The Dating Game

Match Group has long been the belle of the online dating ball. But with Bumble and, yes, Facebook moving in on its territory, new CEO Mandy Ginsberg must keep the company from getting ghosted by fickle daters—and bring its users nothing less than the future of love.

- Leigh Gallagher

One day in early May, IAC CEO Joey Levin sat in a conference room at the company’s Frank Gehry–designed headquarters in Manhattan, along with Barry Diller, IAC’s founder and chairman, and a few others. The group was listening to one of their colleagues present a routine strategic plan when the executive happened to mention something about an ad-supported business. Suddenly Diller sprang to life. “That reminds me!” he said. “Sheryl called me last night to let me know they’re getting into the dating business, and they’re going to announce it tomorrow.”

“Sheryl” is, of course, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, and Facebook was indeed poised to reveal plans to enter the online dating space—in fact, CEO Mark Zuckerberg was at that very moment making the announcement at F8, the company’s annual developers conference. Levin turned to the huge screen in the room that displays the tickers of IAC and Match Group, the online dating conglomerate it spun off in 2015, where shares of both companies were already dropping. “My phone starts lighting up with texts, and each time I’m getting a text, the stock drops another 5%,” Levin recalls. All told, Match Group stock plunged 22% that day; IAC, almost 18%.

Later, Levin issued a statement addressing his company’s new competitor (IAC owns 81% of Match Group): “Come on in. The water’s warm,” he said, deadpanning that Facebook’s product “could be great for U.S.-Russia relationships.” The media ate up the jab, but there’s no denying that the news was anything but a joke to Match and the rest of the online dating industry.