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- [00:00]
David Brown
Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Business wars ad free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. It's May 2024. In the hours before dawn, installation crews fan out across Los Angeles and London, hanging posters for the online dating app Bumb. Above highways In Los Angeles, workers and cherry pickers rise toward massive 14x48 foot billboard frames. In London, crews head underground, carrying rolled up posters into subway stations. By rush hour, these crews have hung the ads along major commuting routes. They're part of a sweeping rebrand by Bumble, which is trying to redefine how people think about online dating. And these ads are aimed squarely at people who feel burned out by it. One ad reads, you know full well a vow of celibacy is not the answer. Another declares, thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun. When bumble debuted in 2014, it made a bold promise. Unlike other dating apps, women would make the first move. It was framed as the feminist answer to hookup culture, and the Message resonated. In 2021, Bumble's IPO expanded, exploded onto Wall Street. The stock surged on its first day of trading, pushing the company's valuation close to $14 billion. Its founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd, became the youngest self made female billionaire at just 31. But that high didn't last. Revenue growth slowed and the stock cratered down more than 80% from its peak. Wolf Herd lost her billionaire status and eventually stepped down as CEO. And Bumble isn't alone with these issues either. Across the dating app world, users are exhausted. People are deleting apps, skipping swipes and opting out altogether. Some even say celibacy sounds better than suffering through one more miserable meetup. Bumble has spent months trying to adapt, but this billboard campaign with its anti celibacy message, lands with a thud. To many of Bumble's core users, particularly women, it feels like the brand is scolding the very people it once claimed to empower. Within hours, social media is flooded with outrage, including this YouTuber's incredulous reaction.
- [02:40]
YouTuber Critic
Did they think we were going to see this billboard and their advertisement and be like, oh my God, you're right. All this peace that I've been experiencing being so celibate, I should just stop it. I should just go back to hookup culture and just give men my body and continue down that toxic path that I have been on? That is so insulting.
- [03:01]
David Brown
Plenty of other creators agree, and some say they're insulted enough to dump Bumble altogether, including one TikToker who mocks the new ads.
- [03:11]
TikTok Creator
Celibacy is not the answer. I've never wanted to cancel a company more in my entire life. Celibacy is actually the answer to most things. Reduce transmission diseases. Celibacy. Reduce unplanned pregnancies Celibacy. Protect your peace Celibacy. Increase your safety with meeting random strangers online. Celibacy.
- [03:33]
David Brown
As the backlash spreads, Bumble's top brass pulls the campaign. The billboards and the posters come down. The company offers a written apology on Instagram saying we made a mistake. But not everyone is buying it. Because this isn't just about a bad ad campaign. As part of its reinvention, Bumble has made a seismic change. For the first time in its ten year history, men can now make the first move. This means that the radical rule that defined the app, women go first, is gone. And that raises a much bigger question. A question that will haunt Bumble for months to come. Once you've thrown away what made you special, can you ever get it back?
- [04:33]
Adobe Acrobat Ad Voice
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- [04:42]
Dan Egan / Raza Jaffrey
Talk of the teamwork?
- [04:43]
Adobe Acrobat Ad Voice
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- [05:03]
Betterment Ad Voice / Male TikToker
This message comes from Betterment. Dan Egan, VP of Behavioral Finance and Investing, explains how Betterment takes the time consuming work out of smart investing.
- [05:14]
Dan Egan
I grew up learning about finance and investing myself and realizing that I needed to reinvest dividends and rebalance my portfolio and if there was an opportunity to tax loss over time. And then I realized that I was doing all of these things that were pretty straightforward to implement. I just needed to spend my time doing them. Betterment automates those same good practices so that I know I'm doing portfolio management and goal based planning in a way that makes sense and is responsible without me having to spend hours of my life doing it.
- [05:45]
Betterment Ad Voice / Male TikToker
Learn more@betterment.com investing involves risk performance, not guaranteed. Betterment does not offer tax advice. TOH may not be suitable for all customers. Learn more@betterment.com Toh terms.
- [06:02]
David Brown
For multiple originals I'm David Brown and this is Business Wars. So you looking for love? Or maybe just a situationship or Even someone who won't ghost you after three days. If the answer to any of these questions is yes, chances are you've tried the apps. Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, maybe even Bumble. And if you've ever swiped through profiles or watched someone else do it, you know the drill, right? The endless profiles, carefully chosen photos, witty bios, the flicker of hope that this match might be different. And the crushing realization that it probably won't be. For millions of women, Bumble once promised something better. In 2014, 25 year old entrepreneur Whitney Wolf launched Bumble with a simple but radical rule. Women make the first move. No unsolicited messages, no digital catcalling, no waiting around if a connection was going to happen. Women decided when it started. This gave women control, safety, a sense of power. Something no other dating app was offering. Women responded. By 2019, it's estimated that Bumble had more than 10 million users worldwide. In 2021, Wolfe Herd became the youngest woman ever to take a US company public. She also became a media sensation, gracing the COVID of Forbes, speaking to audiences around the world, a high profile advocate for women's issues. But lately, to some users, Bumble looks like it's swiping. Left on its own principles, the app now lets men message first. The disastrous billboard campaign seem to suggest users just need to try harder. And more and more people are starting to wonder if Bumble and other dating apps are actually trying to help people find relationships or just keep them swiping and paying for as long as possible. Bumble still has millions of paying users, but whether the company can keep them and attract new ones, that's another matter. Because the app that once stood out for its unapologetically feminist approach has lost its defining feature. Bumble was revolutionary. Now it's flirting with irrelevance. But there may be one person who might be able to save it. The person who built Bumble in the first place. Whitney Wolf Hurd. This is episode one, the Queen Bee. It's July 2014 in Los Angeles. 24 year old Whitney Wolf wakes up in the middle of the night. Her phone is buzzing over and over again. She reaches over to her nightstand and opens Twitter. There are dozens of messages waiting for her. She's just made headlines for suing Tinder, Match.com and their parent company, IAC. Wolf alleges she was the victim of, quote, atrocious sexual harassment and sex discrimination during her two year stint at Tinder. Shortly after graduating from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Wolf co founded Tinder and began marketing the fledgling app to college students, pushing it through sororities and fraternities until Tinder spread across campuses nationwide. But while the company was taking off, her personal life was unraveling. Wolf had been dating Tinder co founder Justin Mateen, and the pair did not prove to be a match. When the relationship ended, things unraveled fast in the office, and Wolf left the company. Two months later, she filed her lawsuit, claiming that Mateen was verbally abusive toward her. Wolf says that at a company party, her ex even called her a whore. The lawsuit claims Tinder tolerated this behavior and describes the company's culture as misogynistic. Wolfe may have sued Tinder, but in calling out the alpha male startup stereotypes, she was also taking aim at something bigger. Silicon Valley's boys club. And now, alone in the dark, scrolling through message after message, she's seeing what happens when you challenge that system publicly. The backlash is immediate and vicious. The messages are filled with profanity and threats and accuse her of being an opportunist. Wolf takes the insults personally, and they hit hard. A feeling of worthlessness starts to creep in. Later that day, a journalist knocks on Wolf's door. He's hoping to get an exclusive of her side of the story. Wolf doesn't open the door.
- [11:26]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Go away. I'm not talking to you.
- [11:29]
David Brown
There will be more days and nights like this to come, more nasty texts, more journalists trying to get a scoop. Eventually, Wolf deletes her Twitter account and prepares to leave Los Angeles. But before she packs her bags, one more message comes through. This time, it's not a threat or an insult. It's an email from a Russian tech mogul named Andrei Andreev. And he has a proposition. It just so happens that Wolf has been busy hatching a plan to turn the Internet into a kinder, gentler place. To do that, she'll need money, and the wealthy Russian who just slid into her inbox has plenty of it. So they set a meeting. And when they finally sit down together, it won't go the way either of them expects. It's late summer 2014. With her lawsuit against Tinder still ongoing, Wolf heads to Europe to visit her sister, who's studying at a culinary school in Paris. But first, she makes a side trip to London. When she arrives, she heads to a glass and steel office tower to meet with Andrei Andreev, the Russian who emailed her. Out of the blue, Andreev runs Badu, a dating app company popular in Europe and Latin America. He gives Wolf a tour of his company's offices and then makes his pitch. Whitney, I love your passion and energy. I've watched what you did at Tinder, and I think you should join Badoo as our chief marketing officer. Wolf eyes Andreev skeptically and then crosses her arms defiantly.
- [13:12]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Look, I'm not for hire. I'm starting my own company, and there's no way it's going to be in the dating space. I'm done with dating.
- [13:20]
David Brown
Andreev doesn't give up. What kind of company are you building?
- [13:25]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
It's called Merci. It's a social network that's only open to women, and it will focus on positivity. My working tagline is compliments are contagious. You should invest.
- [13:39]
David Brown
Andreev can tell she's serious. He's disappointed. He can't nab Wolf for Badu, but he likes the sound of a social brand that caters to women. So instead, he suggests they keep talking. Over the next few days, the two take long walks together through London's parks. Wolf pitches her vision, trying to get his financial backing, while Andrea keeps nudging her back toward the dating world. In the end, they agree to a partnership. Andreev pledges $10 million toward Wolf's next company. He'll take a majority stake, around 79%, while Wolff will be founder and CEO with a roughly 20% stakeholder by early September. As Wolf's refining her vision for her new company, she settles her lawsuit with Tinder. Tinder doesn't admit wrongdoing, but reportedly pays her $1 million. She's no longer just a marketing wunderkind. She's now something else, too. A woman who publicly challenged powerful men in tech and survived, and with the encouragement and financial backing of another powerful man in tech. And she's about to rejoin that world. As Wolf and Andrea keep talking, the idea evolves. Wolf reverses her earlier stance and decides their new company will be a dating app, because the more she thinks about it, the more she sees the problem. Clearly, every other dating app is essentially an open inbox. Signing up as a woman opens the floodgates. Anyone can message you, and what comes through that inbox can be wildly unpleasant. The idea Andrea and Wolf have hatched flips that women won't just be users, they'll be the ones holding the keys. They'll decide when a conversation starts. And ideally, that means fewer of the kinds of messages and experiences Wolf herself just endured after she sued Tinder. Less than six months later, in December 2014, this female first Tinder competitor launches. It's a stunning act of corporate revenge. They name it Bumble Almost two years later, in fall 2016 in Austin, Texas, a camera crew from the Atlantic is following CEO Whitney Wolf's every move inside Bumble's headquarters. As Wolf walks through the office, the lens catches small details like neatly stacked books with titles like Conscious Capitalism and Feminist Fight Club, the app has become a sensation since its Launch, with around 7 million users worldwide. Not all of them are there to date. Some choose Bumble BFF to find friends. And the company is catching on at a key cultural moment, too. In October 2017, actress Alyssa Milano encourages women to share their stories of sexual harassment and discrimination using the hashtag MeToo. And it becomes a global movement. And it's one Whitney Wolf, now Whitney Wolfe Heard after marrying Michael. Heard understands firsthand. In fact, her personal story is becoming deeply intertwined with Bumble's identity. In interviews and public appearances, Wolfe Herd says her story is key to Bumble's core Women First Mission, a platform designed to give women more control. And that mission is about to drive some major and controversial decisions. In 2017, Match Group makes multiple offers to acquire Bumble, reportedly going as high as $1 billion. Match already owns some of the biggest brands in online dating, including Tinder and OkCupid. But Bumble isn't interested and plays hard to get. After its advances are spurned, Match sues Bumble, accusing it of copying Tinder's swipe based matching technology. Bumble fires back, counter suing Match, alleging Match's interest in buying Bumble was just a pretense to obtain Bumble's confidential information. Bumble frames its lawsuit as an attempt by a larger bully of a company that's set on crushing a female led rival. And Wolf Herd doubles down, signing off on a bold full page open letter in the New York Times. Dear Match Group, we swipe left on you. We'll never be yours, no matter the price tag. We'll never compromise our values. Bumble remains independent, and Wolf Herd remains in control. But soon, Bumble's values will be tested. In late September 2018, Christine Blasey Ford testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee, accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. That same day, Bumble makes a striking move. It buys full page ads in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The ads run the next day and contain just two words in bold type, believe women. Days later, at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit, Wolfhard explains the decision.
- [19:11]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
You know, this is who we are. We've been taking a risk from day one. We went and built a product where women must make the first move. Everybody said that was against the grain, that was against human nature. Why would you ever build a product that won't work? This is what I heard the entire time trying to build this company. And we were building this with such a mission at the helm of it that decisions to take a full page ad and say believe women on such a, you know, serious day that speaks beyond just that day. That wasn't an opportunity for us to just market ourselves. That had nothing to we actually didn't even want to use our logo on that. It was really a statement to say enough is enough.
- [19:51]
David Brown
Wolf Herd's risk pays off Users stick with a platform by the end of October 2018, Bumble has 40 million users worldwide. Wolfe Herd has become something more than a CEO. She's a feminist icon. But in a London office building far from Bumble's Austin headquarters, a scandal is brewing. A scandal that threatens to fracture Bumble's relationship with its biggest backer and potentially change the company's future.
- [20:29]
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- [20:58]
Leon Mayfak
I'm Leon Mayfak, best known as the host and co creator of podcasts Slow Burn, Fiasco and Think Twice Michael Jackson. I'm here to tell you about my show, Final Thoughts Jerry Springer, whose name is synonymous with outrageous guests whose taboo confessions and vicious onstage fights. But before the Jerry Springer show became a symbol of cultural decline, its namesake was a popular Midwestern politician and a serious minded idealist with lofty ambitions. Through dozens of intimate and revealing interviews with those who knew Springer best, I examined Springer's lifelong struggle to reconcile his TV Persona with his political dreams and aspirations. Named one of the best podcasts of the year by the New Yorker and Rolling Stone Stone Final Thoughts Jerry Springer is a story about choices, how we make them, how we justify them to ourselves, and how we transcend them. Or don't Listen wherever you get your podcasts or binge the whole series ad free right now on Audible. Start your Audible subscription in the Audible app.
- [22:09]
David Brown
It's summer 2019 in Austin, Texas. Whitney Wolfe Herd takes a call from her office at Bumble's headquarters. The company is five years old now and operates out of a building that looks like it's been dipped in a giant can of sunflower yellow paint. Honeycomb wall panels line the stairwells, and on the walls there are Instagram ready neon slogans like Be kind Spelled B E E and Brains are the New Beauty. The space is aggressively cheerful, but in Herd's office, the mood is anything but. A Forbes reporter is on the line. She spent months investigating allegations of misogyny and sexual misconduct inside Badu's headquarters, the company run by Bumble's biggest investor and owner. The reporter lays out what she's found. Multiple women have told her that Badu is a toxic workplace. One former chief marketing officer says she was told to, quote, act pretty for investors and was even asked to give a job candidate a massage. The reporter asks Wolfe Herd for her response. Wolfe Herd pauses.
- [23:18]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Honestly, I've never seen any of the kind of toxic behavior you're describing during my visits to Badu's London office.
- [23:28]
David Brown
The headline on the Forbes story is Blunt Sex, Drugs, Misogyny, and Sleaze at the HQ of Bumble's owner. The allegations create a painful contradiction. Bumble was built on a simple promise that women deserve safer, more respectful treatment online. Wolf Herd herself became a symbol of that promise after taking on Tinder in Silicon Valley's bro culture. But now the company backing Bumble stands accused of the very behavior Bumble claims to fight. You know, at a time when there's a lot of talk about corporate values and how much they really matter, there's a big takeaway here. When your brand is built on values, your partners become part of that promise, whether you like it or not. Alignment isn't optional. If your ecosystem contradicts your mission, the market may very well pick up on it before you do. The controversy ends with Andreev selling his majority stake in the holding company that owns Bumble and Badu to the private equity giant Blackstone. In a deal that values the company at $3 billion. Blackstone replaces Andreev with someone who knows all about sexism in the workplace. Whitney Wolfe heard she takes over as CEO of Bumble and Badu. Five years earlier, Wolfe Herd was suing her way out of Silicon Valley. Now, at just 29 years old, she's running one of the largest dating empires in the world. The promotion cements her status as more than a CEO. She's a symbol, a woman fighting for other women, willing to take hits while pushing for change. It's a powerful position to be in, but it's also a fragile one, because in Silicon Valley and on Wall street, power can disappear faster than it arrives. First, though, Wolf Herd and Bumble are about to make stock market history. It's February 2021, and Wall street has come to Austin, Texas. Inside Bumble's headquarters, known as the Hive, representatives from NASDAQ have set up a temporary trading floor. Normally, companies ring the opening bell in New York City, but it's the middle of a global pandemic. So today, the bell is coming to Bumble. Whitney Wolfe Herd steps up to a podium. She's wearing a bright yellow pants suit and matching heels, Bumble's signature color. Behind her, a pink neon sign reads, make the first move. A handful of employees and investors stand in the background, spaced 6ft apart. More appear on a giant screen, zoom style. And just off to the side, someone is holding Wolf Herd's infant son. As cameras roll, Wolf Herd begins to speak. Her voice trembled slightly, unusual for a CEO known for her careful, polished presentations.
- [26:33]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
We are humbled and grateful to be with you today, and we look forward to building the future of love, friendship, networking and community as we chip away at archaic gender dynamics and make the Internet a kinder and more accountable place.
- [26:47]
David Brown
Wolf Herd finishes her remarks and then turns and scoops her baby into her arms. And for just a moment, the CEO disappears. There's just a mother and her child. Then the countdown begins. Music swells, employees cheer. Wolfe Heard stands ready. At 31 years old, Whitney Wolfe Herd becomes the youngest female founder to take a U.S. company public. She's also about to become a billionaire. Bumble's Ticker symbol is BMBL. Shares are priced at $43, valuing the company at 8 billion. The company wants to use that money to fund a major expansion. But within hours, as the stock rockets upward, Bumble ends up with a lot more capital than it expected. By the end of the day, shares closed near $76, pushing the valuation to roughly 14 billion. Wolf Herd's stake alone is worth roughly 1.5 billion. There's a reason investors are smitten with Bumble. The pandemic has pushed dating almost entirely online. People are isolated, lonely, and living through screens. Bumble is thriving in this environment. Video chats on the platform have surged during lockdowns in app. Voice calls now average 30 minutes. This means dating app users aren't just swiping. They're connecting and building relationships digitally before ever meeting for coffee. Bumble pitches this as the future. Deeper digital connection means more time on the app, more subscription revenue, and more Growth Investors love this story. But on Wall street, love rarely lasts. It's May 2021 in Austin. Inside the Bumble Hive, Whitney Wolf Herd sits down in front of a webcam, waiting to go live on Yahoo Finance. Bumble has just reported its first quarterly earnings as a public company. And on paper, the results look as bright as a sunflower. Revenue is up more than 100% year over year, hitting nearly $171 million. Paying users are up 30%. This beats analysts expectations. But the market doesn't care. After the opening bell, Bumble shares fall nearly 6%. This continues a slide that began three months earlier, after the stock briefly peaked at $84.80. Since then, nearly half of Bumble's market value has vanished. The problem for investors isn't the current quarter. It's the future. See, here's the thing. While investors love a great story, markets also punish uncertainty. Bumble's pitched its pandemic surge as a breakout moment. Great story, right? Well, but as many an investor has learned the hard way, when everyone's celebrating a story, you've got to be asking, so what comes next? And on this count, Bumble is fumbling around for a credible answer. Investors are concerned that Bumble's pandemic boom is already fading. During lockdowns, dating apps became a lifeline for isolated singles. But as vaccines roll out and the world reopens, people are leaving their screens behind. And this prompts a new what happens to a digital app built for digital connection when people start meeting in person again? Every dating app is facing that question. But Bumble has an added challenge. It's still much smaller than Tinder, which has about three times as many paying subscribers. So to justify its lofty valuation, Wall street wants Bumble to prove it can grow faster, attract younger users, and compete globally. As investors continue selling shares, Wolfe Herd appears on Yahoo Finance. And this time, everything looks different. Wolfe Herd is dressed all in black. She's sitting in a dark, echoey room with a bland gray wall behind her. No honeycomb walls, no neon slogans. It's just the CEO, the numbers, and a defiant tone.
- [31:23]
Interviewer
It's great to speak with you, Whitney. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us today. We saw very strong results from you guys last night, yet we're seeing the selling pressure in the stock today. What's Wall street getting wrong?
- [31:34]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Listen, we are absolutely operating for the long term. We have a great business. The fundamentals are there. They've been there. And I'm completely comfortable being underestimated. It's been a big part of my career, so. And it's a motivator. But we are all super focused on the future. We, as you saw, we reported great results and we're very confident in the demand and the need for love, friendship, connection. That's going nowhere.
- [32:04]
David Brown
She might be right. The need for love isn't going anywhere. But Wall street needs more than love. It needs growth. And as 2021 goes on, Bumble's growth story starts to look shakier than its founder wants to admit. The stock keeps sliding, the pressure keeps building. And soon a new problem emerges. It's September 2021 in California. Across the Golden State, hundreds of thousands of men are opening the same message from Bumble. The email begins with a cheerful greeting, hello there. Then it delivers an unusual piece of news. If you subscribe To Bumble between 2016 and 2021, you may be entitled to money from a class action settlement. Back in 2018, a California man named Kirilloes Mansour sued Bumble, claiming that Bumble's core feature, women message, first, violated California's state anti gender discrimination law. After years of legal back and forth, Bumble quietly agreed to a settlement. The company didn't admit to discrimination, but it has offered to set aside $3 million to pay male users who subscribe to the app during that five year time frame. While the settlement awaits final court approval, Bumble emails men from across California explaining how to claim their share. Buried deeper in the email is a line most readers will miss. It says, quote, bumble will also agree to revise its practices with respect to male users who identify as interested in women. That word practices is doing a lot of work here. What it means in plain English is a new app feature. As part of the settlement, Bumble agreed to introduce a new feature allowing men to signal interest in women's profiles, perhaps using emojis even if men still can't fully message first. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Think of what's just happened here. This isn't a court declaring Bumble to be engaged in anything discriminatory. This is Bumble itself making a huge concession to settle a case. A concession that puts a question mark beside Bumble's reason for being. Is there an emoji for pulling the pin on your own product? I know it may not sound like that big of a deal, but it is. Technologically, the change is small, but symbolically, it's massive. Because the rule that women make the first move isn't just a product feature. It's the bedrock of the entire company. That's what made Bumble different from Tinder and every other swipe based dating app on the market. Now, thanks to one lawsuit, Bumble's foundation is starting to crack. At first, that crack is limited to the app's use in California. But cracks have a way of spreading, and soon Bumble won't just be dealing with one lawsuit, it will be facing 20,000 of them.
- [35:32]
Dan Egan / Raza Jaffrey
I'm Raza Jaffrey, and in the new season of the Spy who, we tell the story of Dr. A Q Khan, the spy who sold nuclear secrets to Iran. He was the scientist spy who stole nuclear technology from the Netherlands and used them to give Pakistan a bomb. But he didn't stop there. He became a black market atomic salesman, the fix it man for rogue states seeking nuclear weapons, including Iran, Libya and North Korea. And that left the CIA and MI6 in a race against time to put him out of business before the world's most wayward regimes get hold of the world's most destructive weapons. Follow the Spy who Now Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can also listen to the full season of the Spy who Sold Nuclear Secrets to Iran early and ad free on Audible.
- [36:43]
David Brown
It's August 2022 in Austin. 6,000 miles away, Russia's war in Ukraine is dragging into its sixth month. And inside the hive, Bumble's executives are discovering that even a dating app isn't immune to the shock waves of a land war in Europe. Bumble has just slashed its full year revenue forecast, and it points to the conflict overseas as one reason why the war has battered user growth for Badu, its sister dating app. But that's only part of the problem. Earlier in the year, Bumble made its first ever acquisition, snapping up Fruits, a dating app based in France that caters to Gen Z. That's an audience Bumble's been trying to capture. On Fruits, users don't just swipe, they signal what they're looking for with fruit emojis. Cherries stand for relationships, while grapes mean casual dating. It's playful and different, but the Fruits acquisition is just one part of Bumble's ongoing spending spree. And by the end of 2022, even though Bumble's paying user count is up and its revenues approaching $1 billion, the company reports a net loss of $114 million. And now analysts are questioning whether Bumble can afford to grow fast enough to close the gap with Match Group. Meanwhile, Whitney Wolfe Heard is facing a different kind of scrutiny in meetings with investors, board members, and even her own internal teams. A similar subtle message is delivered. It comes through in the raised eyebrows, in the gentle suggestions from people who question her pedigree. You're young, they seem to be saying to the 33 year old founder. You're not a coder. You've never run a public company before. The questions begin to erode Wolfe Herd's self confidence. The voice that once told her to sue Tinder to fly to London to put believe women in the New York Times is getting harder to hear. And into that silence, a new threat arrives. Not from a boardroom, from a courtroom filled with thousands of angry men. It's August 2023 inside the Bumble Hive. In a brightly colored office, Bumble's chief legal officer sits at her desk, reviewing a stack of lawsuits. She leans forward, puts her head in her hands and lets out a sigh. Bumble's earlier settlement in the gender discrimination case didn't solve the problem. Instead, it multiplied it. A California law firm is now filing case after case against Bumble on behalf of men, all making the same argument that Bumble's signature rule women make the first move, discriminates against men. The number of litigants climbs fast. 5,000? 10,000? 20,000. Mass arbitration like this is a legal sledgehammer. It forces companies to pay enormous filing fees just to fight each individual claim. The more men who sign up, the more Bumble bleeds. Even before a single case goes anywhere on that, the Internet has thoughts, one male tiktoker scoffs at the men involved.
- [40:10]
Betterment Ad Voice / Male TikToker
Who are these men that are upset by this? There's so many other apps where guys
- [40:15]
David Brown
could go and be the annoying first creeper dude, you don't gotta do it here. The lawsuits, though, are no joke to Bumble's bottom line. The company's legal team estimates the cost could reach $60 million. At a time when the company is already struggling financially, revenue is still growing. In 2023, Bumble is on track to top $1 billion for the first time. But the company lost 114 million the year before and is headed for another loss in 2023. As the lawsuits mount, Bumble's top executives scramble for solutions. Should Bumble pull out of California? No, that's too big a market. Should it fight every arbitration? No, that's too expensive. Then an idea surfaces that would have been unthinkable a year ago. What if Bumble lets men message first? It's already changed its rules to let men send emojis because of the earlier settlement. Now Bumble begins thinking about going even farther inside Bumble. This isn't a small tweak. It's a fundamental rewrite. And yet no one shuts the idea down. And that's not just because of the lawsuits. Bumble knows that while some women love messaging first, others feel like making the first move is just more unpaid emotional labor.
- [41:47]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Hmm.
- [41:49]
David Brown
All that's true, I suppose. But there's no mistaking what's at stake is nothing less than the brand's identity. Right? For Bumble, each innovation started with a simple question. Is this who we are? But now seems like this question has shifted to something more like, is this rewrite what the business needs to survive? If so, then what makes Bumble Bumble? Across the entire dating app industry, frustration is rising. Men feel ignored. Women feel overwhelmed. For a lot of users, dating apps are starting to look broken. So the idea of radically changing Bumble's founding rule lingers inside the hive. But someone has to make that call. And there's a big problem. The person who would normally make a decision this big. Bumble's founder and CEO, is struggling to trust her own instincts. Like many of Bumble's users, Whitney Wolfe Heard is exhausted, worn down by the pressure of leading a billion dollar company and by her own constant need to please employees, investment, and journalists. Still, Wolf Herd is prepared to make one final major decision. But not about the product, about herself. It's fall 2023 in Austin. Under a cloudless sky and the bright Texas sun, Wolf Herd walks into the hive. She has a board meeting today. And she has news. Okay, let's get to it. Whitney, you said you have something big for us. Wolf Herd pauses. For nearly a decade, she's been the face of Bumble, the founder who turned a messy exit from Tinder into a billion dollar Women first brand. But now she's ready to step back.
- [43:49]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
I think it's time for a new chapter for me and for the company. I built this so women wouldn't have to wait for someone else to make the first move. And right now, the right move for me is to step back.
- [44:06]
David Brown
Wolf Herd tells the board she already has a successor in mind, a Brazilian tech executive named Lidiani Jones. Wolf Herd first noticed her in a CNBC interview where Jones talked about artificial intelligence and how it might transform online communication. Wolfhard tells the board that Jones is the perfect choice. Wall street isn't so sure. Jones is sharp, polished, full of ideas about the future. But she's never run a dating app or headed a company whose founder is also its soul. When the news becomes public, bumble stock plunges 10% hitting a record low, investors seem to be asking the question, can the hive survive without its queen? That concern makes sense. Bumble without Whitney Wolfe Herd is like Apple without Steve Jobs, Spanx without Sarah Blakely. This is a founder driven brand. Wolfe Herd's origin story is Bumble's DNA. She's the reason millions of women trusted the app in the first place. You know, when a company's identity is so tightly bound to one person, succession becomes more than a leadership change. It's a test of whether a brand can stand on its own. I think of other transitions, like Adam Newman at WeWork or Travis Kalanick at Uber. Deep down, everyone's asking the same question, even if they aren't saying it out loud. Is the mission bigger than the messenger? If the answer isn't clear, the transition itself can become the risk. Starting in 2024, the person making the biggest decisions about Bumble won't be Whitney Wolfe heard, and those decisions won't be easy. The lawsuits are still piling up, investors are losing patience, and many of the women who built Bumble's commercial community say they're ready to quit dating apps altogether. The company needs a solution, something bold, something decisive. And Bumble's answer? Let men go first. Follow Business wars on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Business wars ad free by joining Audible from Audible Originals. This is episode one of Bumble's Stumble for Business Wars. A quick note about recreations you've been hearing. In most cases, we can't know exactly what was said at the time. Those scenes are dramatizations, but they're based on research. And if you'd like to read more, we recommend a story titled the Bumble Tumble from the observer in the UK and the Forbes magazine story titled Billion Dollar Bumble. I'm your host David Brown. Joseph Guento wrote our story. Voice acting by Chloe Elmore. Our senior producers are Jenny Bloom and Emily Frost. Our producer is Tristan Donovan of Yellowand Karen Lowe is our producer Emeritus. Our managing producer is Desi Blaylock. Fact checking by Gabrielle Drollet Sound design by Kyle Randall Executive Producer for Audible Jenny Lauer Beckman, Head of Creative Development at Audible Kate Navin, head of Audible Originals North America Marshall Louie Chief Content Officer Rachel Giazza Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC Sound Recording Copyright 2026 by Audible Original.