MANILA, Philippines — All dating apps are the same, right? They tend to put women in a situation where they feel vulnerable even without meaning to.
This has also crossed the mind of Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble Inc., the company that operates Badoo, Bumble and Fruitz, which are some of the world’s most popular dating apps.
When she founded Bumble in 2014 after her own experiences with toxic behavior on the internet, she made sure it was not made of the same mold. The dating app was created to empower women, putting them in control of the interactions by making the first move.
The app is focused on kind, respectful and equal connections across all areas of life, including friendship (BFF) and business (Bizz). She was very young then, but she accomplished what other more mature “brains” behind dating apps failed to accomplish.
Small wonder that, in February 2021, the then 31-year-old Wolfe Herd became the youngest woman CEO to take her company public and she did so with a Bumble board made up of 73% women. It was a stark counterpoint to most firms that went public with boards made up mostly of men.
One of the steps leading to this special moment took place in 2019, when Wolfe Herd became instrumental in helping pass a cyber-flashing law in Texas that made sending unsolicited nude images a punishable offense. The company has since passed similar bills in Virginia and California and is advocating for the new law in New York.
By November of 2021, the company was able to launch a campaign in the United Kingdom to criminalize cyber-flashing alongside women’s advocacy groups.
Under Wolfe Herd’s leadership, Bumble became one of the first apps to introduce photo verification, to launch in-app video chat (pre-pandemic), to use artificial intelligence to identify unsolicited sexual images. It was the first dating app to ban body-shaming language or derogatory comments made about someone’s appearance, body shape, size or health.
Her accomplishments are nothing short of phenomenal. She has been named to TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list, the Bloomberg 50, and InStyle’s 50 Women Who are Changing the World. She has graced the cover of Fast Company, Forbes, and WIRED magazines. In 2021, Bumble was named one of Apple’s Apps of the Year.
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