A Funny Thing Happened While Researching Algorithms
Carrington Moore (STH’14) signed up for a dating app to better understand user preferences for a start-up business. Then he came across Schnelle Shelby’s profile.
This article was originally published by The New York Times, on May 27 2021, by Tammy La Gorce. It can be found here.
Carrington Moore never liked the idea of online dating. In the summer of 2014, though, joining Match all of a sudden became a professional obligation.
Mr. Moore, 34, of Cambridge, Mass., was starting a business, Go Break Bread, with a pair of friends that year. Liftoff of the project, meant to be like Meetup except for building religious communities online, depended on them getting a grip on how algorithms work. “We had figured out that dating apps were the best place to research algorithms, but one of my friends was in a relationship, and the other one was like, ‘I’m married,’” he said. Mr. Moore, being single, was singled out. “They were like, ‘Carrington, you’ve got to do it.’”
But his mission to research, and research only, was thwarted instantly when Schnelle Shelby’s picture popped up. “Schnelle came up wearing this zebra print dress,” he said. “She seemed really interesting and really pretty. I stalked her for like 30 minutes.”
Read Carrington and Schnelle’s Love Story