and he says he's a Republican, in the red pill of-

Christian Rudder 30:18 Right

Speaker 30:18 ... you're like-

Christian Rudder 30:19 Right. And they-

Speaker 30:20 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 30:20 ... that guy, theoretical guy would also probably be disgusted by a lib or whatever it-

Speaker 30:24 Yeah. How does that even look in this, like- Where people really wear their politics now in ways that I, I think can be quite cumbersome-

Christian Rudder 30:30 Right

Speaker 30:30 ... to just even fam- families don't even wanna get along-

Christian Rudder 30:33 Well, well I-

Speaker 30:33 ... let alone strangers.

Christian Rudder 30:34 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.

Speaker 30:45 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 30:45 But, like, at least as far as I know, you can't search by politics, just for example.

Speaker 30:49 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 30:50 Hinge, I think you can.

Speaker 30:51 Okay.

Trevor Noah 30:51 Is one of the few-

Christian Rudder 30:52 And Hinge, I think by no coincidence, is kind of ascendant now. It's passed-

Trevor Noah 30:55 They actually are

Christian Rudder 30:56 ... it's passed Bumble-

Trevor Noah 30:56 Yeah, they actually are doing better than-

Christian Rudder 30:57 As to be the number two.

Speaker 30:58 Oh, wow.

Trevor Noah 30:58 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 30:58 Kind of out of, out of really from nothing. Like, 2019-

Trevor Noah 31:01 Uh-huh

Christian Rudder 31:01 ... the app 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.

Speaker 31:12 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 31:12 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?"

Speaker 31:23 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 31:23 Is, like, a pretty complicated question.

Trevor Noah 31:24 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 31:25 And also, there are some religious people that don't care if their partner is religious, and there's some people-

Speaker 31:28 Yeah, I'm married to an atheist.

Christian Rudder 31:29 Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 31:29 And I'm a Christian. [laughs]

Christian Rudder 31:30 Yeah, exactly. Right. And so, and so neither of you, both of you are okay with the other way, right?

Speaker 31:34 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 31:35 And, and some people are very religious and need the other person to meet them there.

Speaker 31:39 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 31:39 Right? And you just have to start gathering that information, and then segmenting your matches, you know?

Speaker 31:45 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 31:46 Or, or maybe you find someone who's MAGA and is okay with someone who isn't, you know, for example.

Speaker 31:51 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 31:51 You know, people are unpredictable in some ways, so.

Trevor Noah 31:54 But the, the, 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, 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.

Christian Rudder 32:29 Right.

Speaker 32:29 Oh, wow.

Trevor Noah 32:30 And that became a greater determining factor for whether or not those people would actually get along. And I thought that was a beautiful insight into, like, how we see these things. Like you just said now, "Oh, I'm with an atheist, and it was 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 gonna be spirituality that comes into his life whether he likes it or not.

Speaker 32:53 I mean, my youngest daughter's always like, "Jesus."

Trevor Noah 32:56 Yeah. [laughs]

Speaker 32:56 My daughter's like, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus."

Trevor Noah 32:58 [laughs]

Speaker 32:59 "Amen, amen, amen."

Trevor Noah 33:00 But that's, but what I mean is, like, you, you ... I, I have yet to see a world where people are not affected by the people around them.

Christian Rudder 33:09 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 33:09 They rub off on you.

Speaker 33:10 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 33:10 Pa-

Speaker 33:10 He's made me more rat- like, interested in reason and all of that.

Trevor Noah 33:13 There you go.

Christian Rudder 33:14 Right.

Speaker 33:14 But what I would contribute to a witch now, I might, I say, you know, as you sp-

Trevor Noah 33:17 [laughs]

Speaker 33:18 You know, I just have a stomach virus. No one has cursed me. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 33:22 [laughs]

Speaker 33:22 So yeah, I think.

Trevor Noah 33:24 But yeah, and, and so, like, wh- when, when I look at that, I look at that work that you did there, right, and I see the data, I, 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 show that that wasn't true.

Christian Rudder 33:43 Right.

Trevor Noah 33:43 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.

Christian Rudder 33:51 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.

Trevor Noah 34:06 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 34:07 And then behind the scenes, the s- server or the algorithm can learn what actually makes a difference.

Trevor Noah 34:14 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 34:15 You know? And then act on that. Um, but unless you have that infor- and, you know, even in the kind of, like, primitive days of 2014 or whatever, we did tons of experiments and tests, and are, we're always sort of honing our, our match algorithm, until we decided we had it to where the best that we could get it. Um, but you have to start, you have to take in that information to make that even possible.

Trevor Noah 34:36 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 34:36 And, like, you might end up with unexpected sort of predictors of relationship success or at least conversational success-

Trevor Noah 34:41 Okay

Christian Rudder 34:41 ... which is all these apps can really ma- you know, m- manage or measure. But there are predictors, you know, like, like you just said, like how strongly you feel about politics does 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-

Trevor Noah 34:59 Yeah

Christian Rudder 34:59 ... that Hinge is bringing back a little of. Uh, and I think at some point another app will, will figure out a way to make that sort of palatable to a busy person on a phone today, um, to learn more about them and then figure out what is gonna matter in a, a relationship that person is gonna have.

Speaker 35:17 Yeah, 'cause I've-

Christian Rudder 35:18 Does that make sense?

Speaker 35:18 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 35:19 Yeah. Makes sense, actually.

Speaker 35:20 And, and this is where maybe algorithms could be quite useful. Like, maybe 'cause of, like, the culture I grew up in, I realize 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.

Trevor Noah 35:34 Okay.

Christian Rudder 35:34 Yeah.

Speaker 35:35 So, like-

Christian Rudder 35:36 Yeah, it's like a worldview thing almost.

Speaker 35:37 Yeah, it's like, it's like-

Christian Rudder 35:37 Yeah

Speaker 35:37 ... if you value, like, imagine it's family, kindness.

Trevor Noah 35:41 Oh, damn, I like this.

Speaker 35:42 Um-

Christian Rudder 35:42 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 35:43 So it's like if we both value money, number one-

Speaker 35:45 Yeah, money

Trevor Noah 35:45 ... we're more likely to get along.

Speaker 35:46 It's not just the values. Are, there's a match in values-

Trevor Noah 35:49 Yes

Speaker 35:49 ... and how we rank them. 'Cause often, like, I th- my cultural background, I saw that marriages that didn't work, it was the ranking of those values was a complete mismatch. So maybe the man-

Trevor Noah 35:58 Damn, I like this

Speaker 35:59 ... only cared about money.

Trevor Noah 36:00 Yeah.

Speaker 36:00 And the woman cared about family, right? But she also cares about money, but maybe money was, like, number five-

Trevor Noah 36:06 Yeah, yeah

Speaker 36:06 ... 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-

Christian Rudder 36:22 Yeah, that's what, like, computers are perfect for

Speaker 36:23 ... what, yeah, what are the values? What does Trevor value?

Trevor Noah 36:25 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 36:25 What does this imagined person?

Trevor Noah 36:27 Yeah.

Speaker 36:27 How do they rank them? Let's cause a match. And the reason arranged marriages, I think, were so suc- successful back in the day is because you're, you're in this very insular world. You're likely to have the same values-

Christian Rudder 36:38 Mm

Speaker 36:38 ... 'cause you're raised in similar environments.

Christian Rudder 36:41 Mm.

Speaker 36:41 But now in this world where it's like we're so global and po- cosmopolitan, we're porous, we're being influenced by different things just on our phone, and I think what an algorithm can then do-

Christian Rudder 36:51 Is, like, bring it back

Speaker 36:51 ... is bring-

Christian Rudder 36:52 Yeah

Speaker 36:52 ... do that work for you. 'Cause there's a thing I asked my husband [laughs] before we got married, was like, "What do you value?" He's like, "Oh, you know, family, um, kindness, community," da, da, da. And I was like, "Okay, so in those things, like-

Christian Rudder 37:03 Mm

Speaker 37:03 ... what do you feel most strongly about?" And when I parsed that out, we matched, even though, like, again, I'm not sure about dinosaurs, and this man- [laughs]

Christian Rudder 37:12 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 37:12 [laughs]

Speaker 37:13 ... is, like, very, very historical and science-based, right? But-

Christian Rudder 37:18 That's amazing.

Speaker 37:19 [laughs] But-

Christian Rudder 37:20 No, it works. Yeah

Speaker 37:20 ... ultimately, like, we both value family, community, and kindness, and we will hold ourselves to... And a sense of duty.

Christian Rudder 37:27 Right.

Speaker 37:27 So he's just like, I'm always like, "You're my best friend." He's like, "You're not my best friend. You're my wife. I can get rid of friends. I can't get rid of a wife." And I'm like, from a background where duty is a, I'm an eldest daughter, I take that duty so seriously.

Christian Rudder 37:38 Sounds like you and your husband both know yourselves really well-

Speaker 37:40 Yeah

Christian Rudder 37:40 ... 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.

Speaker 37:48 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 37:48 Kindness, religion, what- whatever it is.

Speaker 37:50 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 37:51 People can order little tiles just for the-

Speaker 37:52 Mm

Christian Rudder 37:52 ... our

Christian Rudder 37:53 mental model. But then over the course of maybe you continuing to use the app, you can ask, like, there's questions you can ask about family, for example-

Speaker 38:00 Mm

Christian Rudder 38:00 ... that will help us understand how important family actually is.

Speaker 38:04 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 38:04 How much time do you spend doing this or whatever, how often you talk to your mom.

Speaker 38:07 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 38:07 What, what-

Speaker 38:07 Would you let your mother-in-law move in with you?

Christian Rudder 38:09 Exactly.

Trevor Noah 38:10 Oh.

Speaker 38:10 Theoretically.

Christian Rudder 38:10 You could ask these, like, sort of components of that value, right? And kind of get insofar as y- you can approximate the, the observed, like, the real truth behind-

Trevor Noah 38:20 Mm

Christian Rudder 38:20 ... whatever this person's saying, 'cause most people probably will say family or whatever-

Speaker 38:23 Mm

Christian Rudder 38:23 ... because they think of themselves as a good person. And generally, that's-

Speaker 38:26 Mm

Christian Rudder 38:26 ... kind of how society works, right? Um, and then you can kind of have a, the, the sort of true value ranking underneath the hood, and then, then you'd also have a third measure, and now you'd know how well that person knows themselves, too. You'd have-

Speaker 38:38 Yeah

Christian Rudder 38:39 ... what they say their values are, what their kind of inf- inferred values are, and then how well those two things match. It would be an interesting way to understand somebody.

Trevor Noah 38:47 How much do you think, what a, I, I, 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, in the early stages of OkCupid, the picture was really tiny.

Christian Rudder 39:08 Yeah, it was tiny. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 39:08 It was a tiny, tiny picture.

Speaker 39:10 Mm.

Trevor Noah 39:10 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.

Christian Rudder 39:21 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 39:21 And then when the picture blew up, all of a sudden, the attractive people got way more interest.

Christian Rudder 39:27 Yeah, they get, like, more leverage on the pixel, so to speak.

Trevor Noah 39:29 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Christian Rudder 39:29 Right? Yeah. I mean, it's definitely affected it, I think, in a lot of ways. The focus on photos on, on dating apps for sure is, is a negative thing. Like, um, there, like we've said a couple times here, there's so much more to a person than, I, 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.

Speaker 39:50 Mm.

Christian Rudder 39:51 And-

Trevor Noah 39:51 Wait, you turned the pictures off?

Christian Rudder 39:52 Off. Like, totally off.

Trevor Noah 39:53 On the... Okay.

Christian Rudder 39:54 Yeah, this was, like, 2013 maybe. Really as an experiment.

Trevor Noah 39:57 Right.

Christian Rudder 39:57 Just shut them all down, all the, all the thumbnails. Everything went away.

Trevor Noah 39:59 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 40:00 And as you'd expect, like, the messaging environment was actually a lot healthier. Um, definitely attract- attractiveness wasn't a component, because you couldn't tell what the person looked like that you were trying to talk to. At the same time, people hated it. Uh, and we got so much feedback that day. Uh, we knew we were gonna turn them back on, but people were just freaking out, um, even though we explained it wasn't broken, we were doing this on purpose. And it just, people are visual, and they kind of have, we, yeah, they, they, they have to have the photo. So it's like you kinda gotta meet them-

Trevor Noah 40:28 You have to meet them

Christian Rudder 40:29 ... 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 would take a photo and we would scramble it digitally, right?

Speaker 40:43 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 40:44 This is so stupid in retrospect.

Speaker 40:45 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 40:46 But, but, like, you know, we, we thought that you could have a scrambled photo and you, people could browse, and-

Speaker 40:51 Mm

Christian Rudder 40:51 ... you know, you could, you would learn a lot more about people, and you could set it. It was, it was very slightly Pretender. So it was, like, a little bit more immediate. You could see the scrambled photo on somebody and maybe even go see them that night, meet them that night. It was a total bomb. Like-

Speaker 41:03 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 41:04 ... um-

Trevor Noah 41:05 You had, like, what, 10,000 people, I think, who tried it.

Christian Rudder 41:07 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 41:07 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 41:07 Well, we had, we had a quarter million downloads, and it was, like, 10,000 dates or something like that.

Trevor Noah 41:11 Right.

Christian Rudder 41:11 So yeah, it was just, it just was terrible. And yeah, people just don't, they're just not up for it, you know?

Speaker 41:17 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 41:17 Um-

Trevor Noah 41:18 But what I, 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-

Christian Rudder 41:31 Yeah

Trevor Noah 41:31 ... didn't message anyone.

Speaker 41:32 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 41:32 Then at some point it became normal.

Christian Rudder 41:33 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 41:34 It was, like, almost at the same rates of messaging. And then people actually started exchanging numbers, and people-

Speaker 41:38 Yeah

Trevor Noah 41:38 ... started hooking up, and et cetera. And this is only in, like, a space of, I don't know, 24, 48 hours or something like that.

Christian Rudder 41:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 41:43 It's a tiny-

Christian Rudder 41:43 Yeah

Trevor Noah 41:43 ... amount, 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. [laughs]

Christian Rudder 41:54 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 41:54 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 41:55 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 41:55 Yeah, it was like the, it was like the lights coming on at last call or whatever, wherever.

Speaker 41:58 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 41:58 And it's like, whoa.

Trevor Noah 41:59 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 42:00 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 42:01 Yo, that was my favorite story.

Christian Rudder 42:02 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 42:02 I was just like, wait, what? [laughs]

Christian Rudder 42:03 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.

Trevor Noah 42:10 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 42:11 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 42:11 Picture came on-

Speaker 42:12 That's funny

Trevor Noah 42:12 ... and people were like, nope.

Speaker 42:13 Oh, my God.

Christian Rudder 42:13 Yeah.

Speaker 42:14 And this leads me, see, I love this imaginary app we're making, right? Because when I was on the apps long be- [laughs] before, I've been married, like, I don't know, seven, eight years now, um, I remember feeling that- The men being on Instagram was really shaping how they thought women should look in real life.

Trevor Noah 42:36 Yeah, definitely.

Christian Rudder 42:37 Yeah, sure, yeah.

Speaker 42:37 Does that make sense?

Christian Rudder 42:38 Oh, definitely, yeah.

Speaker 42:39 Because also, you- men are seeing more hot people than they've ever seen before.

Christian Rudder 42:44 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 42:44 Yeah, yeah.

Christian Rudder 42:44 Yeah.

Speaker 42:44 Women, too. Like, I, I look, I'm like, "My God, she's gorge-"

Christian Rudder 42:46 Sure.

Trevor Noah 42:46 Yeah, yeah.

Christian Rudder 42:47 Yeah, no, definitely.

Speaker 42:47 You're just scrolling all these beautiful people. And I think it changed dating because it was just like, I can actually ... There's physically somebody that's fine-tuned to what I precisely want, and I, I f- definitely, you know, um, Jia, who was on this show-

Christian Rudder 43:04 Yeah

Speaker 43:04 ... who wrote Instagram Face, talked about, like, the proliferation of this beauty standard on Instagram-

Christian Rudder 43:09 Yeah

Speaker 43:09 ... changing what p- women did in real life with their bodies and their faces to match this beauty standard.

Christian Rudder 43:14 Yeah.

Speaker 43:14 And I'm interested 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-

Christian Rudder 43:25 [laughs]

Speaker 43:27 Right?

Christian Rudder 43:27 Oh, this is interesting.

Speaker 43:28 Man or even a woman's use of certain sites informing how they behave, 'cause you know, I know all the apps talk to each other, and they're spying on us.

Christian Rudder 43:36 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 43:36 [laughs]

Speaker 43:37 No, you c- you never did that.

Christian Rudder 43:38 Yeah, no.

Trevor Noah 43:39 [laughs]

Speaker 43:39 But, like, then create this machine learning algorithmic 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 destroyed."

Christian Rudder 43:54 Yeah, right. A clean mind.

Speaker 43:55 So you ... Yeah.

Christian Rudder 43:56 Yeah. Um, I mean, may- that might work. Something that gets very hard is when the app tries to do something, tries to change people's behavior.

Speaker 44:04 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 44:05 Um, 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-

Speaker 44:11 Yeah

Christian Rudder 44:11 ... at the very beginning, and be like, "Well, why, why can't you guys do more to make, again, Asian men more attractive to white women or whatever it is," you know?

Speaker 44:20 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 44:20 And the fact is, you c- 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 however many hours scrolling through Instagram. Super hard to undo that. Um, and also, if you don't deliver to people what at least they think they want-

Speaker 44:39 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 44:40 ... they're just gonna leave. It's not like you have to use-

Trevor Noah 44:42 Yeah

Christian Rudder 44:42 ... a, a dating app or Tinder or whatever.

Speaker 44:45 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 44:45 You just do something else. And, and so like, if you're showing, uh, some guy's been on Instagram hardcore-

Speaker 44:50 Yeah

Christian Rudder 44:50 ... and is looking for that look, and you're like, "Hey, man, check this out. This is better," however you want to frame that.

Speaker 44:55 Yeah, this is different.

Christian Rudder 44:56 This is different.

Speaker 44:56 Which, which you may also find attractive.

Christian Rudder 44:57 I think, oh, I think I really like her.

Speaker 44:59 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 44:59 Some people might be up for that kind of thing.

Speaker 45:00 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 45:00 But a lot of dudes are just gonna be like, "But all the girls in here are ugly. I'm out." You know what I mean?

Speaker 45:03 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 45:04 And 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-

Speaker 45:13 Yeah

Christian Rudder 45:13 ... right? But, but, but otherwise, you just end up with a situation where people are gone.

Speaker 45:19 That's so interesting to me, 'cause I've always felt, and the public discussion is that the- these apps are changing our behavior.

Christian Rudder 45:27 Oh, I think that's definitely true.

Speaker 45:28 And they can-

Christian Rudder 45:29 That's definitely true

Speaker 45:30 ... de- like, it's making you angrier. It's making you argue more.

Christian Rudder 45:33 Yep.

Speaker 45:33 It's showing you this stuff, and-

Christian Rudder 45:35 But it's like almost in unpredictable ways. Like, I think-

Speaker 45:38 Okay

Christian Rudder 45:38 ... I, I don't know any of the founders of, say, Twitter or-

Speaker 45:41 Yeah

Christian Rudder 45:41 ... or, or Facebook, but I think if you had asked them in 2006 or whatever, "Is Facebook gonna make people really angry, and is it gonna become the world's, like, greatest propaganda tool of all time?" Mark Zuckerberg probably would've been like, "What are you talking about? I don't want that. I just wanna, like, have..." He probably genuinely wanted friends to meet friends or whatever-

Speaker 45:57 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 45:57 ... or make money-

Speaker 45:58 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 45:58 ... you know, and be powerful, which a lot of people are like that. Um, apps definitely change the world, so I definitely wouldn't say that. Um, they change behavior. But there has to be some component of them that is delivering what, what those people want. Yeah, they, like, amplify-

Speaker 46:14 The culture, amplifying

Christian Rudder 46:15 ... the crap that you already bring to the table.

Trevor Noah 46:16 Yes.

Speaker 46:16 Culturally-

Trevor Noah 46:16 Yeah

Speaker 46:17 ... we already are. Like, it's-

Christian Rudder 46:19 Yeah

Speaker 46:19 ... you know.

Trevor Noah 46:20 Don't go anywhere, 'cause we got more What Now? after this. [upbeat music] 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?

Christian Rudder 46:39 I d- I definitely try to live more by intuition and, and just-

Trevor Noah 46:43 Oh, that's interesting.

Christian Rudder 46:44 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-

Speaker 46:50 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 46:50 ... a computer program that's gonna predict with any real defensible s- set of s- uh, uh, certainty, like, who person A is, which, which of all the person Bs out there who A is gonna love, you know?

Trevor Noah 47:02 Yeah.

Speaker 47:02 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 47:03 I just don't think it's possible. And I think there's just a lot more to life, I mean, hopefully for, you know, maybe for not that much longer, but like, the, the, the, the-

Speaker 47:11 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 47:12 ... than, than, like, a phone or whatever, you know? And, and the internet for sure. And so

Christian Rudder 47:16 I just, I really try to st- I honestly, I am one of those tech people who try to stay away from all of that stuff. I, I like the, like, ability of data to, like, tell stories, was actually just working with my child on an assignment about the Beatles evolution as songwriters. And, you know, we have A Hard Day's Night from '64, Sgt. 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 of the instrumentation and the chord changes. And you can actually quantify it. It was like a little mini data clism. It was fun to do.

Speaker 47:47 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 47:47 Um, so I do enjoy that stuff. But back to one of your points, like, I think you, you can be overly certain about a lot of things if you're just looking at numbers. 'Cause numbers aren't very subtle, right? They're, 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?

Speaker 48:05 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 48:06 You can try, and you can pretend that, like, a 9.3 really captures how attractive someone is.

Trevor Noah 48:12 Right.

Christian Rudder 48:12 But we all know that's not really true, right?

Speaker 48:13 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 48:13 Like, two 9.3s, there's gonna be a different opinion from every person that sees these two theoretically identical people, right? Um, so I just, yeah, I, I think that's ... I, I also try to stay away from that, from data for that sense of, the false sense of certainty about things too.

Trevor Noah 48:29 What, what do you think it was that you got from the data that made you wanna share- ... the data with the world. 'Cause that's, that's something I found anomalous. Uh, one, because it had never been done before, and then two, because it hasn't been done since.

Christian Rudder 48:42 Yeah, it was a weird time.

Speaker 48:43 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 48:43 I, of, like-

Trevor Noah 48:43 It, it's interesting to me-

Christian Rudder 48:44 Yeah

Trevor Noah 48:44 ... 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-

Speaker 48:56 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 48:56 ... relationships, on race, on gender, on age.

Christian Rudder 49:00 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 49:00 Way bigger than any Gallup or Pew Re-

Christian Rudder 49:02 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 49:03 'Cause those are like a few hundred people, thousand people if you're lucky.

Speaker 49:06 Also accurate. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 49:06 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 49:06 Right. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 49:07 And this is, and this is-

Speaker 49:07 Accurate

Trevor Noah 49:08 ... like, that's what I mean. But, like, what made you put it out? Because, you know, Facebook guards it w- with their lives.

Christian Rudder 49:14 Yeah.

Speaker 49:14 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 49:14 Until they-

Speaker 49:14 Yeah

Trevor Noah 49:14 ... testify in front of Congress-

Speaker 49:16 Yeah

Trevor Noah 49:16 ... they don't tell us any of their data.

Christian Rudder 49:17 Right.

Trevor Noah 49:17 We, you know, we only find out they knew that Instagram-

Speaker 49:19 Mm

Trevor Noah 49:19 ... was bad for young girls-

Christian Rudder 49:20 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 49:21 ... when they're in trouble.

Speaker 49:22 Do you know who else tells us the truth?

Trevor Noah 49:23 Who?

Speaker 49:23 Pornhub.

Trevor Noah 49:25 Oh, Pornhub does.

Christian Rudder 49:25 Oh, yeah. They do that.

Speaker 49:26 The, the, the people that are, yeah-

Christian Rudder 49:26 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 49:26 Yeah. They'll tell you-

Speaker 49:27 That's just the only people-

Trevor Noah 49:28 Yeah

Speaker 49:28 ... who are like, "People in-

Trevor Noah 49:29 Yeah

Speaker 49:29 ... Nigeria are searching this."

Trevor Noah 49:30 Yeah, this is actually what you're searching.

Speaker 49:31 "Red and blue people are the same."

Trevor Noah 49:33 Yeah.

Speaker 49:33 They all, like, you know-

Christian Rudder 49:34 Yeah, which is true. Yeah

Speaker 49:34 ... they're into the same thing.

Trevor Noah 49:35 Yeah.

Speaker 49:35 That's the only other place, like, we get that honesty.

Trevor Noah 49:37 Yeah, but what-

Christian Rudder 49:38 Yeah

Trevor Noah 49:38 ... what do you think it was?

Speaker 49:39 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 49:39 What, like, what were you hoping to achieve by revealing something that has been kept secret for so long?

Christian Rudder 49:44 I, you know, and I, I guess there was, like, that period, 2009, 2010, where data seemed revelatory, and this is pre-Cambridge Analytica-

Speaker 49:52 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 49:52 ... and, and the c- whole kind of engineering of the first Trump candidacy-

Trevor Noah 49:56 Uh-huh

Christian Rudder 49:56 ... and fake news and all of that stuff. And, and there was just ki- I was, like, it sounds corny, it was, like, a hopeful period, I guess, for the internet, you know? There was, like-

Trevor Noah 50:02 Oh, hope and change

Christian Rudder 50:03 ... Airbnb. Yeah.

Speaker 50:04 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 50:05 Uber. You mean I can just get a car and not have to, like, wait 20 minutes?

Trevor Noah 50:08 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 50:08 You know what I mean?

Speaker 50:08 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 50:08 Like, that whole vibe, especially in New York, was, it's just different. And so the, we had all this data. We thought it was really interesting about how pe- what people thought was attractive, about how different races would interact on our, on our website or our app. And, you know, we, 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 a billion dollar whatever, trillion dollar company maybe now. They, 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 [laughs] now.

Trevor Noah 50:42 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 50:42 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 50:43 And so it w-

Trevor Noah 50:43 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 50:43 ... so it was, like, mostly weird, even in-

Trevor Noah 50:45 Yeah

Christian Rudder 50:45 ... 2010, you know? And so we figured it would just be, it would be interesting. It was, like, the perfect, like, cocktail party conversation.

Trevor Noah 50:52 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 50:52 You know? And yeah, it was, it was, I guess it was just, like, um, it was, like, a view into people that was just only coming into existence, you know? And the internet obviously had been around for a while.

Speaker 51:05 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 51:05 But, like, there weren't websites that did the kinds of things that we were doing until 2010 or whatever.

Speaker 51:10 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 51:10 And so, um, you couldn't have learned these things in 1999, uh, even though the internet existed then. And, like, w- 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-

Speaker 51:23 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 51:23 ... and make fun of ourselves. Um, yeah, I don't know. It's, it's weird, though, to look back because it totally, the door completely closed-

Trevor Noah 51:30 Yeah.

Speaker 51:30 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 51:30 ... basically right after Dataclysm came out. And that was one blind spot in the book where it's, I was thinking about this on the way over here. The entire tone of the book is, like, how interesting data is, how great it is, about it could lead to these different understandings of couples, of people-

Speaker 51:44 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 51:45 ... of systems, whatever. But, you know, come 2015, 2016, I was completely ignorant of the fact that data could be used... It, it always had a marketing component for Facebook or whatever. You al- 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, en masse to people-

Trevor Noah 52:04 Mm

Christian Rudder 52:04 ... as it, as it was in 2014, '15, '16 by, like, Cambridge Analytica and Steve Bannon, and it still to this day is going on.

Trevor Noah 52:11 Yeah, now it's full on.

Christian Rudder 52:12 Right. Exactly.

Trevor Noah 52:12 Yeah.

Speaker 52:12 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 52:12 And so, like, it just never occurred to me that you could have these macro political changes, for example, through data, and through these algorithms, they could be manipulated in that way. Um, so you know, I, and I, I, in some ways, maybe it's good that these companies are locking their stuff up because then nobody else can go... I, I don't know if I would want Facebook to publish, publish all of their data, because then people could go-

Trevor Noah 52:36 Oh, that's interesting

Christian Rudder 52:37 ... manipulate more people that way.

Trevor Noah 52:38 Oh, that's interesting.

Christian Rudder 52:38 I guess. I don't know.

Trevor Noah 52:38 Because you, you think n- when we know the data behind something, we're then more able to go in and manipulate those weak points.

Christian Rudder 52:46 Right. Exactly. Yeah. The, which you can then go spin or, or whatever.

Speaker 52:49 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 52:50 Yeah.

Speaker 52:50 What I did love about your book, um, is for me, reading the data and stuff, it made me think about how we can, like, interrogate our choices. Like, 'cause the data is, like, this truth s- s- telling us things about ourselves that we deny. It made me think about when I look at my screen time use on my iPhone, [laughs] and when it's just, like, just shows me the hours, you know, like-

Christian Rudder 53:11 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 53:11 You have the colors and the bl-

Trevor Noah 53:13 Yeah, yeah

Speaker 53:13 ... you're like, "I spent that much time on Instagram."

Trevor Noah 53:15 Yeah.

Speaker 53:15 You see it. It shows you yourself-

Trevor Noah 53:17 It does. It does

Speaker 53:17 ... in a way.

Christian Rudder 53:18 And it helps you be real with yourself, too, right?

Speaker 53:20 Be real with yourself.

Christian Rudder 53:20 Which is, like, always good.

Speaker 53:21 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 53:21 You know? Yeah.

Speaker 53:21 And I think culturally, we can be quite delusional.

Christian Rudder 53:24 Yes.

Speaker 53:24 Like, ev- every side is very high-minded right now. Every side has got it right.

Trevor Noah 53:28 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 53:28 But what data just says, "Well, this is what you say, and this is, like, what you're actually doing," and it leaves you to just interrogate your choices, whether you change or not.

Christian Rudder 53:36 Right.

Speaker 53:36 I still think that's a useful exercise.

Christian Rudder 53:37 Yeah, I mean, the first step to change is gonna be to do the interrogation, right?

Speaker 53:40 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 53:40 So yeah, like, I'm the same way, too. I'll, uh, um, whatever, f- screen time, and you're like, "Goddammit," and then you go and do the same thing. But at least it's there.

Speaker 53:47 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 53:48 At least you understand what's going on, what you're doing.

Speaker 53:49 It's undeniable.

Christian Rudder 53:50 Yeah, right.

Speaker 53:50 Like, I can't lie to myself.

Christian Rudder 53:50 You can't, like, argue with your phone. Right.

Speaker 53:52 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 53:52 Exactly, so yeah, I, I like that part about it, for sure.

Trevor Noah 53:55 The one part of it is deniable. I have, I have a qualm with them. Um, if you have your phone open on, like, CarPlay-

Speaker 54:01 Yeah

Trevor Noah 54:01 ... or if you-

Christian Rudder 54:02 Oh

Trevor Noah 54:02 ... it counts it as screen time-

Christian Rudder 54:04 Right

Trevor Noah 54:04 ... but it's not screen time.

Speaker 54:05 Oh.

Trevor Noah 54:05 Yeah, so let's say you're navigating.

Speaker 54:07 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 54:08 It counts that as screen time, and for me, that's not what I mean by screen time.

Speaker 54:11 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 54:11 I don't want you to tell me, "Trevor, you used your phone for four hours today." Yeah, I drove for four hours.

Christian Rudder 54:15 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 54:16 Now I'm sitting there depressed because I think-

Speaker 54:18 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 54:18 'Cause no, that's the other side of data that we have to be careful of.

Christian Rudder 54:20 Sure.

Speaker 54:20 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 54:20 Right? We have to be careful about.

Speaker 54:21 That's true. That's true.

Trevor Noah 54:21 I think of how many people, data has made them th- uh, 10,000 steps. It, it's n- it's not true. It's not a real thing.

Speaker 54:28 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 54:28 Yes, walk And better, it's better to walk more than to walk less. Eight glasses of- where's the data? It's not the data that-

Speaker 54:34 Yeah

Trevor Noah 54:34 ... do- do you get what I'm saying?

Speaker 54:35 What's the dark side of it? I like, I, I have, um, a little baby, and we use a, um, a monitor, which I won't promote the company, 'cause they didn't give it to me for free.

Trevor Noah 54:43 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 54:44 [laughs]

Speaker 54:44 But basically, it tells me her heart rate, her oxygen saturation, tells me how long she sleeps for.

Trevor Noah 54:52 Yo, what? It-

Speaker 54:53 Yeah, oxygen sat-

Christian Rudder 54:53 Is that, like, a pad that she sleeps on?

Speaker 54:54 No, it's on, it's, no, it's on her foot.

Christian Rudder 54:56 Oh, wow.

Trevor Noah 54:56 This is insane.

Speaker 54:57 It's on her foot, yeah. Oxygen saturation. It tells me, um, if she's having wiggly sleep, it tells me if she's having, like, restless sleep. It tells me when she's in deep sleep, and this is, like, the dark side of data.

Christian Rudder 55:09 Yeah, I was gonna say-

Speaker 55:09 'Cause-

Christian Rudder 55:09 ... do you find that useful? That just seems anxiety-inducing.

Speaker 55:11 Oh, I'm paranoid. I'm always worried my babies are gonna die, so I like-

Christian Rudder 55:14 Okay.

Trevor Noah 55:14 [laughs]

Speaker 55:14 I like-

Christian Rudder 55:14 She is-

Trevor Noah 55:15 [laughs]

Speaker 55:15 Yeah, Trevor knows me.

Christian Rudder 55:16 Okay, all right, fine.

Speaker 55:16 I'm like a hypochondriac.

Christian Rudder 55:17 All right.

Speaker 55:17 So I like l- 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'd look at him, I'd be like, "Oh, he seems a bit cranky." Now, my immediate instinct is like-

Trevor Noah 55:33 Yes

Speaker 55:33 ... let me go into this app. Some- 'cause sometimes it'll tell me she's wiggly on that, the app, and I'll go upstairs.

Trevor Noah 55:38 Huh.

Christian Rudder 55:38 Right.

Speaker 55:39 Where- whereas I would probably just leave her to be wiggly, wake up. She'd maybe cry a bit, and go back to sleep.

Christian Rudder 55:45 Right.

Speaker 55:45 Like, that's probably what would've happened in my mother's time.

Trevor Noah 55:47 Right, right, right.

Speaker 55:48 But now I have this app that I'm looking at, oh my God, she's got 98% oxygen saturation, which is perfect.

Trevor Noah 55:53 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 55:54 [laughs]

Speaker 55:54 Why is it not 100? Now I have this information-

Christian Rudder 55:57 Yeah

Speaker 55:57 ... that is actually-

Christian Rudder 55:58 No, it can be confusing and-

Speaker 55:58 ... not so re- yes

Christian Rudder 55:59 ... yeah.

Speaker 55:59 Confusing.

Christian Rudder 56:00 Yeah.

Speaker 56:00 It's actually making me more paranoid, and-

Christian Rudder 56:02 Yeah, I know what you mean by that

Speaker 56:02 ... I think from a, that that's how this hyper data world can, like, be quite dark for parents.

Trevor Noah 56:08 I, I would actually love to know, so when you're designing an app, we're all users. Most people have used a dating app.

Speaker 56:16 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 56:16 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?

Christian Rudder 56:28 That, that is a great question, and that's something I think most people don't really-

Speaker 56:31 Mm

Christian Rudder 56:31 ... they, they don't understand how, how the, the back end of these things works. 'Cause, like, also we have to think about the person that we're, like, their experience too, right?

Trevor Noah 56:39 Yes.

Speaker 56:39 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 56:39 Like, the-

Trevor Noah 56:40 The person we're showing

Christian Rudder 56:40 ... the woman that we're showing you.

Speaker 56:41 Sure, yeah.

Christian Rudder 56:41 Yeah, exactly. So one of the very first things we learned about having a dating site is that there's this thing we call the focus problem. So guys just wanna see the hottest women, right? And so if you just go by what the guys are sort of telling you they want, they wanna see the highest rated women in just a giant stack or-

Trevor Noah 56:59 Yes

Christian Rudder 56:59 ... grid or whatever it is.

Trevor Noah 57:01 Right.

Christian Rudder 57:01 But if you go and do that, and you kind of, uh, 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 10s, now you're left with nines and eights-

Trevor Noah 57:19 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 57:19 ... and so forth, and you end up in this death spiral. Because also, the guys don't get any messages back.

Trevor Noah 57:22 Hmm.

Christian Rudder 57:23 So you have to kind of look at it as a, as a pair of people always, not just

Christian Rudder 57:28 what are we doing for Trevor today. It's like, what are we doing for Trevor and this person, and Trevor and this person.

Trevor Noah 57:31 So everyone is in relation to another person.

Christian Rudder 57:33 Yeah, you have to think of it like that because otherwise, you know, I, I, we could show you the n hottest women in the database, but that's not gonna be good for you ultimately-

Speaker 57:43 Mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 57:43 ... and it's definitely not gonna be good for them if we do it for everybody, right?

Trevor Noah 57:45 Right.

Christian Rudder 57:46 We, w- and I think most apps do this at this point, too. Uh, w- we would do sort of, like, um, a, a hotness sort of collar. So if you're, uh, an eight or whatever, like-

Trevor Noah 57:57 This is picture, just on the picture, right?

Christian Rudder 57:59 Yeah, this would, this would be one of the components.

Trevor Noah 58:00 Right.

Christian Rudder 58:00 We, we would, we would show you nines, eights, and sevens, with maybe a few tens and maybe some fives and whatevers, you know, just to really reduce people. Um, 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.

Trevor Noah 58:18 Huh.

Christian Rudder 58:18 And then we would also throw in information, um, you know, like the m- kind of classic matching stuff of, like, you know, how important is religion to you, or how important is politics or whatever.

Trevor Noah 58:25 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 58:25 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-

Trevor Noah 58:32 Mm

Christian Rudder 58:32 ... and then we would throw in a healthy dose of just, like, randomness. You, you can't just give people what they want, um, 'cause your app will explode. You'll end up with this focus problem thing-

Speaker 58:39 Mm

Christian Rudder 58:40 ... where you're just showing everybody. You know, women like seeing hot people, too-

Speaker 58:43 Mm

Christian Rudder 58:43 ... and you'd have the same problem sort of in reverse. Um, so you've got to be careful and manage your, your stack of profiles if you're doing it that way.

Trevor Noah 58:51 I've always been interested by how y- you know, the data shows us that most people grade other people's attractiveness by where they think their attractiveness is.

Speaker 59:01 [laughs] It's funny.

Christian Rudder 59:02 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 59:02 Just generally, like, every, 'cause everyone will... A- 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.

Christian Rudder 59:08 Sure, sure, sure.

Trevor Noah 59:09 And then some people will be, like, overly sort of fake about it. "No, I, I don't even see whether someone-

Christian Rudder 59:13 Don't even see, yeah, that's, that's a whole thing

Trevor Noah 59:14 ... to be honest with you, until I know them, I don't"

Christian Rudder 59:16 Yeah. [laughs]

Speaker 59:16 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 59:16 Whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. But for the most part, when you just look at the data and the honesty, get it away from what people tell you-

Christian Rudder 59:23 Yeah

Trevor Noah 59:23 ... there is generally that band-

Christian Rudder 59:25 Yeah

Speaker 59:25 Yeah

Trevor Noah 59:25 ... where people go, "Oh, no, I'm out of their league."

Christian Rudder 59:28 Right, exactly.

Trevor Noah 59:28 And, "Uh-uh, they're out of my league."

Christian Rudder 59:29 My league.

Speaker 59:29 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 59:30 So okay, let me ask, let me ask you then a few things before we let you go. It's like, um, 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.

Christian Rudder 59:43 Right.

Trevor Noah 59:45 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 their hookups-

Speaker 59:52 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 59:52 ... not maximize-

Christian Rudder 59:53 Sure, sure

Trevor Noah 59:53 ... you know, but just-

Christian Rudder 59:54 Something real

Trevor Noah 59:55 ... like, yeah, something real where you go like, "Oh, hey, you know this thing you..." So let's start with, like, the picture.

Christian Rudder 1:00:00 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:00:01 Is it better for somebody to have a Photoshop picture? Is it better for them to have a pic, group picture-

Speaker 1:00:06 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:00:06 ... a sunset picture, a silhouette pic-

Christian Rudder 1:00:08 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:00:08 ... w- w- let's start with that, just like the most basic thing.

Christian Rudder 1:00:10 Definitely wouldn't do group. That just introduces the logistical problem of trying to figure out who you're messaging, right?

Speaker 1:00:15 [laughs] Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:00:15 Okay. Some people love the group one.

Christian Rudder 1:00:17 That, I know. I always think it's a mistake.

Trevor Noah 1:00:19 I'm always intrigued by that.

Christian Rudder 1:00:19 Yeah.

Speaker 1:00:19 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 1:00:19 It's, I guess you're, it's like you're trying to flex that you have friends-

Trevor Noah 1:00:22 Yeah

Christian Rudder 1:00:22 ... which is kind of like the reverse of what you're really trying to do. Um, 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, it's super corny, but it's also true. Kind of accepting the fact that maybe you're gonna get a lot of nos out there, and being okay with that. Um, because I think if you start engineering your profile to increase the number of likes or whatever-

Trevor Noah 1:00:54 Yeah

Christian Rudder 1:00:54 ... yeses that you get, it is gonna just be more noise. Like, 'cause you're gonna have, you, you are ultimately-

Trevor Noah 1:00:59 Oh

Christian Rudder 1:00:59 ... only gonna find one person, right?

Trevor Noah 1:01:01 Okay.

Christian Rudder 1:01:01 So what does it avail you to have 100 people messaging you at the time? 99, that's just 99 more people eventually you're gonna have to kind of like-

Trevor Noah 1:01:07 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Christian Rudder 1:01:07 ... get to know with.

Trevor Noah 1:01:08 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 1:01:09 Right? And so I would just say really

Christian Rudder 1:01:13 bring out the things that make you unique. I mean, this is all, like, grandmother stuff. I mean, [laughs] like, you know-

Trevor Noah 1:01:17 No, but grandmothers were right.

Christian Rudder 1:01:19 Yeah, sure. Sure. Fine.

Trevor Noah 1:01:19 You know? There's a lot of weird grandmothers were right.

Christian Rudder 1:01:21 Fair. Yeah. Do...

Trevor Noah 1:01:22 It's nice to actually see the grandma meets up with dating apps.

Christian Rudder 1:01:25 Right, exactly.

Speaker 1:01:25 The tech, yeah.

Christian Rudder 1:01:25 You know, there is that, like-

Trevor Noah 1:01:26 Yeah, where, where does grandma mesh with tech?

Christian Rudder 1:01:28 There is that wisdom 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, it-

Speaker 1:01:37 Mm.

Christian Rudder 1:01:37 I think there is something to that shared worldview.

Speaker 1:01:40 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 1:01:41 And, and having... That system was designed to bring together people of a common, um, sociological context, right?

Speaker 1:01:49 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:01:49 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:01:49 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 1:01:49 And they, they knew that that was what really matters, right?

Speaker 1:01:52 Mm-hmm.

Christian Rudder 1:01:52 Um, and it, I think they're right. And, and, um, 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.

Trevor Noah 1:02:03 Mm. Okay.

Christian Rudder 1:02:03 And don't leave it for that second or third message. I think, um, 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 kinda cute but maybe they're not normally your type, go for it more. Um, because I think ultimately, that stuff is so unpredictable, especially people's digital pres- presentations of themselves is so different than what they're actually like when they're-

Trevor Noah 1:02:24 Yes

Christian Rudder 1:02:24 ... sitting in front of you.

Speaker 1:02:25 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:02:25 Many fish have been catfished. [laughs]

Speaker 1:02:27 [laughs]

Christian Rudder 1:02:27 [laughs] Yes, exactly. There's that, too. But the opposite is true, too, right? Where the, I'm sure, I'm sure there's a lot of people that are, present-

Trevor Noah 1:02:34 Oh, yes. Yes, yes

Christian Rudder 1:02:34 ... way more lamely than they would be in real life. Um-

Speaker 1:02:37 The first time I met my husband, 'cause we met on Twitter, and like-

Christian Rudder 1:02:40 Wow. Amazing

Speaker 1:02:41 ... I kinda catfished his profile. But then when I saw him walk, I was like, "Oh my God, he's hot." [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:02:45 That's always better.

Speaker 1:02:46 It, it doesn't take-

Trevor Noah 1:02:46 That's always better.

Speaker 1:02:47 He doesn't like his picture. He's like, it was like a-

Christian Rudder 1:02:49 Sure

Speaker 1:02:50 ... headshot you have-

Trevor Noah 1:02:50 Yeah

Speaker 1:02:50 ... for LinkedIn kind of thing.

Trevor Noah 1:02:51 That's always better.

Speaker 1:02:52 And then I was like, "Oh, he's a good-looking man. I should have dressed up more."

Trevor Noah 1:02:54 [laughs]

Speaker 1:02:54 But you know what I mean? So it's just like, it's so interesting that you-

Trevor Noah 1:02:57 Yeah

Speaker 1:02:57 ... you say that.

Christian Rudder 1:02:58 Yeah. So I, I guess anyway, to, to ding it to a few things, I think put as much of yourself out there as you're comfortable doing.

Trevor Noah 1:03:04 Mm.

Christian Rudder 1:03:04 Like, your authentic self. Um, 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 date is.

Trevor Noah 1:03:16 And dating sucks.

Speaker 1:03:16 Yeah, it's true, yeah.

Christian Rudder 1:03:17 Right? And that it, part of it is gonna be lame or boring or terrible or awkward or worse maybe, and, 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 gonna... I, I, I didn't meet my wife on a dating app, so I'm not trying to shill for these things. But I think if you're gonna be in that game, so to speak-

Trevor Noah 1:03:43 Which people are, whether you like it or not

Christian Rudder 1:03:45 ... right, right.

Speaker 1:03:45 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 1:03:45 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:03:45 It's just like, it's just like being in the world of-

Christian Rudder 1:03:47 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:03:47 It's like having a phone now.

Christian Rudder 1:03:48 Right.

Speaker 1:03:48 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 1:03:48 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:03:48 You can't not have a phone.

Christian Rudder 1:03:49 You can't.

Trevor Noah 1:03:50 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 1:03:50 Yeah. And so, like, just, I guess if you're gonna be in that game, try to de-gamify it as much as you can.

Trevor Noah 1:03:54 Mm. I like that.

Christian Rudder 1:03:55 Don't, don't sit, 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 'cause nobody writes me back, so I'm just kinda like, you know, spray and pray type of deal."

Trevor Noah 1:04:03 Yeah.

Speaker 1:04:05 Mm. Spray and pray. [laughs]

Christian Rudder 1:04:05 You know? Just, just like-

Trevor Noah 1:04:06 Wait, actually, actually, on that point-

Christian Rudder 1:04:08 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:04:08 ... does that change anything in how the app actually sees you? That's something I've, I've always wanted to know. So for those people who are swiping on everything-

Christian Rudder 1:04:16 Yeah. That, 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 a Bumble, they, they put the kind of work into it to make that happen.

Trevor Noah 1:04:29 Oh, okay.

Christian Rudder 1:04:29 And that's no slight against those companies.

Speaker 1:04:30 Yeah.

Christian Rudder 1:04:30 I think they just had different priorities. I think, and 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. Um, but definitely it should. I mean, kinda to our point earlier where you were saying, like, if you have spent an hour on the app and you liked one person, that should be very powerful.

Trevor Noah 1:04:50 I think it should, yeah.

Christian Rudder 1:04:51 Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1:04:51 Mm.

Christian Rudder 1:04:51 As opposed to liking 1,000 or whatever. But I, I doubt that actually gets in there. But it should. That's a, another good, uh, tweak for, for dating apps 2 or 3.0.

Speaker 1:04:58 So, like, we've given you, like, we've, like-

Trevor Noah 1:05:00 [laughs]

Speaker 1:05:00 ... workshopped his next business.

Trevor Noah 1:05:02 Hey, man, if we, if you can make it better for everyone, make it better for everyone. Christian, thank you so much.

Christian Rudder 1:05:06 Oh, it was my pleasure.

Trevor Noah 1:05:06 Thank you for joining us. Thank you for not, you know, thinking it was a scam.

Speaker 1:05:09 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:05:09 Thank you. You see, you put yourself out there.

Speaker 1:05:11 I know. I love it.

Trevor Noah 1:05:11 You thought it was, you thought it was a risk, and you took a chance.

Christian Rudder 1:05:13 I just think-

Speaker 1:05:13 You had fun.

Christian Rudder 1:05:14 Oh, I had a great time. You guys are amazing.

Speaker 1:05:15 Oh, good. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:05:15 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:05:15 You liked it.

Christian Rudder 1:05:15 Y'all are awesome.

Trevor Noah 1:05:15 And if you regret it afterwards, that's fine.

Speaker 1:05:17 A great first date. [upbeat music]