The accidental 'friend' finder
Andrew Conru didn't aspire to be a sex-industry mogul. But his $200 million empire attests to the old adage: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Business 2.0 Magazine reports.
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, Business 2.0 Magazine
March 30 2007: 1:47 PM EDT
(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- You know how you'll be trying to do work, and the Internet will inexorably drag you into porn? That's exactly what happened to Andrew Conru's career.
A mechanical engineering doctoral student at Stanford who grew up with churchgoing Lutheran parents in northern Indiana--the kind of guy who holds the door for everyone until he gets stuck there so long that someone has to make a joke so he can let go--Conru started the first online dating site, WebPersonals, in the early '90s. He sold it in 1995, pocketed a minor windfall, and started all over again.