5Q: Noel Biderman, Ashley Madison CEO

People really don't seem to like Noel Biderman.

Flip through the videos under his name on YouTube and you can watch him get threatened by a guest on the Tyra Banks show or chewed out by Dr. Phil. He’s constantly labeled sleazy, heartless and the emperor of infidelity but the truth is, Biderman’s not really in the business of winning hearts. The thick-skinned chief executive and founder of AshleyMadison.com – a dating website for married individuals looking to have an affair – has skipped the “nice guy” image and built an unapologetic empire on the business of broken hearts.

He launched the site in 2001, while working as a sports attorney, after realizing he was spending half his time dealing with the backlash from his athlete clients’ affairs.

And it's been lucrative – last year AshleyMadison.com generated global revenues of more than $120 million and since being acquired by Avid Life Media in 2010, has paid out dividends to its shareholders totaling more than $75 million.

Today, the site boasts 1.9 million Canadian philanderers, worldwide that number swells to 27 million in 38 countries.

But despite his success – or maybe in spite of – Biderman is still one of Canada’s most despised CEOs.

Do you ever get tired of being so synonymous with cheating?

Yeah I think probably I do. I would much rather be having a discussion with someone that says I think it’s a remarkable story – not only have you built a dotcom empire but you’ve done it with a ton of headwind. I don’t get the same advantages that someone like Match.com gets. I can’t just run my ads on NFL football games or wherever my audience sits. I don’t get to talk to women on the Oprah Winfrey show the way I want to. We’ve had to be inventive not just with the product but the way we’ve brought it to market, how we built it and how we've sold it and yet everybody seems to continually want to drag it down. I have a choice, no one's forcing me to do this, the way I’m not forcing anyone to have an affair. But I can call it a day – I have done very well for my family and me. I can sit on a beach and say let them all figure it out themselves or I can believe that my legacy is not yet written and there's still a story to tell – that’s kind of why I do it I think.

You were on Bloomberg TV recently with accomplished fund manager Howard Marks and when asked whether or not he would invest he said “at a price.” It brought up the whole question of whether or not business trumps morals. How do you feel about that especially when the culture seems to be pushing for morals to trump business?

They're not mutually exclusive. You don’t have to sit there and suggest that in operating a business you can be oblivious to any long-term benefits to the planet. What I’m suggesting is when it comes to infidelity there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that we're a monogamous species or that we ever have been so the notion I came along and invented infidelity is a fallacy. Secondly, if we believe that monogamy is so fulfilling there should be evidence of it, we fall in love and stay together – the research side seems to be telling us the exact opposite, that marriage is an economic institute, that it’s a child-rearing institution but it isn’t necessarily a sexually-fulfilling institution and so centralizing everything around that sexual component about monogamy is probably not in our best interest.

Was it the philosophy or the business that came first for you?

To be fair it was the business – I wasn’t seeking a Nobel Prize or trying to turn the world on its head. People were going on dating sites and posing as someone they weren’t, causing collateral damage and angering others. So we created a site where both people put their hands up to do it. I saw it as a net societal win.

Have you ever been affected by an affair?

I think I haven’t and maybe that’s why some people assume I’m being callous. I’m trying to be objective on this whole thing, I'm not denying anyone's pain I’m just saying that maybe part of the reason for the pain is the narrative, what Disney told us, that you kiss and it all falls into place but as it turns out that’s when the real work starts. I grew up with that narrative in a community that emphasized monogamy and I think it would be painful for me as well.

How does your wife and family feel about you being the face of the brand?

I’m a family guy. I'm probably the prototypical family guy. My commitment to my wife is on a whole bunch of fronts. Once you get a great partner, which I have, that says “you want to build an infidelity business, I'll support that, I’ll be your cheerleader, but in return you be home to cook dinner and be there to put the kids to bed.” That seems like a fair trade-off to me and that was kind of our commitment to one another. She’s always judged me for the husband I am and not necessarily for the emperor of infidelity or whatever a journalist is going to label me as.

Would you ever have an affair? 

I myself hope to avoid that path but I don’t know, I don’t know how I would do as that professional athlete overseas, as that politician or that general trying to fight a war. I don’t know how I’d fare in a virtually sexless marriage. 2.5 million Canadians are in these marriages were they're virtually priests and nuns – celibacy rules – and I don’t think I would do very well either. I puff my chest and say I will but maybe I say that because I haven’t faced the adversity that others do.

Who is AshleyMadison.com’s biggest competitor?

It’s the workplace. You hear it all the time, where a coworker builds an affinity for another and now they’re willing to risk their marriage and potentially their job to pursue it. I don’t know if that will ever really change. From a competitive landscape I benefit from a cannibalization model, I’m trying to take affairs out of the workplace where they’re not as productive and not as discrete. On the other hand, this is where I get an advantage. I face a bunch of different business challenges but not the one that most companies do which is the head-on competitor. In the grand scheme of it all if I look at the lack of competitive environment versus all the obstacles I face from raising funds to hiring people and censorship, it's probably been more obstructive than constructive.

So you’re against interoffice romances?

You can't prevent them but inevitably as a CEO I know that they’re disruptive. When the relationships go awry you have a different situation on your hands. I think any CEO will tell you that.

And finally, I have to ask, why go into the ring with Dr. Phil?

I had people call me and say don’t do it. I’ll do anything. I’m not there to persuade anyone not to have their own faith and their own beliefs, I’m just trying to explain something that they may not have as much insight as I do. I’m sitting on the big data around infidelity and I’m prepared to share it and if it means I have to get judged in doing so by the Barbara Walters and Dr. Phils of the world that all seem to need to do that so be it. That is the cost I’ve chosen to pay but I’m not looking for any awards or a pat on the back, this business is just something I’ve chosen to do.