Influential Economic Policy Center Bankrolled By Shady Dating App Founder

An Ivy League economic policy center widely cited by legacy media received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a group run by its co-founder’s brother, a dating app founder with a controversial past.

Sam Yagan, a co-founder of online dating service OkCupid, has donated $400,000 to the Yale Budget Lab. Yagan’s history includes a sexual harassment lawsuit and investments in companies with legal and regulatory failures.

Danny Yagan, Sam’s older brother, is the Budget Lab’s co-founder and chief economist, according to the policy center’s website. The Yagan Family Foundation which Sam Yagan and his wife Jessica started donated $200,000 to the Budget Lab in both 2023 and 2024, according to ProPublica.

Sam Yagan faced backlash in 2014 over a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by Whitney Wolfe, an executive at dating app Tinder. The lawsuit claimed that another Tinder executive subjected Wolfe to “sexually charged abuse and threats,” and Yagan, “looked the other way,” according to Crain’s Chicago Business.

At the time Yagan was the CEO of Match Group, an American internet and technology company that operates popular online dating sites including both OkCupid and Tinder. Wolfe later went on to found rival dating app Bumble and stated that Yagan was unmoved and “didn’t feel compelled to do anything in response,” to her sexual abuse claims, according