Joel Simkhai

Simkhai was born in Tel Aviv, Israel. His mother was a jeweler, and his father was a diamond dealer. When Simkhai was three years old, his family moved to New York City.^[9] While in high school, he says he dated women; he remarked that he was not being dishonest about his sexuality, but that his "coming out of the closet was a process".^[9]

Simkhai received his Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations & Economics from Tufts University in May 1998.^{[citation needed]} After starting college, he came out to his parents and friends. He has two brothers, who are also gay.^[1] Simkhai owns several pieces of real estate, but primarily resides in New York.^[10] In 2021, Dave Keuning bought a mansion that Simkhai had owned in Outpost Estates in Los Angeles.^[11]

After college, Simkhai worked in mergers and acquisitions.^[1] He conceived the idea of the app to answer the need to know "who else around you is also gay".^[9] While he started with little money or expertise,^[12] and never expected Grindr to become international,^[9] he became a multimillionaire CEO of an app with millions of users worldwide.^[4] In 2014, Simkhai demonstrated that he was a user of his own app. He ceased including in his profile information regarding his role behind Grindr.^[9] In January 2018, he left Grindr after the company was sold to the Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech.^[13][14]

Simkhai is a charter member of the Young Presidents' Organization.^[4]

In 2022, Simkhai launched a mobile app called MOTTO for the gay and queer community. He labeled it as an attempt to "course correct" away from the negative aspects of already-existing gay dating apps.^[15] The company is based in New York City.^[16] According to its website, the app shut down in September 2024.^[8]