MATCH.COM FOUNDER’S GIRLFRIEND MET ANOTHER MAN ON THE SITE

Match.com founder Gary Kremen’s girlfriend met another man on his own dating site and left him, the Daily Mail reported.

Kremen launched Match.com on April 21, 1995, after searching for dates through personal ads and 900-number services while a graduate student at Stanford’s business school, the Computer History Museum said. The museum described him as being in his late 20s at the time.

Kremen himself seemed unbothered by the idea of people finding love on his creation. “Anything that could create more love is a positive thing,” he said in the museum’s feature.

How Match.com got started

The first version of Match.com ran on email, because few people then had web browsers, the museum said.

By the time it launched on the web, the site was free and supported by advertising, The Atlantic reported. Subscriptions were planned for later, once it grew.

Kremen paid $2,500 on his credit card for the Match.com domain name, ZDNet reported.

The Atlantic also reported that Fran Maier joined as marketing director after working at Clorox and AAA.

The museum said that talking with women customers and bringing women into the company helped improve the site. It named blocking as one of the security features.

It also raised the obvious business problem: couples who matched might stop using the service once they committed to each other. Kremen was not worried about losing those customers because the potential market was so large, the museum said.

What happened next

Kremen left Match.com in March 1996, about a year after the site went live, according to Northwestern Magazine.

ZDNet reported that he walked away with $50,000.

His own love life did eventually work out. Kremen later met his wife through a person he had offered a trip for two to Hawaii in exchange for finding him a suitable partner, ZDNet reported.

Kremen’s story was revisited in a Computer History Museum discussion of online dating on February 13, 2026.