In its construction multimillion business, Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble, was once inspired by another successful executive: Jeff Bezos.
Herd sometimes watched videos with Bezos talking and, in one, “said something I will never forget and I agree with 1,000%,” she told CNBC Make It in 2019.
The bottom line was that “when people can hide behind a screen, when they’re essentially anonymous, they lose their kindness gene,” Wolfe Herd said.
Indeed, an Amazon spokesman told The New York Times in 2001 that Bezos said, “There’s something about e-mail that stops people from being polite.”
The quote resonated with Wolfe Herd: “This has been a guiding light for me, because I have always tried to create responsibility in everything we do. [at Bumble]. “
For example, in 2018, Bumble banned images of weapons 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 goal to encourage offline responsibility.”
Some say dating apps have problems in this area – in February Slate reported “accountability and transparency issues” on various sites, including Bumble.
But when Bumble went public in February, Wolfe Herd reiterated the sentiment.
“People first build meaningful digital relationships and then physics follows,” she told Reuters. “This is a truly phenomenal shift to safety and engineering, more responsible 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, up 32.5% from the fourth quarter. 2019. When asked about Bumble’s rise on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Wolfe Herd cited the company’s commitment to “safety and responsibility.”
“We’ve always been committed to … protecting the client and really focusing on the needs of women,” Wolfe Herd told CNBC on Thursday. “This drives acquisition, user engagement and converts paying customers.”
Bumble did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for Make It’s comments.
“Reported by.” Sarah Berger
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