When building it billionaires Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble, was inspired by another successful executive: Jeff Bezos.
Sometimes Herd saw videos of Bezos talking and, in one, “he said something I’ll never forget and I agree with the 1,000%,” he told CNBC Make It in 2019.
The main essence was that “when humans can hide behind a screen, when they’re basically anonymous, they lose the gene of goodness,” Wolfe Herd said.
In fact, an Amazon spokesman told the New York Times in 2001 that Bezos had said, “There’s something about email that turns off the courtesy gene in people.”
The quote resonated with Wolfe Herd: “This has been a guiding light for me, because we have always tried to design accountability 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 are treated in the real world,” the company wrote on its website at the time. “Bumble has a responsibility to our community and has a greater goal to encourage offline accountability.”
Some argue that dating apps have problems in this area: in February Slate reported on “accountability and transparency issues” in several places, including Bumble.
But when Bumble went public in February, Wolfe Herd reiterated the sentiment.
“People are building meaningful relationships digitally first, and then the physical goes on,” he told Reuters. “It’s a really phenomenal shift toward safety and more responsible experience engineering.”
In the company’s first quarterly report since it went public 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 during the fourth quarter, an increase of 32.5% over the fourth quarter. quarter of 2019. When asked about Bumble’s growth on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Wolfe Herd cited the company’s commitment to “security and accountability.”
“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 user acquisition, engagement and converts paying customers.”
Bumble did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
—Inform by Sarah Berger
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