In building her multimillion dollars Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble, once took inspiration from another successful manager: Jeff Bezos.
Herd sometimes watched videos of Bezos talking, and in one, “he said something I will never forget and I agree with 1,000%,” she told CNBC Make It in 2019.
The bottom line was that “if people can hide behind a screen, if they are essentially anonymous, they will lose their kindness gene,” Wolfe Herd said.
Indeed, an Amazon spokesman told The New York Times in 2001 that Bezos said, “there is something about email that eliminates the politeness gene in people.”
The quote resonates with Wolfe Herd: “It was a guideline for me because we have always tried to be accountable in everything we do. [at Bumble]. “
In 2018, for example, Bumble banned images of guns on the platform.
“Ultimately, online behavior can reflect and predict how people treat each other in the real world,” the company wrote on its website at the time. “Bumble has a responsibility to our community and a greater purpose to encourage online accountability.”
Some claim that dating apps have problems in this kingdom – in February, Slate reported on “liability and transparency issues” on various sites, including Bumble.
But when Bumble became known in February, Wolfe Herd repeated the sentiment.
“People first build meaningful relationships digitally, and then the physical ones follow,” she told Reuters. “It’s a phenomenal shift towards safety and engineering with more accountable experiences.”
In the company’s first quarterly report since its release on Wednesday, Bumble reported higher-than-expected revenue of $ 165.6 million. Although Bumble also reported a net loss of $ 26.1 million, the company had 2.7 million paying users for the fourth quarter, an increase of 32.5% compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. When asked about Bumble’s growth on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, Wolfe Herd called the company’s commitment to “safety and accountability”.
“We’re always been committed to … protecting the client and really focusing on women’s needs,” Wolfe Herd told CNBC on Thursday. “It drives acquisition, user engagement and eliminates paying customers.”
Bumble did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
—Report by Sarah Berger
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