Whitney Wolfe Herd
Appearances
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah, I had a moment where I realized it was crazy. It was almost like an out-of-body moment where I was reading all these crazy things about myself on Twitter or whatever the format was at the time.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Oh, my gosh. What is this?
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Lesson learned. But I remember thinking, oh, my God. And I think I had this out-of-body experience where I put myself down. into my 13-year-old body. And I thought, holy, excuse my French, but holy shit, like imagine being 13 years old and dealing with this type of behavior from the kids at school that you think are the center of the world. Like imagine if these people talking about you
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
were the kids you looked up to at school or wanted to be a part of their group at school. And then you got picked up from school and where when we grew up, Meg, we could go home with no devices. And that was it. That was it. You're out of the battle zone. You get to escape until tomorrow. They're going home and they're reading that all night long. And I literally was like, oh my God.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
I think I just went through this. I think this just happened for me, not to me. And my entire mindset shifted and I was like, okay, what almost killed me can make us stronger. I have to go fix this problem for 13 year olds. Like I have to go fix this problem for young girls and women.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
And so that kicked off the beginning of Merci, which was meant to be the reason why the name, wow, that was a 25 minute long winded way of getting to the answer.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
But it's important background to get back to the why. It is. And I think ultimately why I was going to call it Merci is I wanted it to be a environment of thanks and gratitude. And thank you in French is Merci. I speak French. I just like the name. I thought it was cute. And the currency of the product, the one, like the core defining feature of the product was going to be compliments only.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
No comments, just compliments. And there's a lot of literature and a lot of studies out there that actually show you the power of compliments. How if you compliment someone, you can have this butterfly effect on multiple people's days. Like you, you know, you say something kind to someone. it's a ripple effect. They might say something kind to the next person.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
It changes the course of the energy of the day. And so I figured let's engineer positivity into a product. Long story short, couldn't find any funding, randomly got contacted by my former business partner and investor. He kind of said, listen, I'm all for whatever this is because I can feel your passion. But my one prerequisite is that you got to figure out how to do it in dating.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
I thought he was crazy. I said goodbye to him. I never intended on speaking to him again. But then I kind of started thinking, wait a second, maybe dating is not so dissimilar from this. Like maybe dating is broken for girls and women too. And most certainly that was a correlation to my dating experiences. In high school, I had a terribly abusive boyfriend.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
And then I just found myself in these toxic relationships time after time. And I realized like, wow, this is systemic. This is not just about a social network. This is about behaviors. And that was kind of the beginning of women making the first move on Bumble. So that's the long-winded version.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
The one thing you can never get back is your precious time. And the amount of time, Meg, that I... wasted on being stressed, being miserable, being overwhelmed, being paranoid about what shoe was going to drop. You know what? I actually think I would have been more successful had I not been like that.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
None of this is really just about girls or boys or boys versus girls. It's all about the way we love ourselves or we don't. And what I've seen with boys and men through my wild journey of running these products at scale with millions of people doing millions of crazy things every day, I've really learned one thing and it is a bunch of hurt people hurting people.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
And that's really what it boils down to. And so you've kind of just nailed it in this manifestation of something better and positive. And what that really boils down to is I had to learn how to like myself over the years. And when I look back on these relationships, I'm like, oh, I must have really hated myself because I tolerated that. And I put up with that.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
What on earth did that feel like? Well, you know, it's funny. It's like at my on paper richest, I was my inward poorest. What does that mean to you? That means that what it took out of me to hit those milestones...
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
actually robbed me of my real wealth, the ability to connect with myself, to take time for myself, to focus on my physical, mental, spiritual health, to focus on my relationships, to focus on the things that actually make you the wealthiest in life. So while my financial wealth on paper was this like crazy headline and like,
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
world record thing, whatever, it didn't even matter because all these other buckets were so low. And so what has been beautiful, and I wrote a letter to myself over the summer, actually, our stock hit an all-time low. And I wrote a letter to myself that day and I said, today is one of the best days of my life. I said, because my other buckets of wealth are so overflowing. And
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
That it just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter what a stock price is today. It's not how I measure my worth.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
I just thought, you know what? I better clock in and I better check in because I want to remember this day. I want to remember this day. I want to remember that I got to a place of self-growth where on a day that should feel like... the worst day in terms of riding the waves of success, right? Things always go up and down.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
And I just remember I wrote myself a letter and I just said, this is like the best day ever. I have healthy children. I love my husband. It's beautiful where I am. I hiked, I meditated. Like I just reflected in this moment of gratitude of all the things I do have and
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
And I think it's a really good reminder to people that you have to take stock of how you measure your happiness, your wealth, and how you define it.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Totally. Totally. And I think the one thing I can offer to the world is actually a blueprint of hey, don't take this route to the top of Everest. It's not worth it. The view is not worth it. Don't do it because the one thing you can never get back is time, is your precious time. And the amount of time, Meg, that I...
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
wasted on being stressed, being miserable, being overwhelmed, being paranoid about what shoe was going to drop. You know what? I actually think I would have been more successful had I not been like that.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
I think you have to really take a deep breath and say, you know what? How big of a deal is this? And I would size it up. Is this going to matter? I used to use the rule of nine, so I like the number five better. So like, will this matter in five minutes? Yes. Is it going to matter in five hours? Yes or no. Is it going to matter in five days? Yes or no.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
If it's not going to matter in five years, like throw it out the window. Who cares? Like, if this is not going to be a defining issue in your business, your life, your family in five years, like, you'll be fine. And so when you're ruminating in the middle of the night and you're like, oh, but the box came out the wrong texture. Well, is that a problem in five months?
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Like, not really, because you can switch that box. You can get a new box in the next few weeks. Right, right.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
I mean, you have to detach from the outcome. You have to. It's a little bit like the way we talk to our children. It's, did you try your best? You know, like, did you really give it your all? And if you didn't, like if you, you know, if you missed the meetings for the packaging and you let it slide till the final hour, then like, yeah, that's not great.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
But if you gave it your all and like you really, you know what, you did what you could, your team did what they could, and this is the way it ended up, like it's going to be good. It's going to be great. And I also think that candidly, Energy is everything. And I think if you're so stressed launching, your customers will feel the stress of that. And so it's almost like, shake it off.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
I'm not comparing our customers for our businesses to the way our children pick up on energy, but there's something deeply intuitive and brilliant about the way children can read energy. If you're stressed, children can feel it. I also feel that there's an intangible and visible energy attached to launches, attached to products, attached to all of this.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
And so you kind of want to like do a happy dance for your products and send them out the window because like that happy energy is going to land in someone's kitchen counter and you want that for them. And so I think it's kind of like just shake it off.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Oh yeah, totally. I mean, crazy different. I think being a mother, as you know, nothing comes before that. Nothing. I mean, it is, they're extensions of our soul and our heart and their wellbeing is our wellbeing. And so I think it forces you to prioritize in ways that for me, I never did before. I mean, prior to Bobby's birth,
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
I mean, even up until I was literally delivering, I was opening my eyes at, you know, God knows what hour, hitting it immediately on that laptop, immediately on phone calls, immediately pressure testing emails, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, like make it better. What more can I achieve? What more can I achieve? What more can I achieve? And I could just like burn myself out, right?
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
But I was fine because it was just me. Like, who cares? It was just me.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah, boom, boom, boom. Like, whatever, I'll be fine. I'll work through the flu. I'll work through a cold. I'll work through exhaustion. But when you have these little angels and they need you and they need a good version of you, it literally forces you to make choices and to prioritize. And so I think the thing that has changed for me is like,
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
I have zero issue now saying no to things that don't matter. The way I look at it is like, okay, I could either be doing that thing or it could be with my children. And if that thing is not going to add to the lives and the well-being of my children, meaning it's going to enhance the outcome of the business or it's going to enhance the member experience of the business, why would I do it?
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
It's not high value enough. Yeah. No, not right now.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Thank you.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Thank you. Thank you. ,,,,,,,
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Did you try your best? You know, like, did you really give it your all? And if you missed the meetings for the packaging and you let it slide till the final hour, then like, yeah, that's not great. But if you gave it your all and this is the way it ended up, like, it's gonna be good. It's gonna be great.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
I love that. Oh God. Do you remember when I came to your house in a disco cowboy outfit? I was like, how am I going to meet this iconic, elegant, classy couple? And I'm wearing a rhinestone disco crystal ball cowboy outfit because that was the theme on New Year's Eve.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Oh my gosh. He was so tiny and they were so sweet. They were the sweetest, sweetest. I think Archie ran out in like a Batman suit or something.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
One of those.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
No, I think that's amazing. And I will say, I do think your story is just you. Like it's just an embodiment of you. And I always think that those are the best entrepreneurs where they just basically... I don't know. It's like they bottle their essence and that doesn't have to be a perfume company, right?
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah, it's like, how do you bring you to the world? And what's interesting, I've always said this about consumer products and technology. You can feel the DNA of the founders or the founder in the product you use. And so I just think that that is really what true entrepreneurship is, is... real people solving real problems and putting their real energy and passion into it.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
And then that manifests into whatever it is. And I always joke, I'm like, I didn't wake up at six and be like, I want to have a dating app. That's not how it happened.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yes. I think it was just always in me. And it's so funny. Everyone always says like, oh, I wonder if entrepreneurs were always entrepreneurial. And I don't think that means you had to have like sold out the lemonade stand as a 10 year old. I really don't think that that's the true thing. metric of a young entrepreneur, I think it was how did you move through the world?
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
How did you think about lines and boundaries? How did you think about following rules or thinking outside of the box? And so many of us put through school systems as we all are, you know, we actually get rewarded for following along and doing what everybody else is doing. If you think about it,
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Like structurally, you get an A if you answered the question right and somebody wrote the question and the answer for you. Now, obviously there's some creative classes where you're rewarded for thinking different, but the basic curriculum and framework in our lives is follow the rules, be on time. So we're not trained to be rewarded to be these free thinkers and movers and shakers.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
And I always struggled with that candidly growing up. I was like, why do I have to check the same box as everybody else? I want to do things differently.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Well, the original intention behind Bumble was actually not a dating app. It was meant to be a essentially girls and women only social network where we could encourage kindness amongst women. Because I was being, you know, certainly not to the degree that you've experienced, but I was being bullied on the internet when I left Tinder because of the lawsuit.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
And that was the lawsuit for sexual harassment that you were experiencing?
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah, when I left the company, there was a whole fallout. And because of the fallout, I could have never imagined nor predicted the level of attention it got from the media. I truly, I mean, in my mind, it was like a 24-year-old random young woman. I'm like, why does anybody care what I'm doing? Why do you think it garnered so much attention? Well, I think the issue is we...
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
were so insular in our work at Tinder. It was like all day, nonstop, startup world. You lived it, you breathed it. Because of that, I don't think there was any perspective of how big it got in the world. I had no idea. I mean, I knew by volume and the magnitude of the registration- and the data. Right. Of course.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
So I like, I conceptually understood that this was a product that was growing and working, but man, I had no perspective of the cultural interest in it. And so when this all unfolded here, I naively thought, oh, this will just be like between me and them and it will get swept under the rug and this will just be behind us.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
And the next thing you know, it's the front page of every global newspaper and it's exposés in every magazine. And this just doesn't stop. It goes on and on and on and on. And you're 24. I'm 24. And I'm not in the public eye. I am not famous. I don't come from any type of famous family. So I just figured this will just blow over. So I was like, okay, I'll just go into the future.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
I'm going to build something great. I'm going to start over. Yeah. And lo and behold, and I will come back to the Maracy piece, but because of the nature of it being technically another dating app, I just got dragged into this swell again. It was like, you know, getting beat up in the ocean and you couldn't catch a breath. You're like, oh my gosh, no one wants to leave me alone.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
So Meg, it wasn't until like four, five, six years into building Bumble until people stopped with the Tinder comparisons. I had to literally like outgrow them to some degree to stand on my own two feet, but back to Marcy, like- No, but what did that feel like for those four to five years? Horrible. Yeah.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
I mean, I, you know, that's why when I see the way that, you know, you've been treated in the media, which is a magnitude I'll never understand, but my heart breaks for you. I'm like, it's not fair and it's brutalizing.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah, maybe. I mean, listen, I honestly, I can't imagine, but I can't because what has happened to you is at such a magnitude that no one can understand. Can I share the story of where I had that revelation when I was walking through the airport in Ireland? Yes.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Okay, so I stopped through the airport in Ireland and I walked over by whatever their equivalent of like a WH Smith or whatever those Hudson News are.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
And my jaw hit the floor. You were the cover of every single magazine and newspaper in Ireland. And every single one said something different. I mean, random headline, random headline. You were the cover of... Every single one of those magazines, tabloids, and newspapers. And I had this moment where I was like... And this was a couple years ago. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, holy... Oh, my... What?
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
Like, I'm in Ireland. She's back home in California with her kids, like, doing school drop-off. And she's the front page of every single one of these things. What are they talking about? Like, there's no content. There's nothing to say. Right. So, I mean, I just had this moment where I was like, wow, this is a different beast. But it doesn't feel different whether it's at that scale or not.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
No, but I do think there is so much to be said for your ability to exist. even in the presence of that, that takes a very strong cookie. Because I remember when I was going through the media storm and being called this and that and this and that at Tinder, I didn't leave my house for like a month and a half. I was completely paranoid. I was totally depressed.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
I was scared to go to the grocery store. I was humiliated. I was embarrassed. I didn't want to go to a party where I'd see anyone because I'm like, You wondered if they believed it.
Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd
What are they thinking about me? They must think I'm a this. They must think I'm a that. And so I shrunk into this shell of myself where- We turtle. Yeah. I just turtled. I was like, wow, I'm never going outside again. I'll just live in my own isolated world. But then I decided, I was like, you know what? I'm going to rebuild myself.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Let's just be honest. It was a small step to try and... recalibrate thousands of years of power dynamics in relationships um but yeah i mean maybe we've oversold ourselves along the way in certain ways and i'm okay to say that we are a part of the problem this bigger cultural landscape of online love we're not perfect i am curious
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Nobody wanted to associate with me. Nobody wanted to work with me. There was only one person that was willing to give me any opportunity, and that was my former business partner. I kind of had to be scrappy and take whoever was willing to see past it. The tech, you know what it was? A lot of people outside of the tech world didn't know about this. I didn't care.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I mean, it's like the world goes on. When it comes to that tech space... oh, I was, you just don't talk to Whitney Wolf. Why would you ever talk to her?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I mean, horrible. Like, absolutely the worst case scenario. I obviously felt sick for anybody that felt the way they felt, and I did not know about any of these allegations, which to a lot of people, they're like, oh, Whitney's a liar. Of course she knew all these things, and she's covering up for this guy, and...
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
The frank truth is I was in Austin, running Bumble from Austin, very much as its standalone business. It's not like I was sitting in the office all day and intersecting with those people. And so it was gutting to me. When Forbes called me and told me this, I was speechless. I was I was shocked.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And, you know, it was really important to Andre that I be honest about my personal interaction with him, which the frank truth is I had never seen anything to that degree. However... I would never question a woman or another person in their experience. And I said that. And remember, so this is an important note for listeners. I believe those allegations were stemming from several years prior.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
They were not active. They were talking about workplace culture from kind of the earlier Bidu era, if I remember correctly. Yeah.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
But I think the bulk of the article was covering things that had been kind of earlier days. So what I'm getting at, I'm not trying to recuse myself from anything. That's not what I'm doing. I'm trying to say if you look at the early 2010s,
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I mean, we've all seen the movies, the WeWorks and the Ubers, and there starts to be this consistent picture of, you know, when you close your eyes and think about a tech company in 2012, you see beer pong and you see, you know, all the men together. I don't think you close your eyes and think back on like a progressive office space. What do you take away from this?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I don't know, you could call it whatever you want. Maybe I just found myself in two of the only situations or was this painting a bigger theme of what was pervasive in tech culture at the time?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I did. To be able to get on an app, see who's around you, And instantly connect with them. And then all of a sudden end up on a date with someone that you would have never in 100 years met had it not been for this interface. That felt really transformational. But so did being able to order a black car on Uber. We were just at this moment.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And gosh, if any Gen Z people are listening to us right now, they're going to be like, these people, what? Did they live in the dark ages? Hey, listen, I remember the time before cell phones completely. So, you know. Yeah, I mean, but you know where I'm going with this. That was a huge leap in terms of efficiency and ease. And so I couldn't believe we were at the center of this as well.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And then, and I don't say this in a self-promotional way at all, it's really hard to do it twice. It's really hard to do it twice. And so many people over the years have been like, God, she's just lucky. She wore a lot of yellow. She's blonde. You know, they assumed it was all these things that made it happen.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
But I'm not entirely sure people realize just how hard it is to get critical mass on an app twice. I mean, there are thousands and thousands of dating apps that hit the app store. And none of them work. None of them scale. I mean, what, there's two or three or four that have ever scaled to our degree of scale?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
My opinion is that I ran this company for the first several years as a quality over quantity approach. There were opportunities throughout my career at Bumble where huge scaled operations offered us a telephone provider came to us early on in Bumble. They said, we love your brand. We actually want to put your app pre-programmed on all of our phones. And when people buy our phones...
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Your app will be on the home screen. And you're going to get millions of free downloads. And I said, thank you so much, but no thank you. And nobody could understand what in the world I was doing. And I said, it's the wrong way to grow. This is not a social network. This is a double-sided marketplace. One person gets on and they have to see someone that is relevant to them, that they want to see.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And if you flood the system just endlessly with, you know... You're not going to go walk down the street of New York City and want to meet every single person you pass. That is the truth. So why would you assume that someone would want to do that on an app? This is not a content platform where you can just scroll and scroll and scroll and scale drives results.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
What happened was in the pandemic and throughout other chapters, growth was king everywhere. It was hailed as the end-all, be-all.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
The more people here, the more money, the better. Let me put this simply. The world started focusing. When I say the world, I mean even our team started focusing on outputs. What are outputs? Outputs are revenue growth, payers, sheer volume of registration. A good business does not focus on outputs. A good business focuses on the core inputs that matter most.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
So for us, what are the core inputs that are the most critical? Are our members actually getting what they came here for? And that question stopped being asked for too long. We were chasing growth. And so when you chase growth, you get it, but then you lose it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I think the reason Gen Z has abandoned the apps is because they're getting on the apps and they're not seeing who they want to see and they're feeling two things, which I take full accountability for at Bumble. They're feeling rejected and they're feeling judged. If you look at the way these products were designed... With a swipe function. Yes, but it's not even just swipe. It's paradox of choice.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
It's the volume. It's the scale. Our brains were not engineered to behave like this. I mean, not that we were engineered. Maybe. Who knows? But you get where I'm going with this. We were not born... To have this, and this is why social media is changing the brains of children as well. This is not natural to humans. So go through 100 people and just sweat left and right.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Again, I'm being very vulnerable and very accountable here by telling you these things. And I'm bringing you into the sausage making of how we're doing things differently. Gen Z doesn't like dating apps, in my opinion, because they get on the app. They essentially have to judge people and reject people in order to get to a match. You're saying no.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
You're looking at someone and determining if they're a yes or a no. So you are judging someone. That means you're being judged on the back end. None of those things feel good. I think that Gen Z is fatigued and burnt out on feeling bad. And I think they do prioritize mental health more so than maybe the first round of Bumble members.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And so the way the app is functioning for them right now, it's not going to work. Not only that, but they have to swipe through, you said it yourself, let's just use 100 as an example. What is the average? So that is a private number. Okay. I would love to tell you, but unfortunately that's not something as a public company we don't disclose it. I understand.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
It was amazing. The time off was incredible. It was the first time I was faced with who am I without one of these huge consumer brands attached to me. And that's a very strange place to be. If you think about it, I was 22 years old when we were starting Tinder. And then I became the Tinder girl. And then I became the Tinder lawsuit girl. And then I became the Bumble girl.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I'm using 100 as a random hypothetical number. If they have to swipe through 100 people to get maybe, you know, one or two matches that they're looking for, do you think that that's a productive experience? No. That's why I have to reimagine it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Of course. So I'm certainly not saying that we don't care about retention and we don't care about engagement. My point is, if you look at a social network, TikTok, for example, people are spending like 10 hours a day on TikTok.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
If you were spending 10 hours a day on Bumble, we would be doing our job the wrong way because the goal is to get you to a match, to get you to conversation, to get you on a date. So what I'm getting at is retention does very much matter for us. Are people coming? Are they swiping? Are they getting into good, healthy conversations? the more quality member base we have.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And when I say quality, I don't mean elite standards. I don't mean beauty. I don't mean, you know, there's some of these apps out there that have been like, if you don't have a job and you don't make this much money a year, you can't be here. All I'm saying is,
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
show up, fill out your profile, have the maximum amount of photos, put your ID verification in so we know that you are actually who you say you are, and come and engage in a quality way. So if you can imagine a hypothetical world where 100% of our member base was that, you want to talk about growth, it goes up and to the right if that is achieved.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Okay, so for example, let's just talk about AI through the lens of safety for a second. Let's say we could train AI on thousands of what we perceive as great profiles. And the AI can get so sophisticated understanding, wow, this person has a thoughtful bio. This person does have photos that are not blurry. They're not all group photos. They're not wearing sunglasses.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
We can see who they are clearly and we understand that they took time. The AI can now select the best people and start showing the best people the best people and start getting you to a match quicker, more efficiently, more thoughtfully. So the goal for Bumble over the next few years is to become the world's smartest matchmaker.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
So that you can get on there and you can be match made with wonderful people. And this is beyond love. You know, we have a friend product with a very broad member base. And it's really beautiful. Most of our success stories we're hearing now are actually of all the friend dates going on. I don't know if you've ever met anyone that uses the friend finding product. I've been on it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And yeah, it's it's yeah. I mean, it's interesting. A lot of people are finding roommates, you know, navigating life stages with that. So for me, I don't say, oh, like, what is the future of a dating app necessarily? What is the future of connecting people through technology to really meet people that they can love, whether that's a friend they love, whether that's a romantic partner they love?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And then ultimately down the road, if we can help people like themselves more, they'll get into better relationships. So that's, of course, a long-term vision. Yeah. When you say like themselves more, where do you see Bumble helping with that? Well, I think we're a relationship business. We're about love.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And I find it very hard to believe that people can have healthy love with others if they cannot find a way to have a healthy relationship with themselves. And so many people are walking around right now. Myself, I was one of these people. not too long ago, I didn't know what my attachment style was. I didn't know what type of communicator I was. I didn't know how I handled conflict.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I didn't know why I did the things I did. It was just this black box of, guess that's just who I am. And so can you imagine the power of helping members connect through quizzes and better understanding of how they do deal with conflict, how they do communicate when something, you know, can they handle what happens when they're rejected? How do they react to that and why?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And this became an extension of my identity. I am the type of founder, CEO who is in every detail. I'm emailing members who are having bad experiences personally. And so to relinquish that level of involvement took maturity I didn't know I possessed. It took a level of release of control that I didn't know I was capable of.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
So I don't think you and I are actually thinking about this too differently. We are rolling out human dating coaches in the product because I have the same belief. I don't want an AI to be my therapist personally. I want to talk to a real person who has EQ and heart and understands. However...
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
where I do think AI is unbelievably beneficial and I've seen it with my own eyes, I've seen the demos, I've seen the work streams, it can condense and summarize information like I've never seen before. That is objectively factual.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
So if you were to build towards a future where you do have the human matchmaker and you do have the human dating coach at your fingertips through our product, that's great. But if you can find a way to use AI to read your profile and to extrapolate different learnings from you, like loves weekends in the countryside, loves to be outdoors, huge hiker, very into nature.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Where AI is brilliant at these things is it can learn patterns in the other person. What it can do is it can then scan thousands of profiles, if not more, and it can say, hey, you know what? I think you should meet this person because they also have similar values. And that's where the sorting and the machine learning can be really powerful. What about serendipity?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I mean, so this is this is you're now touching on the other side of the coin of the argument of dating apps. Half of the people I've spoken to throughout my career that met on Bumble, they said, I would have never thought I would like this person in real life, but there was something about their photo and I just swiped right. I don't know why, I just did.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
So serendipity will take on a life of its own. However, what I will say is that I think opposites attract, but opposite values don't attract. I'm a firm believer of this. You can be completely opposite. You can like sweets and they can hate sweets. You can wake up early and they can go to bed late. It doesn't matter. These are lifestyle choices. These are quirks. These are personalities.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I personally, and maybe you can argue this, I personally have never met a couple that stayed the course when their values didn't align. And you can argue with me on that, but I personally have never seen it work.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
If we ask you to input them. So what are the inputs for values? What are you thinking of asking? Beautiful quizzes that we would work with very, very experienced therapists and relationship experts that we're currently working on as we speak. And if you go and speak to a couples therapist, they will tell you the 10 books that that they have used with thousands of couples throughout their career.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
They will tell you the most important questions that they've asked the couples they've worked with over the years that have had the most impact. Why would we wait for a couple to have to end up in therapy?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Why wouldn't we go and take all of those learnings of what truly drives compatibility and love and health of relationships and help you get to know yourself first so that we can help you better find what you're looking for? And so this is really just leveraging technology to make love more human.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I mean, I had someone who identifies as very left actually last week say, I'm so happy to be in an environment, I can't believe I'm saying this, where my whole week is not taken up with just like cultural issues and we can focus on work.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And so it was very, very destabilizing at first when I stepped away because I was like, who am I without all of this? And when I left Bumble, It was tough because it didn't play out the way I'd maybe hoped in terms of the narrative. And for somebody who has been building a consumer brand and has been in the public eye to some degree, narratives can hurt.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Good to see you again. How are you doing?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Oh, no. No worries. I just sent my little boys out the door on an adventure, so we are good. You're not going to be interrupted by two little whatever costumes they're wearing today.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Oh, goodness. I mean, listen, I think it's been hard for women. It has been. I mean, I've talked to so many of them and they face a lot of challenges.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
It's really hard, Lulu. It's moved back. It's really hard. I'll tell you another thing that I have observed. I've seen this with so many young women I've spoken to. So I'll have a young woman founder who comes to me and they don't just have an excellent deck or an excellent pitch. They have real numbers. Like they have sales. They have something to show for themselves.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And they just can't get anyone to take a meeting with them. And then a young male founder will come to me and they'll be like, oh, I just secured $13 million on this valuation. I'm like, really? Let me see the product. Let me see what you've done. They're like, oh, no, it's an idea. Yeah. Like, how did you get $13 million? So I am shocked by just how little we have moved forward.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And the fact that here we are, and this is still so top of mind, it's really unfortunate.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Yeah, that's interesting. No, I do see a big shift in the last couple of years. I feel it, too. I think it's how we're measuring power, right? Perhaps we're assigning influence to people that maybe aren't thinking about the integrity or the safety of the things that they've set out to do. But it's a different moment.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I also think people got fatigued, candidly, from what I've seen and what I've heard. I've asked around. I've spoken to people on the far left, the far right, in between, everything. And I do think people felt stifled by the... level of things people were being asked to advocate for or champion. And they're like, can't we just get our work done?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I mean, I had someone who identifies as very left actually last week say, I'm so happy to be in an environment, I can't believe I'm saying this, where my whole week is not taken up with just like cultural issues and we can focus on work. So, you know, I think we're just back to connection and we're back to relationships. I'm staying out of all the fodder and all the ickiness of the world.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And I just want to focus on love. I genuinely just want to I want to drive a love company. We just have to help people find love. And that might sound cheesy and ridiculous, but that's kind of where I'm at.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Do you think it's a good shift? Well, listen, I don't think you can drive good business if you don't care about people. right? I'm not one of these people that's like saying no DEI and none of that because I think inclusivity and equity is at the root of relationships.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
So how can I ask my team to foster a community of millions and millions of people that need to find equitable relationships if we ourselves don't care about it? I never spoke about equity and inclusivity after After the cultural moments, I was saying it before because I just felt like it was the right thing to do. I mean, go back and read our manifestos from 2014 before all of these things.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
We just wanted to build a kinder, safer, more respectful place. So candidly, I'm kind of immune to this because I personally don't blow like the wind on these topics. I've stayed true to who we are from day one.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Explain to me what the narrative was that you were unhappy with. Stock was down at the time, who knows, 80%. So the world was seeing that as a failure. So here was 10 years of what was a lot of progress. I mean, it's a billion-dollar revenue business. It's a big company. It's a brand that is global at this point. So in my mind...
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
They shouldn't. I actually completely agree with what you just said. I do not want you to stare at your phone all day. I fail my job if I trap you on the phone. I'd do a great job, in my mind, if I help get you to board game night, if I help get you to bowling as a group, if I help get you to Bible study as a group, if I help get you to pickleball, whatever your interest is.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
This is precisely why I started Bumble for Friends. I was seeing a huge, huge gap. Between people getting into romantic relationships and feeling so lonely, like they literally had to go bowling alone because their spouse was at a work dinner or whatever and they had no one. Why would I actually make the argument that Bumble might be the quicker, safer way to do that?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Well, A, I don't know if I'm missing something, but I have no idea how to find a board game night. I have no idea how to find that. Unless my next door neighbor happens to be hosting one, I have no clue how to find that. That's the power of what Bumble can be.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And that's why you will see in the coming months and quarters that we are actually going to be integrating events, groups, and happenings in the area so that we can get you into the run club. We can get you into the board game night. We can get you into the book club. We want you offline. And so if we can use technology to say, here's a safe, trusted member base, That's the dream outcome.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
So it sounds like a sort of melding of Nextdoor and Bumble. Our goal has never been come online and just stare at the app all day like an Instagram or a TikTok. It's always been, hey, connect with this person who's right around you right now so you can go to a coffee shop. I agree. We should get people in the real world. We need real-life connection. And candidly, Lulu—
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I don't know if I've seen a more critical moment for it in my career. Granted, it's not all that long, but the 12 or so years. AI, isolation post-COVID.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
technical addiction which sounds weird because i run a tech company but the the products that just keep you in it right the content overload it never ends and you might be saying wow she's a hypocrite i can't believe she's saying this she's been running these tech platforms that are based on you know getting people to swipe on each other but that's why i'm back lulu i want to do it differently i want to take this to the next level and get people in real life together and
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
You know, I think it's on us now to ask ourselves this every step of the way. Are we doing things that are actually pushing us in the right direction? Are we bringing people closer to love? Are we bringing people closer to healthy relationships? And so for us, we will just consistently pressure test ourselves. I can't speak on the broader tech issue.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
industry because I think things are moving so fast. They're moving so, so fast. But I really do commend a lot of my friends in the AI space because they are thinking about this. And I don't know if everyone in the industry is thinking that way, but I have seen caution that I've got to be honest, Lulu, I never saw this type of caution before.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
So I have optimism in the level of caution and the level of thoughtfulness that I am seeing in conversations right now. 10 years ago, I never... heard an expert get up on stage and caution people about where things could go. It was just, it was off to the races. So I think we're all watching and learning from the past, candidly. But, you know, we'll see.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I was stepping away from something that I had seen as so much bigger than where it was when we started, objectively. And to have it reduced down to, oh, she failed. She must have been kicked out. I mean, there was so much fodder around why I was leaving. And it hurt my feelings.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I can only control myself and what we do at Bumble, and I'm going to do everything I can to create a better, healthier, kinder, more loving world, not a worse one.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I was completely exhausted. I wanted to see my children. I wanted to get still in my own mind and I just needed a break. I wanted to see my mom. I wanted to see my husband. I wanted to... be with friends. I just needed to take a breather.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I had no intentions of coming back. I mean, here I am. I'm just in the groove of being this kind of removed founder. I was meditating every day. I was really working on these inward practices, but very still involved. I mean, all the board calls, but I'm not running the show. And I had a phone call with my prior CEO, who I still think the world of.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
This is Lydiane Jones, who had come over from Slack to take over Bumble. Yes. And she's an amazing woman. We're on very, very good terms. I think the world wants people, particularly when it's a woman to a woman, they want there to be some rift. There's no rift. She and I got on a call and she let me know that it wasn't working for her anymore. And I think she'd burned herself out.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And I felt so deeply for her because I felt like I was looking in a mirror. I felt like I was looking... at myself a year prior, I could tell that she was exhausted and that she herself had made some of the same mistakes I had made, which was working that extra hour, putting in that extra trip. So you can imagine what was going through my mind. Am I going back? Who's going to run this company?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And ultimately... I felt like even if it's not what I necessarily would have signed up for willingly... I felt like it was happening for me. I did feel like, oh, this is happening for a reason. Bumble needs me back. It's an extension of me to some degree. And watching it fall from its peak has been very hard. And I did feel this is a bit of a crazy story.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I had this strange epiphany a week before she quit where I was like, oh, my God. My life's work was to help people get closer to love. And I literally, because I love Oprah and I love everything she talks about, I had been doing her exercise of don't tell the universe what you want. Tell the universe to use you what it needs from you. And so I'd been like, just use me for love.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Just use me for love and light. And she left a few days later. And so I was like, I've got to go back in. And I kind of just raised my hand to the board and said, listen, I'd like to put my hat back in the ring. The board could have chosen not to put me back in. The board did their diligence. They convened. And they called me and said, we'd like to have you back if you'll do it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
Is that how you saw it back then? So I didn't think about the word feminist or feminism back then. You have to remember, I did not come out of a liberal arts college somewhere in the Northeast where it was super progressive. I was at SMU in Dallas, Texas for college. I then ended up in a, I would not say extremely feminist tech environment.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And I was 22 and then 23 and then 24 years old in a time that was before Me Too, before Time's Up, before this was, you know, I call it the pre-pink Target era. Do you know what I'm talking about? Where this was before Target started selling all the girl power t-shirts. Yeah.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
feminism had not gone mainstream i didn't wake up and see some marketing opportunity to go build a feminist this or a feminist that none of it was an angle it was genuinely a real lived experience where i felt that as a young woman who had dated i did not feel like an equal I felt like women had to wait for men to choose them. You couldn't text a guy first in college.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
You were considered crazy, desperate. So this was just my natural environment. It's not like I was sitting around saying, oh, how do I come up with a new angle at Tinder as some revenge plot? That's not what happened. And then, of course, media and everybody else said, oh, it's feminist and it's this and it's girl power. And I kind of was like, well, yeah, I mean, look at the definition.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I guess you could technically call it feminist if you wanted to because it's about trying to level the playing field. Yeah.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
It's so funny. I don't know how to properly answer this because for me... I do remember vividly being at Tinder and having Sofia's book, Girlboss. You're talking about Sofia Amoroso, who wrote the book Girlboss. And I do remember... feeling inspired. Like, oh, wow, look what she's done. I had never seen any representation of a woman building something before. I just had never seen it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And now, of course, you had the greats at the time, which were Sheryl Sandberg. But again, she was a COO. It wasn't, you know, a woman that had founded the business. I love Sheryl. I think she's amazing. And so at the time, I just thought the girl boss narrative was... Fine. And then somewhere along the line, somewhere along the years, 2016, 2017, 2018, this girl boss arc just turned dark.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I don't really know what happened. See, again, I was in such a tunnel building this company. However, I watched a lot of my peers fall. A lot. My era, which sounds like we're talking about something 600 years ago, a few years back. You're in your early 30s. I'm 35. To be clear. So this was like 2016 through, call it 19. That era was all about the young woman who was building something.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And then it was about just taking her down. And it paralyzed me. I'll never forget Bloomberg. came. I was pregnant with my first child. Bloomberg came to follow along. As we passed a law for cyber flashing to create, you know, protections online for women because we were seeing that so many women were being subjected to unsolicited lewd behavior and images.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And we were doing our best to try to create some accountability. And this was in Texas, which eventually that law passed. The law passed. And so we brought the reporter with us to the Capitol and to testify. And in my mind, we were just following along. The article came out, and the headline was some version of Bumble's not feminist, it's just feminist marketing.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
And it sent me into a very dark place because I felt like I could do nothing right. Here I was doing my best to run a company, and pass a law to try my best to make this safer for women online. And even doing that, well, a lot of the, not to be disrespectful, but a lot of the male tech CEOs are not trying to pass laws to make the internet safer, right?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
So I just felt like, oh, this is what happens to you when you're a woman CEO. You can't survive. You will be scrutinized. You will be taken down. And I think that was the beginning of the end of me feeling confident in what I was doing.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I think this is where I struggled during those years. I think what became a challenge for me was I felt like anything I did would just auto get labeled back to this woman CEO. She must be a faker. She must be a this. She must be a that. And it just felt like you couldn't catch a breath during that chapter, which the reason why I bring any of this up is I think it led to the depletion that I faced
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
three years after being a public company CEO, with all of those challenges, where it's like, I can't do this anymore. I have to get out of here. And by the way, the other thing we do need to touch on, Bloomberg probably was not entirely wrong. Bumble's not perfect. Nor was it perfect then. It's not. Women have been treated very badly on Bumble.
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I actually think that there are times where we have... overshot the benefit to women. in a marketing moment or whatever that is, than what we've actually been able to do. I think my point back to the Bloomberg moment was that it felt like that was just another gotcha attempt in this culture of which CEO that's a young woman can we go get next? Does that make any sense?
The Daily
'The Interview': Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again?
I don't feel like it was done because they authentically wanted to cover the company and they wanted to find the fair flaws and the fair benefits I did feel as if it was like, oh, this is a target that hasn't fallen yet. Let's go get her. I am curious, when you say there were fair flaws, what do you mean by that? Well, a woman sending a message on an app is not going to save the world. It's not.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
I've come to realize that self-worth does not equal net worth. But I will tell you that on paper, at my on paper wealthiest, according to society's standards, I was spiritually the poorest I've ever been. You're just going there right away. And I love this so much. And I just watched myself get decimated on the internet and turned into this scorned woman.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah. So just to touch on a bit of what you just said, I think if I could, and I'm still on my journey, so I feel like I can say this with a sense of we're in this together to whoever is watching or listening, because I don't think I've arrived at my final destination. Certainly I hope not. I'm 35. So I hope that there's still a lot ahead. I will say the following. If I sat down
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
and I put the 10 worst days of my life on a piece of paper, and I reflected on those days from where I am today, it doesn't take away from the pain of those days. It doesn't take away from how hard they were, but the reframing I'm able to have now is without those days, Without them, I wouldn't be here.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
So technically, the worst days, it's hard to call them the best days because that's not factual. They were critical days. They were necessary. The hard parts were the good parts because without the hard parts, you don't really get to that next stepping stone. And so I really believe whoever you are listening, whoever is going through setbacks,
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
They feel like they're just getting punched, you know, time and time again by life, work, relationships. rejections, it's because these are happening for a reason. And so I think we all fight rejection. We all fight it. Why did this happen to us? I didn't want that to happen. But I think if we actually get into the flow of it and say, okay, let's look at the bigger picture.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Why is this all happening? There is a bigger arc here. There's a bigger path here. And so the reason why I say that is if I go back and I reflect on my time at Tinder and I had a choice when I left. I could have spent all of my time feeling disappointed and sad and devastated about what had transpired at the company.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Or I could have said, I'm going to learn from this and I'm going to take what almost killed me and make us stronger. And I think this is very important framing because we all walk around saying, what didn't kill me made me stronger. And I think the way I look at life is what did almost kill me can make all of us stronger.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And you've been there.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
So, yeah. Yeah. That's right. So, you know, I really, and people have a hard time believing this. I can't tell you how many times I meet someone and they're like, Oh, you built Bumble as a revenge story. Wow. You had a chip on your shoulder and you really got, you really got them. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. If I had for one second, um,
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And I want to be very clear, and everyone should remember this. If I had for one second been operating with the intention or the energy of vendetta, revenge, or a chip on my shoulder, I would not be in this seat today with you right now. Yeah. Revenge is not a plot for success. It's not. There are a thousand famous philosophical quotes attributed to what revenge really is.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And just like that, at 24, it was all over. So yeah, I retreated to Uggs and staying inside and hiding. I didn't have anything. Everything had been stripped. I was turned on and I had nothing. But it's one of the best things that ever happened to me because when you have your dignity, perceived dignity, your perceived self-worth taken from you,
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Some of the famous ones are, revenge is drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. There's a thousand of these. I have never once, Jamie... had an inner intention, wish, desire, or energy towards seeking revenge. When I was at Tinder, all I wanted was to see this product that was helping people connect to succeed.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And I had differing opinions than the leadership that I was building the company with. And, you know, I don't talk about these people because candidly, I'm of the mindset that, you know, love and light. I genuinely, when I think back on anyone involved, instead of getting angry or upset or stressed, I close my eyes and I literally cover them in bright light
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And I say, I wish them love and light on their journey. Genuinely. That is it. And I carry on. And so even though I was, you know, I was 22 when we started Tinder. I was 24 when I left. The way I left was very dramatic. I really don't rehash it. If anyone wants to Google it, they're more than welcome to. It's not that exciting. It's so old news. But it was a very contentious exit.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And it led to a very, very public lawsuit. very public. I never had the intention or wish or want to be involved in a lawsuit to begin with, and nor did I ever want it to be public. So here I was, 24 years old, and I'll never forget, I woke up at maybe three in the morning, the night the lawsuit had been filed. And when you file a lawsuit, it's very public and it gets picked up.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
But I never could have expected it going global or front page of this or that. And I woke up and I think I had a billion, not actually, but just countless notifications. And I was headline after headline after headline after headline after headline, And I just watched my life leave my body in terms of like, okay, the narrative is now no longer the truth.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
It is whatever the internet has turned it into. And what's scary about something like that happening when you're 24 years old and your entire life is wrapped up in this company you helped create is they can take it from you. They meaning the collective, the narrative, the fodder, the chatter, the collective kind of opinion.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
They can rob you blind of your identity and of your dignity and of your happiness. And so the internet attacked me. This was before Me Too. This was before Time's Up, this whole narrative of women's equality at work. And I just watched myself get decimated on the internet and turned into this scorned woman. And just like that, at 24, it was all over.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
So yeah, I retreated to Uggs and staying inside and hiding. And I was very fortunate to have my now husband as my boyfriend at the time, God bless him. But I didn't have anything. Everything had been stripped. My title had been stripped from me, and my contributions were questioned extensively in the media. So all of that was gone.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
My financial gain in the company was being fought over through this lawsuit. And my friends were gone. I was turned on. And I had nothing. But it's one of the best things that ever happened to me. Because when you have your dignity, perceived dignity, your perceived self-worth taken from you, this kind of magical thing happens where you realize you've nothing left to fear. Mm-hmm. It's gone.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Your worst nightmare is playing out in real life. What else is there left to give? And so many of us are scared to start or do or try because we don't want to lose this thing, whatever that might be. But it was gone. And that's where the magic started. That was where the magic happened. because the space was cleared.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
This kind of magical thing happens where you realize you've nothing left to fear. It's gone. So many of us are scared to start or do or try because we don't want to lose this thing, whatever that might be. But it was gone. And that's where the magic started. That was where the magic happened because the space was cleared.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah. Yeah. I would say that it, So if my memory serves me well, I believe the lawsuit was public by the end of June 2014. I had left the company in April of 2014. Some of the darkest months were April to June. Dark, dark, dark, dark, hard, horrible, heavy, lonely. Everything was gone. And then the lawsuit launched. And I'll never forget, I turned 25 years old about a week later.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And here I was, 25, 25. Let's really think about that for a second. 25 is like the edge of becoming a real adult. But you're still so young. Yes. And you're still so full of life. And you're still so... allowed to be flawed. 25 year olds are allowed to be 25. They're allowed to go to the bar and have a couple too many drinks.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
They're allowed to get fired and sleep on their parents' couch for a few months. They are allowed to be 25. That was taken from me. And I was not allowed to be 25. I all of a sudden needed to be a very, very strong warrior. And I basically had to exist in two realities. One reality was warrior, go forward, get in the arena, go for it. Be brave, be bold, be courageous.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Even though you're scared to death, just be courageous. And it's a very famous quote, but courage actually can't exist with the absence of fear. You have to be scared to be courageous. That's what courage means. So I just had to be courageous. But at the same time, I was completely devastated and traumatized, deeply traumatized. So what's fascinating, Jamie, is I started Bumble.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
We had Bumble live in the app store by December 1st of 2014. So if you think through that, I left in April of 2014. The lawsuit went live at the end of June and Bumble was alive in the public by December 1st. So I had to exist in two realities, one of pain and and wound, it was like running a marathon with a sprained ankle, whatever the metaphor of that is.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And I'm not trying to be insensitive to anyone that's actually had to run a marathon in worse circumstances, but whatever that vision is that you can think of, you have to just go, you gotta keep going. You don't have time to stop. And so it was this kind of blessing and curse at the same time where I had to just keep going.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And I think so many people around the world, regardless of their circumstances, which have been much worse than mine, you just have to go in forward motion. You just have to go in forward motion. It's the only option we have.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And that's it. It's moving the mindset from me to we. That's it. And candidly, that was what drove me every day, just like it drove you every day. You got up there and you weren't selling a solution for yourself necessarily. You're like, oh, I am affected by this. And I did use my personal situation to create a solution.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
But you didn't do it for you. Right.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
I heard a voice in my head. I don't know whose voice it was. I heard a voice clear as day, and it said... Like, I have chills thinking about it. All these years later, enter Tinder. Enter another traumatic situation. These patterns that we're all in, we're all in patterns until we break them.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And my pattern was broken when I laid on that ground, literally on the bath mat after Tinder, and I said, oh my God, oh my God, this is it. I am going to course crack this whole thing. I'm going to create a positive social network. I'm going to harness technology for good. And I'm going to take what almost killed me and I'm going to make us stronger. And that was the moment.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Inspiration and mentors matter. Like seeing things that inspire us matter. Get inspired. Watch the show with everybody you bring on. Like, you know, read about people that have defeated their own odds and that energy does kind of impart on us and we can do it too.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Thank you. Thank you. This all feels like it's saying different things, but I think the meaning of all of this is like trust and love, right? Isn't that the center of it?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
I think I did not believe there was one, but I will say, like you, I don't know how it was for you as a child. I was... Born very intuitive. Yeah. I have gotten what I call downloads or premonitions my whole life. My whole life. I mean, I have spoken to family members like, oh, you said this thing when you were seven and then it happened the next day. Like, it's just part of who I am.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And I think we all are capable of it. It's just how far open have we allowed ourselves to be? But I think my abilities had outpaced my belief, right? Like I was operating beyond what I believed was possible. And so I just shut it down. I was like, that's not possible. That's crazy. But no, I think there were moments along the way that started to open me up and now I would consider myself
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
I would say spirituality is one of my number one core life priorities. And when it's nurtured, I am in an alignment. And when it's not, like when that spiritual plug comes out of the wall, I'm like, oh, whoa, where are we? I'm off kilter. So I've got to stay plugged in. And that has to, you know, you got to keep that electric cord plugged in and meditation, nature. Yeah.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
genuine connection, those are the recipes for that, in my opinion.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
But can you share a little bit about that? Well, I think you said it perfect. It's like the 27th person might respond, right? And this is so, so the symbolism of your story is like, had you given up on the 1,000th time, right before that final yes, like if you had accepted the no, we wouldn't be here today. But there's a distinction here that I think is important for people.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
I always ask people, what's the why? Like, why are you doing it? Like, what is the bigger, what can this do for people? Like, what is this solving? What are you solving for? And I think where a lot of people should ask themselves and get self-reflective when they have businesses, maybe it's not going the right way. I think I would encourage people to say, who is this serving? Who is this helping?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Because I really do believe that every great innovation, every great business, every great, you know, breakthrough in medicine or in science, it's not driven out of randomness. Most of it is driven out of some type of heartbreak or deep dissatisfaction.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Someone knew somebody that tragically got sick with a rare disease and it destroyed their lives and it spurred them to go and, you know, find a cure. And while they lost the person in their lives, which is devastating, maybe there's millions of people around the world who in current day and in the future that will be spared because of that.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And so I think intention, coming back to intention, like why are you doing what you're doing? And I fundamentally believe that the right intention will give you energy. It won't take it from you. So even though you're drained and even though that you're exhausted by the no's, like you've got it in you to just go that one more step. It's the perseverance, right?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
It's having the purpose beyond me or I or just my own needs. And you're a perfect example of this. So I think my big push to anybody that feels like they're in setback and setback, if they can say with sincerity, That what they're doing is serving the greater good of humanity. Whether it's even only 10 people a year are predicted to get this disease. That is still important.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Someone is still going to suffer without what you're doing, without the thing you're doing. You've got to keep going. But if you're doing it because you wanted to start a business and you wanted to make money, wrong. Stop. Reset. Why are you doing what you're doing? And that is my belief. Like there is no such thing worth fighting for that only serves ourselves. That's my firm belief.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
In your tummy, yeah.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Energy is everything. I mean, we are literally made of it. And there's things that take it and there's things that replenish it. And, you know, it's interesting. Bumble has been wildly covered in the media. And I cannot tell you, Jamie, how many people have called me and been like, okay, what's your press strategy? Like what agencies did you use?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Like who was the best person that like wrote your press releases? And I'm like, okay, let me be clear. Yes, we've had kick-ass people on our team. This is the pure intention of the business. It wrote itself. True, genuine intentionality behind anything, that is, it's the authenticity that actually matters. And so we started this conversation today. You're like, you're an open book.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
How are you an open book? I'm telling you right now that authenticity is the only frequency for me. Like you would just have to be authentic. And that doesn't mean you have to pour your heart out. You can be guarded. You can be private. I think we can all have our own boundaries for what work for us. That's our prerogative. And it's also our needs.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Like we all have to define what works for us as individuals. But what I do think is going to come out in the coming years, and we're already seeing the shift with media, with influencers, with everything, like authenticity can't be engineered. It can't be written. It can't be faked. It is genuinely, it has to be real.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And that's why I always say, like, take me with all my flaws, all my weaknesses, and All of my scratches and, you know, all of the battle wounds, like, you're going to get me at the end of the day. And if that doesn't work for you, then, like, that's okay. You know, this is the train I'm on. This is where I'm going. And I think we should all just be trying to be our highest versions of ourselves.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
It's interesting, Jamie. I wrote myself an email this summer. Bumble stock had hit its all-time low. And the internet fodder was like, Bumble's dead. And what a joke. And I mean, like, if I was attached to headlines or ego, it would have been a dark day. Let's just put it that way. But I'm so free of that now.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
I wrote myself an email and I said, today is one of the best days of my life because I can actually tell you with certainty because I'm living it. Net worth, accolades, All the external things does not equal happiness. It does not equal self-worth. And I wrote all the reasons why I'm happy. All the beautiful gifts. My children are safe. They're healthy. Thank God.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
I love myself, not because I'm a narcissist or I'm obsessed with myself, but because we all should love ourselves, because we should all give ourselves grace. And we are enough. All of us are enough, each and every one of us, whoever we are and however we are. And I think when you can actually just say that out loud, Like all is okay.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And I literally wrote that letter to myself on a day that should have been perceived as a bad day. I got a hundred texts. Are you okay, babe? Are you okay? Can I do anything for you? And I'm like, I'm good. I'm good. I'm outside. I'm looking at the trees. Everything is fine. So I think, you know, if we can all get to a place where we don't build businesses for the validation. Yeah.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Or the recognition. That's actually, first of all, when it comes. That's when you start getting recognized.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Because you're not seeking it. It's exactly what you said.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yes. I was totally obsessed with Walt Disney, not Disney the brand. I loved the brand, but I wasn't obsessed with Disney in a traditional sense. Let me explain that. I was obsessed with Walt Disney. I was completely obsessed with Walt Disney. I was fascinated that a human being could use their mind and imagine something and create a dream world.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
I was completely mesmerized by the capability of the human mind and then the ability of someone to execute on that. So I remember sitting in class as a little girl and I would do the same W as Walt Disney for my name, for Whitney Wolfe.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And so I probably have a thousand notebooks from when I was a child, like elementary school, where I'm doing the same signature as Walt Disney, Whitney Wolf, because it was Walt with that W. And I wanted the same W. I was like, what a magical creature. My high school yearbook quote was, I don't have it memorized, but something like, if you can dream it, you can do it.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Like this all started with a mouse and a dream, right? Something along those lines. And I will say, like, I've always been a dreamer, always been a dreamer. And I was just so inspired that someone could take a dream and what I like to call a download or an inspiration or... whatever you want to call it, right? And then really turn it into something that others can enjoy or get value from.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
That's so sweet of you. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. What an honor. I just absolutely adore you, and there's nothing better than connecting with a true friend over some coffee and a microphone.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And so as I reflect now as a 35-year-old woman sitting here with you, the fact that the little girl drawing the Walt Disney signature can say that there's like babies out in the world that are running around and living in beautiful, sweet, happy families because of a product I helped create. you know, it's pretty, that's like pretty rewarding.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And I know you have the same ability to say the same thing. And so I guess the message I would have for people is like, I was just a little girl in Salt Lake City, Utah, trying to scribble my name after Walt Disney, like inspiration and mentors matter, like seeing things that inspire us matter.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And so I think my point is like, get inspired, watch the show with everybody you bring on, like, you know, read about people that have defeated their own odds and, that energy does kind of impart on us and we can do it too.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
This book literally will teach you how to actually feel worthy so that you can have the strength, you can have the confidence.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Well, first of all, that's such a compliment. And I would say the exact same thing about you. we are all inherently deeply authentic people. But then we choose to, for whatever reason, at various parts in our journeys or throughout our lives, we choose to put on a mask.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And the mask is generally there to what we believe protect us or to shield us or to save us from someone judging us or not wanting us or accepting us or disapproving of us. And what I've really come to realize is like we were all born deeply authentic. We are all so our authentic selves.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And then slowly somewhere along the way, we convince ourselves that we should blend in or be a part of the crowd or change who we are. And I just had this. I don't know if it's realization or whatever, download, however you want to call it. But I realized after I left Tinder that there were so many times that I was not authentic to myself when I was there.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And I just promised myself after that whole ordeal that I'm not always going to be the best and I'm not always going to win and I'm not always going to be loved and I'm not always going to be liked and I won't be accepted and I won't be invited. But the one thing no one can take away from me is at the end of the day, I'm always going to be me. whatever that means.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And so I think it's a commitment to ourselves to fall back in love with that authentic version of who we are and try to honor that and live with that. And so that's kind of where I'm at now. And I just try to be me. I don't even know what that means. And it's not for everyone. And that's okay.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yes, I'm not going to pretend and say, oh, I don't care what people think or that didn't hurt my feelings or so-and-so didn't invite me or so-and-so doesn't like me and who cares? No, I mean, we're all, even when we are our highest selves, we are all having a very earthly experience here in these bodies that we have. And with that comes all of those feelings that we all possess.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And so I think the way I... deal with that is I don't shame myself for having hurt feelings or for caring what someone did or didn't think about me. I just kind of look at it and I stare at it and say, okay, that's okay. That's like a wounded part of you that is feeling that way and we'll live with it. We'll accept all these pieces. And so that way it doesn't take over your life.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And there were years of my life that all I cared about was what people thought about me. At any cost, I did not want someone to dislike me. It was my worst fear. And then you're kind of like, this is a full-time job and one I'm not getting paid for. So, you know, why am I doing this?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
It's draining my accounts, physically, spiritually, mentally, you know, the metaphor of just like being completely bankrupt. But emotionally, and I'll share one thing, so fascinating and because you led with this, It's not something I ever really think about because I've come to realize that self-worth does not equal net worth.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
And I'm a very privileged person who's had the opportunity to learn that. But I will tell you that on paper, at my on paper wealthiest, according to society's standards, I was spiritually the poorest I've ever been. And I think that's really important for people to know. It's like, that's not where you get your worth.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Find Your Purpose, Get Unstuck & Ignite Your Dreams w/ Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
Yeah. So just to touch on a bit of what you just said, I think if I could, and I'm still on my journey, so I feel like I can say this with... a sense of we're in this together to whoever is watching or listening, because I don't think I've arrived at my final destination. Certainly I hope not, I'm 35. So I hope that there's still a lot ahead. I will say the following.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I think where people go wrong looking for love online is they put out a version of them they think other people want to see. But they're so busy trying to like impress somebody else or do right for someone else that they're actually not being authentic to what they are.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
So it's this like outward validation that they're seeking when in reality they should just build a profile that is deeply authentic to who they are. Because just like I said with friends, you never know what that special unique trait about you is, right? You might call it a quirk. You might call it a, you might consider it like your own unique weirdness, whatever someone says about themselves.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
But like that is what you're looking for in a match. You want someone that gets you, understands you and appreciates you. So I think how can you expect people to have success online if they're showing up not as themselves? Like you have to be you to attract what's good for you.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Mm-hmm. But you know what I'm talking about? And this predates online. Like, did you ever get into a relationship where you felt like you needed to impress the person and then you get into it? Like their movies. Yeah. And you're like, wait a second. Why like that TV show? You're like, I don't know. And then you're three months into it and you're like, I am miserable. Yes.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
But that's because you weren't true to yourself. Yes. Again, intention is everything. Intention is everything. Authenticity.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
The shortcut. As like- predictable as it sounds and as like cheesy as it sounds, like be yourself. Yeah.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Oh, goodness. I mean, you know what I think is such a great spirit of like mentorship is godmothers here in our community. Like what Jennifer and Victoria have built with godmothers is so beautiful. This like the spirit of like the fairy godmother that is there to have your back. So I think with mentors, you know, it's interesting. I would say don't be scared to put yourself out there.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I think where people go wrong looking for love online is I think what you just said is the most important thing for all of us. I think we have fallen out of love with falling in love. I think we've fallen out of love with ourselves. Yes, we have. We are totally online, but we are so offline. We're so online, technically online, so spiritually offline. Totally offline.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Who cares if the person doesn't respond to the email? Email twice. Email three times. And maybe they never respond, but you know what? You know what that mentor would have told you to do? That. So like by putting yourself out there and pushing yourself, like you actually kind of inadvertently mentor yourself by trying to find a mentor, you know?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
And I think mentorship is so important, but I also, here's the most important thing I feel about mentors. I think people have mentorship wrong. I think people assume you can only learn from someone who has achieved more than you. My greatest mentors in my life have been the taxi cab driver that picked me up at the airport. The person that dropped off a package.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I try to learn something from every single person I interact with. I'm telling you, it is one of the most profound changes you'll ever have happened to in your life. I'm sure you do the same. But if I could give one piece of advice to someone out there just getting started, learn from everyone because they're the real people. They are humanity. in the works.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Now, are they going to be able to teach you how to do a P&L? Maybe not, but that's not what life is about. Like we should be mentored on every level, humanity, kindness, graciousness, respect, like that deserves mentorship as well, not just how to build a company. So I would say reframing mentorship is really important.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I'm not a big executive coach, gal. Not for me. No shame if someone loves it. It's just not for me. I am completely... on board the therapy train. I think even if it's just an outlet to share your thoughts and just to have somewhere a safe space, I think it's great. Journaling, I think, is also therapy.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
My most profound therapist, if you will, which is not a therapist, and I'm sorry for calling you this, Bob, but the person that taught me TM, Transcendental Meditation, Bob Roth, he has totally changed my life because He just taught me how to go in.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
It is probably the top five most important parts of my entire life. Wow. It's just 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon. It's free. You don't need to do anything. You don't need your phone. You don't need an app. You don't need headphones. You don't need anything. You sit silently with your feet on the ground. Imagine that.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
You close your eyes and you repeat your mantra, which anybody can get a mantra. It's free on the internet. You just get a meditation teacher for free online. And you sit silently and you essentially just calm your mind and go inward. For 20 minutes. It's like the way I would explain it is, you know, I'm also big on all sorts of fitness, like physical fitness, mental fitness, right?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
That's reading, lots of reading, lots of learning. It's spiritual fitness and it's inner fitness. Like you have to work your insides the same way you work your outsides. And I think you have to work in, not just only work out. And I think that, you know, You've got to create space, that beautiful space to think and have clarity and just remember that whatever's going on in the day, it's okay.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Like you still can retreat to calm and to peace. How many times a day do you meditate? Twice.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
You just get back on track. It's like someone that says they work out a lot. How many days a week do you work out? Someone will say, oh, four to five. Well, is there ever a time where you don't work at all? Yeah, of course. And then what do you do? The next week I go back to the gym. You just make it part of your life. It's part of your ritual. It is free. You don't need a gym.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
We are unplugged while we are the most plugged in ever. I just see the love company being a force for helping people learn to love love again. How do we love again? Love ourselves, love our friends. Like you said, you want to manifest beautiful friendships. What is a friendship rooted in love?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
You don't need running shoes. You don't need sweatbands. You don't need heart rate monitors. You just sit there silently. You need something to sit on. That's it. That's it.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Okay. So this is my advice to the person that tried it and did it wrong. You didn't do it wrong. Just sit quietly for 20 minutes in your own thoughts. There's no right or wrong. It's not like you're supposed to start hearing like Elton John singing. Like, you know, you don't like nothing happens. You just, you hit, you know, actually a lot does happen.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
So because I've been so consistent with it, now when I meditate, I do go somewhere different. Like I don't really feel my hands anymore. I like kind of leave my body a little bit. Which is great because you kind of go to a different part of your brain. You kind of sink into a different like wave length. Yeah.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
But if you just stay exactly where you are thinking about whatever you're thinking, just let the thoughts carry on. It's like clouds in the sky. Clouds in the sky. You just let them pass and just sit there. Give yourself space.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I don't think it matters where you are. Yeah. I think you just go to your inner place.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I am manifesting the love company, which is Bumble, but it's the next iteration of it. I am manifesting inner peace, like inner equanimity, just feeling at peace with whatever happens. And I don't mean like, oh, everything is great. Bad things are going to happen. All of us are going to have rough patches. Our kids are going to get boo-boos and, you know, pipes are going to break.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Whatever is going to happen. But I really want to manifest just making sure that my attitude is everything and carrying that through with the team at Bumble and being like a steady, you know, a steady captain. And then the other thing I'm manifesting is, hmm, what else am I manifesting? I'll think about that. I'll tell you at the end. What are you manifesting?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I need to know what you're manifesting.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I love that.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I love that.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
We are all so much more connected and so much more loved than we realize. There are these secret languages of the universe that we can tap into. When you think it's the end, it might really just be the beginning. So never, never think something's over. It's just the beginning of a new thing. Thank you for having this beautiful forum for women to come together and learn and enhance and elevate.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I'll tell you one crazy story as it pertains to that, because I think what you just said is the most important thing for all of us. I promise this is so wild, but a couple days before I was faced with the concept of going back in as CEO, I woke up after my meditation. I was outside in nature and I literally looked to the sky and I said, in 2025, universe, God, whatever you want to call it, right?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Source. Use me for love and light. Use me for my highest good. I'm here to serve. Like you tell me what I'm here to do because I'm available. Like I'm, I'm for hire, whatever it is, not, not, not for a job, but you know what I mean? Like I want to be used for love and light as a vessel, as a vehicle. And I literally looked up and I was like, please use me this year. Like, tell me what to do.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Just use me for love and light. That's all I ask. And then just a couple of days later, this situation where I was faced with, do I go back? Do I not go back? Unfolded and it's, oh, interesting. And I just immediately knew the answer intuitively. I didn't think that was my answer. I mean, two days prior, I wasn't thinking, oh, maybe I'll be the CEO again. That wasn't on my mind. Yeah.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
But that's that whole notion of don't tell the universe what you want necessarily. You can, you can set a direction and a tone. And of course it's great to have dreams and visions, but it's also nice to throw the ball back and say like, okay, I've had plenty of manifesting and I've achieved all sorts of things that I wanted to achieve. I think there's a higher purpose here.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
You tell me now, use me. Let me be of service. So I think what Oprah said is profound. And I love that that's the way you're living your 2025 out.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I think we have fallen out of love with falling in love. I think we've fallen out of love with ourselves. Yes, we have. We are totally online, but we are so offline. We're so online, technically online, so spiritually offline, totally offline. Like we are unplugged while we are the most plugged in ever. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
You really are the embodiment of worthiness and i do have to give jamie a big shout out for those of you that don't know jamie personally but feel like you know her jamie is the kindest person i've ever met you are always sincerely so genuinely kind to everyone and all around you deeply deeply authentic and kind and compassionate and you want the best for people
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Thank you. Thank you.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I would ask the following question. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? And what's fascinating is most people will tell you they don't know what they're afraid of. They're just afraid of whatever they're afraid of. And they don't know what they are afraid of. They're just afraid. And I think when you actually look fear in the face and say, who are you? Like, who are you, fear?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
What's your name? Why are you here? What are you up to? I think it will help people really understand what's holding them back because we should get to know the things we're afraid of. They are there for a reason to teach us something and they're there for us to communicate and to say, okay, well, I'm really afraid of getting rejected. I'm really afraid of getting rejected. Why?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Have a conversation with it. Why? Why are you afraid of getting rejected? What's going to happen? Well, if I get rejected, then I'm going to feel unloved the way I felt when I was a kid. I don't know, I'm making this up. Okay, interesting. Well, next step, next step, next step.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? I think when you actually look fear in the face and say, who are you? Like, who are you, fear? What's your name? Why are you here? What are you up to? I think it will help people really understand what's holding them back.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
So I think it's like, instead of just going out there and me preaching to a bunch of people saying like, make the first move, just do it, just do it, just dive, dive, dive, dive. Maybe get self- Go inward. Get a bit self-reflective.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
And understand, like, why don't you make the first move? Is it because you were told culturally that you shouldn't make the first move? But why? Yes. And I think that is a really interesting moment for people in their lives. Yes. When they say, I'm stuck. I can't get anything to work. I'm not going to go move to that city I kind of want to move to. Why not?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Like, I think people need to really have conversations with themselves and understand what limitations they're putting on themselves that are holding them back.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
So good. And you get to know yourself better. Yeah. Yeah.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Because that's what this is all about. All of us are just like on a lifelong journey of knowing ourselves, right? And it's so funny. I'm in the business of helping people know other people. And I do think our next horizon is really about love in three ways. Self-love, romantic love, and love of community and friends. Yeah.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Well, and listen, it all stemmed from, again, we come back to intention. The intention was just to create a kinder, safer space. right? You created like an AI tool that can detect them, right? Yeah. So our team built something called Private Detector. It was an AI tool. This was like, by the way, we've been using AI for so long. It's, you know, obviously it's
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
progressed monumentally in the last couple of years. But we built a tool that essentially, when someone sends an image to someone, it essentially scans it for anything that could be unsolicited or lewd. So body parts, it's very sophisticated.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
So with like 99% accuracy, it will give you a heads up not to open the photo and it comes blurred so that we kind of deter you from looking at whatever that is. And what I realized was we can build all the tools in the world but it still wasn't solving the fact that there was no consequences here. Like I can block and report these people, but they're gonna go to another platform.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
They're gonna go to another app. And I'm not here to just make Bumble great. Like I want connecting to be healthier and safer and kinder across the board. And so we kept hearing in droves, just negative, negative feedback about how women were just getting spammed on the internet by these unsolicited lewd images. So I called up a local, legal
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
you know, someone in my network that I'm very close to, that's very close to the legal kind of state of the world in Texas. And I said, is there a law for online indecent exposure? So indecent exposure is a law where you cannot go in the street right now on Coast Village Road and expose yourself. If you took your clothes off in the streets, you're going to jail. You cannot do that.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
It's against the law. But for some reason, we're letting everybody do that online and send it to teenagers and in mass, like this does not feel right. Like, how are we not, you know, everybody is online all day long. How are we not creating more accountable spaces? And I'm not saying I don't believe in free speech.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I'm not saying I don't believe in using your phone to, you know, navigate life the way you want, but come on, there's like decent behavior that we uphold people to in the real world. And that should be mirrored on the internet. And that's all. And so we started this kind of crusade to create a law and we got it passed 100% unanimous yes vote in Texas. So it became a law.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I signed it in with the governor. And then we passed it in California. We've passed it in several other states. And then, you know, this year is big for a lot of policy work we're going to be putting out there into the world to create safer relationships, both on and offline.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Yes. Yes. Yeah. I mean, are we in a simulation? Perhaps. Yeah. Right. Um, progress.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
I would say really embracing your true passions and your quirks. So if you're like super into making sourdough bread or like you've taken up knitting or you're like a super fanatic on Mahjong or, you know, you've got like some obsession with reading fantasy books, like own those things. Like those are your passions. Those are your hobbies, right?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
And there are other people out there that love the same things as you. You just have to like find them. But how can you find someone if you don't put a signal out? Like you can't be found if you don't put a flag up or use a flashlight or like put a beacon out there. And so I would say like shine your light bright And make a Bumble for Friends profile and like put your whole self out there.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Women were just getting spammed on the internet by these unsolicited lewd images. If you took your clothes off in the streets, you're going to jail. You cannot do that. It's against the law. But for some reason, we're letting everybody do that. online and send it to teenagers. And so we started this kind of crusade to create a law.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
Like what are you into? What are you looking for? Like what kind of like random buddies are you looking for to do? Like, you know, do you want to go like to crystal shops together? Are you obsessed with astrology? Like just own it. Like be authentically you. And like your vibe, this is going to sound cheesy, but like it attracts your tribe. Like it really does.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Raise Your Vibration, Get What You Want & Live Your Best Life w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 3
So like operate on your true frequency and like you will be met where you are, like what you said earlier.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
I went home and cried after the IPO. Why was I crying? Why? I mean, on the surface, I should be popping bottles, celebrating. I was a wreck. I was so depleted. I was so disconnected from myself. It was all about getting there. It was all about like getting to the top of this mountain, like exhaustion, complete exhaustion.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And that beautiful baby on my hip that was there in the videos and the photos with the confetti, like that little baby had not seen his mom rested, energized, calm in so long. In so long. Because I felt like you know, I have to get there. I have to do this. I gotta do it. I gotta do it. I gotta do it. I gotta do it.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And I think this quest of like the greater good, it can also come at the expense of ourselves. So I think that's such a lesson that I've learned over the last year of time. I don't call it time off. I call it time in. You know, they always talk about, we don't do timeout with our kids, but it's so funny. I'm always like, okay, Bobby, it's time for time in, not time out.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
Let's do some time in where we need to go in. We need to like reconnect because it's all so crazy out here. So crazy. So, so crazy. There's like so many things that are pulling at us and needing us and depleting us and draining us. And drowning us. And if we don't go in and replenish our energy, what do we have left? We're shells. We're just vessels. And I think this year in or out,
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
wherever it's been right in this different realm has been such a gift because I've had time to sit and pause and reflect and realize like all the shiny objects just don't matter. Like if you're not healthy, your team's not healthy. If you're not energized, the customers aren't energized. Like You have to set the tone at the top, you know?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And also don't pretend to women around the world that you can bounce a baby on your hip and take a company public for $15 billion all on a Monday. And it's just all gravy because that's not true. It's hard. It's super hard. And that's okay, right? You can do it, but you can't do everything all at once without something breaking. And the thing that broke was me. It was me. That's what broke.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And so I had to put it back together.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
If you're not a believer, you should probably go take a coffee break." And I thought, okay, this is it. This is literally hell on earth. She said, I was in a toxic marriage for a very long time, and I read about you. I read about what you did with Bumble, and it gave me the courage to leave my marriage And once I had rebuilt my strength and my self-confidence, I downloaded Bumble because of you.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
That's right. Yeah. So I think I'm going back with a lot of perspective. Yeah. It's funny. One of my board members said this profound thing to me. She said, everything's better the second time around. You know, if you think about the first time you do anything, it's always, it's new, it's scary. You're learning on the job. And the second time around is just profoundly easier.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And you have perspective, you have wisdom, you have learnings. And so I think I go back with...
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
the energy of love like bumble has always been at its core about love and what i've realized in this time in whatever you want to call it um the entire meaning of life genuinely and i'm sure we could go ask all of the philosophical and spiritual leaders that we know and don't know and if we ask them we kind of said define the meaning of life in one word
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
We asked a hundred like spiritual leaders or evolved people. We asked them the meaning of life in one word, and they have to pick one word only. I'm going to bet. It's a guess. I'm going to bet that 80% or more say the word love. I'm going to bet that. And I fundamentally believe that that is the meaning of life.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And if I have the opportunity or dharma or whatever you want to call it to help spread love in the world, then sign me up. Put me in, coach. Let's go. Like, let's get back in the arena because that's a noble mission. And if I can assemble the special forces of love around me to go out and help reinstill love in all the ways...
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
through friendship, community, your romantic love, and most importantly, through self-love, that can be transformational for people.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
One million percent.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
How can you lead others if you can't lead yourself?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
Not anymore. No. I was riddled in it and insecure and scared. And what's this person gonna think about me? Oh, did I hurt their feelings? Like, what are they gonna say? What are they gonna think? What are they gonna write about me? What's the article gonna say? Petrified. And that was a trauma response. That was coming from a place of fear.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
I was operating from a place of fear, fear of not being loved, not being accepted, not being enough, not being good enough, not being, you know, whatever you want to call it. And I think I just, you know, this is important too, because we spent a lot of time talking about all these accolades, like, oh, the IPO and the, it was a $15 billion company. And You know, the Forbes and da-da-da-da-da-da.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And I've never met anyone with my fiance's name. And he is the love of my life. And he is wonderful. After an abusive marriage, which is basically my whole story. It was my whole purpose. If that's not the universe telling you that, you know, check. The intention was pure and good. I don't know what else is.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
But what people maybe don't realize about the last year is I climbed up to the top of this mountain and then I crashed down. The stock fell 80%. I stopped getting invited to the cool conferences. Oh, yeah. Do you know how many invites I did not get to these like big macho masculine rulers of the free world conferences that I was invited to for eight years? They all stopped.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
The invites stopped coming in. I stopped getting phone calls. I was irrelevant.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
I stopped getting invited to the cool conferences. Oh, yeah. Do you know how many invites I did not get to these like big macho masculine rulers of the free world conferences that I was invited to for eight years? They all stopped. The invites stopped coming in. I stopped getting phone calls. I was irrelevant. But you know what was beautiful about that?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And thank you, universe, God, whoever you are for giving me that opportunity to Because I learned that that's not what matters. That's not the point. And hell, it hurt. It hurt. Many a tears were cried when those invites didn't roll in.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
When I found out early after stopping being CEO, I'll never forget when I got uninvited to this one conference, this like macho, masculine, cool conference, I cried for two days. It hurt my feelings. So this would have been just a little over a year ago. Yeah. gutted me. The same way I probably would have cried in middle school when the girls didn't invite me to a birthday party.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
Or I remember fourth grade, there was a group of girls, fifth grade, didn't get invited to the birthday party and I didn't want to leave my room for, you know, the whole weekend. That same inner wounded, not enough part of me was so triggered as an adult being upset that I wasn't invited to this conference with all the big wigs, right? And Humans don't change. We just play on different scales.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
Like, you know, the cool kids table just changes. It gets bigger. It gets more interesting. It gets scarier. I mean, you've got to disassociate from that stuff. It's going to be there no matter what.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
Not anymore. No. I was riddled in it. I climbed up to the top of this mountain and then I crashed down. The stock fell 80%. I stopped getting invited to the cool conferences. I said, oh yeah. And hell, it hurt. It hurt. Many a tears were cried when those invites didn't roll in. And that's where I'm at now, Jamie. You can't hurt my feelings anymore. You can't.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
Yeah, so many people. But you know what? I can't blame them because you know why? That's the frequency they're on. It's a radio.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
It's a radio.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
No, they're on a different station. They are on a different station. They're on a different station. And I'm on a different station. We are in different frequencies. And that's okay. Some people like, you know, 98.1 FM and some people like 106.7. And we're on different frequencies, different strokes for different folks. And that's where I'm at now, Jamie. You can't hurt my feelings anymore.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
You can't. I'm not saying you ever would, but I'm saying out there, they, whoever this group is or next group will be or whoever it's going to be next, you can't take that from me. It's mine. Yeah. And I can tell you it is the biggest gift I've ever been given. Yeah. I went through some version of like an ego death. And now I'm like, let's go. Let's lead with love. I'm not leading with fear.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
I'm not going to lead with insecurity. I'm not going to lead with like, what's someone going to think about me? I do not care. Genuinely. And I can say that sincerely. I think you can tell I don't bullshit you. Like you get what you get with me.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And I wasn't there a year ago.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
Oh yeah. And by the way, it's kind of embarrassing to admit to all of this, right? But if I can't admit it, how can anybody admit it? Yeah, yeah. Like... Because we've all been there.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And we, no matter who we are in the world, like the woman who's living in the small town and, you know, is trying to start her own, you know, small business, like... She might feel this way with the other moms in the community. I mean, this can happen to us at any level. And I think it was Mel Robbins who said recently, I saw a clip somewhere. It was like, let them.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
Like, I thought that was so profound because I never actually put those words together, the let them concept.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
But the truth is, like, just accept people for who they are. Yeah. Like, that's their frequency. Don't change them.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
I went through some version of like an ego death. And now I'm like, let's go. Let's lead with love. I'm not leading with fear. Not gonna lead with insecurity. Not gonna lead with like, what's someone gonna think about me? I do not care. Genuinely. And I can say that sincerely. I think you can tell I don't bullshit you. Like you get what you get with me. And I wasn't there a year ago.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
I I I Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
Well, thank you for acknowledging that. And you said a very important word, which was team. And I've got to say for anybody listening, like the team you're surrounded with is really where the magic is, right? Like the team is everything. So just like deeply, deeply grateful and indebted to our team past, present, and I know future.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
I will share one story of something that changed my life in terms of a success story. This is so wild. And a lot of people, if you're not... If you're not a believer, you should probably go take a coffee break because you're going to think this is a little abstract and out there, but I promise you it's the truth.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
After I had my first son, Bobby, my husband, he was raised by his grandfather, who was a deeply, deeply influential person in my life too. He was one of the only people that really believed in me and supported me through the departure of Tinder and the building of Bumble. And he was just this figure of like strength. And he was really the man in the arena. It was his favorite quote.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
He had it framed everywhere. An impressive, amazing man who defeated all the odds. So I got pregnant at 29. My husband and I got pregnant with our first child when I was 29. And we found out it was a boy and we knew immediately we're going to name him Bobby Lee after granddaddy who was Bobby Lee. This is all relevant to answering your question I'm setting at the stage.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And so we have our beautiful baby boy. But very unfortunately, granddaddy had gotten very, very ill just weeks prior. And he was hanging on for dear life just to make it to see this baby boy be born. And as fate would have it, it was not my due date. Our son, Bobby Lee, was born on granddaddy's birthday, December the 9th. And we named him Bobby Lee II.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And I've never met anyone named Bobby Lee before. It's kind of a strange, like it's a, it's not like, it's not Johnny. It's like a kind of, you know, a unique name, like the double pairing of these names. And this is relevant because this answers your question. So after I had our son, granddaddy tragically was able to see him just on FaceTime.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
He said, happy birthday, kind of said, I give you my life. And after that, he really never spoke again and he passed. So five days after Bobby's born, it's granddaddy's, we're getting ready to like prepare for granddaddy's funeral, Bobby Lee, the first funeral. And I woke up that morning about to fly to the funeral with a really crazy headache. Like I've never had a headache like this.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
I thought something's not right. So I text the doctor, they say, lay down, it's hormones, take a nap. I looked in the mirror and I was a balloon. I was like, what has happened to me? And so I thought to check my blood pressure because I had read an article about a woman who swole and got a headache and ended up with a stroke and had something called postpartum preeclampsia.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And I said, God, I better check my blood pressure. Lo and behold, my blood pressure was something like 180 over 125 or 130. It was very, very serious. So the doctor said, get to the hospital immediately. So here I am. I'm leaving my newborn child at home, not alone, thank God, obviously.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And my husband has to leave me at the hospital to go deliver the eulogy at a thousand person funeral or however many people were there. So I'm in this bed in the hospital. They cannot get my blood pressure down. I have very, it's called help syndrome. I have help syndrome. Your liver enzymes are out of control. Your blood pressure is out of control and it is fatal. You can die from this.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And very tragically, it is a huge portion of maternal deaths, preeclampsia and post preeclampsia. So here I am, I'm laying in the dark. They put you in the dark on something called a magnesium drip. And I literally think, oh, this is as bad as it gets. You're not with your new baby. You're being told we're gonna do our best, but no certainty that you're gonna get better, which is the truth.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
No one's telling you you're gonna be okay, because they don't know. They're gonna do their best. And your husband is at the funeral of the one man that has been like an inspiration to you. And I thought, okay, this is it. This is literally hell on earth. And shortly thereafter, a woman walks in the room. She's a nurse at the hospital and it's dark, but she comes in and she grabs my hand.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
I can see her and I can hear her. She turns the lights on and she says, hi, sweetheart. And she says, you're Whitney from Bumble, right? And I think, oh God, like not now. I can't give jobs right now. Like I, you know, someone's nephew wants a job at Bumble all the time. And I'm like, this is not the time I'm dying. Like, can we save this for another day?
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And she pretty quickly after she tells me, listen, I know I'm violating HIPAA. It's my last day at the hospital. I've been here for 35 years. I had to come see you. The nurses were talking about you back in the nurse station that the Bumble founder was here. And I didn't care if I got in trouble. I came to talk to you. She said, first of all, you're going to be okay, sweetheart.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
She grabbed my hand. That was the first time someone told me I'd be okay. And she said, I had to come tell you something. She said, I was in a toxic marriage for a very long time. And I read about you. And I read about what you did with Bumble and it gave me the courage to leave my marriage. And once I had rebuilt my strength and my self-confidence, I downloaded Bumble because of you.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And I've never met anyone with my fiance's name. And he is the love of my life and he is wonderful. And I saw that your baby's name is Bobby Lee because they write it on the wall outside the hospital room when you're a new mom with a baby. She said, that's his name. She said, I met Bobby Lee on Bumble after an abusive marriage, which is basically my whole story. It was my whole purpose.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
And it was Bobby Lee's funeral and baby Bobby Lee was at home. And this woman's life had been enhanced by a man named Bobby Lee that she met on Bumble. So if that's not the universe telling you that, you know, check, the intention was pure and good. I don't know what else is.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
So that's the power of what this has been for me. That story is exactly a through line of this whole journey. And I think we all can connect with these synchronicities in the world, right? If we trust and believe in it. And that's just one example.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
That's right. And your worst days can also be little cracks of light. Yeah. Right? That was the worst day ever, hands down. But it ended up being... pretty profound, right? That experience was profound. So I think we have to fall down to learn the lesson or see the good.
The Jamie Kern Lima Show
How to Manifest Friends, Mentors & Incredible Relationships w/Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd Pt 2
Definitely. I went home and cried after the IPO.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
You know, we are really focused right now on this emotional shift. And the emotional shift is going to be put into every corner of the product, every part of the experience, which is moving away from this decade, because it's been about a decade of dating apps, of judgment and rejection.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
dating apps and i take a lot of accountability for this i've been involved in it from day one so all well intentions you know all good intentions behind this but these things take on a life of their own it has sparred this generation of people feeling very rejected and very judged quickly.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
So if you are judging people quickly and you are rejecting people, yes, no, yes, no, left, right, left, right, it's happening to you on the other end. And I think what we're trying to do now is recreate this new experience, this emotional shift from those emotions to curiosity and confidence. And if we can get more curious, and that's about ourselves as well. It's everything you're saying.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
We have to get curious about ourselves because We have two sides of us. We have the side we were told we're supposed to be or how society wants you to show up or how you're supposed to make a dating profile or how your parents wanted you to show up. And then you have the real you. But what's wild is that takes a lot of work to figure out who you really are.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
And so we are going to really put a lot of emphasis on this journey of self-love. And you say the word self-love to a lot of people and they go, huh? Yeah. What does that mean? Because we've never been trained to choose ourselves. We've been trained to choose other people or wait to be chosen by other people.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
So I really believe the future of love online and offline is meeting yourself, starting to like yourself, being bold enough to hold boundaries for yourself, command what works for you, and then go out and meet people on your terms. So I really think you will see a real reinvention of how we show up
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
In this next iteration, and I was just saying this today in the office, Bumble, when I started Bumble, it was all about women making the first move. Because the end goal was how do we get to healthier relationships? And my personal experience had been that men were in charge of the experience. So, okay, well, let's flip it. But that's not what this is all about. It's not about man or woman or...
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
gender at all this is about love at its core and so now the next decade of bumble is all about make the first move for yourself because if you can do that then you will find good relationships and I just think we have to help people meet themselves before we help them meet others. I think it's too important.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
It's really interesting. You know, it's so different around the world, right? And this has been one of the more fascinating parts of my journey is learning about love around the world. It's super different. And, you know, it was fascinating. This crazy thing happened to us in France several years ago. We were launching in Paris. And all of our metrics looked very similar around the world.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
So women were making the first move at the same rate. Retention was at the same rate. Kind of everywhere we went, the numbers looked the same. And we go to France and we try to launch it in France and it just like And we're like, what in the world is going on here? This is the center of love. Like something's off. So I flew over there.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
We flew over there and we sat down with a bunch of women and they felt like we were telling them what to do. They're like, this feels like my mother or my aunt. And like the community is like telling me who to choose and who to be with. And I don't like this. So we had just used certain language, certain words that completely turned off an entire community.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
city of love from finding love on our product. And so I really do think the way we engage people and make them feel safe, you said this earlier, making people feel safe and accepted, I think is so critical. And I've seen that the way society has controlled our relationships throughout history has actually made people feel the opposite of safe and accepted.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
So it's made them reject a lot of norms around love. So I just think it's fascinating. But what I will tell you, the one thing we see in the data People actually find the best relationships in shared values. And that is so rooted in what your version of family is and what your version of community is.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
So if you do want to have a certain type of family in the future or a certain type of community, those are the relationships that are the ones that go the distance from what we've seen versus the ones that are like, it was the hottest person I had ever seen. you know, and I swiped right and it was my swipe right love affair. Like those ones don't really work.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
So I do think shared family values and community do really drive the way we think about connection.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
Yeah, I mean, we have a product Bumble for Friends and everything that we're thinking about right now, and I would actually love to talk to you at some point about how we can make this super inclusive and desirable for all communities. Even the way you're talking about love languages. It's so interesting. We were talking about love languages today, but it's the neurotypical love languages.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
Like, you know, there's the little quiz you can take on the internet that you stay up until three in the morning doing, you know, like, what if I was a box of cereal, which one would I be? Or whatever we're all doing in the middle of the night. But it's a totally different world. And I would love your help and understanding because we're missing the mark right now.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
Like even just hearing that one comment, I'm like, oh, we're getting this all wrong. And so, you know, I think community is everything. So Bumble for Friends, everything we're going to focus on is the tagline is really friends first. And I think every great love story that you hear, every other one or every third one, it's like, oh, we started as friends.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
You know, friendship is so underrated, like genuine, true friendship and connectivity. And I think, you know, befriending yourself too. This is super important. You were just saying that people that have spent time with themselves, they're attractive because they're okay with being alone. And I think that that's the way we have to think about it.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
I would check in with yourself. I mean, every single person I know that has now found love, when I reflect on it, I'm like, oh, they got into a good place themselves. They met someone after they had met themselves. Everybody I know that has struggled to find love, it's genuinely because they're struggling to actually love themselves. It's just the truth.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
And I'm not saying, oh, you know, shame on someone for not loving themselves. I just don't think we as a culture or a society have ever really enforced this. And I think we're early here, right? Meditating and breath work and getting in touch with yourself. But
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
No one's really, I mean, could anybody in this room really, if I gave you a pen and a paper and I said, write down the top five values you have in life and orchestrate your entire life around these five values. Like, maybe you can. That's fantastic if you can. But I know that when I was asked that question, I couldn't do it. It's like, what are my values?
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
And you can't say like, oh, kindness and love. Like, I'm telling you, like, what do you really value in this world? Like, what matters to you in a relationship? So if you can't answer that for yourself, how could you possibly accept or expect somebody else to be able to answer that for you? And so I do think you just have this beautiful term. What did you say? You said... Interdependence.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
Right. but also being okay and knowing who you are, right? So it's not like I need you because I'm not okay without you. And I think that's the energy we all need to adopt and really adapt to candidly as society because I do think we've all been trained on well, you're going to meet someone. You're going to meet someone and then your life will be perfect. You know, just go out and meet someone.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
Like the person that you've been waiting for is you. You complete you. And I would love to be a small, tiny part of that human journey. How can we use this platform for love to actually flip it inward and say, well, if we really want to get to healthy relationships for people, for all people, For all types of people, that date that you described at your home sounds beautiful.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
How can we also recognize the need for those connections, right? And I think that's really the future of where we go. I think we need to expand the way the telepathy tapes and the talk tracks have ultimately, what have they done for us? They have expanded our awareness, our appreciation, and our acceptance for telepathy. these beautiful layers and levels of love.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
And I think it's time for the products out there, ours included, to evolve with it.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
We're going into business together.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
Wow, that was profound. I can't go after that. You know, I've been thinking a lot about love because it's kind of what we do all day long is help people find love. And I think when I left Bumble for a year, I took a little break. We didn't fully break up. We just went on a little separation. But I realized that love is kind of the love of my life.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
Well, I think I have to tell my story with the telepathy tapes because I credit you for why I'm even sitting here tonight and why I'm back at Bumble, why I'm in Austin. So this is a true and crazy story, which, you know, as all of these beautiful stories that you've brought to the world go.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
So on a Tuesday in January, I was living my best work-free life, having a massage on a Tuesday, which was something I had never done once in my life. And I was listening to the telepathy tapes and I was listening to episode nine.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
sobbing and my heart had just expanded in a thousand different ways from your beautiful story and john paul and lily and their amazing amazing majestic story and when i heard that the whole purpose of our existence not just the parting message he left for you but for all of us was just love like love is the way love is everything and it struck me so profoundly every
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
every cell in my body just lit up and I had this kind of out of body experience and I was like, oh my God, This is why I did Bumble. This is why I exist. This is what it's all about. And I had this crazy moment. I went home that afternoon and I had zero plans of becoming the CEO of Bumble again. And I went home that afternoon and I was just telling Kai this.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
I looked up to the sky and I said, universe, use me for love and light. I don't know what it means. Just use me for love and light. I don't know how that manifests. Three days later, our brilliant and glorious current sitting for one more week CEO decided it was time for her to leave the company for her own reasons. Out of nowhere. I was expecting her to be there for five years.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
So this is within three days. And basically, I'm almost positive that somewhere telepathically, someone in this beautiful realm kind of said, you got to go back and you've got to reinvent love. Because the way these dating apps are working right now, we're not really what you wanted them to do. And it's not leaving society in the best way possible. Go back and fix it. Build a real love company.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
Don't build another dating app, right? Like go back and transform love. And so I kid you not, here I go back to Bumble within like five days. All of a sudden it's like off to the races. And then Caroline calls me and she goes, you won't believe this.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
I know you've been texting me to listen to this thing called the telepathy tapes 112 times a day, but they've just gotten in touch with us and want to know if you want to do something with Bumble and the telepathy tapes with Kai. And I was like, what? This is my Super Bowl. This is the coolest thing that's ever happened to me. So it was just this crazy moment of the power of love.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
Like this is what happens when love leads. Magical, magical things happen. That's just genuine, authentic, and true output of when you say to the universe, like, just use me for love and light. Like that's what I'm here for. And let it take you on a magic carpet ride wherever it takes you. And so thank you for this. Thank you for this opportunity.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
And thank you for sharing your story and your beautiful John Paul with the world. It really means a lot to all of us. Jez, what would you like to leave us with? Wow.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
And that's why I'm back at Bumble because what could be more important in life than learning how, and I do think it's learning, how to love yourself and love others and then help other people find love and connection. And that's, you know, it's so funny. Everyone's like, is this always what you wanted to do?
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
No, of course this isn't what I wanted to do. But when I think about what love has been for me in my life, it's bringing people together. That is love for me. It's like just uniting great souls and helping them expand because they meet each other. And love also does feel like a language. We all speak different dialects of it. We all feel different versions of it.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
And some of us don't really understand the… the way to communicate it in certain ways, but we can all feel it. Like I think even with the non-speakers that I've learned about and that you've all been so close to, they are the most loving people on planet earth. And it just shows you that love transcends anything that we can do at the human level. That's what I think love is.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
I think it's a very important topic. And I think it can't come just from what we think might be best. I think it's including the people that want to use this product. I believe it was episode seven, correct me if I'm wrong, of the telepathy tapes. I've listened to them like 25 times at this point, where there is this desire to meet people.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
And loneliness, even with the hill and all of these other ways to connect, loneliness is something that every human experiences. And we all deserve to find connection. We all deserve to find friendship. We all deserve to find love.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
So I think the beauty of technology is if we can find ways to safely empower communities of all kinds to connect, that would be the most beautiful way to fulfill the vision of our business. It is about listening to the customers and the members and the customers. the people in the community that want this and letting them build with us, right? And so really building for them, not for us.
The Telepathy Tapes
BONUS - LIVE TALK TRACKS EPISODE - Love Beyond Words
And I think that's where a lot of dating apps, including ourselves over the years, have gone a bit astray. I think everyone wants to find love, but no one wants to use a dating app anymore because it just hasn't spoken to the true needs of the customers and the members. So I think we just have to be better listeners and build for the community. Yeah. Beautiful.