Silicon Valley’s AI Money Is Buying Its Way Off the Dating Apps

When your stock vests, your house is paid off, and you’ve got no time for a second date on your calendar, what do you spend your money on? If you’re in AI and live within an hour of Menlo Park, apparently you spend it on Amy Andersen.

Andersen started Linx Dating in 2003. Most of her clients over the years were typical of the tech scene: busy, moneyed. In a Bloomberg feature published October 15, she described a different kind of client now showing up at her door: “employees of companies such as Perplexity, Anthropic and Nvidia,” as Bloomberg put it.

In the past few years, she said, demand for her service has surged. And it’s not just coming from techies. Lawyers and real estate folks around the AI boom are getting in touch.

Andersen charges a minimum of $75,000. And up to well over $500,000 for her VIP service. She’ll only take fewer than 10 clients at a time. Over the past year I’ve done a number of pieces on “comeback” matchmaking for the rich and famous. This one is different. And not because of the cost.

The $500,000 Number Isn’t New. The Client Is.

Here’s one point often missed in the story: In 2017, when CNBC reported on Andersen, her best clients were spending $100,000 to $500,000 for her service. That’s according to DatingIndustryInsights, which picked up the Bloomberg story and the subsequent radio coverage.

So for years now there’s been a limit at the top of what someone could spend on Andersen. But who was at the top of that limit changed. Typically, her half-million-dollar client was someone with decades of wealth, limited appetite for most zip codes, and little time to spare. Think of someone like a partner at a hedge fund or heir to a fortune.

Now think instead of a 30-something engineer, someone whose stock cashed out in the past year or two. Someone who works 80 hours a week. Someone who really doesn’t want to be on Hinge, because half the office is on it.

And that last point is important. A VP at one of these hot AI labs doesn’t want her date profile sent to a colleague. A founder raising money doesn’t want investors to see he’s swiping on someone at 1 a.m.

To this client base, discretion isn’t a feature of the product. It’s the product.

To this client base, discretion isn’t a feature of the product. It’s the product.

To this client base, discretion isn’t a feature of the product. It’s the product.

In its story on Andersen, Bloomberg wrote that her clients, women and men from 20 to 75 years old, “are willing to spend heavily to solve a problem that dating apps haven’t.”

What Does Half a Million Dollars Actually Buy?

Less than you’d think, and more than you’d expect.

According to the Bloomberg story, Andersen interviews, surveys, consults on their wardrobe, takes professional photos of her clients, and coaches them before and after a date.

She finds matches at events, through social media, and in a database of about 25,000 singles. Packages cost more for more introductions, a more challenging search, and longer contracts.

And many of her best clients pay bonuses at key moments in their relationship (when it becomes exclusive, when they get engaged, when they marry).

Jonathan Axelrad, a 64-year-old lawyer in Silicon Valley and now adviser to AI startups, used Andersen after his wife’s death. A grief counselor encouraged him to consider dating. He’d used a dating coach on an app first.

Andersen set him up on about three dozen dates, roughly a third of them over Zoom. Partway through, he met Christine Gray, a pediatric psychologist. They’ve been dating for more than two years.

Three dozen dates to build a committed relationship. Most dating apps would envy that success rate. And that’s the value of the high-touch tier.

I think it’s more a ceiling signal than one of the market. Linx is a boutique. The volume in this industry lives a few steps down from Linx. Cassindy Chao at AWM Love charges $40,000-$250,000 for Asian professionals; Three Day Rule starts at $6,300 and can go up to $100,000; and Tawkify is in the $4,900-$70,000 range. (Bloomberg got those numbers from the companies.) Linx can’t be beat by a solo matchmaker. But a solo matchmaker in, say, Seattle or Austin, who knows what a week is like for a Series B engineer, could well win that $25,000 client that Andersen doesn’t have room for.

So, Why Is Hinge Growing While Everyone Else Shrinks?

But here’s something none of the Bloomberg stories picked up. In that quarter, Andersen was getting calls from every direction. Meanwhile, in its earnings report, Match Group said its Hinge payers jumped 17% year over year to 2 million and direct revenue jumped 22% to $203.5 million. Its Tinder payers dropped 5% to 8.5 million. Its “Everyone Everywhere” brands lost 21% of their payers. And last week Bumble agreed to sell itself to Ithaca Holdings for $1.3 billion. Over that same period, its paying users dropped 16.4%.

One app was up. And it’s the one Match Group described in its Q2 report as “a global leader in the intentional dating category.”

Now, I’m not an analyst, but I suspect that wasn’t coincidence. Time and again, it’s the serious-intent dater who would pay for help, whether $75,000 to Andersen or a subscription to Hinge.

Bloomberg uncovered the top of that customer tier. Match Group found the bottom. And in between, we have people who would have used Tinder but have moved on (or could never justify a five-figure fee to a matchmaker). They now find themselves on Hinge.

The serious-intent dater has always been the one willing to pay. Bloomberg found the top of that ladder. Match Group found the bottom.

The serious-intent dater has always been the one willing to pay. Bloomberg found the top of that ladder. Match Group found the bottom.

In fact, Bloomberg got a glimpse of the ladder working in reverse. Chao, the AWM Love matchmaker, recently coached Monty Ngan, a 28-year-old San Francisco founder, on dating more deliberately. Her advice was to approach the apps differently. He then met his girlfriend on Hinge.

So the matchmaker put one of her clients on Hinge. And Hinge’s growth is putting its clients in touch with matchmakers. Look, that isn’t competition. It’s a referral channel, one that’s unspoken at this point.

There Aren’t Enough Matchmakers for This

Here’s another data point. Over the years, the Matchmaking Institute (the main certifying body for matchmakers) has trained over 3,000 matchmakers. And it has a network of 2,000-plus matchmakers in 25 countries.

Two thousand people in the world to serve a client base suddenly flush with money from AI and turned off by apps. Andersen only takes fewer than 10 clients.

Think about it: even if only a handful of engineers who vested this year would prefer to work with a human rather than an app, the limit in this business isn’t demand. It’s people.

My view: this is the year for matchmakers to raise prices, not cut them. If a client is paying half a million dollars to avoid appearing on an app, it doesn’t make sense for matchmakers to compete on price.

For years, the apps conditioned people to believe they could meet someone for free. And now we’ve got a cohort of clients who’d pay almost anything to avoid that experience.