The fast-growing hookup app, majority-owned by billionaire Barry Diller’s IAC Interactive, tapped former eBay exec Chris Payne to replace Rad as its new chief executive.
Rad, who is said to own a 10 percent stake in Tinder, has been demoted to the president position and will keep a seat on the board.
Insiders said Friday’s shuffle followed months of back-and-forth negotiations with Payne, who had suggested that Tinder’s Los Angeles offices be moved to his hometown of San Francisco.
Tinder staff, loyal to Rad and reluctant to move, had meanwhile questioned Payne’s credentials to head a dating site, sources said.
Before joining eBay in 2009, Payne held positions at Amazon, Microsoft and most recently the software startup Positronic.
Rad, however, has been cooperative since last November, when news broke that he would be replaced as CEO in the wake of a sex-harassment legal battle last summer that engulfed the company’s other two founders, Justin Mateen and Whitney Wolfe.
Rad had likewise been damaged by allegations that he had allegedly sent a text calling Diller a “d—k,” drawing Diller’s initials,“B.D.,” in the shape of a penis.