Christian Rudder (born September 1, 1975)[1] is an American entrepreneur, writer, and musician.

Christian Rudder
Born (1975-09-01) September 1, 1975 (age 48)
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur, writer, musician

Education edit

Rudder graduated from Little Rock Central High School in 1993. He attended Harvard University, graduating with a degree in mathematics in 1998.[2]

SparkNotes edit

Rudder joined SparkNotes in October 1999, a few months after its founding. Rudder was the creative voice of TheSpark.com,[3] which was the viral content arm of SparkNotes during the site's early rise to popularity. He became TheSpark's creative director in March 2001. Soon after the site's sale to Barnes & Noble, Rudder and the SparkNotes founders (Chris Coyne, Sam Yagan, and Max Krohn) left and began working on OkCupid, a dating site. OkCupid launched in February 2004.

OkCupid edit

Rudder was a co-founder of OkCupid. In the years immediately following the site's creation, he worked on the front-end product and developed the site's editorial voice.[4] From 2009 - 2011, OkCupid published statistical observations and analysis of members' preferences and connections; the blog posts were written by Rudder and gained widespread media attention.[5] In February 2011, OkCupid was sold to IAC, the owner of Match.com and other dating properties, for $90 million.[6] After the sale to IAC, Rudder assumed day-to-day control of OkCupid as President and General Manager until he left in 2015.[7]

Dataclysm edit

Rudder expanded his writings for OkCupid into the non-fiction book Dataclysm, which became a New York Times Best Seller in September 2014 and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize that year, in the Science & Technology category.[8][9][10]

Music edit

Rudder played guitar in the hardcore punk band Pissed Officers and indie rock group Bishop Allen, both with Justin Rice on bass and Rudder and Ruce sharing songwriting and vocal duties.[11][12] On Bishop Allen's first three albums, Rudder played most of the instruments except drums and piano.[13] Through Bishop Allen, Rudder has contributed to the soundtracks of the movies Saved, Sleepwalk with Me, No Strings Attached, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Bully, and several other smaller films and commercials.[14]

Film work edit

He appeared in Andrew Bujalski's film, Funny Ha Ha, as Alex, and appeared as himself in Peter Sollett's film, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

Personal life edit

Christian met his wife, Reshma Patel, at a concert in Boston. Patel ran a public relations firm. They have a daughter together. They now live in Costa Rica [15]

Bibliography edit

Rudder, Christian (2014). Dataclysm : Who We Are When We Think No One's Looking. Crown Publishers.[16]

References edit

  1. ^ Franco, Cheree (February 15, 2015). "Christian Tillinghouse Rudder: OkCupid's founder is a Central High geek turned low-fi Renaissance man ..." Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Retrieved November 20, 2015.
  2. ^ "Christian Rudder | Penguin Random House". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 2021-07-28.
  3. ^ Silverman, Rachel (15 November 2000). "How fat can you get?". Salon.com. Retrieved 22 October 2014.
  4. ^ "Christian Rudder on OkCupid, user data, and the impending AI takeover". Mixpanel. 2016-08-16. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  5. ^ Stampler, Laura (28 July 2014). "OkCupid Brings Back Blog Chronicling Online Daters' Fascinating Habits". Time. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  6. ^ "Sam Yagan of OkCupid: How a Crazed Call Sparked a $90M Business | OPEN Forum". www.americanexpress.com. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  7. ^ "Christian Rudder on OkCupid, user data, and the impending AI takeover". Mixpanel. 2016-08-16. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  8. ^ Osberg, Molly (2014-09-11). "The OKCupid data blog is back, in book form". The Verge. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  9. ^ "Dataclysm". dataclysm.org. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  10. ^ "35th Annual Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists Announced". www.lapl.org. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  11. ^ "Bishop Allen | Biography, Albums, Streaming Links | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  12. ^ "ASCAP database". Archived from the original on 2009-08-26.
  13. ^ [All three album's liner notes]
  14. ^ "Christian Rudder". IMDb. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  15. ^ Liz, Robbins (February 13, 2015). "How Christian Rudder, a Founder of OKCupid, Spends His Sunday". The New York Times. Retrieved February 10, 2019.
  16. ^ Reviewed in: Swain, Frank (October 11, 2014). "Algorithms are eating us up". New Scientist. 224 (2990): 50. Bibcode:2014NewSc.224...50S. doi:10.1016/S0262-4079(14)61964-3.

External links edit