Tinder Co-founder Sean Rad has released a statement to The Verge, giving his take on how the controversy around stock options unfolded.
The statement comes after earlier reporting revealed Rad had exercised a significant portion of his stock options around the time Tinder was incorporated into Match Group.
A source familiar with the matter said to The Verge that Rad was not confident in Tinder’s continued growth, and cashed in early for this reason.
He said in response: “After Match and IAC cheated us and violated our contracts, they took away our ability to participate in Tinder’s future successes and forced me to accept Match options in place of Tinder options.
“Those options would expire in 30 days once they fired me. I had no choice but to exercise them, and when I did that, Match gave me IAC stock.
“IAC is a holding company full of assets I don’t believe in and that stole billions of dollars from its employees. So I sold the stock. Tinder is the company we built and I continue to believe in — not IAC or Match.”
In the 30 days after Rad’s dismissal, shares of Match Group climbed by around 30%. Had Rad waited to sell, he may have made far more from the transaction.
Rad may still own under 5% of IAC stock – he does not need to disclose any trading of these shares because of their relative lack of import.
Read more here.