Grindr CEO George Arison Plans to Bring His Kids to the Office at 10 to Teach Them Grit
George Arison, who arrived in the U.S. from the Soviet Union as a teen and graduated with $500, now runs Grindr and wants his children to learn resilience by shadowing him at work and skiing from a young age.
George Arison, the chief executive of the LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr, has a plan for making sure his two young children develop the resilience that he credits with turning him into a self-made millionaire: he will bring them into the office from around the age of 10.
Arison, who was born in the Soviet Union and immigrated to the United States as a teenager, graduated from college with just $500 to his name. He worked odd jobs while studying and says the hardship gave him the grit to build a successful career. Now 49, he worries that his children, who are growing up in Palo Alto, California — one of the wealthiest and safest places in the world — may not face enough adversity to develop the same drive.
«It's no question that as of right now, they're not going through enough problems to be set up for success in the way I went through those — there's no disputing that,» Arison said in an interview. He recalled that when he was six years old, his father would spend 30 minutes at bedtime talking about the coming collapse of the Soviet Union and the need to speak English or know how to shoot guns to survive. «There's a very sharp contrast there between what I was getting as a six-year-old and what my kids are getting as six-year-olds,» he said.
To close that gap, Arison and his husband have discussed how to instill grit without taking anything away from their children. They settled on two approaches: skiing and shadowing. Arison plans to bring his children to Grindr's headquarters in a couple of years so they can watch him work. He typically puts in 10 to 12 hours a day and believes that seeing his love for work will be crucial. «I want them a lot more involved in my work than I think most parents would have their children involved in their work because I actually think that's one of the ways to learn about greatness,» he said.
Arison knows the impact of observing ambition up close. From the age of seven, he shadowed his grandfather, who held a senior role in the Soviet system. «He would bring me to work a lot when I was little,» Arison said. «I think a lot of my work grit very much comes from watching him.» He added that having his children observe him at work will help them understand why one should work aggressively and that with great opportunities come even greater responsibilities. At home, he deliberately brings his job into everyday conversation, even though his children are still too young to grasp what running a company entails.
The second pillar of his approach is skiing. Arison put his children on the slopes at a very young age, not as a luxury holiday but as a test of resilience. «Skiing is actually not easy. It's a complex sport, and you will need to deal with stuff while you're doing it,» he said. He recalled having to jump out of the lift three or four seats short of the end because it would sometimes stop running. His children probably will not face that, but he wants them to learn both the pleasure of the sport and the adversity of dealing with something difficult. Skiing also serves as a way to bond. Arison said mentors and friends with older children in similar financial circumstances advised him to be very involved in one of his children's sports, because that builds a closer relationship, especially for a parent who is not the primary caregiver every day.
«So that's another reason I put them on skis, because I wanted that with them. We do this together. And it's very important that I'm there for them when they're skiing,» he said.
Arison's own career path has been varied. He founded Taxi Magic, which was sold for an undisclosed sum and is now called Curb. In October 2022, he took the helm at Grindr, which has 15 million monthly users, with a salary of $1 million a year plus bonus and stock options. His approach to parenting reflects a broader debate about how much adversity children of wealthy parents should experience and whether grit can be taught deliberately.
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