Hunt For The Perfect Data: Christian Rudder Of OkCupid

FT - Feb 17 - Christian Rudder, the co-founder and president of OkCupid, never had plans to revolutionize the world of online dating. He has never used dating sites himself. Rudder says the permeation of the Internet in our day-to-day lives has virtually taken away the stigma of online dating. Facebook, especially, has played a big role. When OkCupid was launched in 2004, its main distinguishing factor was giving users the ability to look beyond “age, sex, and location” to more personal characteristics that are better indications of a match. The algorithm is based on the weight that users give to the questions they care about. On the site, which now has 30M members, users can answer questions across a wide range of topics. These weighted answers are compared with another user’s and a match percentage is generated. Rudder realized he had an unprecedented amount of information on human desire and behaviour so he wrote a book: Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking), which was published last year.