Above: An alleged text message between Tinder's former VP of marketing and Tinder's CMO Justin Mateen
Tinder’s former VP of marketing, Whitney Wolfe, has filed a lawsuit against the company for the “sexual harassment and sex discrimination” she faced before she was allegedly forced out of the company and stripped of her cofounder status.
The lawsuit, packed with pages of texts documenting numerous incidents, led an IAC spokesperson to “unequivocally condemn these messages,” Reuters reports. IAC is a majority shareholder in Tinder, and also owns Vimeo and Match.com.
But, the spokesperson added, IAC “[believes] that Ms. Wolfe's allegations with respect to Tinder and its management are unfounded." Tinder’s chief marketing officer Justin Mateen, according to IAC, has been suspended “pending an ongoing internal investigation,” according to Reuters.
Among the claims, the suit alleges that Wolfe was “repeatedly called” a “whore,” and was told that she lost her cofounder title “because having a young female cofounder ‘makes the company seem like a joke.’” Tinder and IAC did not immediately respond to VentureBeat’s requests for further comment.
You can view the suit in its painful entirety below. Lawsuit documents via: Matthew Keys.
Tinder finds out who likes you nearby, and connects you with them if you're also interested. It all started with the realization that there are many apps that connect us with people we already know, but none that do a great job of h... read more »
