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How Leaders Lead with David Novak
#263: Whitney Wolfe Herd, Founder and CEO of Bumble – Your mission is your mobilizer
01:11:03
Listen to this leadership podcast with Whitney Wolfe Herd, Founder and CEO of Bumble and discover the power of a clear and compelling mission.
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- [00:01]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Men have to go first. Women don't talk. Why would you build something where there's no interaction? This old age mindset was so convinced that this wouldn't work. And a couple people, one being my husband, one being my former business partner, they were like, we love it.
- [00:20]
David
You're one of the most celebrated leaders I've ever talked to, and I've talked to a lot of great ones.
- [00:24]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
And, oh, gosh, I don't know about that. I don't know about that.
- [00:28]
David
And you're one of the most successful entrepreneurs of this generation, for sure. But as I understand it, you wanted to be a photojournalist. What's the favorite picture that you've ever taken and why?
- [00:41]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
You know, I actually. It's so weird that you just asked me this, because I haven't thought about this in a very long time, but I stumbled upon a photo in my phone the other day from 2011 when I had graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. And, you know, all of my friends were going to get these great jobs. They were working at Goldman, and they were working at Vogue, and they were working at all these various incredible business, you know, at these great companies. And all their parents were so proud. And I remember my parents were like, so, you know, where are you going to be working? Goldman, you know, Vogue. And I said, no, I'm actually going to take a backpack and go to Southeast Asia. And everyone was like, huh? What do you mean? And so I kind of. I just wanted to explore the world and see what was out there. Instead of going straight into a career, I wanted to go and, you know, see different parts of culture and take photos. So my favorite photo I've ever taken actually was taken in the hills of Burma in that golden triangle I actually crossed over from Thailand into with a guide. And we hiked up into these Burmese hills, and I met these women from the Karen tribe. They're these glorious, amazing women, and they're. They. They add, you know, the. I don't know exactly what they're called. They look like rings, gold rings. And they add so many gold rings that their necks actually elongate and get longer. And they are the most unbelievable tribe of women. And they make these unbelievable blankets and artifacts, and they're just incredible. And I took this extraordinary photo of a woman with, you know, must be a dozen of the. The neck charms, The. The rings. I. I'm so sad that I don't know the proper terminology for it, but it's a beautiful photo. So that's one. And then I I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you about another one. When you walk into the bumble office in London, there is a photo again from Burma, from a different trip of a woman holding a bumble lighter. And she's sitting on a step and she's smoking a cigarette, holding a bumble lighter. And she had, she had asked me for a light, a lighter for her cigarette when I was walking the streets. So I asked her for a photo and it ended up being just this beautiful photo. So we framed it and it's been in the office since 2014. So, you know, that's, that's all I get for my very short lived dream career in journalism. I mean, in photojournalism, it never happened, but we got the two photos.
- [03:31]
David
I love it. You know, I actually lived in Dallas and I lived on Abbott street, which is where SMU was, right one mile away. And I used to run by Sumu all the time. So, you know, it was a great school and I'm sure you enjoyed it there. And you know, what advice would you give on how to do a good profile? And you know, and like any good brand, you want to separate yourself from the pack. I mean, no one knows that better than you.
- [03:52]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yes, it's funny, people have. Actually what you just said is, is what you would expect people to think that they want to stand out, they want to showcase their uniqueness, they want to appear to be so uniquely themselves. What would surprise you and shock you is actually the general population has a willingness and an eagerness to actually fit in more than stand out, which is such a strange concept. I guess it's been ingrained in us from childhood where we want to fit into the classroom or we want to fit into the equation. And frankly, that is not the way to do it. On the dating app. You have to be so uniquely you, you must stand out because otherwise you just blend into everybody else. And so I would say instead of being so obsessed with starting with photos, meaning do I look good or is this a good photo of me? I would actually reframe it and say, does this photo capture my personality, my hobbies, my values, the things that I love? So when you reframe how you're essentially showcasing yourself through the lens of how do I spend my day and what do I love to do? You start to really tell a story about yourself that is so much more relevant to the right suitor. So for example, if you're a huge outdoor person, instead of just showing photos of you looking really nice at an event in a suit, get a photo of you out doing the things you love to do so that everyone can derive, oh, wow, this person's an avid biker, hiker, runner, swimmer, skier, whatever it might be. And then you can already derive similar interests from the way you showcase yourself. So I would really ask yourself, like, what sets me apart and how I like to spend my weekends or my days? And then really try to showcase that through photos and prompts and bios.
- [05:47]
David
And basically, like any brand, by doing that, you're creating an emotional connection that really lets people know who you are and, and being authentic.
- [05:56]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
That's absolutely right. And you know brands better than anyone in the world. If you're walking down the aisle looking for a box of cereal, if they all look the same, they all feel the same, you end up with this paradox of choice. And you stare at the cereal aisle for an hour and you leave the store with no cereal and you're like, what just happened? But, you know, if, if you can really make yourself stand out and be unique and capture someone at that deeper level beyond just the surface, that's really where the magic happens.
- [06:27]
David
Yeah, makes sense, you know, and speaking of brands, you co founded Tinder at 22 years old and Bumble at 24. So let's start with Tinder. What made it so successful? What was Tinder's secret sauce?
- [06:41]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
It's a really great question, and I think the answer is a lot less interesting than one might think. I think the secret sauce was both. We got kind of lucky, frankly. But the secret sauce was leaning into something that had been hyper popular with Gen X, which was online love and rebranding it. So a lot of folks, what millennials didn't realize were a lot of folks older than millennials. So the Gen X category, or even, you know, much younger boomers, they, they had had a lot of success on things like eharmony and these web based dating platforms, but what had never been done was the make the cereal box cool for the next generation. So it was, it was more of a reimagination of an already really proven product, which is always the way to go, as you and I know, unless you're inventing, you know, some brand new technology. And so what we did was the, the engineers were so thoughtful in this, this small group of us, you know, we really just said, wow, dating, you know, is working on these clunky old school platforms. And the team said, what would happen if you just made that mobile first and turned it into an app? And remember, this was the time where there was the popping ups of the app for this and the app for that and the app for this. And so it was essentially just saying, oh, this should be the app for flirting or chatting or dating. And so it was a bit of a game approach from the engineers, and it was kind of just throwing a dart at the wall. But where the magic really happened was when we went to colleges, and I had just graduated from smu, so I knew the college circuit very well, and most of my girlfriends were still in college at smu, you know, one year younger. And so when we went and we took that approach to density and we seeded it with the influencers on campus, and we made a dating app, which historically was something those people would have laughed at. Acceptable, that's where the fire ignited.
- [09:04]
David
That's amazing. You know, and, you know, I always say that the power of big ideas usually comes when you bring in a unique image to a known quantity. So you had this thing happening out there, and then you just rebranded it and made it special, and it took off like wildfire. And so you basically took over the dating scene, redefined it by rebranding it. And yet, you know, a couple of years later, you decide to leave the company. Could you tell us why you did that?
- [09:31]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
It was time. It was not where my heart was going to be forever. That was not the. The company for me, long term, you know, had its own ending, which I usually don't talk about. But what I learned from my experience there, because I'm a big firm believer on, you know, experience, learn. Life is this huge classroom, right? And just like we went through school and we were like, in first grade and second grade and third grade, and we learned and we learned and we learned, and Tinder was like a crash course. It was a crash course in learning a lot about leadership, frankly. And it really taught me that the biggest lesson I learned from my chapter at Tinder is the way a product reaches the hands of a consumer is inherently going to be the DNA of the team that's building it and the DNA of the intentions of the team. And there is no way to offer a product to the world and to get the world to engage with the product that is not a derivative of the DNA of the team behind it. And so when I left Tinder, I really looked at how women were feeling using the product. And I realized this isn't working for women. We have to think about different technology for women. We have to lead differently for women. And so when I left Tinder, I had this epiphany of there's no tech made by or for women, there's no technology out there, there's no social media that is about enhancing the lives of women. And so it really sent me on this path of starting to create what would have been a girls and women social network. But the catch was I wanted it to be about kindness and compliments, not about bringing people down and tearing people down online. Because we were starting to see the beginnings of this online abuse tox swirl that we've all been engulfed in. And that was when ultimately one thing led to the next thing. To the next thing. And my, my prior business partner, Andre, he said, I love your vision, I love what you're doing for women, but why don't you do this in dating? I thought he was insane. I was like, I'm never going back to the dating world. And he was like, no, you really, you really could do something for girls and women or not girls, frankly, because that wasn't the focus anymore with dating, were focused on older women, at least 18 and up. And I really reimagined what a woman first dating platform would mean and what would that mean to the members, what would that mean to women in general? And that was really the beginnings of what would become Bumble.
- [12:22]
David
Yeah, now I want to get into that because you have such a great mission for that. And you know, prior to Bumblebee, you know, the whole dating scene, the whole Internet, you know, apps, all is pretty male dominated and some could say it was toxic, you know, and so many women and you know, I have a daughter, you know, I care about her very much. And you know, so many women get caught in these toxic environments, you know, and what advice do you have to women in terms of how to, when you're in that kind of environment, what do you do? I mean, you obviously said, I want to do something different. I want to make an impact for women, I want to change the way how things are done. But a lot of women, you know, they're in a situation maybe right now. What advice would you give them?
- [13:06]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Well, you know, I think the missing piece from the story is that it's not like I stood up on day one and was like, I'm going to go crusade for women and I'm, I'm going to go change the world for women. I was completely lost. I was completely engulfed in it's a man's world and I need to fit in and I need to behave and I need to blend in and I need to do as I'm told part of Dating culture and part of this just global culture at the moment. And so it wasn't like I just, you know, had some Joan of Arc crusader in me and just was different than every other woman. I went through the pits of it too. Like what you're saying about a lot of women around the world right now, where I conformed, I did whatever I could to survive and just fit in and be one of the boys. And at a certain point you realize, oh, you're betraying yourself to be a part of something that hasn't invited you or included you historically. And so you have to go inward and you have to follow your true north. And when you know something is not including you, or when you know something is, is harming you, it is our duty at some point to say, well, how could I do this differently? How can I learn from that? And how can I take all of the things about that that didn't work, that felt wrong, that felt icky, that felt, you know, disingenuous to what's best for women or for me, and how do I go and build solutions from that? And so my advice to women would be, don't fear standing out and getting left out so much that you force yourself to fit in to environments that are not good for you or women in general. And I would really encourage women to just know how important it is to always take that first step to a better next step. Right? You have to stand up for yourself. You have to believe in yourself, and you have to go and take risk to be a part of something that is good for you instead of just forcing yourself to fit in or take it or be a part of it. And so I think that's a long winded way of saying it's hard, it's really hard and it's scary, but you've got to do it.
- [15:30]
David
I love that line, take the first step to next better step. I think that is such great insight and, and so valuable for everybody listening out there. And, you know, so, so you say, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to build this brand for women and I'm going to change, change the, change the game, you know, and you really differentiate yourself big time by creating this brand for women that allows them to make the first move. They get to make the first move in the dating process. You know, what a great idea. How'd that come to you?
- [16:05]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
So it's actually an interesting story. I couldn't figure out for the life of me how we were going to figure out how to make a Woman friendly dating app. It was like a math equation I couldn't solve because I was like, wait a second. Everything about dating is geared against women, from going to the bar to how it works, you know, in the Greek life on college campuses. Like dating is inherently not woman friendly. You know, a lot of women are left in tears. Go watch all the old movies, Grease Lightning, you know, remember that movie Grease Lightning where the guys are all, you know, dancing and celebrating the women they're going on dance, you know, dates with. And the women are all crying at the sleepover because someone didn't, you know, ask them out again. And it's just dating is just this really kind of broken thing and has been for centuries. And so I just couldn't figure out how in the world, how in the world am I going to make this woman friendly? I mean, it felt like an impossible feat. And remember, I was so committed to starting this woman only social network. It's like, how in the heck am I going to make this work for dating? And I promise you, this is the craziest thing. I would say it under oath. It was like one of those downloads from the universe. I don't know how to explain it. I don't know what you call it. You can call it source. You can call it. I mean, I'm not a religious person, but I'm very spiritual. You could call it God. You could call it your inner voice. I had this inner download. I could hear my voice speaking to me and it was like clear as day. It was like a downloaded instruction where it said, okay, forever. Men have gone first. They have had to approach women first, starting on the playground if they wanted to talk to someone. And women and girls, starts much younger, have been trained to reject. We've been trained to play hard, to get, to be demure, to be really on our best behavior. And what it does is it sets men up to feel very rejected. It basically sets the stage. When you have a profile to hide behind for abuse and toxicity to be bred. When you have rejection, it breeds aggression. And so I swear to you, in like 20 seconds, this download said to me, I have it. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. It can still be matching, it can still be swiping. But the catch is when a woman and a man match, the woman must make the first move. And all of a sudden, in my brain, it was like two examples. Two very clear images came to mind. The first was Cinderella, the pumpkin. You know, the carriage turning into the pumpkin at midnight. If she didn't Go and do it. Like the shoes would disappear and the pumpkin would come and it was this like putting the onus on Cinderella to get to the ball, to go after what she wanted. And then the second image that came to mind was the Sadie Hawkins dance where the girl or the woman had to ask to the dance. And I had these two clear as day examples. And I blurted it out. And I was in a room, I was outside actually with a group of people. We were all trying to figure out, what are we going to build? How's this thing going to work? We knew I was going to film this new company and women make, you know, women, women being in, in control of dating, but we didn't know what the product would be. And I just said it out loud. I was like, okay, guys, I got it. I know exactly how this works, all right? Two people, they match their man and woman. When the woman and the man match, the woman has to go first, the man cannot contact her. She's 24 hours or the match disappears forever. And this is how it's going to go. And it was just clear as day. I just wrote the roadmap in 10 seconds and everyone looked at me like crickets. Like, are you crazy? Why would you build something where there's no interaction? Men have to go first, Women don't talk. You know, this old age mindset was so convinced that this wouldn't work. And a couple people, one being my husband and one being my former business partner, they were like, we love it, Maybe it'll work. Let's go, let's do it. And so I just sat down with our designers and wireframed this entire download in my brain. And that's what became bumble.
- [20:18]
David
It's a great story, but it's, it's like, you know, it seems like a no brainer. I mean, you know, when you hear a great idea, you go, wow. Like I, I mean, when I heard that idea, you know, especially now, it's easy because it's already been done. A lot of times when great ideas have happened, you know, that it's easy to say, yeah, this is great. But back then, even though you had this great idea, your husband bought in it, your partner bought into it. Did it go over? Like, did everybody think it was a great idea or what?
- [20:44]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
No. No. I mean, I'll never forget I sat in a room with a couple engineers who were going to actually code this for us, right? Someone had to build this. It's just an idea. And you know, most things are great ideas. And then they go to die, right? Like some of the best inventions on planet Earth. They left us at Idea Right. We never have seen them. They never came into fruition. So I'm in there and I'm like, okay, guys, we're going to build this. It's going to change the world. Women are going to be in the driver's seat. This is going to make men feel better about themselves. We're going to remove rejection. We're going to solve humanity's problems. Are you ready? And they're like, we're ready. And I'm like, okay, women have to make the first move. And they were like, huh? And they were like, no, no, we're not building that. That doesn't work. And I said, why doesn't work? And they said, well, because we have all the data on dating apps and men have to. That's the only way you'll get any engagement. I said, that's the whole point. That's the whole point. We're assuming that that's the only way it works. We haven't tried it the other way. And I'm going to assume it works because Cinderella is the most popular movie in history. And the Sadie Hawkins dance is the thing everyone waited all year for, including our grandparents, because it was the best. Women got to be in control. Men got to be less, you know, feel less on edge and less. Less aggressive. And it just made it better for everyone. And they're like, no, this is gonna flop.
- [22:13]
David
Where do you get this courage?
- [22:15]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
I don't know.
- [22:16]
David
It doesn't seem like a hell of a lot of courage because it makes so much sense to me. But back then, that had to. You had everybody fighting you.
- [22:23]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
I just knew it. You know when you just know something and you're like, no, I know. You take a left here, not a right. I've been here. And everyone's like, no, I'm pretty sure we go right. I'm pretty sure the. The streets to the right. And I'm like, no, no, you gotta trust me. Like, I know we go this way and it's going to work. And it's just one of those intuitive things. I just knew it.
- [22:45]
David
Well, you're a hell of a. You're a marketer. I mean, you really know how to think through the customer and get in the customer's mind and deal with things that's relevant for them. And a great example of this. I did my research, and I was blown away by some of your just simple ideas, but great marketing, you got to break through the clutter and you're one of the best I've ever seen at this thing, you know? Tell me the thinking behind paying people to walk into a college classroom 15 minutes late wearing a Bumble T shirt. I mean, who comes up with stuff like this?
- [23:18]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Well, think about it. Have you ever sat in a classroom and you're bored out of your mind, and then someone barges through and it's like a silent cricket classroom and you're like, who's that? Well, then I just thought, what if we interrupted you with something creative and interesting? You would then have a captive audience for the next 60 minutes, sitting there, trying to pay attention to the teacher, but really thinking, who is that person that just came in in that shirt? And what's bumble?
- [23:45]
David
Yeah, but look at you. You said, hey, I'm going to put my brand on somebody and I'm going to have them interrupt a class that people are paying to go to to get educated. And I'm going to, they're going to come in and out. That's a, that's a pretty breakthrough idea, don't you think?
- [24:00]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah, and I kind of feel bad about it in hindsight, when you put it that way.
- [24:03]
David
No, you don't, you don't feel bad. You're proud of yourself that. I don't buy that at all.
- [24:10]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Listen, you, you gotta break a couple rules, okay? You don't break the law, but you break some rules. That's, that's the way to think about it when you're, when you're a startup founder, you gotta, you gotta, gotta get creative. Now another thing we did, I would say was, I think because I was the customer, I understood the customer, right? It's really easy to understand when you are part of that crowd. And I remember, I'll never forget it. I was walking into a class once and it said, I can't remember what it said, which, which was the social network, but I didn't have it on my phone. And I was walking into this building, I was like, you know when market actually didn't get a marketing school, so what? Definitely wasn't that building, but it was some building. And I remember seeing signs everywhere that said, like, no Facebook, no this, no, no that. Like they didn't want you to do whatever the, the social media of that era was while you were in class. And I remember thinking to myself, huh, I think that they've just really made these more enticing for people because when you tell someone not to do something, what's the first thing they want to do?
- [25:24]
David
Do it.
- [25:25]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Want to do it. So I was like, that's interesting. And it's. It stuck with me. So when, when I went back to launch Bumble, I remember that, that moment, that like tiny little psychological moment thinking they told me not to do this, it made me want to do it more. We might as well put Bumble on that stage. And so at the time when we were relaunching, when we were launching Bumble at colleges, you know, the social media at the time was like Instagram, Snapchat, maybe Twitter, whatever. I can't remember at this point. So I said, let's print signs and let's add more or replace the signs and add Bumble and let's bring Bumble up to parody with these major college platforms that everyone is using so much that the teachers are telling them to stop using them. Let's just put Bumble in there and spark people's curiosity. So I assumed if I just put Bumble's logo in there and said, don't use Bumble, people would be like, what's Bumble? Because, you know, no one had heard of it yet. So we printed these signs that said, no Facebook, no Instagram, no Twitter, no Snapchat, no Bumble in these hallways, in these classrooms, in these buildings. Because I knew psychologically, even if someone had just seen it for a snap second, they would have clocked it and been like, huh, what's Bumble? Maybe I should try Bumble. If it's not allowed, maybe I should try it. So, you know, it was these tiny little hacks that, you know, they're innocent and harmless. I mean, I guess. But that was really the way I thought about marketing was just I deeply fascinated in psychology. And my favorite classes I ever took in college were sociology, anthropology. You know, the way humans work and tick. And I think that's what marketing is.
- [27:09]
David
Yeah. And most marketers are so little literal. They don't really understand behavior. They don't really understand the perceptions and habits and, and what you need to overcome to really break through the clutter. And do you have a process with your team on how to come up with ideas, or do you see this as your primary role? I mean, how do you generate ideas today?
- [27:30]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
No, you know, it's amazing and I think I'd love to hear your perspective on this, but I think if you're the only person that can do something you've royally screwed up, you've really locked yourself in a box because you shouldn't be the only one good at something. If you're good at something you should show people how to be better than you at that thing and they should be able to outperform you. Right. Any good coach or any good leader should hope to be the least productive at that skill after a certain amount of time, because so many people will have figured it out better. So I feel like I have instilled this in so many people across the company for so long that they have better ideas than I could ever have. I mean, the campaign we're launching next week, yes, I may have inspired it or kicked it off or gotten people's wheels turning in that direction, but, man, what people are going to see in the world, like, the team brought that to life. The leaders did that. And it's the brilliant thinking of people across lots of functions in the company. And what I love about our team at Bumblebee is maybe the most creative marketing idea stemmed from someone on the product team while they were having lunch with the marketers. And it's this collaborative mindset of, you know, marketing can inspire product and tech can inspire marketing and customer service, or what we call now we have a new division called Member Love. You know, Member Love serves everything. So we're seeing things out of our Member Love team where they're coming up with ideas, saying, hey, I heard this about a Bumble couple. What if we did X, Y or Z and we did it at scale and we're like, that's genius. That's absolutely brilliant. So I would say two things is inspiring the creative thinking and leaders across the org and not keeping it siloed to that org, so making sure that that energy lives cross functionally. And then the second thing is letting your members be your playbook. Like, they'll tell you, they will show you if you're willing to listen close enough, not just to the negative feedback, like, oh, you know, my box came half opened and I didn't like that. But if you really listen to them, if you really read between the lines, that's where the magic lives.
- [29:50]
David
Fantastic. And you know, I've also heard you say that, that not knowing what you don't know is an advantage. How can being naive be such a good thing? I mean, you know, how do you look at that?
- [30:05]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Well, I mean, you just asked me how I had so much conviction or courage or whatever the word was when I was launching Bumble. I had no clue what I was doing. I was just following intuition and instincts and just going for it. And isn't that kind of what life is about? Isn't life kind of about taking chances and not overanalyzing to the point where you talk yourself out of everything. And I think being slightly naive and being, no, this is not my line. It's a very famous mindset, but, like a beginner's mindset is a magical place to be because you're curious, you're brave, you're. You want to see, you want to test, you want to test it. And when you think you know everything, you're like, well, then that won't work. You just go into it knowing that it won't or, or it can't. And I just think that there's magic in imagination and just taking chances.
- [30:59]
Kula
Hello, friends. I hope you're loving this episode with Whitney Wolford. I know that I sure am. And I want to remind you to stay tuned to the very end of the episode for the debrief where David and I will break down some of the concepts that he and Whitney discuss in the episode. And we really want to give you something tangible that you can take away from this conversation and apply it to your own work, to your own life, or to your own leadership. So enjoy the rest of this, this conversation and don't forget to stay tuned to the very end of the episode so you don't miss the debrief.
- [31:28]
David
I loved how you were talking about your, your team, how the product people with market, the marketing people, tech people, and the collaboration. You know, when you think about culture, have you articulated the kind of culture you want to have at Bumble? And, and, and if so, what would be the single most important behavior you would say? This is what we got to have happen here at Bumble, if we're really going to get the results and, and achieve what we want to achieve.
- [31:52]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah. So this is one thing that I, I've got to tell you, I don't think I'm great at culture, frankly. I think, you know, you are the master at culture. And I, I need to, I, I need to go read all the culture books, because I wouldn't actually say I'm that good at culture. I've always really been more obsessed. And it's not that I don't care about culture. I care about it so much, but I'm so obsessed with our mission. And so I've always said that the mission drives the culture. And when you stop or you lose sight of the mission, I think the culture starts to untether and unravel. So I've never actually had success where I'm like, okay, I'm going to go in and do a cultural reset and I'm going to focus on, you know, these activities and these team building exercises. I've always taken a different approach, which is, and you know, maybe, maybe this is a terrible example because I, I don't go to any type of church, but if you think about churches or gathering places where people are all there for something, yes, they're there for each other and they're there for the community and the people and the culture, but they're there for some core belief. They're there for something bigger than any of them. And this is a bit of a sports team thing too. You know, the people that, that use their savings to go sit in the nosebleeds, to wear the jersey and to be at the that place, there's a spiritual connection to that team or to that sport that is so much bigger than any one player or, you know, players can get traded in and out. There's got to be something bigger. And so, so what I'm trying to get at is I think I've always prioritized mission before prior as a precursor to culture. Because what I found is when the mission is really well communicated and the mission is so ingrained in everything at the company and the mission is this like drumbeat and this heartbeat, the culture forms around it. And the culture feels so much better and so much more intact and so much more united and aligned. And the, the best chapters of Bumble where the cultures felt really strong. And you know, we've gone through bad cultural times too, but when it's been the best, it's when everyone can articulate and champion the mission and the values and the goals for the members. And when it's been its weakest, it's when everyone's been obsessed with like, well, I didn't like the food at lunch and now the culture sucks. You know, they lose sight of what they're really there to do. And so I think that's the way I've always looked at culture is like mission.
- [34:34]
David
You're actually very good at culture because, you know, if you don't have people that are believers, you know, of that mission around you and passionate about that mission, you're not going to be able to satisfy your customers the way how they need to be satisfied. You won't have the energetic environment you want to have, you know, so it's like you've made the single biggest behavior that you want to have happen in your company. Be a passion and a belief around the mission.
- [35:01]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
That's right.
- [35:01]
David
And that has created your culture. When it's at Its best. Has there ever been a time when you felt like that mission was. Was being threatened and what did you do to get it back on track as a leader?
- [35:13]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah, you know, there was like a couple year chapter during the pandemic or coming out of the pandemic, where I just was like, what is this place? I don't even know this place anymore. I don't even know what this company is anymore. And I think what had happened was the obsession became around something other than the mission and what we were trying to push in the world. And that thread had been lost. You know, whether it was not opening team meetings with it or if it was that people were just living at home and working from home. I still can't put my total, you know, kind of like, summary on it, but I felt like we lost the thread for a little bit and the team lost the thread and where they were spending their time and energy. I was like, this isn't bumble. This isn't what we're here to do. That heartbeat was just missing and it started to feel like a zombie town, not. Not like an alive, riveting, passionate group. And so when I came back in, in January and then officially March of this year, I just said the first thing I'm going to do is I need to just. I need to reset our why. I need to just reinforce our why. And ultimately, I came back in and basically just for the first few weeks, only said one thing, like, we are the love company and we are here to bring people closer to love. And I just said it on repeat in a thousand different ways until everyone was like, oh, we are the love company. We're here to bring people closer to love. And then magic happened. Anchoring technology and product roadmaps became crystal clear because you can write the roadmap in 10 seconds when you understand the end goal. When you know the destination, you lose sight of the destination. You start driving in circles. You're going to get lost, you're going to end up in somewhere you don't want to be. And so I just really had to kind of reinforce the destination. And so I think that's. That's how I've. I've thought about culture, but I could be better at culture, frankly. I did. It's something I need to develop further in my career.
- [37:15]
David
Yeah, well, I think you're on the right track. You know, people don't wake up every day wanting to be a part of something mediocre. They want to be a part of something great. And so when you can have when you can give a noble cause that gets people juiced up to go to work, you know, I think, I think you're halfway there for sure. You know, in 2021, you become the young, youngest female CEO to ever take a company public. Did that kind of success, what kind of impact did it have? Did you change for the better or worse? I mean, you know, how do you look at that?
- [37:45]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
You know what's interesting and what's sad, I'll tell you a sad follow up on that stat is I'm still the youngest woman to take a company public, and I'm now 36. That's really like there's not one that has come since then, which makes me so sad. I was hoping it was going to be like dethroned within three months or something. So, you know, it does illuminate just how hard it is to be a young woman and build a unicorn that can get profit, that can then go public. Like, it's real tricky and it, it's something I want to focus on later in my career is how to help break through those barriers to create more. Frankly, right now I've got to just be so focused on Bumble. But to answer the question, I think it made me a worse person at first because it, it was the wrong things to focus on. Like, you should never, as a business leader or founder, get caught up in the accolades or the youngest this or the most to do that or the most of this or the ranking number one here or number four there. That's the wrong way to measure. That's like wrong measuring stick. And I think the world as it, as it looked at me, it was using the wrong measuring stick. It was like, you know, trying to put all these titles and accolades and that was the wrong way to go. And so I really, actually after that moment, kind of hit my low point. I remember I was all over the news as this like, celebrated young, you know, woman. And I was having a rough go. I felt really empty. I was like, this is not. I got to the top of the mountain and this view sucks. I can't see anything. And, and so I really recalibrated. And that's, that's where I went on this quest for making sure that the only thing that ever mattered to me again was making sure I was improving the lives of our members. It was not about me, it was about we. It was about how we could push the world further. And so it's funny, I've told the story to a couple people, but I don't know where, on a separate day, let's call it the opposite end of the spectrum. Last summer, our stock hit some. Some crazy low. I don't know, went to, like, the bottoms, three or four bucks. And this is a company that does a billion dollars of revenue. It's, you know, it's a really healthy business, but the world just can't, you know, understand it at that moment. And I remember, similar to my IPO day where everyone was celebrating me and reaching out to me and saying, wow, you're amazing, and this is incredible, I had the world doing the opposite, being like, flop failure. She sucks. What a loss. And I had the best day ever. I sent a letter to myself and I said, I just had the best day ever. I went for a hike. I stared at a tree. I have great people on my team. I have healthy kids. And I just separated myself from those things, those metrics that just don't matter. And so I guess my message to the listeners is I would really take a look at your measuring stick, and I would really stare at it, and I would understand how you measure your worth, how you measure your impact, how you measure your value and your joy. Because if you measure yourself based on outside metrics or celebrations, you're never going to feel that good. And so I think that was. That was the big learning lesson from that time.
- [41:02]
David
You know, you said you sent a letter to yourself. Did you really? Did you sit down and write?
- [41:06]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
No, it's an email. So, okay, so it's a New Age letter.
- [41:09]
David
So you wrote a New Age letter. Okay. What made you do that? Say more?
- [41:14]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
I didn't want to forget that moment. I didn't want to forget it. That I could live in utter joy and peace when the world thought I should be in agony. And I thought that was a magical. A magical moment that needed to be, you know, remembered when I'm in a rocking chair one day. Because it shows you everything you need to know about what real success is. And real success, in my mind, is not external validation. It's not approval from media or impressive people. It's internal validation, and it's internal joy and an internal sense of peace. And that's what I wanted to capture.
- [42:00]
David
So you mentioned earlier that you weren't necessarily religious, but you were spiritual. What you just talked about sounds very spiritual. Who do you listen to? Who do you read? Who do you go to for spiritual guidance? Or do you.
- [42:15]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah, so I. I read it all, and I do it all. I'm, like, obsessed. My friends make fun of me because they're like, oh, what are you up to? Reading some book about the afterlife? And I'm like, actually, yes. People think about home, like, reading, like, economics books and, you know, you know, all these deep tech books. And I'm like, no, I'm actually learning about what happens to consciousness after your body dies. So, you know, I just, I, I just, I just love, I just want to learn it all. I mean, look what's sitting on my desk next to me. I read it 700 times. You know, like, just sitting around my house.
- [42:53]
David
Are you, Are you like, a big Eckhart Tolle fan?
- [42:56]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Oh, yeah. I love.
- [42:58]
David
I can tell. I, I, I know you had to read everything that he stood, you know.
- [43:02]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Are you into any of that?
- [43:04]
David
Oh, yeah, I love it.
- [43:05]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Okay, good. Okay. So I'm not totally crazy.
- [43:07]
David
No. I think being present and focused and, you know, knowing that what, what you're doing, what we're doing right now is the only thing that really matters. We don't know about the future. We don't know about the past. I think all that, that resonates to me with me very much. And, you know, but you have taken this bumble from a startup, you know, now you're a global company.
- [43:25]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
What's.
- [43:26]
David
What's been your biggest leadership challenge or what's your biggest leadership challenge today?
- [43:31]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Oh, gosh. I feel like there's lots. Sometimes when you believe in something, you're a little bit early for others. So I would say I see the potential of what we're building, and I can see it clear as day, and I know how powerful it is. Just like I knew it would work when we had women make the first move. Now, the rest of the world thought it was a little crazy, but I knew it. Like, just give me a minute, meaning a few years, and I will show you that this works. I have that same level of conviction right now around what I think AI can do for human connection and how I think we can actually really bring the world closer to love. Starting with finding yourself. And this is a big departure, right? This is a big departure because dating is always about finding another. You know, you can blame Eckhart. You can blame, you know, all of the spiritual guides out there for, for putting this in my brain. But I think it starts with you. I think it starts with yourself. And I think the way to have the best relationships with others is to actually get into a relationship with yourself and understand who you are and what you value and what matters to you and what makes you tick. And so many of us are walking around with absolutely no understanding of ourselves, just searching for another to fill whatever void we're trying to fill. And I think if we were to shape shift that you would make a lot more healthy, amazing relationships in the world and bring the world actually to true love. And so right now I'm completely obsessed with getting people to kind of build engineer the future of that with AI and leveraging AI so that we can go build a new age dating experience that is really rooted in meaningful compatibility and not just being attracted to someone's photo or not. And I think that's the future. So I think my biggest challenge right now is just where I was in 2014. I see something, it's around the corner, the world hasn't seen it yet. I gotta just push it through until everybody else goes, oh, yeah, okay, that makes sense.
- [45:42]
David
I love it. Meaningful compatibility. You've got a great knack for capturing just the essence of what you're trying to do. Yesterday I interviewed Hayden Brown. She's the CEO of Upwork.
- [45:53]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Oh, cool.
- [45:55]
David
She said actually that she studied the dating sites, including Bumble, to get her ideas for Upwork. I mean, she really thought there was a lot. And she basically is a human resource company that provides freelance talents across the world. And, and I told her I was going to be interviewing you, you know, today, and she said she had this question for you.
- [46:16]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
It seems like on the precipice of AI, you know, a lot of the kind of prior models around dating and even companionship are changing in terms of both the tools that can be used to kind of facilitate matches and people actually looking for things from AI tools in terms of, you know, relationships that they didn't even think about before, we wouldn't even have thought about in the past. So I'm really curious to understand how is she seeing her business not just in the next year or two changed by AI, but what does it look like in five years? I think that would be an interesting prognostication. I'm a firm believer that if leveraged ethically, properly and for real human connection, meaning not building you an AI, fake friend or a fake partner, I'm not in that camp. That's not where my energy is. But if we can leverage AI to actually help detect true compatibility, true self discovery, and then leverage AI to skip through all of the cumbersome steps of having to swipe and then match and then chat and then, then dead end chat and then dead end chat, and then maybe someone says, let's go on a date, but then it's crickets. If we can do what I believe we can do, we should be able to take you from self discover to magical date in a very short amount of time. And when you get put on that date, the compatibility will be off the charts. The person on the other end will feel like someone that just understands your soul, not just looks in a way that you like, but then you're like, ah, but this is off. And that's off. And that's off. I believe that AI can help us build the world's most intelligent and mo an emotionally intelligent matchmaker to ever exist.
- [48:15]
David
Wow. You know, and you know, with this kind of five year compelling vision in your mind, Whitney, how do you, how do you take the people in your company along with you to change and drive it and prepare for it and make it happen?
- [48:31]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Oh, the people in my company are taking me along with them. This team is so A plus. They are so futuristic and they are so fired up about how AI can help bring the world together. I'm on their journey at this point. I may have inspired the conversation. I may have planted the seed of vision. This team is so full of superstars and they are building this. They are rapid fire moving. They are unbelievable. I was on a call yesterday with one of our AI projects and we had some of our most brilliant AI technologists with our in house relationship expert. And you should have heard this conversation. It was fascinating. PhD in relationships and, and you know, psychology. Chatting with the, these, these absolute genius AI research and technical leads. You can't imagine what we're going to be able to do. And they're so smart, they're so fired up and I'm like okay, let's go. It's like getting to build a, with a, with a, you know, a bullet. It's a bullet train. It's not a steam engine anymore. It's like a whole new world.
- [49:40]
David
That's fantastic. You know, before we move off AI, how are you personally using it to help you be more successful in your role? I mean how, you know, you gotta lead the process. You got people who are ahead of you. But how are you getting yourself up to speed? And what advice could you give leaders on how to get ready for AI or not? Just get ready for it, apply it right now, today.
- [50:02]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah. So I've built several coaches for various different things in chatgpt for myself. So I have a constructive criticism coach that I've named Sally and basically I ask it questions and I give it my convicted belief on a situation. I'm like challenge Me. Where are my blind spots? How am I seeing this wrong? Help me see the other side. I want you to challenge me. Don't placate me. Don't just tell me what I want to hear. Be my no person and. And I have it Coach me constructively on how to look at things from multiple perspectives so that when I am making a decision or I am approaching a tough conversation or when I do feel like I know best, I actually get to see it from the other side first and it pushes me and challenges me before I just go. Separate from that, I have built myself a spiritual kind of guide of other sorts blended by all the folks you and I just talked about. I've basically asked ChatGPT to build me this bot that is inspired by the learnings and teachings of like 12 of our favorite, you know, the ones that write all the powers of now, you know, Eckhart and all the others. And when I'm. I'm feeling spiritually disconnected or like a little low energy on something, I'll ask it to look at something from a spiritual lens, not just a straight business lens. And so I'm constantly using AI to help me grow and improve and reframe my thinking and to help me be a better critical thinker or a better empathetic leader or, or maybe see things from different directions. And so that's just one example of how I personally use AI. Every single day I've had IT build me reports on things. So every day I get up to speed on competitor analysis. I get up to speed on what members are saying. I've asked IT to basically scan the app Store every day and find the worst things that people say about us and give me a summary so that I don't miss any blind spots of member disdain or dissatisfaction. You know, I'm using it for all sorts of stuff all day long.
- [52:13]
David
Oh, I love it. I think that's fantastic. You know, and as I understand it, you know, you, you founded Bumble, then you. You appointed another CEO, then you, then you came back as the CEO in a relatively short period of time. Will you ever be able to give up control of Bumble or it's still your baby in a way that it's just hard to let it go.
- [52:39]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
So I did give up to control and I've got to be frank, this is going to sound insane. I've already given up control of Bumble. I'm here for the love. I'm not here for control. When I left the first time I broke up with that like, need to control and the need to be the boss and the need to make every decision. Oh, I'm not back with that energy this time. And I. And I. I say to my. My board, I say to my executives, the minute someone can do this better than me, I'm out. I am here in service of Bumble. I'm not here in service of Whitney. And I, you know, I asked the universe just use me for my highest good and help me spread love and light, you know, that led me back to Bumble. You know, my. When my amazing CEO, who. She's phenomenal and she's brilliant. My former CEO, when she decided it was time for her to go do something different, I was like, okay, yes, the universe has invited me back in. Here we are. So I'm here just. I'm here just to be of service to the mission. I'm not here to control it or to be the boss or to feel like I'm in charge or to have the accolades. I'm so beyond that now. I've let go of all that.
- [53:48]
David
That's amazing, you know, and what is that? What's a belief you had when you started Bumble, that maybe you've changed your mind on looking back, that if I.
- [53:57]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Slept or took my eye off any ball, the world would implode. You know, like. Like if. If I didn't do every single thing by myself and make sure it was perfect, like, everything would end. And I'm like, that's just not true. Like, it's going to be what it's going to be. I'll do my best, but it's on a universal spiritual autopilot now, is what I would call it. Like, this is in some. Some bigger hands than mine at this point.
- [54:21]
David
All right, here's another one for you. Was there ever a decision you made that you regret when you were building Bumble? And. And seriously, once you realize that, how long did it take you to admit it?
- [54:35]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
I usually know it's the wrong decision within an hour, and it's usually because I made a decision out of fear and not out of love. And that's the short answer. If you ever make a choice out of fear, it's the wrong choice. You've got to make decisions out of love and out of conviction and out of doing the right thing, not just doing the easy thing. And I think when you go against that, you've made the wrong decision and you will regret it. And there's been a lot of those moments in my life.
- [55:08]
David
How long does it take you to Regret some. To admit you've made a mistake. Is that hard for you to do? No, I can see it isn't. You're pretty much an open book, aren't you?
- [55:17]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah, it's a problem. I think my poems team is if they're listening to this, they're probably like, shut up. Shut up. Stop talking. Be quiet. Yeah, no, I. You're. What you see is what you get.
- [55:29]
David
I love it. I love it. This has been so much fun, and I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. And. And so are you ready for this?
- [55:35]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Let's go.
- [55:36]
David
Okay, here we go. The three words the best describe you.
- [55:39]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Intuition, ambition, and love.
- [55:43]
David
If you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be?
- [55:46]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
One of my children.
- [55:47]
David
What's your biggest pet peeve?
- [55:49]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Oh, God. I just made a list of these the other day because someone missing this.
- [55:53]
David
Okay. What's your biggest. What's your biggest pet peeve?
- [55:56]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Okay. Okay. This is so stupid, but I am a little OCD and do have all sorts of weird, like, you know, annoying things. I cannot handle it. When you're in a car and the radio or the music is on, but it's so soft that you can't quite tell what it's saying or singing, but it's there in the background, it sends me into orbit. I don't know why. It's literally my biggest pet peeve.
- [56:20]
David
Who would play you in a movie?
- [56:22]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Unfortunately, there is a movie coming out about Bumble and Tinder and I got very lucky. I don't. I have nothing to do with this movie. Movie. I'm completely uninvolved. It's. I think it's at literally coming out in like three weeks or something. It'll be on Disney or something like that. And Lily James is playing me. So I got very lucky.
- [56:43]
David
The. The. The favorite thing that keeps Austin weird.
- [56:48]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Everything. I mean, I just love the food trucks. It's just the best.
- [56:52]
David
Your favorite place to ski?
- [56:54]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Aspen.
- [56:54]
David
What's the one thing you do just for you?
- [56:56]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Meditate?
- [56:57]
David
Besides your family, what's your most prized possession?
- [57:00]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Nature. Well, it's not a possession, but, you know, my most prized thing I can go and enjoy.
- [57:06]
David
If I turned on the radio in your car, and I obviously would hear it in your car, what would I hear?
- [57:14]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Probably Chris Stapleton or some type of country music.
- [57:17]
David
You're my four leaf clover. Starting over. There you go. What's something about you? Few people would know that I'm pretty.
- [57:24]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Obsessed with like, higher power spirituality, higher meaning of things. I'm really not stuck in the material world that much, and I think that would surprise people.
- [57:35]
David
What's one one of your daily rituals besides meditation? Something that you never miss daily.
- [57:41]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Gratitude.
- [57:42]
David
Love it. You're out of the lightning round. You kick butt on it. It was great, you know, and here you are, you're a mom of almost three. You've got a third one coming along. Congratulations, by the way. I love it.
- [57:53]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Thank you.
- [57:54]
David
And I imagine motherhood has had a huge impact on how you lead and how you treat others at work. Tell us what that experience has been like.
- [58:03]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
So, you know, I would say the biggest learning from my journey as a mother is that I have two little boys. I'm about to have a daughter, but I've raised two little boys. I've been raising two little boys. And my career has been about empowering women and focusing on women. And I think the biggest thing I've learned is that we cannot forget about our boys. And we cannot forget about the future of raising healthy, you know, kind, strong, loving, empathetic boys, too. There's so much emphasis on girl power and girls. And girls will change the world, which, you know, I'm a fan of, and I am. I'm not saying we should forget them, but we can't leave our boys behind. And I think the way we parent our boys is just as important as we parent our girls. And I do look forward to a world where all the genders are seen as good and loving and wonderful. And it's not like boys are bad or men are bad or women are this or women are that. I look forward and I pray that when my children are grown, we won't be in this war of one, one doesn't like the other, and problems are being caused on one another by the other. And so, you know, motherhood has been a really profound experience for me because it's so different than my leadership journey, right, of being obsessed with girls and women. And so it's been a really fun experiment to learn love from all of these different corners.
- [59:31]
David
You know, speaking of boys or men, you know, you talked earlier on that when you had this idea for Bumble, your partner immediately thought it was a big idea. And you said your husband thought it was a big idea. You know, how do you guys navigate all the stuff that's going in your life together as a team, as two leaders?
- [59:50]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
My husband is amazing. Funny enough, his mother was my college professor and my mentor in college, if you can believe it. And, you know, we just. I think the key to a Relationship when you have all this stuff going on is just making sure that you are always aligned on values. And this is what I try to tell the team at Bumble. I'm like, we don't need people to be perfectly compatible or the same. Like, my husband and I are polar opposites. He's literally a cowboy, rides in the rodeo every week, and I'm a tech person. Like, we are so different, but our values and our belief system are like puzzle pieces. And so I think that that is the most important thing for people is just find your puzzle piece on a values level. You don't have to love every single same flavor of cereal, and you don't have to love all the same TV shows. That's not what compatibility is about.
- [60:46]
David
And what do you see now, Whitney, as your unfinished business?
- [60:51]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Helping people love themselves first? I think that's my next, my next course. I've been in the business of love for a long time now, since I was 22 years old. And the biggest thing I learned is while everyone's on the quest for love, they're in self loathing, they're in a lot of self pain. And so I think my life mission is to really broaden the lens of what love business looks like. And it's not just about finding another. It's about learning how to find yourself, accept yourself, love yourself, and then find great people to share life with.
- [61:24]
David
And last question here. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader?
- [61:29]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Oh, gosh, I would say, you know, don't try to be perfect. Just try to be really yourself. And I think you can see with me, I mean, I'm not perfect at all, and I've got a million flaws. But you don't need to be perfect. Just lean into the things that you know you're good at and then inspire everyone around you to do everything else.
- [61:52]
David
Whitney, I do a podcast every week. This. This is going down as one of my favorites. I mean, really, you are an amazing person. And I love just your. Your guts, your courage, and your. Your intuition. You know, the braveness that you have to follow your heart and pursue what's important to you. And, you know, I love it when I see someone who has a mission and a purpose in their life. And I found this whole conversation extremely inspiring. I want to thank you very much.
- [62:25]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Oh, thank you. And those are the kindest words, and I'm honored to have been here. I had so much fun with you, and we could have talked for 25 hours. So to be continued.
- [62:40]
Kula
David, I have been wanting to get Whitney Wolford on this podcast ever since I started working on this podcast more than three years ago. And we finally did it, and you crushed it. This episode is incredible.
- [62:53]
David
Well, she. She crushed it.
- [62:55]
Kula
She is my business superhero.
- [62:58]
David
Yeah. Well, you know what, Kula? The. The thing about this conversation that I loved, and people talk about Mission all the time. In her case, you know, Mission really is the mobilizer. You know, it's. It's the. The thing that really drives everything that. That she does. And she. She's out there with a mission to. To help people find love. And she is. She's tackled it with. In such creative ways to where. How she marketed it early on, where she would have people come in and run in and interrupt classes and colleges with a Bumble T shirt on. Just such novel ideas like that, which really just provide creativity. And now she's using AI. I mean, she thinks AI is going to help her unlock more love in the world. But when she gets up every day, she's thinking about love and how to spread it all around the world. I just love that. And, and, you know, that really makes her tick. And it's a. It's a big driver.
- [64:07]
Kula
I love it, too. And Bumble actually just launched this global campaign called for the Love of Love. David. I don't know if you've seen it, but there are billboards all over the big cities across the world. New York, L.A. paris, London. And it's real life. Bumble couples who have met each other on Bumblebee, fallen in love, committed their lives to one another, and it's all about telling their stories and how Bumble was the thing that created that moment where they were able to find love. And the campaign is gorgeous and brilliant and the creative is amazing. And they've also started doing these little activations all over these big cities. So the other day, I was driving through Nashville and saw one of these for the Love of Love activations. And Whitney said, you know, we get so many letters from our members saying that, you know, they found love on Bumble. They're so grateful for Bumble. They get, you know, save the dates and wedding invitations for couples that have met on Bumble. And she's like, we had to do something with all this stuff that we got. And so they have these activations everywhere where, you know, people are reading these RSVP letters and trying to create their own stories of love. So it really is more than just lip service. You know, like when she says she's in the business of love. Like, okay, that's nice. But it actually is driving everything they do, from marketing to tech to product roadmaps to employee engagement, everything.
- [65:32]
David
And didn't you just love how she thinks? You know, she thinks in such different ways. And even the creation of Bumble, you know, she. She really, you know, thought about, you know, what can really make Bumble different than Tinder and other offerings out there. And it just hit her one day, like, ideas do that. Let's let the woman make the decision, and then she simplifies it. And I love the Sadie Hawkins dance idea. And I remember that. I remember what it was like to actually get asked that. She was kind of a crazy lady to do it, but she asked me to go to of the Sadie Hawkins dance because it was the woman making the decision. And she talked about how this was a dance that everybody always looked forward to as. As a woman. What she basically did is she scaled that idea. And, you know, she also solved a problem, you know, that, you know, women don't always want to be, you know, asked out. They'd like to do the asking or do the selecting. And I love that as well. But she's just a tremendous thinker, and she disrupts the category by thinking through the customer and the issues associated with the customer as well as the opportunities.
- [66:52]
Kula
I love, too. Whitney was the youngest woman to ever take a company public.
- [66:58]
David
How old was she, Kula?
- [67:00]
Kula
I think she was 32. So she's the youngest woman to ever take a company public. She's the youngest female billionaire. She's got all these accolades, you know, time 100 list, Forbes, 30 under 30, all these things. And yet she is still so down to earth and grounded. And I love, in the episode when she talks about how she's kind of come to that place, she really focuses on, you know, what is my measuring stick of success. Like, if I let all of these external accolades be the thing that fuels me, like, I'm losing. I'm losing sight of what's really important. I'm losing touch with my family, with my members at Bumble, with the people that I work with. And so one of the things she really urges, especially women to do is to take a look at your measuring stick and figure out what it is that really matters to you.
- [67:50]
David
Yeah. And I think when you can find what really matters to you, it gives you purpose in your life and in. And when you're really lucky, you can bring that purpose to business. And that's what's happened with her. And you know, she's gone through a number of tough parts of her life, and she's decided that she's gonna pick herself up and learn from them and keep trying to make the world a better place. When you're as high profile as her and people are watching you all the time and, you know, to have that kind of pressure, to have that kind of intensity directed towards you at such a young age, I can only imagine. But I think this is a person that is learning every day and is going to become wiser and wiser over the years. So I really love this conversation.
- [68:39]
Kula
I love it, too. I love it, too. One more thing, David, that I want to just kind of get you to debrief is Whitney took Bumble public. She stepped away as CEO, and then within, I think a year, actually came back and took over as CEO again. And you talked to her in the episode about how hard it was for her to kind of give up control. Bumble is her baby. She took it public. She's grown it to millions and millions of members worldwide. And her answer really struck me. And I think that this kind of plays into the whole concept of focusing on the mission. She says when she came back as CEO, the only reason she was able to come back is because she had already given up control. She says, I don't want to make every decision. I'm done being the boss. I'm in it for the love. I'm in it for the mission. And so this concept of having control over everything versus having growth of your mission, it's a tension that a lot of leaders and founders face a lot. But in Whitney's case, you know, she's focused on the mission now, and, and I think that they're well on their way to continuing to, to take over the dating suit.
- [69:47]
David
Well, I think that's her, her growth, her personal growth is she realized that as that company has scaled that she can't be in control of everything. But what she can do is really evangelize, you know, the purpose for the company. And I noticed how she gave credit to her people for, for the ideas that were coming for forward and the things that were going to change her company as, as she moves ahead. But she's, she's focused now on AI and, and using AI in every possible way to, to figure out how to, to. To mobilize love around the world. And, and that's. That's the mission. And I also loved how she not only is using AI to grow her business, I love it how she's using AI to grow herself. I mean, she's created her own coach through AI uses AI Every day to get customer feedback. You know, she's a great example, I think, for the contemporary leader.
- [70:42]
Kula
Well, David, for the love of love, great job on this conversation. Well, that does it for our episode of How Leaders Lead for today. For the love of love. We'll see you next week.
- [70:57]
Whitney Wolfe Herd
It.