About Justin Mcleod
Justin McLeod, founder and CEO of Hinge, has discussed his philosophy that love is not about finding a perfect match but about building a relationship through vulnerability and effort. In a 2021 interview, he stated, "You don't find the one, you create the one," and in a 2020 podcast, he elaborated that there are "many ones for us out there" and that relationships require work. McLeod also described Hinge's deliberate design choice to have a longer sign-up process, noting that the app loses over 20% of users during registration, which he called "a feature, not a bug" because it filters for users seeking meaningful connections.
McLeod has also shared personal habits for maintaining focus and balance. In a 2020 interview, he said he avoids having Slack and email on his phone to prevent a "reactive mode" and to allow space for strategic thinking. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he described establishing a routine with his partner that included morning yoga, walks, and designated work hours to create normalcy and boundaries.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Justin Mcleod's recent appearances.
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Transcript (8 segments)
J
Justin Mcleod0:00
Waking up in a hospital bed with a guard outside the door, having a blood alcohol of like over .4. A lot of people die over like .35, .4. My friends like brought me home because they didn't know what to do with me, and my mom saw me and like called the ambulance and the fire department and everyone showed up and then hauled me off. I did end up going to rehab for that whole summer, but I think when you're so overstimulated by something, everything else just feels really dull.
M
Mickey0:34
Welcome to Edge of My Seat, the podcast where we look at a person's darkest, most painful, the shittiest moment in their life and what they did to clean it up. Today I'm so so excited to have my dear friend from New York City, Justin Mcleod, the founder of Hinge, the dating app that pretty much every single person who's single has been on and has probably found a date or found their love, found their marriage. It's truly one of the most prolific companies of our time. It's so fun to have a friend who's built something like that and seen his journey and how he's progressing and building it. And so I'm so so excited to experience him today and hear his journey of the shitty to the beautiful cleanup.
J
Justin Mcleod1:19
Thanks for having me.
M
Mickey1:23
So, I'd love to maybe just have you close your eyes and take a deep breath and just put yourself back in a scene, in a moment where you were just in a shitty dark moment, the darkest one you can remember. And just where were you? What were you doing? And we'll start there.
J
Justin Mcleod1:55
Uh, how do I choose? Uh, yeah. What just came up for me when you said that was waking up in a hospital bed with a guard outside the door. And maybe I'm dramatizing this. Maybe I was handcuffed to the bed. I'm not quite sure. And coming to after having a blood alcohol of like over .4. What's normal if you like over .008 is like drunk. A lot of people die over like .35, .4. And that was yeah, waking up there alone after being... I'd woken up that morning and drank an entire bottle of vodka and yeah, and found myself apparently in the... when the ambulance came to get me because I was like, I was almost unresponsive. I then had become responsive and I tried to like break out of the ambulance and they had to like restrain me.
M
Mickey3:20
How old were you?
J
Justin Mcleod3:24
I was 19.
M
Mickey3:25
And where were you?
