‘People are looking for something more serious’: the Hinge CEO on the pandemic dating boom

Justin McLeod, boss of the dating app, talks about its massive rise in users, his difficult romantic past - and why people are now ditching their partners and looking for someone new

The whiteboard on the living room wall behind Justin McLeod's sofa frames his head like a halo. But it is also symbolic of the chasm between good intentions and reality that many of us may have experienced recently. This high-achieving CEO says that, while working from home, he was going to write a lot on that", but didn't. He turns to look at its blank expanse. It's comforting for those of us who also haven't used this change of pace for vast plans and self-improvement. Which is not to say that McLeod has had a quiet year - far from it. Isolating at home, without the usual options of meeting people, he saw a 63% rise in the number of people downloading Hinge, his dating app. And revenues tripled.

McLeod seems grounded and realistic - a romantic who doesn't believe in the one", a tech founder with a concern about what tech is doing to us and a husband with a romcom-worthy story about how he met his wife, but who also admits to weekly couples' counselling. The pandemic has had a big impact on the dating landscape, he says. People switched to video dating, for a start. It was moving that way anyway, he says, but the pandemic accelerated it".