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Tinder's #swiperight gesture changed how millions decide and revolutionised dating. Tinder didn’t just explode into the public consciousness, it was also the most successful dating product in history and one of the fastest companies to $100m in revenue.

Hannah and Hugh sit down with Tinder co‑founder Jonathan Badeen to trace the unexpected path from a flashcards epiphany to a cultural verb, and why #swiperight wasn’t meant to be the defining feature until a college student sent him an email.

Jonathan opens the hood on the craft behind the card: how a mobile‑first mindset shaped a one‑at‑a‑time interface, why he ditched Apple’s default swipe gesture recogniser, and how velocity‑aware, quadrant‑based rotation made the interaction feel alive in your hand. We get into naming drama, the fire‑themed brand, and the quiet logic of placing “yes” on the right, then follow the story through onboarding shortcuts, texting‑style messaging, and the decision to delay heavy tutorials in favour of just‑in‑time education.

The conversation goes deeper than UI. Jonathan explains the gritty systems work that kept Tinder feeling instant on fragile networks—preloading batches, caching swipes offline, filtering duplicates when servers fell out of sync—and how the team balanced freshness with efficiency. We revisit the polarising #Superlike, the design thresholds needed to resolve diagonal ambiguity, and the flourish that made a paid signal feel special without breaking the core gesture. We also talk patents, clones, and why many copies miss the subtle “feel” by locking animation to rails instead of responding to the user’s touch.

For builders and the simply curious, this is a masterclass in product thinking: constraints as creativity, minimal surfaces with maximum clarity, and the humility to let the market teach you what matters. Jonathan’s advice for founders is refreshingly human—prepare widely, meet people, say yes to opportunities, and remember that execution beats secrecy.

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Catastrophic software failures can seem like acts of chaos, but behind every major tech outage lies a story of human decisions, technical constraints, and cascading consequences. The July 2024 CrowdStrike incident—which Hannah describes as "the single biggest outage in the history of computing"—offers a perfect case study into what happens when critical systems fail.

Hannah and Hugh dive deep into how a seemingly minor error (a file with 21 fields when the software expected 20) managed to crash millions of Windows computers worldwide, grounding flights, shutting down hospitals, and causing billions in economic damage. Hugh walks us through the technical underpinnings of why this particular failure was so devastating—CrowdStrike's Falcon security software runs deeply embedded within Windows, making a simple mismatch catastrophic rather than merely inconvenient.

The conversation explores the safeguards that many companies use that could have prevented this disaster: progressive rollouts, chaos engineering (Netflix's deliberately disruptive "Chaos Monkeys"), and fuzz testing that generates random inputs to break systems before they reach production. Hugh shares war stories from his own career, including a nine-hour eBay search outage that cost millions and a Google Maps bug that inadvertently became an international incident when labels disappeared from politically sensitive regions.

What's particularly fascinating is the cultural side of managing technical risk. The most resilient organizations have moved beyond blame to create environments where finding bugs is celebrated rather than punished. Hugh and Hannah discuss how former military personnel often excel in operations roles during crises, bringing calm structure to chaotic situations, and why the best tech companies are working toward systems so resilient that engineers being woken up at night is becoming unnecessary.

Whether you're part of tech or tech-enabled company or simply curious about the infrastructure powering our lives, this episode reveals the balance between innovation speed and operational stability that every technology organisation must navigate. How do you move fast without breaking things? How do you recover when systems inevitably fail? And what separates organisations that learn from failure from those doomed to repeat it?

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Ever wondered what's really happening behind the scenes when you tap that app icon on your phone? From the sensors tracking your every move to the complex business decisions determining which features you get access to, the world of mobile apps is fascinating.

Hannah Clayton-Langton and Hugh Williams, former VP at Google and eBay, break down why companies invest millions in app development instead of just using mobile websites. The answer lies in the incredible capabilities of your smartphone – packed with nearly 20 different sensors that apps can access to create personalised, responsive experiences. Beyond the obvious cameras and GPS, your phone contains barometers measuring elevation changes, magnetometers functioning as compasses, and accelerometers tracking how your phone accelerates and decelerates. This sensor-rich environment enables everything from fitness tracking to navigation and even fraud detection.

The differences between Android and iOS development reveal insights into how tech companies operate. At Google, Hugh explains how Android apps would pioneer new features with iOS versions "fast following" six months later after seeing user reactions. This approach highlights the careful balancing act between innovation and stability that defines modern app development. Similarly fascinating is how different devices get different experiences – laptops for deep exploration, phones for quick "snacking" interactions, and tablets for activities requiring more screen real estate.

Hugh and Hannah also discuss the business model behind app stores, with Apple and Google taking up to 30% of all purchases and subscriptions – a "tax" that's sparked legal challenges in the EU. And if you've ever wondered how some apps keeps working when you lose your connection, Hugh reveals the sophisticated caching techniques that predict when you'll lose connectivity and download content in advance (which we'll hear more about in Episode 5!). These glimpses behind the digital curtain will forever change how you think about the apps you use every day.