Grindr, the popular dating app for gay men, holds a lot of sensitive information about its users and has had a number of privacy issues in the past, so the last thing that you probably want to hear from its developers is, “We’re going to start vibe coding this whole app.” In related news, Grindr’s CEO told the New York Times the company plans on vibe coding the whole app. George Arison, who took over the role of chief executive at Grindr in 2022, is apparently all-in on AI—even when it goes against his employees’ wishes and likely his users’ best interests. While speaking to the Times, Arison said he plans to whip Grindr into shape as an AI-native company. His first step in achieving that was hiring a guy and ignoring the rest of his staff. Asked how he’s gotten AI adoption in the Grindr office, Arison said, “I just imposed it. I got a lot of opposition.” Despite the 180 people or so on Grindr’s payroll objecting, Arison leaned on someone else’s opinion: some dude named Evan. Per Arison, he hired Evan, a “young engineer who joined an AI company out of college,” to be his AI tutor.
Apparently, Evan is very convincing because the whole company is supposedly now using AI (though probably not nearly as much as Arison, who said, “I put all my content in ChatGPT”). Per the Times, Arison’s goal is for AI to produce all new code, and for the company to run “leaner.” The exact thing that employees want to hear! Arison insists that “I don’t think I’m going to let people go, but we might not add as many as we would otherwise.” We’ll see how long he can resist giving in to the free stock boost that an AI-washed layoff typically provides.
