David Brown

Later that same day, a video goes up on Instagram explaining Bumble's new AI-powered app.

After two years of swings and misses, Bumble finally looks like a company moving forward again.

Bumble was born from a woman saying no to the status quo.

But to survive, it had to change.

You know, if you invested $1,000 in Bumble on the day of its IPO back in February 2021, guess how much money you'd have today?

About $50.

That number tells a story of collapse.

But Bumble's story was never just about its share price.

Whitney Wolf Hurd built the Bumble hive out of anger at a time when she felt dismissed, harassed, pushed aside.

She turned that experience into a product that flipped the rules of online dating.

Women go first.

Women choose.

Women decide.

That was the founding principle.

But in an effort to save the stock, that idea has been softened and reinterpreted.

Opening Moves lets men go first.

And now an AI bot called Bee lets computers take the lead.

The app's new promise is that AI, which other dating companies are rolling out too, will make better connections, both for daters and for groups of friends.

But the thing Bumble originally set out to fix wasn't just dating.

It was how people treat each other.