[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_138":-5,"_139":-5,"_140":141,"_142":143,"_144":145},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/3099/leadership-isnt-about-control","id",3099,"title","Leadership isn’t about control","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.080\nSo, I did give up to control, and I've got to be frank, this is going to sound\n\n2\n00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:05.720\ninsane.\n\n3\n00:00:05.720 --> 00:00:07.880\nI've already given up control of Bumble.\n\n4\n00:00:07.880 --> 00:00:09.080\nI'm here for the love.\n\n5\n00:00:09.080 --> 00:00:10.800\nI'm not here for control.\n\n6\n00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:15.540\nWhen I left the first time, I broke up with that, like, need to control, and\n\n7\n00:00:15.540 --> 00:00:16.400\nthe need\n\n8\n00:00:16.400 --> 00:00:19.560\nto be the boss, and the need to make every decision.\n\n9\n00:00:19.560 --> 00:00:23.160\nOh, I'm not back with that energy this time.\n\n10\n00:00:23.160 --> 00:00:27.440\nAnd I say to my board, I say to my executives, \"The minute someone can do this\n\n11\n00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:28.280\nbetter than\n\n12\n00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:30.280\nme, I'm out.\n\n13\n00:00:30.280 --> 00:00:32.140\nI am here in service of Bumble.\n\n14\n00:00:32.140 --> 00:00:34.600\nI'm not here in service of Whitney.\"\n\n15\n00:00:34.600 --> 00:00:39.280\nAnd I asked the universe, \"Just use me for my highest good and healthy, spread\n\n16\n00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:40.000\nlove and\n\n17\n00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:42.000\nlight.\"\n\n18\n00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:47.770\nThat led me back to Bumble, when my amazing CEO, who she's phenomenal and she's\n\n19\n00:00:47.770 --> 00:00:48.680\nbrilliant,\n\n20\n00:00:48.680 --> 00:00:51.940\nmy former CEO, when she decided it was time for her to go do something\n\n21\n00:00:51.940 --> 00:00:52.800\ndifferent.\n\n22\n00:00:52.800 --> 00:00:55.640\nI was like, \"Okay, yes, the universe has invited me back in.\n\n23\n00:00:55.640 --> 00:00:56.720\nHere we are.\"\n\n24\n00:00:56.720 --> 00:01:01.160\nSo I'm here just to be of service to the mission.\n\n25\n00:01:01.160 --> 00:01:05.550\nI'm not here to control it or to be the boss or to feel like I'm in charge or\n\n26\n00:01:05.550 --> 00:01:06.240\nto have the\n\n27\n00:01:06.240 --> 00:01:07.240\naccolades.\n\n28\n00:01:07.240 --> 00:01:08.240\nI'm so beyond that now.\n\n29\n00:01:08.240 --> 00:01:09.400\nI've let go of all that.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",3158359,"end_time",3227749,"keywords","Control, service, delegation, decision making, accolades","slug","leadership-isnt-about-control","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","J1v02ERSvP7Q7zEq02KM5LIY9UCzUTktTLX5TyKErY168","mux_asset_id","GrSgORQFOqaH01NQSqDoR01bmF5W6rAPpnAJNc9E5hX00Q","leader_id",251,"episode_id",403,"updated_at","2026-01-08T22:21:18.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/3099/leadership-isnt-about-control","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_102":103,"_104":105,"_106":107,"_25":108,"_109":110,"_61":111,"_58":111,"_112":113,"_68":114,"_39":115,"_116":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_117":118,"_90":119,"_44":120,"_121":122,"_123":124,"_46":-5,"_125":126,"_127":128,"_94":129,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":-5,"_58":59,"_60":-5,"_61":59,"_62":-5,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":-5,"_68":-5,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":74,"_35":36,"_39":75,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_76":77,"_78":79,"_80":81,"_82":83,"_84":-5,"_85":-5,"_86":87,"_88":89,"_90":-5,"_46":-5,"_91":92,"_93":-5,"_94":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","Your mission is your mobilizer","your-mission-is-your-mobilizer","Listen to this leadership podcast with Whitney Wolfe Herd, Founder and CEO of Bumble and discover the power of a clear and compelling mission.","summary","

She flipped the script on modern dating and built a billion dollar global brand.

But Whitney Wolfe Herd’s path to success hasn’t been easy. After co-founding Tinder and walking away under difficult circumstances, she founded Bumble, a dating platform where women make the first move.

In this refreshingly honest conversation, she opens up about her missteps and lessons, how she’s redefined success, and why an obsessive focus on a bigger mission has made all the difference in her company culture.

She also shares:

The near-spiritual moment that sparked Bumble’s “women make the first move” philosophy
What most people totally miss about marketing
Candid advice for women navigating toxic work situations or relationships
How AI might reshape not just dating, but our understanding of compatibility

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.040\nmen have to go first.\n\n2\n00:00:02.040 --> 00:00:03.280\nWomen don't talk.\n\n3\n00:00:03.280 --> 00:00:04.520\nWhy would you build something\n\n4\n00:00:04.520 --> 00:00:05.920\nwhere there's no interaction?\n\n5\n00:00:05.920 --> 00:00:09.080\nThis old age mindset was so convinced\n\n6\n00:00:09.080 --> 00:00:10.000\nthat this wouldn't work.\n\n7\n00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:11.760\nAnd a couple of people, one being my husband\n\n8\n00:00:11.760 --> 00:00:13.080\nand one being my former business partner,\n\n9\n00:00:13.080 --> 00:00:14.620\nthey were like, we love it.\n\n10\n00:00:14.620 --> 00:00:21.560\n- You're one of the most celebrated leaders\n\n11\n00:00:21.560 --> 00:00:24.000\nI've ever talked to and I've talked to a lot of great ones.\n\n12\n00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:26.540\n- Oh gosh, I don't know about that.\n\n13\n00:00:26.540 --> 00:00:27.760\nI don't know about that.\n\n14\n00:00:27.760 --> 00:00:30.040\nAnd you're one of the most successful entrepreneurs\n\n15\n00:00:30.040 --> 00:00:31.480\nof this generation for sure.\n\n16\n00:00:31.480 --> 00:00:33.600\nBut as I understand it,\n\n17\n00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:35.760\nyou wanted to be a photo journalist.\n\n18\n00:00:35.760 --> 00:00:40.760\nWhat's the favorite picture that you've ever taken and why?\n\n19\n00:00:40.760 --> 00:00:42.680\n- You know, I actually,\n\n20\n00:00:42.680 --> 00:00:44.280\nit's so weird that you just asked me this\n\n21\n00:00:44.280 --> 00:00:47.480\nbecause I haven't thought about this in a very long time\n\n22\n00:00:47.480 --> 00:00:51.400\nbut I stumbled upon a photo in my phone the other day\n\n23\n00:00:51.400 --> 00:00:54.760\nfrom 2011 when I had graduated\n\n24\n00:00:54.760 --> 00:00:58.080\nfrom Southern Methodist University in Dallas.\n\n25\n00:00:58.080 --> 00:01:01.400\nAnd all of my friends were going to get these great jobs.\n\n26\n00:01:01.400 --> 00:01:04.040\nThey were working at Goldman and they were working at Vogue\n\n27\n00:01:04.040 --> 00:01:07.200\nand they were working at all these various incredible business\n\n28\n00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:10.600\nat these great companies and all their parents were so proud\n\n29\n00:01:10.600 --> 00:01:12.960\nand I remember my parents were like,\n\n30\n00:01:12.960 --> 00:01:17.600\nso where are you gonna be working, Goldman, Vogue?\n\n31\n00:01:17.600 --> 00:01:20.320\nAnd I said, no, I'm actually going to take a backpack\n\n32\n00:01:20.320 --> 00:01:22.040\nand go to Southeast Asia.\n\n33\n00:01:22.040 --> 00:01:25.800\nAnd everyone was like, huh, what do you mean?\n\n34\n00:01:25.800 --> 00:01:30.000\nAnd so I just wanted to explore the world\n\n35\n00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:31.920\nand see what was out there.\n\n36\n00:01:31.920 --> 00:01:34.720\nInstead of going straight into a career,\n\n37\n00:01:34.720 --> 00:01:39.720\nI wanted to go and see different parts of culture\n\n38\n00:01:39.720 --> 00:01:41.920\nand take photos.\n\n39\n00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:47.080\nSo my favorite photo I've ever taken actually was taken\n\n40\n00:01:47.080 --> 00:01:52.080\nin the hills of Burma in that golden triangle.\n\n41\n00:01:52.080 --> 00:01:57.360\nI actually crossed over from Thailand\n\n42\n00:01:57.360 --> 00:02:02.160\ninto with a guide and we hiked up into these Burmese hills\n\n43\n00:02:02.160 --> 00:02:05.360\nand I met these women from the Karen tribe.\n\n44\n00:02:05.360 --> 00:02:09.480\nThey're these glorious, amazing women and they're,\n\n45\n00:02:09.480 --> 00:02:14.480\nthey add, I don't know exactly what they're called.\n\n46\n00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:17.800\nThey look like rings, gold rings,\n\n47\n00:02:17.800 --> 00:02:19.320\nand they add so many gold rings\n\n48\n00:02:19.320 --> 00:02:22.600\nthat their necks actually elongate and get longer.\n\n49\n00:02:22.600 --> 00:02:26.680\nAnd they are the most unbelievable tribe of women\n\n50\n00:02:26.680 --> 00:02:31.800\nand they make these unbelievable blankets and artifacts\n\n51\n00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:34.000\nand they're just incredible.\n\n52\n00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:37.520\nAnd I took this extraordinary photo of a woman\n\n53\n00:02:37.520 --> 00:02:42.520\nwith must be a dozen of the neck charms, the rings.\n\n54\n00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:47.200\nI'm so sad that I don't know the proper terminology for it,\n\n55\n00:02:47.200 --> 00:02:48.600\nbut it's a beautiful photo.\n\n56\n00:02:48.600 --> 00:02:51.080\nSo that's one and then I'd be remiss\n\n57\n00:02:51.080 --> 00:02:52.360\nif I didn't tell you about another one\n\n58\n00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:55.000\nwhen you walk into the Bumble office in London,\n\n59\n00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:58.600\nthere is a photo again from Burma from a different trip\n\n60\n00:02:58.600 --> 00:03:01.840\nof a woman holding a bumble lighter\n\n61\n00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:04.560\nand she's sitting on a step and she's smoking a cigarette\n\n62\n00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:09.360\nholding a bumble lighter and she had asked me for a light,\n\n63\n00:03:09.360 --> 00:03:12.720\na lighter for her cigarette when I was walking the streets.\n\n64\n00:03:12.720 --> 00:03:14.520\nSo I asked her for a photo\n\n65\n00:03:14.520 --> 00:03:17.120\nand it ended up being just this beautiful photo.\n\n66\n00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:20.280\nSo we framed it and it's been in the office since 2014.\n\n67\n00:03:20.280 --> 00:03:25.280\nSo that's all I get for my very short-lived dream career\n\n68\n00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:27.960\nin journalism, I mean in photo journalism.\n\n69\n00:03:27.960 --> 00:03:30.640\nIt never happened, but we got the two photos.\n\n70\n00:03:30.640 --> 00:03:31.720\n- I love it.\n\n71\n00:03:31.720 --> 00:03:34.440\nI actually lived in Dallas and I lived on Abbott Street,\n\n72\n00:03:34.440 --> 00:03:36.760\nwhich is where SMU was right one mile away\n\n73\n00:03:36.760 --> 00:03:38.440\nand I used to run by SGB all the time.\n\n74\n00:03:38.440 --> 00:03:41.360\nSo I was a great school and I'm sure you enjoyed it there.\n\n75\n00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:43.680\nAnd you know, what advice would you give\n\n76\n00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:45.800\non how to do a good profile?\n\n77\n00:03:45.800 --> 00:03:47.920\nAnd you know, and like any good brand,\n\n78\n00:03:47.920 --> 00:03:49.960\nyou want to separate yourself from the pack.\n\n79\n00:03:49.960 --> 00:03:52.160\nI mean, no one knows that better than you.\n\n80\n00:03:52.160 --> 00:03:53.600\n- Yes, it's funny.\n\n81\n00:03:53.600 --> 00:03:56.720\nPeople have actually what you just said\n\n82\n00:03:56.720 --> 00:03:59.520\nis what you would expect people to think\n\n83\n00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:00.880\nthat they want to stand out,\n\n84\n00:04:00.880 --> 00:04:03.080\nthey want to showcase their uniqueness,\n\n85\n00:04:03.080 --> 00:04:06.520\nthey want to appear to be so uniquely themselves.\n\n86\n00:04:06.520 --> 00:04:09.120\nWhat would surprise you and shock you?\n\n87\n00:04:09.120 --> 00:04:13.400\n- Is actually the general population has a willingness\n\n88\n00:04:13.400 --> 00:04:17.680\nand an eagerness to actually fit in more than stand out,\n\n89\n00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:19.640\nwhich is such a strange concept.\n\n90\n00:04:19.640 --> 00:04:22.800\nI guess it's been ingrained in us from childhood\n\n91\n00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:24.560\nwhere we want to fit into the classroom\n\n92\n00:04:24.560 --> 00:04:26.880\nor we want to fit into the equation.\n\n93\n00:04:26.880 --> 00:04:29.840\nAnd frankly, that is not the way to do it on the dating app.\n\n94\n00:04:29.840 --> 00:04:32.000\nYou have to be so uniquely you.\n\n95\n00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:34.240\nYou must stand out because otherwise\n\n96\n00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:35.840\nyou just blend into everybody else.\n\n97\n00:04:35.840 --> 00:04:39.320\nAnd so I would say instead of being so obsessed\n\n98\n00:04:39.320 --> 00:04:40.560\nwith starting with photos,\n\n99\n00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:43.920\nmeaning do I look good or is this a good photo of me,\n\n100\n00:04:43.920 --> 00:04:45.760\nI would actually reframe it and say,\n\n101\n00:04:45.760 --> 00:04:50.760\ndoes this photo capture my personality,\n\n102\n00:04:50.760 --> 00:04:54.320\nmy hobbies, my values, the things that I love?\n\n103\n00:04:54.320 --> 00:04:58.800\nSo when you reframe how you're essentially showcasing yourself\n\n104\n00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:01.960\nthrough the lens of how do I spend my day\n\n105\n00:05:01.960 --> 00:05:03.920\nand what do I love to do?\n\n106\n00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:06.480\nYou start to really tell a story about yourself\n\n107\n00:05:06.480 --> 00:05:10.840\nthat is so much more relevant to the right suitor.\n\n108\n00:05:10.840 --> 00:05:14.760\nSo for example, if you're a huge outdoor person,\n\n109\n00:05:14.760 --> 00:05:16.680\ninstead of just showing photos of you\n\n110\n00:05:16.680 --> 00:05:19.880\nlooking really nice at an event in a suit,\n\n111\n00:05:19.880 --> 00:05:23.720\nget a photo of you out doing the things you love to do\n\n112\n00:05:23.720 --> 00:05:25.480\nso that everyone can derive,\n\n113\n00:05:25.480 --> 00:05:28.960\noh wow, this person's an avid biker, hiker, runner,\n\n114\n00:05:28.960 --> 00:05:31.800\nswimmer, skier, whatever it might be.\n\n115\n00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:34.600\nAnd then you can already derive similar interests\n\n116\n00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:36.240\nfrom the way you showcase yourself.\n\n117\n00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:39.880\nSo I would really ask yourself what sets me apart\n\n118\n00:05:39.880 --> 00:05:42.840\nand how I like to spend my weekends or my days\n\n119\n00:05:42.840 --> 00:05:44.920\nand then really try to showcase that\n\n120\n00:05:44.920 --> 00:05:46.880\nthrough photos and prompts and bios.\n\n121\n00:05:46.880 --> 00:05:49.440\n- And basically like any brand,\n\n122\n00:05:49.440 --> 00:05:52.160\nby doing that you're creating an emotional connection.\n\n123\n00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:54.480\nThat's what really lets people know who you are\n\n124\n00:05:54.480 --> 00:05:56.280\nand be an authentic.\n\n125\n00:05:56.280 --> 00:05:57.400\n- That's absolutely right.\n\n126\n00:05:57.400 --> 00:05:59.680\nAnd you know brands better than anyone in the world.\n\n127\n00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:04.160\nIf you're walking down the aisle looking for a box of cereal,\n\n128\n00:06:04.160 --> 00:06:05.640\nthey'll look the same.\n\n129\n00:06:05.640 --> 00:06:07.040\nThey all feel the same.\n\n130\n00:06:07.040 --> 00:06:09.080\nYou end up with this paradox of choice\n\n131\n00:06:09.080 --> 00:06:11.000\nand you stare at the cereal aisle for an hour\n\n132\n00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:13.280\nand you leave the store with no cereal.\n\n133\n00:06:13.280 --> 00:06:15.120\nAnd you're like, what just happened?\n\n134\n00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:18.560\nBut you know, if you can really make yourself stand out\n\n135\n00:06:18.560 --> 00:06:23.560\nand be unique and capture someone at that deeper level\n\n136\n00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:25.120\nbeyond just the surface,\n\n137\n00:06:25.120 --> 00:06:27.280\nthat's really where the magic happens.\n\n138\n00:06:27.280 --> 00:06:28.360\n- Yeah, makes sense, you know.\n\n139\n00:06:28.360 --> 00:06:32.920\nAnd speaking of brands you co-founded Tinder at 22 years old\n\n140\n00:06:32.920 --> 00:06:34.800\nand bumble at 24.\n\n141\n00:06:34.800 --> 00:06:36.760\nAnd so let's start with Tinder.\n\n142\n00:06:36.760 --> 00:06:38.600\nWhat made it so successful?\n\n143\n00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:41.200\nWhat was Tinder's secret sauce?\n\n144\n00:06:41.200 --> 00:06:43.800\n- It's a really great question.\n\n145\n00:06:43.800 --> 00:06:47.880\nAnd I think the answer is a lot less interesting\n\n146\n00:06:47.880 --> 00:06:49.640\nthan one might think.\n\n147\n00:06:49.640 --> 00:06:54.640\nI think the secret sauce was both we got kind of lucky,\n\n148\n00:06:54.640 --> 00:06:57.200\nfrankly, but the secret sauce\n\n149\n00:06:57.200 --> 00:07:00.400\nwas leaning into something that had been hyper-popular\n\n150\n00:07:00.400 --> 00:07:05.480\nwith Gen X, which was online love and rebranding it.\n\n151\n00:07:05.480 --> 00:07:08.840\nSo a lot of folks, what millennials didn't realize\n\n152\n00:07:08.840 --> 00:07:11.040\nwere a lot of folks older than millennials,\n\n153\n00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:15.800\nso the Gen X category or even much younger boomers,\n\n154\n00:07:15.800 --> 00:07:20.560\nthey had had a lot of success on things like eHarmony\n\n155\n00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:25.040\nand these web-based dating platforms.\n\n156\n00:07:25.040 --> 00:07:28.560\nBut what had never been done was the,\n\n157\n00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:33.520\nmake the cereal box cool for the next generation.\n\n158\n00:07:33.520 --> 00:07:37.200\nSo it was more of a reimagination\n\n159\n00:07:37.200 --> 00:07:39.760\nof an already really proven product,\n\n160\n00:07:39.760 --> 00:07:42.360\nwhich is always the way to go, as you and I know,\n\n161\n00:07:42.360 --> 00:07:46.160\nunless you're inventing, you know, some brand new technology.\n\n162\n00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:50.640\nAnd so what we did was that the engineers were so thoughtful\n\n163\n00:07:50.640 --> 00:07:53.160\nin this small group of us, you know,\n\n164\n00:07:53.160 --> 00:07:56.800\nwe really just said, wow, dating, you know,\n\n165\n00:07:56.800 --> 00:08:01.800\nis working on these clunky old school platforms.\n\n166\n00:08:01.800 --> 00:08:05.320\nAnd the team said, what would happen if you just made\n\n167\n00:08:05.320 --> 00:08:08.800\nthat mobile first and turned it into an app?\n\n168\n00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:11.600\nAnd remember, this was the time where there was\n\n169\n00:08:11.600 --> 00:08:15.040\nthe popping-ups of the app for this and the app for that\n\n170\n00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:16.520\nand the app for this.\n\n171\n00:08:16.520 --> 00:08:17.960\nAnd so it was essentially just saying,\n\n172\n00:08:17.960 --> 00:08:22.520\noh, this should be the app for flirting or chatting or dating.\n\n173\n00:08:22.520 --> 00:08:27.520\nAnd so it was a bit of a game approach from the engineers\n\n174\n00:08:27.520 --> 00:08:31.000\nand it was kind of just throwing a dart at the wall.\n\n175\n00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:33.880\nBut where the magic really happened was\n\n176\n00:08:33.880 --> 00:08:36.120\nwhen we went to colleges.\n\n177\n00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:38.800\nAnd I had just graduated from SMU.\n\n178\n00:08:38.800 --> 00:08:41.960\nSo I knew the college circuit very well\n\n179\n00:08:41.960 --> 00:08:45.160\nand most of my girlfriends were still in college at SMU,\n\n180\n00:08:45.160 --> 00:08:46.480\nyou know, one year younger.\n\n181\n00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:51.200\nAnd so when we went and we took that approach to density\n\n182\n00:08:51.200 --> 00:08:54.640\nand we seeded it with the influencers on campus\n\n183\n00:08:54.640 --> 00:08:57.760\nand we made a dating app which historically\n\n184\n00:08:57.760 --> 00:09:00.760\nwas something those people would have laughed at,\n\n185\n00:09:00.760 --> 00:09:04.440\nacceptable, that's where the fire ignited.\n\n186\n00:09:04.440 --> 00:09:06.280\n- That's amazing, you know, and you know,\n\n187\n00:09:06.280 --> 00:09:09.720\nI always say that the power of big ideas\n\n188\n00:09:09.720 --> 00:09:11.720\nusually comes when you bring in a unique image\n\n189\n00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:12.640\nto a known quantity.\n\n190\n00:09:12.640 --> 00:09:14.880\nSo you had this thing happening out there\n\n191\n00:09:14.880 --> 00:09:17.800\nand then you just rebranded it and made it special\n\n192\n00:09:17.800 --> 00:09:19.760\nand it took off like wildfire.\n\n193\n00:09:19.760 --> 00:09:22.920\nAnd so you basically took over the dating scene,\n\n194\n00:09:22.920 --> 00:09:25.000\nredefined it by rebranding it.\n\n195\n00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:27.120\nAnd yet, you know, a couple of years later\n\n196\n00:09:27.120 --> 00:09:28.920\nyou decide to leave the company.\n\n197\n00:09:28.920 --> 00:09:31.120\nCould you tell us why you did that?\n\n198\n00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:36.120\n- It was time, it was not where my heart\n\n199\n00:09:36.120 --> 00:09:39.960\nwas going to be forever.\n\n200\n00:09:39.960 --> 00:09:44.400\nThat was not the company for me long term.\n\n201\n00:09:44.400 --> 00:09:47.240\nYou know, it had its own ending\n\n202\n00:09:47.240 --> 00:09:49.240\nwhich I usually don't talk about.\n\n203\n00:09:49.240 --> 00:09:52.640\nBut what I learned from my experience there\n\n204\n00:09:52.640 --> 00:09:55.600\nbecause I'm a big firm believer on, you know,\n\n205\n00:09:55.600 --> 00:09:59.440\nexperience, learn, life is this huge classroom, right?\n\n206\n00:09:59.440 --> 00:10:00.960\nAnd just like we went through school\n\n207\n00:10:00.960 --> 00:10:02.720\nand we were like in first grade and second grade\n\n208\n00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:05.520\nand third grade and we learned and we learned and we learned\n\n209\n00:10:05.520 --> 00:10:07.400\nTinder was like a crash course.\n\n210\n00:10:07.400 --> 00:10:11.840\nIt was a crash course in learning a lot\n\n211\n00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:13.840\nabout leadership, frankly.\n\n212\n00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:18.480\nAnd it really taught me that the biggest lesson\n\n213\n00:10:18.480 --> 00:10:20.480\nI learned from my chapter at Tinder is\n\n214\n00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:24.880\nthe way a product reaches the hands of a consumer\n\n215\n00:10:24.880 --> 00:10:28.800\nis inherently going to be the DNA of the team\n\n216\n00:10:28.800 --> 00:10:32.880\nthat's building it and the DNA of the intentions of the team.\n\n217\n00:10:32.880 --> 00:10:37.080\nAnd there is no way to offer a product to the world\n\n218\n00:10:37.080 --> 00:10:39.880\nand to get the world to engage with the product\n\n219\n00:10:39.880 --> 00:10:44.480\nthat is not a derivative of the DNA of the team behind it.\n\n220\n00:10:44.480 --> 00:10:46.120\nAnd so when I left Tinder,\n\n221\n00:10:46.120 --> 00:10:49.560\nI really looked at how women were feeling using the product\n\n222\n00:10:49.560 --> 00:10:52.560\nand I realized this isn't working for women.\n\n223\n00:10:52.560 --> 00:10:56.360\nWe have to think about different technology for women.\n\n224\n00:10:56.360 --> 00:10:59.480\nWe have to lead differently for women.\n\n225\n00:10:59.480 --> 00:11:03.120\nAnd so when I left Tinder, I had this epiphany of\n\n226\n00:11:03.120 --> 00:11:07.320\nthere's no tech made by or for women.\n\n227\n00:11:07.320 --> 00:11:08.760\nThere's no technology out there.\n\n228\n00:11:08.760 --> 00:11:11.840\nThere's no social media that is about enhancing\n\n229\n00:11:11.840 --> 00:11:13.320\nthe lives of women.\n\n230\n00:11:13.320 --> 00:11:17.320\nAnd so it really sent me on this path of starting to create\n\n231\n00:11:17.320 --> 00:11:22.160\nwhat would have been a girls and women social network.\n\n232\n00:11:22.160 --> 00:11:26.000\nBut the catch was I wanted it to be about kindness\n\n233\n00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:29.160\nand compliments, not about bringing people down\n\n234\n00:11:29.160 --> 00:11:31.640\nand tearing people down online because we were starting\n\n235\n00:11:31.640 --> 00:11:35.520\nto see the beginnings of this online abuse toxic swirl\n\n236\n00:11:35.520 --> 00:11:37.680\nthat we've all been engulfed in.\n\n237\n00:11:37.680 --> 00:11:40.760\nAnd that was when ultimately one thing led\n\n238\n00:11:40.760 --> 00:11:43.960\nto the next thing, to the next thing and my prior business\n\n239\n00:11:43.960 --> 00:11:46.960\npartner, Andre, he said, I love your vision.\n\n240\n00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:48.560\nI love what you're doing for women.\n\n241\n00:11:48.560 --> 00:11:51.040\nBut why don't you do this in dating?\n\n242\n00:11:51.040 --> 00:11:52.360\nI thought he was insane.\n\n243\n00:11:52.360 --> 00:11:55.480\nI was like, I'm never going back to the dating world.\n\n244\n00:11:55.480 --> 00:11:58.040\nAnd he was like, no, you really could do something\n\n245\n00:11:58.040 --> 00:12:00.360\nfor girls and women or not girls, frankly,\n\n246\n00:12:00.360 --> 00:12:02.520\nbecause that wasn't the focus anymore with dating.\n\n247\n00:12:02.520 --> 00:12:06.120\nWe're focused on older women, at least 18 and up.\n\n248\n00:12:06.120 --> 00:12:10.200\nAnd I really reimagined what a woman first dating\n\n249\n00:12:10.200 --> 00:12:12.800\nplatform would mean.\n\n250\n00:12:12.800 --> 00:12:15.240\nAnd what would that mean to the members?\n\n251\n00:12:15.240 --> 00:12:18.440\nWhat would that mean to women in general?\n\n252\n00:12:18.440 --> 00:12:20.080\nAnd that was really the beginnings\n\n253\n00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:22.040\nof what would become bumble.\n\n254\n00:12:22.040 --> 00:12:23.280\nYeah, now I want to get into that\n\n255\n00:12:23.280 --> 00:12:25.280\nbecause you have such a great mission for that.\n\n256\n00:12:25.280 --> 00:12:30.280\nAnd prior to bumble, the whole dating scene,\n\n257\n00:12:30.280 --> 00:12:33.560\nthe whole internet, apps, all this.\n\n258\n00:12:33.560 --> 00:12:36.000\nIt's pretty male-dominated.\n\n259\n00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:37.800\nSome could say it was toxic.\n\n260\n00:12:37.800 --> 00:12:41.160\nAnd so many women-- and I have a daughter.\n\n261\n00:12:41.160 --> 00:12:42.560\nI care about her very much.\n\n262\n00:12:42.560 --> 00:12:46.920\nAnd so many women get caught in these toxic environments.\n\n263\n00:12:46.920 --> 00:12:50.600\nWhat advice do you have to women in terms of how do--\n\n264\n00:12:50.600 --> 00:12:52.920\nwhen you're in that kind of environment, what do you do?\n\n265\n00:12:52.920 --> 00:12:55.600\nI mean, you obviously said, I want to do something different.\n\n266\n00:12:55.600 --> 00:12:57.120\nI want to make an impact for women.\n\n267\n00:12:57.120 --> 00:12:59.960\nI want to change the way how things are done.\n\n268\n00:12:59.960 --> 00:13:03.760\nBut a lot of women, they're in a situation maybe right now.\n\n269\n00:13:03.760 --> 00:13:05.800\nWhat advice would you give them?\n\n270\n00:13:05.800 --> 00:13:08.040\nWell, you know, I think the missing piece from the story\n\n271\n00:13:08.040 --> 00:13:11.200\nis that it's not like I stood up on day one and was like,\n\n272\n00:13:11.200 --> 00:13:12.960\nI'm going to go crusade for women.\n\n273\n00:13:12.960 --> 00:13:15.680\nAnd I'm going to go change the world for women.\n\n274\n00:13:15.680 --> 00:13:18.240\nI was completely lost.\n\n275\n00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:23.160\nI was completely engulfed in it's a man's world.\n\n276\n00:13:23.160 --> 00:13:25.040\nAnd I need to fit in.\n\n277\n00:13:25.040 --> 00:13:26.560\nAnd I need to behave.\n\n278\n00:13:26.560 --> 00:13:27.800\nAnd I need to blend in.\n\n279\n00:13:27.800 --> 00:13:31.320\nAnd I need to do, as I'm told, part of dating culture\n\n280\n00:13:31.320 --> 00:13:34.880\nand part of this just global culture at the moment.\n\n281\n00:13:34.880 --> 00:13:37.240\nAnd so it wasn't like I just, you know,\n\n282\n00:13:37.240 --> 00:13:39.680\nhad some Joan of Arc crusader in me\n\n283\n00:13:39.680 --> 00:13:42.120\nand just was different than every other woman.\n\n284\n00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:44.560\nI went through the pits of it too,\n\n285\n00:13:44.560 --> 00:13:46.320\nlike what you're saying about a lot of women\n\n286\n00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:49.760\naround the world right now, where I conformed.\n\n287\n00:13:49.760 --> 00:13:52.880\nI did whatever I could to survive and just fit in\n\n288\n00:13:52.880 --> 00:13:55.080\nand be one of the boys.\n\n289\n00:13:55.080 --> 00:13:58.240\nAnd at a certain point, you realize,\n\n290\n00:13:58.240 --> 00:14:02.200\noh, you're betraying yourself to be a part of something\n\n291\n00:14:02.200 --> 00:14:05.600\nthat hasn't invited you or included you historically.\n\n292\n00:14:05.600 --> 00:14:08.840\nAnd so you have to go inward\n\n293\n00:14:08.840 --> 00:14:11.320\nand you have to follow your true north.\n\n294\n00:14:11.320 --> 00:14:13.880\nAnd when you know something is not including you\n\n295\n00:14:13.880 --> 00:14:17.680\nor when you know something is harming you,\n\n296\n00:14:17.680 --> 00:14:20.640\nit is our duty at some point to say,\n\n297\n00:14:20.640 --> 00:14:22.760\nwell, how can I do this differently?\n\n298\n00:14:22.760 --> 00:14:25.400\nHow can I learn from that?\n\n299\n00:14:25.400 --> 00:14:27.920\nAnd how can I take all of the things about that\n\n300\n00:14:27.920 --> 00:14:30.800\nthat didn't work, that felt wrong, that felt icky,\n\n301\n00:14:30.800 --> 00:14:35.720\nthat felt disingenuous to what's best for women or for me?\n\n302\n00:14:35.720 --> 00:14:38.280\nAnd how do I go and build solutions from that?\n\n303\n00:14:38.280 --> 00:14:40.600\nAnd so my advice to women would be,\n\n304\n00:14:40.600 --> 00:14:45.600\ndon't fear standing out and getting left out\n\n305\n00:14:45.600 --> 00:14:48.440\nso much that you force yourself to fit in\n\n306\n00:14:48.440 --> 00:14:50.960\nto environments that are not good for you\n\n307\n00:14:50.960 --> 00:14:52.720\nor women in general.\n\n308\n00:14:52.720 --> 00:14:56.360\nAnd I would really encourage women to just know\n\n309\n00:14:56.360 --> 00:15:00.720\nhow important it is to always take that first step\n\n310\n00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:03.600\nto a better next step, right?\n\n311\n00:15:03.600 --> 00:15:05.680\nYou have to stand up for yourself.\n\n312\n00:15:05.680 --> 00:15:07.960\nYou have to believe in yourself\n\n313\n00:15:07.960 --> 00:15:10.480\nand you have to go and take risk\n\n314\n00:15:10.480 --> 00:15:14.760\nto be a part of something that is good for you\n\n315\n00:15:14.760 --> 00:15:18.520\ninstead of just forcing yourself to fit in or take it\n\n316\n00:15:18.520 --> 00:15:20.600\nor be a part of it.\n\n317\n00:15:20.600 --> 00:15:23.760\nAnd so I think that's a long winded way of saying,\n\n318\n00:15:23.760 --> 00:15:27.320\nit's hard, it's really hard and it's scary,\n\n319\n00:15:27.320 --> 00:15:28.600\nbut you've got to do it.\n\n320\n00:15:28.600 --> 00:15:31.000\n- I love that line,\n\n321\n00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:34.520\ntake the first step to the next better step, you know?\n\n322\n00:15:34.520 --> 00:15:37.040\nI think that is such a great insight\n\n323\n00:15:37.040 --> 00:15:40.160\nand so valuable for everybody listening out there.\n\n324\n00:15:40.160 --> 00:15:42.520\nAnd, you know, so you say,\n\n325\n00:15:42.520 --> 00:15:45.480\nokay, I'm going to build this brand for women\n\n326\n00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:49.280\nand I'm going to change the game, you know?\n\n327\n00:15:49.280 --> 00:15:52.440\nAnd you really differentiate yourself big time\n\n328\n00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:54.600\nby creating this brand for women\n\n329\n00:15:54.600 --> 00:15:58.240\nthat allows them to make the first move.\n\n330\n00:15:58.240 --> 00:16:00.800\nThey get to make the first move in the dating process.\n\n331\n00:16:00.800 --> 00:16:04.520\nYou know, what a great idea, how'd that come to you?\n\n332\n00:16:04.520 --> 00:16:06.760\n- So it's actually an interesting story.\n\n333\n00:16:06.760 --> 00:16:09.400\nI couldn't figure out for the life of me\n\n334\n00:16:09.400 --> 00:16:11.520\nhow we were going to figure out\n\n335\n00:16:11.520 --> 00:16:14.680\nhow to make a woman friendly dating app.\n\n336\n00:16:14.680 --> 00:16:17.480\nIt was like a math equation I couldn't solve\n\n337\n00:16:17.480 --> 00:16:19.320\nbecause it was like, wait a second,\n\n338\n00:16:19.320 --> 00:16:23.120\neverything about dating is geared against women\n\n339\n00:16:23.120 --> 00:16:26.000\nfrom going to the bar to how it works,\n\n340\n00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:29.360\nyou know, in the Greek life on college campuses.\n\n341\n00:16:29.360 --> 00:16:32.800\nLike, dating is inherently not women friendly.\n\n342\n00:16:32.800 --> 00:16:35.120\nYou know, a lot of women are left in tears.\n\n343\n00:16:35.120 --> 00:16:37.640\nGo watch all the old movies, Grease Lightning, you know?\n\n344\n00:16:37.640 --> 00:16:39.000\nRemember that movie Grease Lightning\n\n345\n00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:41.160\nwhere the guys are all, you know,\n\n346\n00:16:41.160 --> 00:16:43.960\ndancing and celebrating the women they're going on dance,\n\n347\n00:16:43.960 --> 00:16:46.440\nyou know, dates with and the women are all crying\n\n348\n00:16:46.440 --> 00:16:49.280\nat the sleepover because someone didn't, you know,\n\n349\n00:16:49.280 --> 00:16:52.440\nasked them out again and it's just,\n\n350\n00:16:52.440 --> 00:16:57.000\ndating is just this really kind of broken thing\n\n351\n00:16:57.000 --> 00:16:59.080\nand has been for centuries.\n\n352\n00:16:59.080 --> 00:17:02.240\nAnd so I just couldn't figure out how in the world,\n\n353\n00:17:02.240 --> 00:17:04.440\nhow in the world am I going to make this woman friendly?\n\n354\n00:17:04.440 --> 00:17:06.400\nI mean, it felt like an impossible feat.\n\n355\n00:17:06.400 --> 00:17:07.880\nAnd remember, I was so committed\n\n356\n00:17:07.880 --> 00:17:10.480\nto starting this woman only social network.\n\n357\n00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:12.440\nI was like, how in the heck am I going to make\n\n358\n00:17:12.440 --> 00:17:13.400\nthis work for dating?\n\n359\n00:17:13.400 --> 00:17:16.160\nAnd I promise you, this is the craziest thing.\n\n360\n00:17:16.160 --> 00:17:17.800\nI would say it under oath.\n\n361\n00:17:17.800 --> 00:17:20.720\nIt was like one of those downloads from the universe.\n\n362\n00:17:20.720 --> 00:17:22.320\nI don't know how to explain it.\n\n363\n00:17:22.320 --> 00:17:24.120\nI don't know what you call it.\n\n364\n00:17:24.120 --> 00:17:25.600\nYou can call it source.\n\n365\n00:17:25.600 --> 00:17:27.600\nYou can call it, I mean, I'm not a religious person\n\n366\n00:17:27.600 --> 00:17:29.000\nbut I'm very spiritual.\n\n367\n00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:30.120\nYou could call it God.\n\n368\n00:17:30.120 --> 00:17:33.080\nYou could call it your inner voice.\n\n369\n00:17:33.080 --> 00:17:35.360\nI had this inner download.\n\n370\n00:17:35.360 --> 00:17:37.680\nI could hear my voice speaking to me.\n\n371\n00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:38.960\nAnd it was like clear as day.\n\n372\n00:17:38.960 --> 00:17:41.800\nIt was like a downloaded instruction where it said,\n\n373\n00:17:41.800 --> 00:17:46.800\nokay, forever men have gone first.\n\n374\n00:17:47.520 --> 00:17:50.560\nThey have had to approach women first,\n\n375\n00:17:50.560 --> 00:17:54.040\nstarting on the playground if they wanted to talk to someone.\n\n376\n00:17:54.040 --> 00:17:57.200\nAnd women and girls, starts much younger,\n\n377\n00:17:57.200 --> 00:17:59.600\nhave been trained to reject.\n\n378\n00:17:59.600 --> 00:18:02.680\nWe've been trained to play hard to get,\n\n379\n00:18:02.680 --> 00:18:07.040\nto be demure, to be really on our best behavior.\n\n380\n00:18:07.040 --> 00:18:12.040\nAnd what it does is it sets men up to feel very rejected.\n\n381\n00:18:12.040 --> 00:18:17.160\nIt basically sets the stage when you have a profile\n\n382\n00:18:17.160 --> 00:18:21.720\nto hide behind for abuse and toxicity to be bred.\n\n383\n00:18:21.720 --> 00:18:25.240\nWhen you have rejection, it breeds aggression.\n\n384\n00:18:25.240 --> 00:18:27.840\nAnd so I swear to you in like 20 seconds,\n\n385\n00:18:27.840 --> 00:18:30.600\nthe download said to me, I have it.\n\n386\n00:18:30.600 --> 00:18:32.480\nYou don't have to reinvent the wheel.\n\n387\n00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:33.960\nIt can still be matching.\n\n388\n00:18:33.960 --> 00:18:35.760\nIt can still be swiping.\n\n389\n00:18:35.760 --> 00:18:38.880\nBut the catch is when a woman and a man match,\n\n390\n00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:40.880\nthe woman must make the first move.\n\n391\n00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:42.360\nAnd all of a sudden in my brain,\n\n392\n00:18:42.360 --> 00:18:46.400\nit was like two examples, two very clear images came to mind.\n\n393\n00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:48.880\nFirst was Cinderella, the pumpkin,\n\n394\n00:18:48.880 --> 00:18:51.040\nthe carriage turning into the pumpkin at midnight.\n\n395\n00:18:51.040 --> 00:18:52.680\nIf she didn't go and do it,\n\n396\n00:18:52.680 --> 00:18:55.320\nlike the shoes would disappear and the pumpkin would come.\n\n397\n00:18:55.320 --> 00:18:58.840\nAnd it was this like cutting the onus on Cinderella\n\n398\n00:18:58.840 --> 00:19:02.040\nto get to the ball, to go after what she wanted.\n\n399\n00:19:02.040 --> 00:19:04.240\nAnd then the second image that came to mind\n\n400\n00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:06.400\nwas the Sadie Hawkins stance,\n\n401\n00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:11.400\nwhere the girl or the woman had to ask to the dance.\n\n402\n00:19:11.400 --> 00:19:14.120\nAnd I had these two clear as days examples.\n\n403\n00:19:14.120 --> 00:19:15.960\nAnd I blurted it out and I was in a room.\n\n404\n00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:18.280\nI was outside actually with a group of people.\n\n405\n00:19:18.280 --> 00:19:19.280\nWe were all trying to figure out\n\n406\n00:19:19.280 --> 00:19:21.040\nwhat are we going to build, how is this thing going to work?\n\n407\n00:19:21.040 --> 00:19:23.520\nWe knew I was going to film this new company\n\n408\n00:19:23.520 --> 00:19:27.680\nand women being in control of dating,\n\n409\n00:19:27.680 --> 00:19:29.600\nbut we didn't know what the product would be.\n\n410\n00:19:29.600 --> 00:19:30.600\nAnd I just said it out loud.\n\n411\n00:19:30.600 --> 00:19:31.960\nI was like, okay guys, I got it.\n\n412\n00:19:31.960 --> 00:19:33.560\nI know exactly how this works.\n\n413\n00:19:33.560 --> 00:19:35.160\nAll right, two people they match.\n\n414\n00:19:35.160 --> 00:19:36.000\nThey're men and women.\n\n415\n00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:37.240\nWhen the woman and the man match,\n\n416\n00:19:37.240 --> 00:19:38.320\nthe woman has to go first.\n\n417\n00:19:38.320 --> 00:19:39.680\nThe man cannot contact her.\n\n418\n00:19:39.680 --> 00:19:43.280\nShe's 24 hours or the match disappears forever.\n\n419\n00:19:43.280 --> 00:19:44.880\nAnd this is how it's going to go.\n\n420\n00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:46.080\nAnd it was just clear as day.\n\n421\n00:19:46.080 --> 00:19:48.760\nI just wrote the roadmap in 10 seconds.\n\n422\n00:19:48.760 --> 00:19:50.560\nAnd everyone looked at me like crickets.\n\n423\n00:19:50.560 --> 00:19:52.560\nLike, are you crazy?\n\n424\n00:19:52.560 --> 00:19:53.800\nWhy would you build something\n\n425\n00:19:53.800 --> 00:19:55.920\nwhere there's no interaction?\n\n426\n00:19:55.920 --> 00:19:57.600\nMen have to go first.\n\n427\n00:19:57.600 --> 00:19:58.960\nWomen don't talk.\n\n428\n00:19:58.960 --> 00:20:02.400\nYou know, this old age mindset was so convinced\n\n429\n00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:03.320\nthat this wouldn't work.\n\n430\n00:20:03.320 --> 00:20:05.080\nAnd a couple of people, one being my husband\n\n431\n00:20:05.080 --> 00:20:06.440\nand one being my former business partner,\n\n432\n00:20:06.440 --> 00:20:07.880\nthey were like, we love it.\n\n433\n00:20:07.880 --> 00:20:08.720\nMaybe it'll work.\n\n434\n00:20:08.720 --> 00:20:10.080\nLet's go. Let's do it.\n\n435\n00:20:10.080 --> 00:20:12.680\nAnd so I just sat down with our designers\n\n436\n00:20:12.680 --> 00:20:16.240\nand wireframed this entire download in my brain.\n\n437\n00:20:16.240 --> 00:20:18.000\nAnd that's what became Bumble.\n\n438\n00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:20.560\n- It's a great story, but it's like,\n\n439\n00:20:20.560 --> 00:20:21.800\nit seems like a no brainer.\n\n440\n00:20:21.800 --> 00:20:24.200\nI mean, you know, when you hear a great idea,\n\n441\n00:20:24.200 --> 00:20:26.880\nyou go, wow, like, I mean, when I heard that idea,\n\n442\n00:20:26.880 --> 00:20:28.280\nyou know, especially now it's easy\n\n443\n00:20:28.280 --> 00:20:29.360\n'cause it's already been done.\n\n444\n00:20:29.360 --> 00:20:31.400\nA lot of times when great ideas happen, you know,\n\n445\n00:20:31.400 --> 00:20:33.360\nyeah, it's easy to say, yeah, it's great.\n\n446\n00:20:33.360 --> 00:20:36.280\nBut back then, even though you had this great idea,\n\n447\n00:20:36.280 --> 00:20:39.360\nyour husband bought in it, your partner bought into it,\n\n448\n00:20:39.360 --> 00:20:42.280\ndid it go over, like, did everybody think it was\n\n449\n00:20:42.280 --> 00:20:43.840\na great idea or what?\n\n450\n00:20:43.840 --> 00:20:45.840\n- No, no.\n\n451\n00:20:45.840 --> 00:20:48.680\nI mean, I'll never forget I sat in a room\n\n452\n00:20:48.680 --> 00:20:50.760\nwith a couple of engineers who were going\n\n453\n00:20:50.760 --> 00:20:52.840\nto actually code this for us, right?\n\n454\n00:20:52.840 --> 00:20:53.920\nSomeone had to build this.\n\n455\n00:20:53.920 --> 00:20:55.400\nIt's just an idea.\n\n456\n00:20:55.400 --> 00:20:58.200\nAnd you know, most things are great ideas\n\n457\n00:20:58.200 --> 00:20:59.640\nand then they go to die, right?\n\n458\n00:20:59.640 --> 00:21:03.280\nLike some of the best inventions on planet Earth,\n\n459\n00:21:03.280 --> 00:21:06.040\nthey left us at idea, right?\n\n460\n00:21:06.040 --> 00:21:07.040\nWe never have seen them.\n\n461\n00:21:07.040 --> 00:21:08.640\nThey never came into fruition.\n\n462\n00:21:08.640 --> 00:21:10.760\nSo I'm in there and I'm like, okay guys,\n\n463\n00:21:10.760 --> 00:21:11.600\nwe're going to build this.\n\n464\n00:21:11.600 --> 00:21:13.360\nIt's going to change the world.\n\n465\n00:21:13.360 --> 00:21:15.280\nWomen are going to be in the driver's seat.\n\n466\n00:21:15.280 --> 00:21:17.520\nThis is going to make men feel better about themselves.\n\n467\n00:21:17.520 --> 00:21:18.720\nWe're going to remove rejection.\n\n468\n00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:22.040\nWe're going to solve humanity's problems.\n\n469\n00:21:22.040 --> 00:21:22.880\nAre you ready?\n\n470\n00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:24.200\nAnd they're like, we're ready.\n\n471\n00:21:24.200 --> 00:21:25.560\nAnd I'm like, okay.\n\n472\n00:21:25.560 --> 00:21:27.240\nWomen have to make the first move.\n\n473\n00:21:27.240 --> 00:21:29.520\nAnd they were like, huh?\n\n474\n00:21:29.520 --> 00:21:35.280\nAnd they're like, no, mm-mm, no, we're not building that.\n\n475\n00:21:35.280 --> 00:21:36.800\nThat doesn't work.\n\n476\n00:21:36.800 --> 00:21:38.560\nAnd I said, why doesn't it work?\n\n477\n00:21:38.560 --> 00:21:41.120\nAnd they said, well, because we have all the data on dating apps\n\n478\n00:21:41.120 --> 00:21:42.320\nand men have to go first,\n\n479\n00:21:42.320 --> 00:21:44.040\nthat's the only way I'll get any engagement.\n\n480\n00:21:44.040 --> 00:21:46.480\nI said, that's the whole point.\n\n481\n00:21:46.480 --> 00:21:47.400\nThat's the whole point.\n\n482\n00:21:47.400 --> 00:21:49.400\nWe're assuming that that's the only way it works.\n\n483\n00:21:49.400 --> 00:21:50.760\nWe have tried it the other way\n\n484\n00:21:50.760 --> 00:21:52.600\nand I'm going to assume it works\n\n485\n00:21:52.600 --> 00:21:55.800\nbecause Cinderella is the most popular movie in history\n\n486\n00:21:55.800 --> 00:21:57.440\nand the Sadie Hawkins dance\n\n487\n00:21:57.440 --> 00:21:59.600\nis the thing everyone waited all year for,\n\n488\n00:21:59.600 --> 00:22:02.400\nincluding our grandparents because it was the best.\n\n489\n00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:04.240\nWomen got to be in control.\n\n490\n00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:06.600\nMen got to be less, you know,\n\n491\n00:22:06.600 --> 00:22:09.480\nfeel less on edge and less aggressive\n\n492\n00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:10.880\nand it just made it better for everyone.\n\n493\n00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:13.440\nAnd they're like, no, this is going to flop.\n\n494\n00:22:13.440 --> 00:22:14.920\n- Where do you get this courage?\n\n495\n00:22:14.920 --> 00:22:16.200\n- I don't know.\n\n496\n00:22:16.200 --> 00:22:18.240\n- It doesn't seem like a hell of a lot of courage\n\n497\n00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:19.640\nbecause it makes so much sense to me.\n\n498\n00:22:19.640 --> 00:22:23.040\nBut back then, you had everybody fighting you.\n\n499\n00:22:23.040 --> 00:22:24.360\n- I just knew it.\n\n500\n00:22:24.360 --> 00:22:26.920\nYou know when you just know something and you're like,\n\n501\n00:22:26.920 --> 00:22:29.520\nno, I know you take a left here and not a right.\n\n502\n00:22:29.520 --> 00:22:30.360\nI've been here.\n\n503\n00:22:30.360 --> 00:22:33.080\nAnd everyone's like, no, I'm pretty sure we go right.\n\n504\n00:22:33.080 --> 00:22:35.040\nI'm pretty sure the streets to the right.\n\n505\n00:22:35.040 --> 00:22:36.600\nI'm like, no, no, you gotta trust me.\n\n506\n00:22:36.600 --> 00:22:40.680\nLike, I know we go this way and it's going to work.\n\n507\n00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:42.600\nAnd it's just one of those intuitive things.\n\n508\n00:22:42.600 --> 00:22:44.920\nI just knew it.\n\n509\n00:22:44.920 --> 00:22:46.760\n- Well, you're a hell of a, you're a marketer.\n\n510\n00:22:46.760 --> 00:22:50.280\nI mean, you really know how to think through the customer\n\n511\n00:22:50.280 --> 00:22:54.360\nand getting the customer's mind and deal with things\n\n512\n00:22:54.360 --> 00:22:55.320\nthat's relevant for them.\n\n513\n00:22:55.320 --> 00:22:58.400\nAnd a great example of this, I did my research\n\n514\n00:22:58.400 --> 00:23:01.080\nand I was blown away by some of your just simple ideas.\n\n515\n00:23:01.080 --> 00:23:02.440\nBut you know, great marketing,\n\n516\n00:23:02.440 --> 00:23:03.880\nyou got to break through the clutter.\n\n517\n00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:06.520\nAnd you're one of the best I've ever seen at this thing.\n\n518\n00:23:06.520 --> 00:23:10.480\nYou know, tell me the thinking behind paying people\n\n519\n00:23:10.480 --> 00:23:14.840\nto walk into a college classroom 15 minutes late,\n\n520\n00:23:14.840 --> 00:23:16.120\nwearing a bumble t-shirt.\n\n521\n00:23:16.120 --> 00:23:18.560\nI mean, who comes up with stuff like this?\n\n522\n00:23:18.560 --> 00:23:19.720\n- Well, think about it.\n\n523\n00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:21.960\nHave you ever sat in a classroom and you're bored\n\n524\n00:23:21.960 --> 00:23:24.520\nout of your mind and then someone barges through\n\n525\n00:23:24.520 --> 00:23:26.480\nand it's like a silent cricket classroom\n\n526\n00:23:26.480 --> 00:23:28.520\nand you're like, who's that?\n\n527\n00:23:28.520 --> 00:23:31.040\nWell, then I just thought, what if we interrupted you\n\n528\n00:23:31.040 --> 00:23:33.760\nwith something creative and interesting,\n\n529\n00:23:33.760 --> 00:23:36.440\nyou would then have a captive audience\n\n530\n00:23:36.440 --> 00:23:38.840\nfor the next 60 minutes sitting there\n\n531\n00:23:38.840 --> 00:23:40.360\ntrying to pay attention to the teacher\n\n532\n00:23:40.360 --> 00:23:42.520\nbut really thinking, who is that person\n\n533\n00:23:42.520 --> 00:23:44.840\nthat just came in in that shirt and wants bumble?\n\n534\n00:23:44.840 --> 00:23:46.720\n- Yeah, but look at you, you said, hey,\n\n535\n00:23:46.720 --> 00:23:48.840\nI'm going to put my brand on somebody\n\n536\n00:23:48.840 --> 00:23:51.400\nand I'm going to have them interrupt the class\n\n537\n00:23:51.400 --> 00:23:54.160\nthat people are paying to go to to get educated\n\n538\n00:23:54.160 --> 00:23:56.560\nand I'm going to come in and out.\n\n539\n00:23:56.560 --> 00:23:59.680\nThat's a pretty breakthrough idea, don't you think?\n\n540\n00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:01.280\n- Yeah, and I kind of feel bad about it\n\n541\n00:24:01.280 --> 00:24:03.280\nin hindsight when you put it that way.\n\n542\n00:24:03.280 --> 00:24:06.400\n- No, you don't, you don't feel bad yourself.\n\n543\n00:24:06.400 --> 00:24:08.320\nThat's not that, I don't buy that at all.\n\n544\n00:24:08.320 --> 00:24:13.320\n- Listen, listen, you gotta break a couple rules, okay?\n\n545\n00:24:13.320 --> 00:24:16.440\nYou don't break the law, but you break some rules.\n\n546\n00:24:16.440 --> 00:24:18.560\nThat's the way to think about it\n\n547\n00:24:18.560 --> 00:24:20.160\nwhen you're a startup founder.\n\n548\n00:24:20.160 --> 00:24:22.520\nYou gotta get creative.\n\n549\n00:24:22.520 --> 00:24:24.560\nNow, another thing we did, I would say,\n\n550\n00:24:24.560 --> 00:24:27.360\nwas I think because I was the customer,\n\n551\n00:24:27.360 --> 00:24:29.040\nI understood the customer, right?\n\n552\n00:24:29.040 --> 00:24:30.800\nIt's really easy to understand\n\n553\n00:24:30.800 --> 00:24:34.280\nwhen you are part of that crowd.\n\n554\n00:24:34.280 --> 00:24:37.920\nAnd I remember, I'll never forget it,\n\n555\n00:24:37.920 --> 00:24:41.400\nI was walking into a class once and it said,\n\n556\n00:24:41.400 --> 00:24:42.800\nI can't remember what it said,\n\n557\n00:24:42.800 --> 00:24:44.920\nwhich was the social network,\n\n558\n00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:48.280\nbut I didn't have it on my phone.\n\n559\n00:24:48.280 --> 00:24:50.320\nAnd I was walking into this building,\n\n560\n00:24:50.320 --> 00:24:52.080\nit was like, you know, one market,\n\n561\n00:24:52.080 --> 00:24:53.680\nactually what didn't get in marketing school,\n\n562\n00:24:53.680 --> 00:24:55.240\nso it definitely wasn't that building,\n\n563\n00:24:55.240 --> 00:24:56.760\nbut it was some building.\n\n564\n00:24:57.760 --> 00:25:00.200\nAnd I remember seeing signs everywhere that said like,\n\n565\n00:25:00.200 --> 00:25:03.560\nno Facebook, no this, no that,\n\n566\n00:25:03.560 --> 00:25:07.960\nlike they didn't want you to do whatever the social media\n\n567\n00:25:07.960 --> 00:25:10.520\nof that era was while you were in class.\n\n568\n00:25:10.520 --> 00:25:12.960\nAnd I remember thinking to myself,\n\n569\n00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:17.280\nhuh, I think that they've just really made\n\n570\n00:25:17.280 --> 00:25:20.400\nthese more enticing for people,\n\n571\n00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:22.640\nbecause when you tell someone not to do something,\n\n572\n00:25:22.640 --> 00:25:24.320\nwhat's the first thing they wanna do?\n\n573\n00:25:24.320 --> 00:25:25.880\n- Do it. - They wanna do it.\n\n574\n00:25:25.880 --> 00:25:27.920\nSo I was like, that's interesting.\n\n575\n00:25:27.920 --> 00:25:29.560\nAnd it's stuck with me.\n\n576\n00:25:29.560 --> 00:25:32.000\nSo when I went back to launch Bumble,\n\n577\n00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:33.760\nI remember that moment,\n\n578\n00:25:33.760 --> 00:25:37.120\nthat like tiny little psychological moment thinking,\n\n579\n00:25:37.120 --> 00:25:40.920\nthey told me not to do this and made me want to do it more.\n\n580\n00:25:40.920 --> 00:25:44.560\nWe might as well put Bumble on that stage.\n\n581\n00:25:44.560 --> 00:25:46.640\nAnd so at the time when we were relaunching,\n\n582\n00:25:46.640 --> 00:25:48.800\nwhen we were launching Bumble at colleges,\n\n583\n00:25:48.800 --> 00:25:52.560\nyou know, the social media at the time was like Instagram,\n\n584\n00:25:52.560 --> 00:25:56.160\nSnapchat, maybe Twitter, whatever,\n\n585\n00:25:56.160 --> 00:25:57.480\nI can't remember at this point.\n\n586\n00:25:57.480 --> 00:26:00.720\nSo I said, let's print signs and let's add more\n\n587\n00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:03.320\nor replace the signs and add Bumble.\n\n588\n00:26:03.320 --> 00:26:05.360\nAnd let's bring Bumble up to parity\n\n589\n00:26:05.360 --> 00:26:08.840\nwith these major college platforms\n\n590\n00:26:08.840 --> 00:26:10.440\nthat everyone is using so much\n\n591\n00:26:10.440 --> 00:26:13.320\nthat the teachers are telling them to stop using them.\n\n592\n00:26:13.320 --> 00:26:17.000\nLet's just put Bumble in there and spark people's curiosity.\n\n593\n00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:20.200\nSo I assumed if I just put Bumble's logo in there\n\n594\n00:26:20.200 --> 00:26:22.160\nand said, don't use Bumble,\n\n595\n00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:24.120\npeople would be like, what's Bumble?\n\n596\n00:26:24.120 --> 00:26:26.040\n'Cause you know, no one had heard of it yet.\n\n597\n00:26:26.040 --> 00:26:28.600\nSo we printed these signs that said no Facebook,\n\n598\n00:26:28.600 --> 00:26:32.040\nno Instagram, no Twitter, no Snapchat, no Bumble\n\n599\n00:26:32.040 --> 00:26:35.400\nin these hallways, in these classrooms, in these buildings.\n\n600\n00:26:35.400 --> 00:26:38.000\nBecause I knew psychologically,\n\n601\n00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:40.560\neven if someone had just seen it for a snap second,\n\n602\n00:26:40.560 --> 00:26:42.080\nthey would have clocked it and been like,\n\n603\n00:26:42.080 --> 00:26:43.840\nhuh, what's Bumble?\n\n604\n00:26:43.840 --> 00:26:45.920\nMaybe I should try Bumble if it's not allowed.\n\n605\n00:26:45.920 --> 00:26:47.160\nMaybe I should try it.\n\n606\n00:26:47.160 --> 00:26:49.960\nSo you know, it was these tiny little hacks that,\n\n607\n00:26:49.960 --> 00:26:51.440\nyou know, they're innocent and harmless.\n\n608\n00:26:51.440 --> 00:26:54.040\nI mean, I guess, but that was really the way\n\n609\n00:26:54.040 --> 00:26:55.880\nI thought about marketing was just,\n\n610\n00:26:55.880 --> 00:26:58.760\nI deeply fascinated in psychology.\n\n611\n00:26:58.760 --> 00:27:02.960\nAnd my favorite classes I ever took in college were sociology,\n\n612\n00:27:02.960 --> 00:27:06.920\nanthropology, you know, the way humans work and tick.\n\n613\n00:27:06.920 --> 00:27:08.720\nAnd I think that's what marketing is.\n\n614\n00:27:08.720 --> 00:27:11.360\n- Yeah, and most marketers are so little, literal,\n\n615\n00:27:11.360 --> 00:27:13.680\nthey don't really understand behavior.\n\n616\n00:27:13.680 --> 00:27:16.120\nThey don't really understand the perceptions and habits\n\n617\n00:27:16.120 --> 00:27:18.680\nand what you need to overcome\n\n618\n00:27:18.680 --> 00:27:20.080\nto really break through the clutter.\n\n619\n00:27:20.080 --> 00:27:23.520\nYou know, and do you have a process with your team\n\n620\n00:27:23.520 --> 00:27:25.200\non how to come up with ideas?\n\n621\n00:27:25.200 --> 00:27:27.400\nOr do you see this is your primary role?\n\n622\n00:27:27.400 --> 00:27:30.560\nI mean, how do you generate ideas today?\n\n623\n00:27:30.560 --> 00:27:31.640\n- No, you know what's amazing.\n\n624\n00:27:31.640 --> 00:27:33.880\nAnd I think I'd love to hear your perspective on this,\n\n625\n00:27:33.880 --> 00:27:38.680\nbut I think if you're the only person that can do something\n\n626\n00:27:38.680 --> 00:27:40.520\nyou've royally screwed up,\n\n627\n00:27:40.520 --> 00:27:44.000\nyou've really, you've really locked yourself in a box.\n\n628\n00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:46.520\nBecause you shouldn't be the only one good at something.\n\n629\n00:27:46.520 --> 00:27:50.320\nIf you're good at something, you should show people\n\n630\n00:27:50.320 --> 00:27:52.640\nhow to be better than you at that thing.\n\n631\n00:27:52.640 --> 00:27:54.960\nAnd they should be able to outperform you, right?\n\n632\n00:27:54.960 --> 00:27:58.600\nAny good coach or any good leader\n\n633\n00:27:58.600 --> 00:28:02.760\nshould hope to be the least productive at that skill\n\n634\n00:28:02.760 --> 00:28:04.120\nafter a certain amount of time.\n\n635\n00:28:04.120 --> 00:28:07.400\nBecause so many people will have figured it out better.\n\n636\n00:28:07.400 --> 00:28:09.600\nSo I feel like I have instilled this\n\n637\n00:28:09.600 --> 00:28:12.440\nin so many people across the company for so long\n\n638\n00:28:12.440 --> 00:28:16.160\nthat they have better ideas than I could ever have.\n\n639\n00:28:16.160 --> 00:28:19.200\nI mean, the campaign we're launching next week,\n\n640\n00:28:19.200 --> 00:28:22.160\nyes, I may have inspired it or kicked it off\n\n641\n00:28:22.160 --> 00:28:24.720\nor gotten people's wheels turning in that direction.\n\n642\n00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:27.520\nBut man, what people are gonna see in the world,\n\n643\n00:28:27.520 --> 00:28:29.480\nlike the team brought that to life.\n\n644\n00:28:29.480 --> 00:28:31.000\nThe leaders did that.\n\n645\n00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:34.160\nAnd it's the brilliant thinking of people\n\n646\n00:28:34.160 --> 00:28:36.600\nacross lots of functions in the company.\n\n647\n00:28:36.600 --> 00:28:39.240\nWhat I love about our team at Bumble\n\n648\n00:28:39.240 --> 00:28:43.320\nis maybe the most creative marketing idea\n\n649\n00:28:43.320 --> 00:28:45.120\nstemmed from someone on the product team\n\n650\n00:28:45.120 --> 00:28:47.360\nwhile they were having lunch with the marketers.\n\n651\n00:28:47.360 --> 00:28:50.320\nAnd it's this collaborative mindset\n\n652\n00:28:50.320 --> 00:28:52.920\nof marketing can inspire product\n\n653\n00:28:52.920 --> 00:28:56.520\nand tech can inspire marketing and customer service\n\n654\n00:28:56.520 --> 00:28:59.360\nor what we call, now we have a new division\n\n655\n00:28:59.360 --> 00:29:02.840\ncalled member love, member love serves everything.\n\n656\n00:29:02.840 --> 00:29:05.880\nSo we're seeing things out of our member love team\n\n657\n00:29:05.880 --> 00:29:07.440\nwhere they're coming up with ideas saying,\n\n658\n00:29:07.440 --> 00:29:10.040\nhey, I heard this about a Bumble couple.\n\n659\n00:29:10.040 --> 00:29:13.680\nWhat if we did X, Y or Z and we did it at scale?\n\n660\n00:29:13.680 --> 00:29:14.880\nAnd we're like, that's genius.\n\n661\n00:29:14.880 --> 00:29:16.080\nThat's absolutely brilliant.\n\n662\n00:29:16.080 --> 00:29:19.160\nSo I would say two things is inspiring\n\n663\n00:29:19.160 --> 00:29:21.720\nthe creative thinking and leaders across the org\n\n664\n00:29:21.720 --> 00:29:23.840\nand not keeping it siloed to that org.\n\n665\n00:29:23.840 --> 00:29:28.240\nSo making sure that that energy lives cross functionally.\n\n666\n00:29:28.240 --> 00:29:32.000\nAnd then the second thing is letting your members\n\n667\n00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:33.800\nbe your playbook.\n\n668\n00:29:33.800 --> 00:29:36.280\nLike they'll tell you, they will show you,\n\n669\n00:29:36.280 --> 00:29:38.600\nif you're willing to listen close enough,\n\n670\n00:29:38.600 --> 00:29:40.240\nnot just to the negative feedback.\n\n671\n00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:43.080\nLike, oh, you know, my box came half opened\n\n672\n00:29:43.080 --> 00:29:44.320\nand I didn't like that.\n\n673\n00:29:44.320 --> 00:29:46.360\nBut if you really listen to that,\n\n674\n00:29:46.360 --> 00:29:48.760\nif you really read between the lines,\n\n675\n00:29:48.760 --> 00:29:50.120\nthat's where the magic lives.\n\n676\n00:29:50.120 --> 00:29:51.120\n- Fantastic.\n\n677\n00:29:51.120 --> 00:29:54.120\nAnd, you know, I've also heard you say\n\n678\n00:29:54.120 --> 00:29:59.120\nthat not knowing what you don't know is an advantage.\n\n679\n00:29:59.120 --> 00:30:02.880\nHow can being naive be such a good thing?\n\n680\n00:30:02.880 --> 00:30:05.360\nI mean, you know, how do you look at that?\n\n681\n00:30:05.360 --> 00:30:06.600\n- Well, I mean, you just asked me\n\n682\n00:30:06.600 --> 00:30:08.640\nhow I had so much conviction or courage\n\n683\n00:30:08.640 --> 00:30:11.560\nor whatever the word was when I was launching Bumble.\n\n684\n00:30:11.560 --> 00:30:14.040\nI had no clue what I was doing.\n\n685\n00:30:14.040 --> 00:30:16.560\nI was just following intuition and instincts\n\n686\n00:30:16.560 --> 00:30:18.320\nand just going for it.\n\n687\n00:30:18.320 --> 00:30:21.560\nAnd isn't that kind of what life is about?\n\n688\n00:30:21.560 --> 00:30:24.520\nIsn't life kind of about taking chances\n\n689\n00:30:24.520 --> 00:30:26.600\nand not over analyzing to the point\n\n690\n00:30:26.600 --> 00:30:28.720\nwhere you talk yourself out of everything?\n\n691\n00:30:28.720 --> 00:30:32.040\nAnd I think being slightly naive and being,\n\n692\n00:30:32.040 --> 00:30:33.560\nno, this is not my line.\n\n693\n00:30:33.560 --> 00:30:35.400\nIt's a very famous mindset,\n\n694\n00:30:35.400 --> 00:30:38.760\nbut like a beginner's mindset is a magical place to be.\n\n695\n00:30:38.760 --> 00:30:42.560\nBecause you're curious, you're brave, you want to see,\n\n696\n00:30:42.560 --> 00:30:44.880\nyou want to test it.\n\n697\n00:30:44.880 --> 00:30:46.440\nAnd when you think you know everything,\n\n698\n00:30:46.440 --> 00:30:48.320\nyou're like, well, then that won't work.\n\n699\n00:30:48.320 --> 00:30:52.280\nYou just go into it knowing that it won't or it can't.\n\n700\n00:30:52.280 --> 00:30:56.000\nAnd I just think that there's magic in imagination\n\n701\n00:30:56.000 --> 00:30:58.840\nand just taking chances.\n\n702\n00:30:58.840 --> 00:30:59.960\n- Hello, friends.\n\n703\n00:30:59.960 --> 00:31:02.480\nI hope you're loving this episode with Whitney Wolff heard.\n\n704\n00:31:02.480 --> 00:31:04.240\nI know that I sure am.\n\n705\n00:31:04.240 --> 00:31:05.720\nAnd I want to remind you to stay tuned\n\n706\n00:31:05.720 --> 00:31:08.040\nto the very end of the episode for the debrief\n\n707\n00:31:08.040 --> 00:31:10.600\nwhere David and I will break down some of the concepts\n\n708\n00:31:10.600 --> 00:31:12.800\nthat he and Whitney discuss in the episode.\n\n709\n00:31:12.800 --> 00:31:14.720\nAnd we really want to give you something tangible\n\n710\n00:31:14.720 --> 00:31:17.160\nthat you can take away from this conversation\n\n711\n00:31:17.160 --> 00:31:18.840\nand apply it to your own work,\n\n712\n00:31:18.840 --> 00:31:20.720\nto your own life or to your own leadership.\n\n713\n00:31:20.720 --> 00:31:22.920\nSo enjoy the rest of this conversation\n\n714\n00:31:22.920 --> 00:31:25.000\nand don't forget to stay tuned to the very end\n\n715\n00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:28.040\nof the episode so you don't miss the debrief.\n\n716\n00:31:28.040 --> 00:31:30.560\n- I love how you were talking about your team,\n\n717\n00:31:30.560 --> 00:31:33.120\nhow the product people with marketing people,\n\n718\n00:31:33.120 --> 00:31:35.320\ntech people and the collaboration.\n\n719\n00:31:35.320 --> 00:31:37.400\nYou know, when you think about culture,\n\n720\n00:31:37.400 --> 00:31:39.880\nhave you articulated the kind of culture you want to have\n\n721\n00:31:39.880 --> 00:31:42.080\nat Bumble and if so,\n\n722\n00:31:42.080 --> 00:31:44.800\nwhat would be the single most important behavior?\n\n723\n00:31:44.800 --> 00:31:47.840\nYou would say, this is what we got to have happen here\n\n724\n00:31:47.840 --> 00:31:49.840\nat Bumble if we're really gonna get the results\n\n725\n00:31:49.840 --> 00:31:52.080\nand achieve what we want to achieve.\n\n726\n00:31:52.080 --> 00:31:54.800\n- Yeah, so this is one thing that I've got to tell you.\n\n727\n00:31:54.800 --> 00:31:57.480\nI don't think I'm great at culture, frankly.\n\n728\n00:31:57.480 --> 00:31:59.960\nI think, you know, you are the master at culture\n\n729\n00:31:59.960 --> 00:32:03.080\nand I need to go read all the culture books\n\n730\n00:32:03.080 --> 00:32:06.000\nbecause I wouldn't actually say I'm that good at culture.\n\n731\n00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:08.600\nI've always really been more obsessed\n\n732\n00:32:08.600 --> 00:32:10.200\nand it's not that I don't care about culture,\n\n733\n00:32:10.200 --> 00:32:11.800\nI care about it so much,\n\n734\n00:32:11.800 --> 00:32:14.440\nbut I'm so obsessed with our mission.\n\n735\n00:32:14.440 --> 00:32:19.480\nAnd so I've always said that the mission drives the culture\n\n736\n00:32:19.480 --> 00:32:24.080\nand when you stop or you lose sight of the mission,\n\n737\n00:32:24.080 --> 00:32:29.080\nI think the culture starts to untether and unravel.\n\n738\n00:32:29.080 --> 00:32:32.840\nSo I've never actually had success where I'm like, okay,\n\n739\n00:32:32.840 --> 00:32:35.680\nI'm gonna go in and do a cultural reset\n\n740\n00:32:35.680 --> 00:32:39.120\nand I'm gonna focus on, you know, these activities\n\n741\n00:32:39.120 --> 00:32:42.720\nand these team building exercises.\n\n742\n00:32:42.720 --> 00:32:45.240\nI've always taken a different approach, which is,\n\n743\n00:32:45.240 --> 00:32:49.080\nand you know, maybe this is a terrible example\n\n744\n00:32:49.080 --> 00:32:51.840\nbecause I don't go to any type of church,\n\n745\n00:32:51.840 --> 00:32:55.760\nbut if you think about churches or gathering places\n\n746\n00:32:55.760 --> 00:32:58.760\nwhere people are all there for something,\n\n747\n00:32:58.760 --> 00:33:00.080\nyes, they're there for each other\n\n748\n00:33:00.080 --> 00:33:01.960\nand they're there for the community and the people\n\n749\n00:33:01.960 --> 00:33:05.400\nand the culture, but they're there for some core belief.\n\n750\n00:33:05.400 --> 00:33:08.240\nThey're there for something bigger than any of them.\n\n751\n00:33:08.240 --> 00:33:12.880\nAnd this is a bit of a sports team thing too.\n\n752\n00:33:12.880 --> 00:33:15.880\nYou know, the people that use their savings\n\n753\n00:33:15.880 --> 00:33:18.480\nto go sit in the nose bleeds, to wear the jersey\n\n754\n00:33:18.480 --> 00:33:21.040\nand to be at that place,\n\n755\n00:33:21.040 --> 00:33:24.240\nthere's a spiritual connection to that team\n\n756\n00:33:24.240 --> 00:33:28.800\nor to that sport that is so much bigger than any one player\n\n757\n00:33:28.800 --> 00:33:32.040\nor, you know, players can get traded in and out.\n\n758\n00:33:32.040 --> 00:33:33.440\nThere's gotta be something bigger.\n\n759\n00:33:33.440 --> 00:33:35.800\nAnd so what I'm trying to get at is,\n\n760\n00:33:35.800 --> 00:33:39.160\nI think I've always prioritized mission before,\n\n761\n00:33:39.160 --> 00:33:40.960\nprior as a precursor to culture,\n\n762\n00:33:40.960 --> 00:33:42.480\nbecause what I've found is,\n\n763\n00:33:42.480 --> 00:33:45.280\nwhen the mission is really well communicated\n\n764\n00:33:45.280 --> 00:33:49.560\nand the mission is so ingrained in everything at the company\n\n765\n00:33:49.560 --> 00:33:53.360\nand the mission is this like drum beat and this heartbeat,\n\n766\n00:33:53.360 --> 00:33:55.640\nthe culture forms around it\n\n767\n00:33:55.640 --> 00:33:58.400\nand the culture feels so much better\n\n768\n00:33:58.400 --> 00:34:02.080\nand so much more intact and so much more united\n\n769\n00:34:02.080 --> 00:34:04.800\nand aligned and the best chapters of Bumble\n\n770\n00:34:04.800 --> 00:34:07.760\nwhere the cultures felt really strong.\n\n771\n00:34:07.760 --> 00:34:11.000\nAnd you know, we've gone through bad cultural times too,\n\n772\n00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:13.120\nbut when it's been the best,\n\n773\n00:34:13.120 --> 00:34:16.840\nit's when everyone can articulate and champion the mission\n\n774\n00:34:16.840 --> 00:34:20.440\nand the values and the goals for the members.\n\n775\n00:34:20.440 --> 00:34:22.120\nAnd when it's been its weakest,\n\n776\n00:34:22.120 --> 00:34:24.480\nit's when everyone's been obsessed with like,\n\n777\n00:34:24.480 --> 00:34:26.400\nwell, I didn't like the food at lunch\n\n778\n00:34:26.400 --> 00:34:27.920\nand now the culture sucks.\n\n779\n00:34:27.920 --> 00:34:30.880\nYou know, they lose sight of what they're really there to do.\n\n780\n00:34:30.880 --> 00:34:33.040\nAnd so I think that's the way I've always looked at culture\n\n781\n00:34:33.040 --> 00:34:34.240\nis like mission.\n\n782\n00:34:34.240 --> 00:34:36.960\n- You're actually very good at culture\n\n783\n00:34:36.960 --> 00:34:40.960\nbecause you know, if you don't have people that are believers,\n\n784\n00:34:40.960 --> 00:34:43.000\nyou know, of that mission around you\n\n785\n00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:44.960\nand passionate about that mission,\n\n786\n00:34:44.960 --> 00:34:46.920\nyou're not gonna be able to satisfy your customers\n\n787\n00:34:46.920 --> 00:34:48.560\nthe way how they need to be satisfied.\n\n788\n00:34:48.560 --> 00:34:52.080\nYou won't have the energetic environment you wanna have,\n\n789\n00:34:52.080 --> 00:34:53.440\nyou know, so it's like,\n\n790\n00:34:53.440 --> 00:34:55.720\nyou've made the single biggest behavior\n\n791\n00:34:55.720 --> 00:34:57.920\nthat you wanna have happen in your company\n\n792\n00:34:57.920 --> 00:35:01.120\nbe a passion and a belief around the mission.\n\n793\n00:35:01.120 --> 00:35:01.960\n- That's right.\n\n794\n00:35:01.960 --> 00:35:04.480\n- And that has created your culture when it's at its best.\n\n795\n00:35:04.480 --> 00:35:07.600\nHas there ever been a time when you felt like that mission\n\n796\n00:35:07.600 --> 00:35:10.320\nwas being threatened?\n\n797\n00:35:10.320 --> 00:35:13.640\nAnd what did you do to get it back on track as a leader?\n\n798\n00:35:13.640 --> 00:35:15.920\n- Yeah, you know, there was like a couple of year chapter\n\n799\n00:35:15.920 --> 00:35:20.200\nduring the pandemic or coming out of the pandemic\n\n800\n00:35:20.200 --> 00:35:22.560\nwhere I just was like, what is this place?\n\n801\n00:35:22.560 --> 00:35:24.200\nI don't even know this place anymore.\n\n802\n00:35:24.200 --> 00:35:26.840\nI don't even know what this company is anymore.\n\n803\n00:35:26.840 --> 00:35:29.200\nAnd I think what had happened was\n\n804\n00:35:29.200 --> 00:35:32.400\nthe obsession became around something other\n\n805\n00:35:32.400 --> 00:35:36.120\nthan the mission and what we were trying to push in the world.\n\n806\n00:35:36.120 --> 00:35:39.000\nAnd that thread had been lost, you know,\n\n807\n00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:44.000\nwhether it was not opening team meetings with it\n\n808\n00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:46.240\nor if it was that people were just living at home\n\n809\n00:35:46.240 --> 00:35:47.400\nand working from home,\n\n810\n00:35:47.400 --> 00:35:49.720\nI still can't put my total, you know,\n\n811\n00:35:49.720 --> 00:35:53.520\nkind of like summary on it.\n\n812\n00:35:53.520 --> 00:35:57.080\nBut I felt like we lost the thread for a little bit\n\n813\n00:35:57.080 --> 00:35:58.600\nand the team lost the thread\n\n814\n00:35:58.600 --> 00:36:00.640\nand where they were spending their time and energy\n\n815\n00:36:00.640 --> 00:36:01.840\nwas like, this isn't bumble.\n\n816\n00:36:01.840 --> 00:36:03.880\nThis isn't what we're here to do.\n\n817\n00:36:03.880 --> 00:36:06.120\nThat heartbeat was just missing.\n\n818\n00:36:06.120 --> 00:36:09.400\nAnd it started to feel like a zombie town,\n\n819\n00:36:09.400 --> 00:36:13.880\nnot like in a live riveting passionate group.\n\n820\n00:36:13.880 --> 00:36:16.800\nAnd so when I came back in in January\n\n821\n00:36:16.800 --> 00:36:20.040\nand then officially March of this year,\n\n822\n00:36:20.040 --> 00:36:21.800\nI just said, the first thing I'm gonna do\n\n823\n00:36:21.800 --> 00:36:25.360\nis I need to just, I need to reset our why.\n\n824\n00:36:25.360 --> 00:36:27.200\nI need to just reinforce our why.\n\n825\n00:36:27.200 --> 00:36:29.560\nAnd ultimately I came back in\n\n826\n00:36:29.560 --> 00:36:31.720\nand basically just for the first few weeks\n\n827\n00:36:31.720 --> 00:36:33.880\nonly said one thing, like we are the love company\n\n828\n00:36:33.880 --> 00:36:36.600\nand we are here to bring people closer to love.\n\n829\n00:36:36.600 --> 00:36:40.080\nAnd I just set it on repeat in a thousand different ways\n\n830\n00:36:40.080 --> 00:36:42.360\nuntil everyone was like, oh, we are the love company,\n\n831\n00:36:42.360 --> 00:36:44.560\nwe're here to bring people closer to love.\n\n832\n00:36:44.560 --> 00:36:47.400\nAnd then magic happened.\n\n833\n00:36:47.400 --> 00:36:50.520\nAnchoring technology and product roadmaps\n\n834\n00:36:50.520 --> 00:36:52.120\nbecame crystal clear.\n\n835\n00:36:52.120 --> 00:36:54.200\n'Cause you can write the roadmap in 10 seconds\n\n836\n00:36:54.200 --> 00:36:55.480\nwhen you understand the angle,\n\n837\n00:36:55.480 --> 00:36:57.080\nwhen you know the destination.\n\n838\n00:36:57.080 --> 00:36:58.360\nIf you lose sight of the destination,\n\n839\n00:36:58.360 --> 00:36:59.640\nyou start driving in circles.\n\n840\n00:36:59.640 --> 00:37:00.480\nYou're gonna get lost.\n\n841\n00:37:00.480 --> 00:37:02.840\nYou're gonna end up in somewhere you don't wanna be.\n\n842\n00:37:02.840 --> 00:37:05.360\nAnd so I just really had to kind of reinforce\n\n843\n00:37:05.360 --> 00:37:06.840\nthe destination.\n\n844\n00:37:06.840 --> 00:37:10.400\nAnd so I think that's how I've thought about culture,\n\n845\n00:37:10.400 --> 00:37:12.840\nbut I could be better at culture, frankly, I did.\n\n846\n00:37:12.840 --> 00:37:15.440\nIt's something I need to develop further in my career.\n\n847\n00:37:15.440 --> 00:37:18.200\n- Yeah, well, I think you're on the right track.\n\n848\n00:37:18.200 --> 00:37:19.560\nPeople don't wake up every day\n\n849\n00:37:19.560 --> 00:37:21.160\nand they want to be a part of something mediocre.\n\n850\n00:37:21.160 --> 00:37:22.560\nThey wanna be a part of something great.\n\n851\n00:37:22.560 --> 00:37:24.040\nAnd so when you can have,\n\n852\n00:37:24.040 --> 00:37:25.640\nwhen you didn't give a noble cause\n\n853\n00:37:25.640 --> 00:37:28.160\nthat get people juiced up to go to work,\n\n854\n00:37:28.160 --> 00:37:31.640\nI think you're halfway there for sure.\n\n855\n00:37:31.640 --> 00:37:35.120\nIn 2021, you become the youngest female CEO\n\n856\n00:37:35.120 --> 00:37:36.920\nto ever take a company public.\n\n857\n00:37:36.920 --> 00:37:39.760\nDid that kind of success, what kind of impact did it have?\n\n858\n00:37:39.760 --> 00:37:43.280\nDid you change for better or worse?\n\n859\n00:37:43.280 --> 00:37:45.600\nI mean, how do you look at that?\n\n860\n00:37:45.600 --> 00:37:46.800\n- You know what's interesting?\n\n861\n00:37:46.800 --> 00:37:48.280\nAnd what's sad, I'll tell you,\n\n862\n00:37:48.280 --> 00:37:51.680\nsad follow up on that stat is I'm still the youngest woman\n\n863\n00:37:51.680 --> 00:37:52.960\nto take a company public.\n\n864\n00:37:52.960 --> 00:37:55.200\nAnd I'm now 36, that's really,\n\n865\n00:37:55.200 --> 00:37:57.640\nlike there's not one that has come since then,\n\n866\n00:37:57.640 --> 00:37:59.080\nwhich makes me so sad.\n\n867\n00:37:59.080 --> 00:38:01.040\nI was hoping it was gonna be like\n\n868\n00:38:01.040 --> 00:38:03.720\ndethroned within three months or something.\n\n869\n00:38:03.720 --> 00:38:07.480\nSo, you know, it does illuminate just how hard it is\n\n870\n00:38:07.480 --> 00:38:10.720\nto be a young woman and build a unicorn\n\n871\n00:38:10.720 --> 00:38:13.040\nthat can get profit, that can then go public.\n\n872\n00:38:13.040 --> 00:38:14.400\nLike it's real tricky.\n\n873\n00:38:14.400 --> 00:38:17.880\nAnd it's something I want to focus on later\n\n874\n00:38:17.880 --> 00:38:21.400\nin my career is how to help break through those barriers\n\n875\n00:38:21.400 --> 00:38:22.840\nto create more.\n\n876\n00:38:22.840 --> 00:38:25.920\nFrankly, right now I've gotta just be so focused on Bumble.\n\n877\n00:38:25.920 --> 00:38:28.560\nBut to answer the question,\n\n878\n00:38:28.560 --> 00:38:31.040\nI think it made me a worse person at first\n\n879\n00:38:31.040 --> 00:38:35.200\nbecause it was the wrong things to focus on.\n\n880\n00:38:35.200 --> 00:38:38.920\nLike you should never as a business leader or founder\n\n881\n00:38:38.920 --> 00:38:42.480\nget caught up in the accolades or the youngest this\n\n882\n00:38:42.480 --> 00:38:44.920\nor the most to do that or the most of this\n\n883\n00:38:44.920 --> 00:38:47.200\nor the ranking number one here\n\n884\n00:38:47.200 --> 00:38:50.240\nor number four there, that's the wrong way to measure.\n\n885\n00:38:50.240 --> 00:38:52.560\nThat's like wrong measuring stick.\n\n886\n00:38:52.560 --> 00:38:55.920\nAnd I think the world as it looked at me,\n\n887\n00:38:55.920 --> 00:38:57.480\nit was using the wrong measuring stick.\n\n888\n00:38:57.480 --> 00:39:00.200\nIt was like, you know, trying to put all these titles\n\n889\n00:39:00.200 --> 00:39:02.240\nand accolades and that was the wrong way to go.\n\n890\n00:39:02.240 --> 00:39:05.040\nAnd so I really actually after that moment\n\n891\n00:39:05.040 --> 00:39:06.720\nkind of hit my low point.\n\n892\n00:39:06.720 --> 00:39:08.600\nI remember I was all over the news\n\n893\n00:39:08.600 --> 00:39:11.120\nas this like celebrated young, you know, woman\n\n894\n00:39:11.120 --> 00:39:13.320\nand I was having a rough go.\n\n895\n00:39:13.320 --> 00:39:14.800\nI felt really empty.\n\n896\n00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:16.520\nI was like, this is not,\n\n897\n00:39:16.520 --> 00:39:19.240\nI got to the top of the mountain and this view sucks.\n\n898\n00:39:19.240 --> 00:39:24.240\nI can't see anything and so I really recalibrated\n\n899\n00:39:24.240 --> 00:39:26.640\nand that's where I went on this quest\n\n900\n00:39:26.640 --> 00:39:29.800\nfor making sure that the only thing that ever mattered\n\n901\n00:39:29.800 --> 00:39:33.080\nto me again was making sure I was improving\n\n902\n00:39:33.080 --> 00:39:34.480\nthe lives of our members.\n\n903\n00:39:34.480 --> 00:39:36.880\nLike it was not about me, it was about we,\n\n904\n00:39:36.880 --> 00:39:39.160\nit was about how we could push the world further.\n\n905\n00:39:39.160 --> 00:39:42.480\nAnd so it's funny, I've told the story to a couple of people\n\n906\n00:39:42.480 --> 00:39:47.280\nbut I don't know where on a separate day,\n\n907\n00:39:47.280 --> 00:39:49.840\nlet's call it the opposite end of the spectrum,\n\n908\n00:39:49.840 --> 00:39:52.360\nlast summer our stock hit some crazy low.\n\n909\n00:39:52.360 --> 00:39:55.320\nI don't know, went to like the bottoms three or four bucks.\n\n910\n00:39:55.320 --> 00:39:58.480\nAnd this is a company that does a billion dollars of revenue.\n\n911\n00:39:58.480 --> 00:40:00.960\nIt's, you know, it's a really healthy business\n\n912\n00:40:00.960 --> 00:40:03.200\nbut the world just can't, you know,\n\n913\n00:40:03.200 --> 00:40:04.800\nunderstand it at that moment.\n\n914\n00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:08.680\nAnd I remember similar to my IPO day\n\n915\n00:40:08.680 --> 00:40:11.000\nwhere everyone was celebrating me and reaching out to me\n\n916\n00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:13.480\nand saying, wow, you're amazing and this is incredible.\n\n917\n00:40:13.480 --> 00:40:16.880\nI had the world doing the opposite being like flop, failure,\n\n918\n00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:18.760\nshe sucks, what a loss.\n\n919\n00:40:18.760 --> 00:40:20.520\nAnd I had the best day ever.\n\n920\n00:40:20.520 --> 00:40:22.000\nI sent a letter to myself and I said,\n\n921\n00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:23.600\nI said the best day ever.\n\n922\n00:40:23.600 --> 00:40:26.480\nI went for a hike, I stared at a tree,\n\n923\n00:40:26.480 --> 00:40:30.320\nI have great people on my team, I have healthy kids\n\n924\n00:40:30.320 --> 00:40:34.720\nand I just separated myself from those things,\n\n925\n00:40:34.720 --> 00:40:36.320\nthose metrics that just don't matter.\n\n926\n00:40:36.320 --> 00:40:39.200\nAnd so I guess my message to the listeners is\n\n927\n00:40:39.200 --> 00:40:41.560\nI would really take a look at your measuring stick\n\n928\n00:40:41.560 --> 00:40:43.280\nand I would really stare at it\n\n929\n00:40:43.280 --> 00:40:46.240\nand I would understand how you measure your worth,\n\n930\n00:40:46.240 --> 00:40:48.160\nhow you measure your impact,\n\n931\n00:40:48.160 --> 00:40:51.520\nhow you measure your value and your joy\n\n932\n00:40:51.520 --> 00:40:53.200\nbecause if you measure yourself\n\n933\n00:40:53.200 --> 00:40:56.400\nbased on outside metrics or celebrations,\n\n934\n00:40:56.400 --> 00:40:58.280\nyou're never gonna feel that good.\n\n935\n00:40:58.280 --> 00:41:00.880\nAnd so I think that was the big learning lesson\n\n936\n00:41:00.880 --> 00:41:01.880\nfrom that time.\n\n937\n00:41:01.880 --> 00:41:04.000\n- You know, you said you sent a letter to yourself.\n\n938\n00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:04.840\nDid you really?\n\n939\n00:41:04.840 --> 00:41:05.680\nDid you sit down and write?\n\n940\n00:41:05.680 --> 00:41:07.160\n- No, it's an email.\n\n941\n00:41:07.160 --> 00:41:09.240\n- Okay, so you wrote a new age letter.\n\n942\n00:41:09.240 --> 00:41:10.960\n- So you wrote a new age letter.\n\n943\n00:41:10.960 --> 00:41:12.800\nOkay, what made you do that?\n\n944\n00:41:12.800 --> 00:41:13.720\nSay more.\n\n945\n00:41:13.720 --> 00:41:16.440\n- I didn't wanna forget that moment.\n\n946\n00:41:16.440 --> 00:41:17.960\nI didn't wanna forget it.\n\n947\n00:41:17.960 --> 00:41:22.680\nThat I could live in utter joy and peace\n\n948\n00:41:22.680 --> 00:41:25.560\nwhen the world thought I should be in agony.\n\n949\n00:41:25.560 --> 00:41:27.800\nAnd I thought that was a magical,\n\n950\n00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:32.800\na magical moment that needed to be, you know, remembered\n\n951\n00:41:32.800 --> 00:41:35.120\nwhen I'm in a rocking chair one day\n\n952\n00:41:35.120 --> 00:41:37.720\nbecause it shows you everything you need to know\n\n953\n00:41:37.720 --> 00:41:39.920\nabout what real success is.\n\n954\n00:41:39.920 --> 00:41:42.640\nAnd real success in my mind\n\n955\n00:41:42.640 --> 00:41:45.800\nis not external validation.\n\n956\n00:41:45.800 --> 00:41:50.800\nIt's not approval from media or impressive people.\n\n957\n00:41:50.800 --> 00:41:55.440\nIt's internal validation and it's internal joy\n\n958\n00:41:55.440 --> 00:41:58.120\nand an internal sense of peace.\n\n959\n00:41:58.120 --> 00:42:00.040\nAnd that's what I wanted to capture.\n\n960\n00:42:00.040 --> 00:42:01.600\n- So you mentioned earlier\n\n961\n00:42:01.600 --> 00:42:04.840\nthat you weren't necessarily religious but you were spiritual.\n\n962\n00:42:04.840 --> 00:42:07.440\nWhat you just talked about sounds very spiritual.\n\n963\n00:42:07.440 --> 00:42:09.560\nWho do you listen to?\n\n964\n00:42:09.560 --> 00:42:10.880\nWho do you read?\n\n965\n00:42:10.880 --> 00:42:14.560\nWho do you go to for spiritual guidance or do you?\n\n966\n00:42:14.560 --> 00:42:19.200\n- Yeah, so I read it all and I do it all.\n\n967\n00:42:19.200 --> 00:42:21.880\nI'm obsessed, my friends make fun of me\n\n968\n00:42:21.880 --> 00:42:22.720\nbecause they're like,\n\n969\n00:42:22.720 --> 00:42:23.560\n\"Oh, what are you up to?\"\n\n970\n00:42:23.560 --> 00:42:24.920\nYou're reading some book about that for life.\n\n971\n00:42:24.920 --> 00:42:26.640\nAnd I'm like, \"Actually, yes.\"\n\n972\n00:42:26.640 --> 00:42:33.800\nPeople think about home like reading like economics books\n\n973\n00:42:33.800 --> 00:42:37.560\nand all these deep tech books.\n\n974\n00:42:37.560 --> 00:42:39.360\nAnd I'm like, \"No, I'm actually learning about\n\n975\n00:42:39.360 --> 00:42:42.160\nwhat happens to consciousness after your body dies.\"\n\n976\n00:42:42.160 --> 00:42:45.400\nSo I just want to learn it all.\n\n977\n00:42:45.400 --> 00:42:47.200\nI mean, look what's sitting on my desk next to me.\n\n978\n00:42:47.200 --> 00:42:49.200\nI've read it 700 times.\n\n979\n00:42:49.200 --> 00:42:52.680\nYou know, like, I was just sitting around my house.\n\n980\n00:42:52.680 --> 00:42:55.640\n- Are you like a big Eckhart Toliti fan?\n\n981\n00:42:55.640 --> 00:42:57.840\n- Oh, yeah, I love money.\n\n982\n00:42:57.840 --> 00:43:00.480\n- I can tell, I knew you had to read everything\n\n983\n00:43:00.480 --> 00:43:02.080\nbut he's faced up.\n\n984\n00:43:02.080 --> 00:43:03.720\n- Are you into any of that?\n\n985\n00:43:03.720 --> 00:43:04.840\n- Oh, yeah, I love it.\n\n986\n00:43:04.840 --> 00:43:05.680\n- Okay, good.\n\n987\n00:43:05.680 --> 00:43:07.560\n- Okay, I think it's not totally crazy.\n\n988\n00:43:07.560 --> 00:43:09.640\n- No, I think being present and focused\n\n989\n00:43:09.640 --> 00:43:12.040\nand knowing that what you're doing,\n\n990\n00:43:12.040 --> 00:43:13.440\nwhat we're doing right now is the only thing\n\n991\n00:43:13.440 --> 00:43:14.280\nthat really matters.\n\n992\n00:43:14.280 --> 00:43:15.100\nWe don't know about the future.\n\n993\n00:43:15.100 --> 00:43:16.040\nWe don't know about the best.\n\n994\n00:43:16.040 --> 00:43:19.280\nI think all that resonates to be very much.\n\n995\n00:43:19.280 --> 00:43:21.880\nAnd you know, but you have taken this bumble\n\n996\n00:43:21.880 --> 00:43:23.280\nfrom a startup.\n\n997\n00:43:23.280 --> 00:43:25.160\nYou know, now you're a global company.\n\n998\n00:43:25.160 --> 00:43:27.840\nWhat's been your biggest leadership challenge\n\n999\n00:43:27.840 --> 00:43:30.720\nor what's your biggest leadership challenge today?\n\n1000\n00:43:30.720 --> 00:43:33.280\n- Oh gosh, I feel like there's lots.\n\n1001\n00:43:33.280 --> 00:43:36.440\nSometimes when you believe in something,\n\n1002\n00:43:36.440 --> 00:43:40.600\nyou're a little bit early for others.\n\n1003\n00:43:40.600 --> 00:43:45.280\nSo I would say I see the potential of what we're building\n\n1004\n00:43:45.280 --> 00:43:47.000\nand I can see it clear as day\n\n1005\n00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:49.000\nand I know how powerful it is.\n\n1006\n00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:51.840\nJust like I knew it would work\n\n1007\n00:43:51.840 --> 00:43:53.400\nwhen we had women make the first move.\n\n1008\n00:43:53.400 --> 00:43:56.160\nNow the rest of the world thought it was a little crazy\n\n1009\n00:43:56.160 --> 00:43:57.040\nbut I knew it.\n\n1010\n00:43:57.040 --> 00:44:00.040\nLike just give me a minute, meaning a few years\n\n1011\n00:44:00.040 --> 00:44:02.480\nand I will show you that this works.\n\n1012\n00:44:02.480 --> 00:44:04.840\nI have that same level of conviction right now\n\n1013\n00:44:04.840 --> 00:44:09.920\naround what I think AI can do for human connection\n\n1014\n00:44:09.920 --> 00:44:12.640\nand how I think we can actually really bring the world\n\n1015\n00:44:12.640 --> 00:44:16.640\ncloser to love starting with finding yourself.\n\n1016\n00:44:16.640 --> 00:44:19.200\nAnd this is a big departure, right?\n\n1017\n00:44:19.200 --> 00:44:22.360\nThis is a big departure because dating is always\n\n1018\n00:44:22.360 --> 00:44:23.880\nabout finding another.\n\n1019\n00:44:23.880 --> 00:44:25.320\nYou know, you can blame Eckhart.\n\n1020\n00:44:25.320 --> 00:44:28.240\nYou can blame, you know, all of the spiritual guides\n\n1021\n00:44:28.240 --> 00:44:30.600\nout there for putting this in my brain.\n\n1022\n00:44:30.600 --> 00:44:32.800\nBut I think it starts with you.\n\n1023\n00:44:32.800 --> 00:44:35.760\nI think it starts with yourself.\n\n1024\n00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:38.240\nAnd I think the way to have the best relationships\n\n1025\n00:44:38.240 --> 00:44:41.000\nwith others is to actually get into a relationship\n\n1026\n00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:42.680\nwith yourself and understand who you are\n\n1027\n00:44:42.680 --> 00:44:44.480\nand what you value and what matters to you\n\n1028\n00:44:44.480 --> 00:44:46.080\nand what makes you tick.\n\n1029\n00:44:46.080 --> 00:44:47.960\nAnd so many of us are walking around\n\n1030\n00:44:47.960 --> 00:44:51.400\nwith absolutely no understanding of ourselves,\n\n1031\n00:44:51.400 --> 00:44:53.800\njust searching for another to fill whatever void\n\n1032\n00:44:53.800 --> 00:44:55.040\nwe're trying to fill.\n\n1033\n00:44:55.040 --> 00:44:57.600\nAnd I think if we were to shapeshift that,\n\n1034\n00:44:57.600 --> 00:45:00.880\nyou would make a lot more healthy, amazing relationships\n\n1035\n00:45:00.880 --> 00:45:03.840\nin the world and bring the world actually to true love.\n\n1036\n00:45:03.840 --> 00:45:07.120\nAnd so right now I'm completely obsessed\n\n1037\n00:45:07.120 --> 00:45:11.040\nwith getting people to kind of build,\n\n1038\n00:45:11.040 --> 00:45:15.160\nengineer the future of that with AI and leveraging AI\n\n1039\n00:45:15.160 --> 00:45:18.680\nso that we can go build a new age dating experience\n\n1040\n00:45:18.680 --> 00:45:22.320\nthat is really rooted in meaningful compatibility\n\n1041\n00:45:22.320 --> 00:45:25.840\nand not just being attracted to someone's photo or not.\n\n1042\n00:45:25.840 --> 00:45:27.200\nAnd I think that's the future.\n\n1043\n00:45:27.200 --> 00:45:29.640\nSo I think my biggest challenge right now\n\n1044\n00:45:29.640 --> 00:45:32.960\nis just where I was in 2014.\n\n1045\n00:45:32.960 --> 00:45:35.720\nI see something, it's around the corner,\n\n1046\n00:45:35.720 --> 00:45:37.320\nthe world hasn't seen it yet,\n\n1047\n00:45:37.320 --> 00:45:39.800\nI gotta just push it through until everybody else goes,\n\n1048\n00:45:39.800 --> 00:45:41.680\noh yeah, okay, that makes sense.\n\n1049\n00:45:41.680 --> 00:45:43.880\n- I love it, meaningful compatibility.\n\n1050\n00:45:43.880 --> 00:45:47.680\nYou've got a great knack for capturing just the essence\n\n1051\n00:45:47.680 --> 00:45:48.960\nof what you're trying to do.\n\n1052\n00:45:48.960 --> 00:45:51.560\nYou know, yesterday I interviewed Hayden Brown,\n\n1053\n00:45:51.560 --> 00:45:53.360\nshe's the CEO of Upwork.\n\n1054\n00:45:53.360 --> 00:45:54.360\n- Oh cool.\n\n1055\n00:45:54.360 --> 00:45:59.320\n- And she said actually that she studied the dating sites\n\n1056\n00:45:59.320 --> 00:46:02.040\nincluding Bumble to get her ideas for Upwork.\n\n1057\n00:46:02.040 --> 00:46:04.360\nI mean, she really thought there was a lot,\n\n1058\n00:46:04.360 --> 00:46:06.920\nand she basically is a human resource company\n\n1059\n00:46:06.920 --> 00:46:09.360\nthat provides freelance talents across world.\n\n1060\n00:46:09.360 --> 00:46:12.200\nAnd I told her I was gonna be interviewing you, you know,\n\n1061\n00:46:12.200 --> 00:46:16.400\ntoday and she said she had this question for you.\n\n1062\n00:46:16.400 --> 00:46:19.360\n- It seems like on the precipice of AI,\n\n1063\n00:46:19.360 --> 00:46:21.960\nyou know, a lot of the kind of prior models\n\n1064\n00:46:21.960 --> 00:46:24.360\naround dating and even companionship are changing\n\n1065\n00:46:24.360 --> 00:46:27.640\nin terms of both the tools that can be used\n\n1066\n00:46:27.640 --> 00:46:30.280\nto kind of facilitate matches\n\n1067\n00:46:30.280 --> 00:46:33.480\nand people actually looking for things from AI tools\n\n1068\n00:46:33.480 --> 00:46:35.800\nin terms of, you know, relationships\n\n1069\n00:46:35.800 --> 00:46:37.800\nthat they didn't even think about before\n\n1070\n00:46:37.800 --> 00:46:39.680\nwe wouldn't even have thought about in the past.\n\n1071\n00:46:39.680 --> 00:46:41.160\nSo I'm really curious to understand\n\n1072\n00:46:41.160 --> 00:46:43.120\nhow is she seeing her business\n\n1073\n00:46:43.120 --> 00:46:44.960\nnot just in the next year or two changed by AI,\n\n1074\n00:46:44.960 --> 00:46:46.600\nbut what does it look like in five years?\n\n1075\n00:46:46.600 --> 00:46:49.520\nI think that would be an interesting prognostication.\n\n1076\n00:46:49.520 --> 00:46:54.240\nI'm a firm believer that if leveraged ethically, properly\n\n1077\n00:46:54.240 --> 00:46:56.800\nand for real human connection,\n\n1078\n00:46:56.800 --> 00:47:01.800\nmeaning not building you an AI fake friend or a fake partner,\n\n1079\n00:47:01.800 --> 00:47:04.200\nI'm not in that camp.\n\n1080\n00:47:04.200 --> 00:47:05.960\nThat's not where my energy is.\n\n1081\n00:47:05.960 --> 00:47:10.960\nBut if we can leverage AI to actually help detect\n\n1082\n00:47:10.960 --> 00:47:14.200\ntrue compatibility,\n\n1083\n00:47:15.080 --> 00:47:19.520\ntrue, you know, self-discovery,\n\n1084\n00:47:19.520 --> 00:47:24.520\nand then leverage AI to skip through all of the cumbersome steps\n\n1085\n00:47:24.520 --> 00:47:29.120\nof having to swipe and then match and then chat\n\n1086\n00:47:29.120 --> 00:47:32.240\nand then dead end chat and then dead end chat\n\n1087\n00:47:32.240 --> 00:47:34.560\nand then maybe someone says, let's go on a date,\n\n1088\n00:47:34.560 --> 00:47:36.120\nbut then it's crickets.\n\n1089\n00:47:36.120 --> 00:47:39.160\nIf we can do what I believe we can do,\n\n1090\n00:47:39.160 --> 00:47:44.320\nwe should be able to take you from self-discover\n\n1091\n00:47:44.320 --> 00:47:49.080\nto magical date in a very short amount of time.\n\n1092\n00:47:49.080 --> 00:47:51.560\nAnd when you get put on that date,\n\n1093\n00:47:51.560 --> 00:47:54.560\nthe compatibility will be off the charts.\n\n1094\n00:47:54.560 --> 00:47:57.560\nThe person on the other end will feel like someone\n\n1095\n00:47:57.560 --> 00:47:59.480\nthat just understands your soul,\n\n1096\n00:47:59.480 --> 00:48:01.760\nnot just looks in a way that you like,\n\n1097\n00:48:01.760 --> 00:48:04.200\nbut then you're like, oh, but this is off and that's off\n\n1098\n00:48:04.200 --> 00:48:05.400\nand that's off.\n\n1099\n00:48:05.400 --> 00:48:10.160\nI believe that AI can help us build the world's most\n\n1100\n00:48:10.160 --> 00:48:15.160\nintelligent and emotionally intelligent matchmaker to ever exist.\n\n1101\n00:48:15.160 --> 00:48:19.960\n- Wow, you know, with this kind of five-year compelling vision\n\n1102\n00:48:19.960 --> 00:48:23.640\nin your mind, Winnie, how do you take the people\n\n1103\n00:48:23.640 --> 00:48:26.880\nin your company along with you to change\n\n1104\n00:48:26.880 --> 00:48:31.440\nand drive it and prepare for it and make it happen?\n\n1105\n00:48:31.440 --> 00:48:34.720\n- Oh, the people in my company are taking me along with them.\n\n1106\n00:48:34.720 --> 00:48:38.720\nThis team is so A+, they are so futuristic\n\n1107\n00:48:38.720 --> 00:48:42.000\nand they are so fired up about how AI can help\n\n1108\n00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:44.080\nbring the world together.\n\n1109\n00:48:44.080 --> 00:48:46.840\nI mean, I'm on their journey at this point.\n\n1110\n00:48:46.840 --> 00:48:48.800\nI may have inspired the conversation,\n\n1111\n00:48:48.800 --> 00:48:51.600\nI may have planted the seed of vision.\n\n1112\n00:48:51.600 --> 00:48:54.080\nThis team is so full of superstars\n\n1113\n00:48:54.080 --> 00:48:57.760\nand they are building this, they are rapid fire, moving,\n\n1114\n00:48:57.760 --> 00:48:59.920\nthey are unbelievable.\n\n1115\n00:48:59.920 --> 00:49:03.560\nI was on a call yesterday with one of our AI projects\n\n1116\n00:49:03.560 --> 00:49:08.120\nand we had some of our most brilliant AI technologists\n\n1117\n00:49:08.120 --> 00:49:11.400\nwith our in-house relationship expert.\n\n1118\n00:49:11.400 --> 00:49:12.960\nAnd you should have heard this conversation,\n\n1119\n00:49:12.960 --> 00:49:17.800\nit was fascinating, PhD in relationships and psychology.\n\n1120\n00:49:17.800 --> 00:49:22.640\nChatting with these absolute genius AI research\n\n1121\n00:49:22.640 --> 00:49:25.680\nand technical leads, you can't imagine\n\n1122\n00:49:25.680 --> 00:49:27.160\nwhat we're going to be able to do.\n\n1123\n00:49:27.160 --> 00:49:29.600\nAnd they're so smart, they're so fired up\n\n1124\n00:49:29.600 --> 00:49:31.080\nand I'm like, okay, let's go.\n\n1125\n00:49:31.080 --> 00:49:36.080\nIt's like getting to build a, with a bullet train,\n\n1126\n00:49:36.560 --> 00:49:39.800\nit's not a steam engine anymore, it's like a whole new world.\n\n1127\n00:49:39.800 --> 00:49:43.160\n- That's fair, you know, before we move off AI,\n\n1128\n00:49:43.160 --> 00:49:45.320\nhow are you personally using it\n\n1129\n00:49:45.320 --> 00:49:47.280\nto help you be more successful in your role?\n\n1130\n00:49:47.280 --> 00:49:49.600\nI mean, how are, you know, you got to lead the process,\n\n1131\n00:49:49.600 --> 00:49:50.960\nyou got people who are ahead of you,\n\n1132\n00:49:50.960 --> 00:49:53.560\nbut how are you getting yourself up to speed\n\n1133\n00:49:53.560 --> 00:49:55.200\nand what advice could you give leaders\n\n1134\n00:49:55.200 --> 00:49:57.880\non how to get ready for AI\n\n1135\n00:49:57.880 --> 00:50:01.600\nor not just get ready for it, apply it right now today?\n\n1136\n00:50:01.600 --> 00:50:04.480\n- Yeah, so I've built several coaches\n\n1137\n00:50:04.480 --> 00:50:08.840\nfor various different things in chat UPT for myself.\n\n1138\n00:50:08.840 --> 00:50:11.440\nSo I have a constructive criticism coach\n\n1139\n00:50:11.440 --> 00:50:13.240\nthat I've named Sally.\n\n1140\n00:50:13.240 --> 00:50:18.080\nAnd it's, it's, it basically I ask it questions\n\n1141\n00:50:18.080 --> 00:50:22.680\nand I get it my, my convicted belief on a situation\n\n1142\n00:50:22.680 --> 00:50:23.960\nand I'm like, challenge me.\n\n1143\n00:50:23.960 --> 00:50:27.240\nWhere, where are my blind spots?\n\n1144\n00:50:27.240 --> 00:50:28.600\nHow am I seeing this wrong?\n\n1145\n00:50:28.600 --> 00:50:31.080\nLike, help me see the other side,\n\n1146\n00:50:31.080 --> 00:50:33.760\nI want you to challenge me, don't placate me,\n\n1147\n00:50:33.760 --> 00:50:36.760\ndon't just tell me what I want to hear, be my no person.\n\n1148\n00:50:36.760 --> 00:50:40.760\nAnd I have it coach me constructively\n\n1149\n00:50:40.760 --> 00:50:43.600\non how to look at things from multiple perspectives\n\n1150\n00:50:43.600 --> 00:50:45.400\nso that when I am making a decision\n\n1151\n00:50:45.400 --> 00:50:49.160\nor I am approaching a tough conversation\n\n1152\n00:50:49.160 --> 00:50:52.240\nor when I do feel like I know best,\n\n1153\n00:50:52.240 --> 00:50:54.960\nI actually get to see it from the other side first\n\n1154\n00:50:54.960 --> 00:50:58.760\nand it pushes me and challenges me before I just go.\n\n1155\n00:50:59.640 --> 00:51:02.960\nSeparate from that, I have built myself\n\n1156\n00:51:02.960 --> 00:51:06.640\na spiritual kind of guide of other sorts\n\n1157\n00:51:06.640 --> 00:51:09.880\nblended by all the folks you and I just talked about.\n\n1158\n00:51:09.880 --> 00:51:13.000\nI basically asked chat UPT to build me the spot\n\n1159\n00:51:13.000 --> 00:51:15.680\nthat is inspired by the learnings and teachings\n\n1160\n00:51:15.680 --> 00:51:18.000\nof like 12 of our favorite, you know,\n\n1161\n00:51:18.000 --> 00:51:20.160\nyou know, the ones that write all the powers of now,\n\n1162\n00:51:20.160 --> 00:51:22.160\nyou know, Eckhart and all the others.\n\n1163\n00:51:22.160 --> 00:51:25.160\nAnd when I'm feeling spiritually disconnected\n\n1164\n00:51:25.160 --> 00:51:27.960\nor like a little low energy on something,\n\n1165\n00:51:27.960 --> 00:51:30.560\nI'll ask it to look at something from a spiritual lens,\n\n1166\n00:51:30.560 --> 00:51:32.600\nnot just a straight business lens.\n\n1167\n00:51:32.600 --> 00:51:36.400\nAnd so I'm constantly using AI to help me grow\n\n1168\n00:51:36.400 --> 00:51:39.080\nand improve and reframe my thinking\n\n1169\n00:51:39.080 --> 00:51:42.000\nand to help me be a better critical thinker\n\n1170\n00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:44.760\nor a better empathetic leader\n\n1171\n00:51:44.760 --> 00:51:47.800\nor maybe see things from different directions.\n\n1172\n00:51:47.800 --> 00:51:49.160\nAnd so that's just one example\n\n1173\n00:51:49.160 --> 00:51:52.600\nof how I personally use AI every single day.\n\n1174\n00:51:52.600 --> 00:51:54.400\nI've had it build me reports on things\n\n1175\n00:51:54.400 --> 00:51:57.600\nso every day I get up to speed on competitor analysis,\n\n1176\n00:51:57.600 --> 00:51:59.520\nI get up to speed on what members are saying.\n\n1177\n00:51:59.520 --> 00:52:02.720\nI've asked it to basically scan the app store every day\n\n1178\n00:52:02.720 --> 00:52:05.280\nand find the worst things that people say about us\n\n1179\n00:52:05.280 --> 00:52:08.160\nand give me a summary so that I don't miss any blind spots\n\n1180\n00:52:08.160 --> 00:52:10.880\nof member disdain or dissatisfaction.\n\n1181\n00:52:10.880 --> 00:52:13.440\nYou know, I'm using it for all sorts of stuff all day long.\n\n1182\n00:52:13.440 --> 00:52:14.280\n- Oh, I love it.\n\n1183\n00:52:14.280 --> 00:52:15.560\nI think that's fantastic.\n\n1184\n00:52:15.560 --> 00:52:18.360\nYou know, and as I understand it, you know,\n\n1185\n00:52:18.360 --> 00:52:23.120\nyou founded Bumble, then you, you appointed another CEO,\n\n1186\n00:52:23.120 --> 00:52:25.760\nthen you came back as the CEO\n\n1187\n00:52:25.760 --> 00:52:28.840\nin a relatively short period of time, you know,\n\n1188\n00:52:28.840 --> 00:52:31.920\nwill you ever be able to give up control of Bumble\n\n1189\n00:52:31.920 --> 00:52:36.160\nor is it, it's still your baby in a way that, you know,\n\n1190\n00:52:36.160 --> 00:52:38.600\nit's just hard to let it go, I mean.\n\n1191\n00:52:38.600 --> 00:52:40.400\n- So I did give up to control\n\n1192\n00:52:40.400 --> 00:52:44.120\nand I've got to be frank, this is going to sound insane.\n\n1193\n00:52:44.120 --> 00:52:46.280\nI've already given up control of Bumble.\n\n1194\n00:52:46.280 --> 00:52:47.440\nI'm here for the love.\n\n1195\n00:52:47.440 --> 00:52:49.080\nI'm not here for control.\n\n1196\n00:52:49.080 --> 00:52:51.200\nWhen I left the first time,\n\n1197\n00:52:51.200 --> 00:52:54.160\nI broke up with that like need to control\n\n1198\n00:52:54.160 --> 00:52:55.880\nand the need to be the boss\n\n1199\n00:52:55.880 --> 00:52:58.360\nand the need to make every decision.\n\n1200\n00:52:58.360 --> 00:53:01.480\nOh, I'm not back with that energy this time.\n\n1201\n00:53:01.480 --> 00:53:05.160\nAnd I say to my board, I say to my executives,\n\n1202\n00:53:05.160 --> 00:53:08.000\nthe minute someone can do this better than me,\n\n1203\n00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:10.560\nI'm out, I am here in service of Bumble.\n\n1204\n00:53:10.560 --> 00:53:12.680\nI'm not here in service of Whitney.\n\n1205\n00:53:12.680 --> 00:53:15.240\nAnd I, you know, I asked the universe\n\n1206\n00:53:15.240 --> 00:53:17.320\njust use me for my highest good\n\n1207\n00:53:17.320 --> 00:53:20.160\nand healthy spread love and light, you know,\n\n1208\n00:53:20.160 --> 00:53:22.200\nthat led me back to Bumble, you know,\n\n1209\n00:53:22.200 --> 00:53:25.000\nwhen my amazing CEO who she's phenomenal\n\n1210\n00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:27.840\nand she's brilliant, my former CEO,\n\n1211\n00:53:27.840 --> 00:53:29.360\nwhen she decided it was time for her\n\n1212\n00:53:29.360 --> 00:53:31.200\nto go do something different,\n\n1213\n00:53:31.200 --> 00:53:33.920\nI was like, okay, yes, the universe has invited me back in.\n\n1214\n00:53:33.920 --> 00:53:34.960\nHere we are.\n\n1215\n00:53:34.960 --> 00:53:39.520\nSo I'm here just to be of service to the mission.\n\n1216\n00:53:39.520 --> 00:53:41.920\nI'm not here to control it or to be the boss\n\n1217\n00:53:41.920 --> 00:53:45.320\nor to feel like I'm in charge or to have the accolades.\n\n1218\n00:53:45.320 --> 00:53:46.760\nI'm so beyond that now.\n\n1219\n00:53:46.760 --> 00:53:48.040\nI've let go of all that.\n\n1220\n00:53:48.040 --> 00:53:48.880\n- That's amazing.\n\n1221\n00:53:48.880 --> 00:53:53.640\n- And what's a belief you had when you started Bumble\n\n1222\n00:53:53.640 --> 00:53:56.800\nthat maybe you've changed your mind on looking back?\n\n1223\n00:53:56.800 --> 00:53:59.000\n- That if I slept or took my eye off\n\n1224\n00:53:59.000 --> 00:54:01.880\nany ball the world would implode, you know?\n\n1225\n00:54:01.880 --> 00:54:06.960\nLike if I didn't do every single thing by myself\n\n1226\n00:54:06.960 --> 00:54:09.440\nand make sure it was perfect, like everything would end.\n\n1227\n00:54:09.440 --> 00:54:11.160\nAnd I'm like, that's just not true.\n\n1228\n00:54:11.160 --> 00:54:12.840\nLike it's gonna be what it's gonna be.\n\n1229\n00:54:12.840 --> 00:54:15.200\nI'll do my best, but it's on a universal\n\n1230\n00:54:15.200 --> 00:54:17.520\nspiritual autopilot now is what I would call it.\n\n1231\n00:54:17.520 --> 00:54:21.600\nLike this is in some bigger hands than mine at this point.\n\n1232\n00:54:21.600 --> 00:54:23.120\n- All right, here's another one for you.\n\n1233\n00:54:23.120 --> 00:54:26.640\nWas there ever a decision you made that you regret\n\n1234\n00:54:26.640 --> 00:54:28.080\nwhen you were building Bumble?\n\n1235\n00:54:28.080 --> 00:54:32.080\nAnd seriously, once you realize that,\n\n1236\n00:54:32.080 --> 00:54:34.760\nhow long did it take you to admit it?\n\n1237\n00:54:34.760 --> 00:54:38.200\n- I usually know it's the wrong decision within an hour.\n\n1238\n00:54:38.200 --> 00:54:40.520\nAnd it's usually because I've made a decision\n\n1239\n00:54:40.520 --> 00:54:42.600\nout of fear and not out of love.\n\n1240\n00:54:42.600 --> 00:54:44.360\nAnd that's the short answer.\n\n1241\n00:54:44.360 --> 00:54:49.040\nIf you ever make a choice out of fear, it's the wrong choice.\n\n1242\n00:54:49.040 --> 00:54:53.520\nYou've got to make decisions out of love\n\n1243\n00:54:53.520 --> 00:54:57.240\nand out of conviction and out of doing the right thing,\n\n1244\n00:54:57.240 --> 00:54:59.680\nnot just doing the easy thing.\n\n1245\n00:54:59.680 --> 00:55:02.520\nAnd I think when you go against that,\n\n1246\n00:55:02.520 --> 00:55:05.120\nyou've made the wrong decision and you will regret it.\n\n1247\n00:55:05.120 --> 00:55:07.720\nAnd there's been a lot of those moments in my life.\n\n1248\n00:55:07.720 --> 00:55:09.400\n- How long does it take you to regret something\n\n1249\n00:55:09.400 --> 00:55:11.680\nout to admit you made a mistake?\n\n1250\n00:55:11.680 --> 00:55:12.960\nIs that hard for you to do?\n\n1251\n00:55:12.960 --> 00:55:13.960\n- No.\n\n1252\n00:55:13.960 --> 00:55:15.080\n- I can see it isn't.\n\n1253\n00:55:15.080 --> 00:55:17.080\nYou're pretty much an open book, aren't you?\n\n1254\n00:55:17.080 --> 00:55:18.640\n- Yeah, it's a problem.\n\n1255\n00:55:18.640 --> 00:55:22.840\nI think my problems seem as if they're listening to this,\n\n1256\n00:55:22.840 --> 00:55:24.480\nthey're probably like shut up, shut up,\n\n1257\n00:55:24.480 --> 00:55:26.520\nstop talking, be quiet.\n\n1258\n00:55:26.520 --> 00:55:29.160\nYou know, what you see is what you get.\n\n1259\n00:55:29.160 --> 00:55:30.160\n- I love it, I love it.\n\n1260\n00:55:30.160 --> 00:55:31.080\nThis has been so much fun.\n\n1261\n00:55:31.080 --> 00:55:32.200\nAnd I want to have some more\n\n1262\n00:55:32.200 --> 00:55:33.840\nwith my lightning round of questions.\n\n1263\n00:55:33.840 --> 00:55:35.480\nAnd so are you ready for this?\n\n1264\n00:55:35.480 --> 00:55:36.320\n- Let's go.\n\n1265\n00:55:36.320 --> 00:55:37.160\n- Okay, here we go.\n\n1266\n00:55:37.160 --> 00:55:38.960\nThe three words that best describe you.\n\n1267\n00:55:38.960 --> 00:55:42.720\n- Intuition, ambition, and love.\n\n1268\n00:55:42.720 --> 00:55:44.280\nIf you could be one person for a day\n\n1269\n00:55:44.280 --> 00:55:46.040\nbeside yourself, who would it be?\n\n1270\n00:55:46.040 --> 00:55:47.160\n- One of my children.\n\n1271\n00:55:47.160 --> 00:55:48.760\n- What's your biggest pet peeve?\n\n1272\n00:55:48.760 --> 00:55:50.960\n- Oh God, I just made a list of these the other day\n\n1273\n00:55:50.960 --> 00:55:53.080\nbecause I'm going to do this.\n\n1274\n00:55:53.080 --> 00:55:55.760\n- Okay, what's your biggest pet peeve?\n\n1275\n00:55:55.760 --> 00:55:57.680\n- Okay, okay, this is so stupid,\n\n1276\n00:55:57.680 --> 00:56:00.840\nbut I am a little OCD and do have all sorts of weird,\n\n1277\n00:56:00.840 --> 00:56:02.840\nlike, you know, annoying things.\n\n1278\n00:56:02.840 --> 00:56:05.920\nI cannot handle it when you're in a car\n\n1279\n00:56:05.920 --> 00:56:09.640\nand the radio or the music is on, but it's so soft\n\n1280\n00:56:09.640 --> 00:56:12.520\nthat you can't quite tell what it's saying\n\n1281\n00:56:12.520 --> 00:56:15.400\nor singing, but it's there in the background.\n\n1282\n00:56:15.400 --> 00:56:16.400\nIt sends me into orbit.\n\n1283\n00:56:16.400 --> 00:56:17.240\nI don't know why.\n\n1284\n00:56:17.240 --> 00:56:19.120\nIt's literally my biggest pet peeve.\n\n1285\n00:56:19.120 --> 00:56:22.040\n- Who would play you in a movie?\n\n1286\n00:56:22.040 --> 00:56:24.200\n- Unfortunately, there is a movie coming out\n\n1287\n00:56:24.200 --> 00:56:25.800\nabout Bumble and Tinder.\n\n1288\n00:56:25.800 --> 00:56:27.720\nAnd I got very lucky.\n\n1289\n00:56:27.720 --> 00:56:30.240\nI don't, I have nothing to do with this movie.\n\n1290\n00:56:30.240 --> 00:56:32.200\nI'm completely uninvolved.\n\n1291\n00:56:32.200 --> 00:56:34.320\nIt's, I think it's that literally coming out\n\n1292\n00:56:34.320 --> 00:56:35.920\nin like three weeks or something.\n\n1293\n00:56:35.920 --> 00:56:38.360\nIt'll be on Disney or something like that.\n\n1294\n00:56:38.360 --> 00:56:40.120\nAnd Lily James is playing me.\n\n1295\n00:56:40.120 --> 00:56:42.200\nSo I got very lucky.\n\n1296\n00:56:43.520 --> 00:56:47.720\nThe favorite thing that keeps Austin weird.\n\n1297\n00:56:47.720 --> 00:56:48.560\n- Everything.\n\n1298\n00:56:48.560 --> 00:56:50.560\nI mean, I just love the food trucks.\n\n1299\n00:56:50.560 --> 00:56:52.280\nIt's just the best.\n\n1300\n00:56:52.280 --> 00:56:53.800\n- Your favorite place to ski.\n\n1301\n00:56:53.800 --> 00:56:54.640\n- Aspen.\n\n1302\n00:56:54.640 --> 00:56:56.360\n- What's the one thing you do just for you?\n\n1303\n00:56:56.360 --> 00:56:57.200\n- Meditate.\n\n1304\n00:56:57.200 --> 00:57:00.320\n- Beside your family, what's your most prized possession?\n\n1305\n00:57:00.320 --> 00:57:01.240\n- Nature.\n\n1306\n00:57:01.240 --> 00:57:03.120\nWell, it's not a possession, but, you know,\n\n1307\n00:57:03.120 --> 00:57:06.440\nmy most prized thing I can go and enjoy.\n\n1308\n00:57:06.440 --> 00:57:08.800\n- If I turned on the radio in your car\n\n1309\n00:57:08.800 --> 00:57:11.560\nand I obviously would hear it in your car,\n\n1310\n00:57:11.560 --> 00:57:14.000\nwhat would I hear?\n\n1311\n00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:17.520\n- Probably Chris Dapleton or some type of country music.\n\n1312\n00:57:17.520 --> 00:57:19.720\n- You're my four leaf clover, starting over.\n\n1313\n00:57:19.720 --> 00:57:20.720\n(laughs)\n\n1314\n00:57:20.720 --> 00:57:21.560\nThere you go.\n\n1315\n00:57:21.560 --> 00:57:23.440\nWhat's something about you a few people would know?\n\n1316\n00:57:23.440 --> 00:57:26.520\n- That I'm pretty obsessed with like,\n\n1317\n00:57:26.520 --> 00:57:29.480\nhigher power, spirituality, higher meaning of things.\n\n1318\n00:57:29.480 --> 00:57:33.960\nI'm really not stuck in the material world that much.\n\n1319\n00:57:33.960 --> 00:57:35.440\nAnd I think that would surprise people.\n\n1320\n00:57:35.440 --> 00:57:37.440\n- What's one, one of your daily rituals,\n\n1321\n00:57:37.440 --> 00:57:40.440\nbesides meditation, something that you never miss?\n\n1322\n00:57:40.440 --> 00:57:41.720\n- Daily gratitude.\n\n1323\n00:57:41.720 --> 00:57:42.560\n- Love it.\n\n1324\n00:57:42.560 --> 00:57:44.880\nYou're out of the lightning round, you kick butt on it.\n\n1325\n00:57:44.880 --> 00:57:46.160\nIt was great, you know?\n\n1326\n00:57:46.160 --> 00:57:49.520\nAnd here you are, you're a mom of almost three.\n\n1327\n00:57:49.520 --> 00:57:51.400\nYou've got a third one coming along.\n\n1328\n00:57:51.400 --> 00:57:53.520\nCongratulations, by the way, I love it.\n\n1329\n00:57:53.520 --> 00:57:54.360\n- Thank you.\n\n1330\n00:57:54.360 --> 00:57:55.600\n- And I imagine Mother had,\n\n1331\n00:57:55.600 --> 00:57:58.400\nMother had just had a huge impact on how you lead\n\n1332\n00:57:58.400 --> 00:58:00.720\nand how you treat others at work.\n\n1333\n00:58:00.720 --> 00:58:03.120\nTell us what that experience has been like.\n\n1334\n00:58:03.120 --> 00:58:05.920\n- So, you know, I would say the biggest learning\n\n1335\n00:58:05.920 --> 00:58:09.640\nfrom my journey as a mother is that I have two little boys.\n\n1336\n00:58:09.640 --> 00:58:12.680\nI'm about to have a daughter, but I've raised two little boys.\n\n1337\n00:58:12.680 --> 00:58:14.000\nI've been raising two little boys.\n\n1338\n00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:17.960\nAnd my career has been about empowering women\n\n1339\n00:58:17.960 --> 00:58:19.320\nand focusing on women.\n\n1340\n00:58:19.320 --> 00:58:21.920\nAnd I think the biggest thing I've learned\n\n1341\n00:58:21.920 --> 00:58:24.120\nis that we cannot forget about our boys.\n\n1342\n00:58:24.120 --> 00:58:29.120\nAnd we cannot forget about the future of raising healthy,\n\n1343\n00:58:29.120 --> 00:58:34.280\nyou know, kind, strong, loving, empathetic boys too.\n\n1344\n00:58:34.280 --> 00:58:38.840\nThere's so much emphasis on girl power and girls\n\n1345\n00:58:38.840 --> 00:58:41.360\nwill change the world, but you know I'm a fan of.\n\n1346\n00:58:41.360 --> 00:58:43.920\nAnd I'm not saying we should forget them,\n\n1347\n00:58:43.920 --> 00:58:45.920\nbut we can't leave our boys behind.\n\n1348\n00:58:45.920 --> 00:58:48.960\nAnd I think the way we parent our boys\n\n1349\n00:58:48.960 --> 00:58:51.440\nis just as important as we parent our girls.\n\n1350\n00:58:51.440 --> 00:58:55.840\nAnd I do look forward to a world where all the genders\n\n1351\n00:58:55.840 --> 00:58:59.320\nare seen as good and loving and wonderful.\n\n1352\n00:58:59.320 --> 00:59:01.800\nAnd it's not like boys are bad or men are bad\n\n1353\n00:59:01.800 --> 00:59:05.080\nor women are this or women are that like I look forward\n\n1354\n00:59:05.080 --> 00:59:07.960\nand I pray that when my children are grown,\n\n1355\n00:59:07.960 --> 00:59:12.800\nwe won't be in this war of one, one doesn't like the other.\n\n1356\n00:59:12.800 --> 00:59:16.360\nAnd problems are being caused on one another by the other.\n\n1357\n00:59:16.360 --> 00:59:18.240\nAnd so, you know, motherhood has been\n\n1358\n00:59:18.240 --> 00:59:20.040\na really profound experience for me\n\n1359\n00:59:20.040 --> 00:59:22.320\n'cause it's so different than my leadership journey, right?\n\n1360\n00:59:22.320 --> 00:59:24.080\nOf being obsessed with girls and women.\n\n1361\n00:59:24.080 --> 00:59:26.440\nAnd so it's been a really fun experiment\n\n1362\n00:59:26.440 --> 00:59:30.880\nto learn love from all of these different corners.\n\n1363\n00:59:30.880 --> 00:59:33.400\n- You know, speaking of boys or men,\n\n1364\n00:59:33.400 --> 00:59:35.600\nyou know, you talked earlier on\n\n1365\n00:59:35.600 --> 00:59:37.760\nthat when you had this idea for Bumble,\n\n1366\n00:59:37.760 --> 00:59:39.800\nyour partner immediately thought it was a big idea.\n\n1367\n00:59:39.800 --> 00:59:42.520\nAnd you said your husband thought it was a big idea.\n\n1368\n00:59:42.520 --> 00:59:45.120\nYou know, how do you guys navigate\n\n1369\n00:59:45.120 --> 00:59:47.400\nall the stuff that's going on in your life together\n\n1370\n00:59:47.400 --> 00:59:49.960\nas a team, as in two leaders?\n\n1371\n00:59:49.960 --> 00:59:52.400\n- My husband is amazing.\n\n1372\n00:59:52.400 --> 00:59:55.120\nFunny enough, his mother was my college professor\n\n1373\n00:59:55.120 --> 00:59:58.240\nand my mentor in college, if you can believe it.\n\n1374\n00:59:58.240 --> 01:00:03.240\nAnd you know, we just, I think the key to a relationship\n\n1375\n01:00:03.520 --> 01:00:06.240\nwhen you have all this stuff going on\n\n1376\n01:00:06.240 --> 01:00:09.920\nis just making sure that you are always aligned on values.\n\n1377\n01:00:09.920 --> 01:00:11.720\nAnd this is what I try to tell the team at Bumble.\n\n1378\n01:00:11.720 --> 01:00:15.480\nI'm like, we don't need people to be perfectly compatible\n\n1379\n01:00:15.480 --> 01:00:17.880\nor the same, like my husband and I are polar opposites.\n\n1380\n01:00:17.880 --> 01:00:21.240\nHe's literally a cowboy, rides in the rodeo every week.\n\n1381\n01:00:21.240 --> 01:00:25.120\nAnd I'm a tech person, like we are so different,\n\n1382\n01:00:25.120 --> 01:00:29.080\nbut our values and our belief system are like puzzle pieces.\n\n1383\n01:00:29.080 --> 01:00:31.400\nAnd so I think that that is the most important thing\n\n1384\n01:00:31.400 --> 01:00:34.680\nfor people is just find your puzzle piece\n\n1385\n01:00:34.680 --> 01:00:37.040\non a values level.\n\n1386\n01:00:37.040 --> 01:00:40.720\nYou don't have to love every single same flavor of cereal\n\n1387\n01:00:40.720 --> 01:00:43.920\nand you don't have to love all the same TV shows.\n\n1388\n01:00:43.920 --> 01:00:46.120\nThat's not what compatibility is about.\n\n1389\n01:00:46.120 --> 01:00:48.400\n- And what do you see now,\n\n1390\n01:00:48.400 --> 01:00:51.160\nwhen he is your unfinished business?\n\n1391\n01:00:51.160 --> 01:00:52.840\n- Helping people love themselves.\n\n1392\n01:00:52.840 --> 01:00:55.120\nI think that's my next course.\n\n1393\n01:00:55.120 --> 01:00:58.240\nI've been in the business of love for a long time now\n\n1394\n01:00:58.240 --> 01:01:00.320\nsince I was 22 years old.\n\n1395\n01:01:00.320 --> 01:01:02.840\nAnd the biggest thing I learned is while everyone's\n\n1396\n01:01:02.840 --> 01:01:06.080\non the quest for love, they're in self-loathing.\n\n1397\n01:01:06.080 --> 01:01:08.440\nThey're in a lot of self-pain.\n\n1398\n01:01:08.440 --> 01:01:12.560\nAnd so I think my life mission is to really broaden\n\n1399\n01:01:12.560 --> 01:01:15.400\nthe lens of what love business looks like.\n\n1400\n01:01:15.400 --> 01:01:17.080\nAnd it's not just about finding another.\n\n1401\n01:01:17.080 --> 01:01:19.400\nIt's about learning how to find yourself,\n\n1402\n01:01:19.400 --> 01:01:21.320\naccept yourself, love yourself,\n\n1403\n01:01:21.320 --> 01:01:24.000\nand then find great people to share life with.\n\n1404\n01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:25.440\n- And last question here.\n\n1405\n01:01:25.440 --> 01:01:28.000\nWhat's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone\n\n1406\n01:01:28.000 --> 01:01:29.480\nwho wants to be a better leader?\n\n1407\n01:01:29.480 --> 01:01:33.000\n- Oh gosh, I would say, you know, don't try to be perfect.\n\n1408\n01:01:33.000 --> 01:01:35.920\nJust try to be really yourself.\n\n1409\n01:01:35.920 --> 01:01:38.680\nAnd I think you can see with me,\n\n1410\n01:01:38.680 --> 01:01:41.440\nI mean, I'm not perfect at all.\n\n1411\n01:01:41.440 --> 01:01:43.520\nAnd I've got a million flaws,\n\n1412\n01:01:43.520 --> 01:01:45.320\nbut you don't need to be perfect.\n\n1413\n01:01:45.320 --> 01:01:48.560\nJust lean into the things that you know you're good at,\n\n1414\n01:01:48.560 --> 01:01:50.240\nand then inspire everyone around you\n\n1415\n01:01:50.240 --> 01:01:52.160\nto do everything else.\n\n1416\n01:01:52.160 --> 01:01:56.240\n- Winnie, I do a podcast every week.\n\n1417\n01:01:56.240 --> 01:01:59.040\nThis is going down is one of my favorites.\n\n1418\n01:01:59.040 --> 01:02:02.080\nI mean, you are an amazing person.\n\n1419\n01:02:02.080 --> 01:02:06.040\nAnd I love just your guts, your courage,\n\n1420\n01:02:06.040 --> 01:02:11.040\nand your intuition, the braveness that you have\n\n1421\n01:02:11.040 --> 01:02:14.920\nto follow your heart and to pursue what's important to you.\n\n1422\n01:02:14.920 --> 01:02:16.760\nAnd, you know, I love it when I see someone\n\n1423\n01:02:16.760 --> 01:02:19.600\nwho has a mission and a purpose in their life.\n\n1424\n01:02:19.600 --> 01:02:23.480\nAnd I've found this whole conversation extremely inspiring.\n\n1425\n01:02:23.480 --> 01:02:25.120\nI wanna thank you very much.\n\n1426\n01:02:25.120 --> 01:02:25.960\n- Oh, thank you.\n\n1427\n01:02:25.960 --> 01:02:28.400\nAnd those are the kindest words that I'm honored\n\n1428\n01:02:28.400 --> 01:02:29.240\nto have been here.\n\n1429\n01:02:29.240 --> 01:02:30.480\nI had so much fun with you.\n\n1430\n01:02:30.480 --> 01:02:32.240\nAnd we could have talked for 25 hours.\n\n1431\n01:02:32.240 --> 01:02:34.280\nSo to be continued.\n\n1432\n01:02:34.280 --> 01:02:42.600\n- David, I have been wanting to get Whitney Wolford\n\n1433\n01:02:42.600 --> 01:02:46.280\non this podcast ever since I started working on this podcast\n\n1434\n01:02:46.280 --> 01:02:47.640\nmore than three years ago.\n\n1435\n01:02:47.640 --> 01:02:50.400\nAnd we finally did it, and you crushed it.\n\n1436\n01:02:50.400 --> 01:02:52.400\nThis episode is incredible.\n\n1437\n01:02:52.400 --> 01:02:53.240\n(laughs)\n\n1438\n01:02:53.240 --> 01:02:55.000\n- Well, she crushed it.\n\n1439\n01:02:55.000 --> 01:02:57.800\n- She is my business superhero.\n\n1440\n01:02:57.800 --> 01:02:59.600\n- Well, you know what?\n\n1441\n01:02:59.600 --> 01:03:04.600\nCool, the thing about this conversation that I loved,\n\n1442\n01:03:04.600 --> 01:03:07.560\npeople talk about mission all the time,\n\n1443\n01:03:07.560 --> 01:03:10.000\nbut in her case, you know,\n\n1444\n01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:13.200\nmission really is the mobilizer.\n\n1445\n01:03:13.200 --> 01:03:16.080\nYou know, it's the thing that really drives\n\n1446\n01:03:16.080 --> 01:03:18.440\neverything that she does.\n\n1447\n01:03:18.440 --> 01:03:21.760\nAnd she's out there with the mission\n\n1448\n01:03:21.760 --> 01:03:23.860\nto help people find love.\n\n1449\n01:03:24.800 --> 01:03:29.800\nAnd she's tackled it in such creative ways\n\n1450\n01:03:29.800 --> 01:03:32.680\nto how she marketed it early on,\n\n1451\n01:03:32.680 --> 01:03:35.600\nwhere she would have people come in\n\n1452\n01:03:35.600 --> 01:03:39.840\nand run in and interrupt classes and colleges\n\n1453\n01:03:39.840 --> 01:03:44.080\nwith a bumble t-shirt on.\n\n1454\n01:03:44.080 --> 01:03:48.040\nYou know, just such novel ideas like that,\n\n1455\n01:03:48.040 --> 01:03:51.000\nyou know, which really just provide creativity.\n\n1456\n01:03:51.000 --> 01:03:52.840\nAnd now she's using AI.\n\n1457\n01:03:52.840 --> 01:03:55.880\nI mean, she thinks AI is going to help her\n\n1458\n01:03:55.880 --> 01:03:57.480\na lot more love in the world.\n\n1459\n01:03:57.480 --> 01:03:58.960\nBut when she gets up every day,\n\n1460\n01:03:58.960 --> 01:04:00.320\nshe's thinking about love\n\n1461\n01:04:00.320 --> 01:04:02.160\nand now how to spread it all around the world.\n\n1462\n01:04:02.160 --> 01:04:03.080\nI just love that.\n\n1463\n01:04:03.080 --> 01:04:05.760\nAnd, you know, that really makes her tick.\n\n1464\n01:04:05.760 --> 01:04:07.440\nAnd it's a big driver.\n\n1465\n01:04:07.440 --> 01:04:08.280\n- I love it too.\n\n1466\n01:04:08.280 --> 01:04:11.520\nAnd Bumble actually just launched this global campaign\n\n1467\n01:04:11.520 --> 01:04:13.560\ncalled \"For the Love of Love.\"\n\n1468\n01:04:13.560 --> 01:04:14.960\nDavid, I don't know if you've seen it,\n\n1469\n01:04:14.960 --> 01:04:17.440\nbut there are billboards all over the big cities\n\n1470\n01:04:17.440 --> 01:04:20.800\nacross the world, New York, LA, Paris, London,\n\n1471\n01:04:20.800 --> 01:04:24.000\nand it's real life Bumble couples\n\n1472\n01:04:24.000 --> 01:04:26.280\nwho have met each other on Bumble,\n\n1473\n01:04:26.280 --> 01:04:28.760\nfallen in love, committed their lives to one another.\n\n1474\n01:04:28.760 --> 01:04:31.000\nAnd it's all about telling their stories\n\n1475\n01:04:31.000 --> 01:04:36.080\nand how Bumble was the thing that created that moment\n\n1476\n01:04:36.080 --> 01:04:37.320\nwhere they were able to find love.\n\n1477\n01:04:37.320 --> 01:04:39.680\nAnd the campaign is gorgeous and brilliant\n\n1478\n01:04:39.680 --> 01:04:41.160\nand the creative is amazing.\n\n1479\n01:04:41.160 --> 01:04:43.720\nAnd they've also started doing these little activations\n\n1480\n01:04:43.720 --> 01:04:44.800\nall over these big cities.\n\n1481\n01:04:44.800 --> 01:04:47.240\nSo the other day I was driving through Nashville\n\n1482\n01:04:47.240 --> 01:04:50.200\nand saw one of these \"For the Love of Love\" activations.\n\n1483\n01:04:50.200 --> 01:04:53.320\nWhen he said, you know, we get so many letters\n\n1484\n01:04:53.320 --> 01:04:55.680\nfrom our members saying that, you know,\n\n1485\n01:04:55.680 --> 01:04:56.760\nthey found love on Bumble.\n\n1486\n01:04:56.760 --> 01:04:58.600\nThey're so grateful for Bumble.\n\n1487\n01:04:58.600 --> 01:05:01.600\nThey get, you know, save the dates and wedding invitations\n\n1488\n01:05:01.600 --> 01:05:03.960\nfor couples that have met on Bumble.\n\n1489\n01:05:03.960 --> 01:05:06.640\nAnd she's like, we had to do something\n\n1490\n01:05:06.640 --> 01:05:08.560\nwith all the stuff that we got.\n\n1491\n01:05:08.560 --> 01:05:10.760\nAnd so they have these activations everywhere\n\n1492\n01:05:10.760 --> 01:05:14.040\nwhere, you know, people are reading these RSVP letters\n\n1493\n01:05:14.040 --> 01:05:16.200\nand trying to create their own stories of love.\n\n1494\n01:05:16.200 --> 01:05:20.240\nSo it really is more than just lip service, you know?\n\n1495\n01:05:20.240 --> 01:05:22.800\nLike when she says she's in the business of love,\n\n1496\n01:05:22.800 --> 01:05:24.120\nlike, okay, that's nice.\n\n1497\n01:05:24.120 --> 01:05:27.000\nBut it actually is driving everything they do\n\n1498\n01:05:27.000 --> 01:05:30.080\nfrom marketing to tech to product roadmaps\n\n1499\n01:05:30.080 --> 01:05:31.840\nto employee engagement, everything.\n\n1500\n01:05:31.840 --> 01:05:33.640\n- And didn't you just love how she thinks?\n\n1501\n01:05:33.640 --> 01:05:36.000\nYou know, she thinks in such different ways.\n\n1502\n01:05:36.000 --> 01:05:38.760\nAnd even the creation of Bumble, you know,\n\n1503\n01:05:38.760 --> 01:05:42.240\nshe really, you know, thought about, you know,\n\n1504\n01:05:42.240 --> 01:05:45.480\nwhat can really make Bumble different than Tinder\n\n1505\n01:05:45.480 --> 01:05:47.440\nand other offerings out there.\n\n1506\n01:05:47.440 --> 01:05:50.880\nAnd it just hit her one day, you know?\n\n1507\n01:05:50.880 --> 01:05:54.600\nLike ideas do that, you know, let's let the woman\n\n1508\n01:05:54.600 --> 01:05:56.000\nmake the decision.\n\n1509\n01:05:56.000 --> 01:05:58.640\nAnd, you know, and then she simplifies it.\n\n1510\n01:05:58.640 --> 01:06:03.040\nAnd I love the Sadie Hawkins dance idea, you know?\n\n1511\n01:06:03.040 --> 01:06:06.160\nAnd I remember that, you know, I remember what it was like\n\n1512\n01:06:06.160 --> 01:06:09.040\nto actually get asked that she was kind of a crazy lady\n\n1513\n01:06:09.040 --> 01:06:12.680\nto do it, but she asked me to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance\n\n1514\n01:06:12.680 --> 01:06:14.760\n'cause it was the woman making the decision.\n\n1515\n01:06:14.760 --> 01:06:17.200\nAnd she talked about how this was a dance\n\n1516\n01:06:17.200 --> 01:06:20.360\nthat everybody always looked forward to as a woman.\n\n1517\n01:06:20.360 --> 01:06:23.680\nWhat she basically did is she scaled that idea.\n\n1518\n01:06:23.680 --> 01:06:26.560\nAnd, you know, she also solved the problem.\n\n1519\n01:06:26.560 --> 01:06:29.880\nYou know, that, you know, women don't always want to be,\n\n1520\n01:06:29.880 --> 01:06:30.920\nyou know, asked out.\n\n1521\n01:06:30.920 --> 01:06:34.240\nThey'd like to do the asking or do the selecting.\n\n1522\n01:06:34.240 --> 01:06:36.920\nAnd I love that as well.\n\n1523\n01:06:36.920 --> 01:06:39.880\nBut she's just a tremendous thinker.\n\n1524\n01:06:39.880 --> 01:06:44.880\nAnd she disrupts the category by thinking through\n\n1525\n01:06:44.880 --> 01:06:49.800\nthe customer and the issues associated\n\n1526\n01:06:49.800 --> 01:06:52.520\nwith the customer as well as the opportunities.\n\n1527\n01:06:52.520 --> 01:06:56.080\n- I love to, you know, Whitney was the youngest woman\n\n1528\n01:06:56.080 --> 01:06:58.040\nto ever take a company public.\n\n1529\n01:06:58.040 --> 01:07:00.520\nShe's the youngest. - How old was she, Kula?\n\n1530\n01:07:00.520 --> 01:07:03.280\n- I think she was like 32.\n\n1531\n01:07:03.280 --> 01:07:05.400\nSo she's the youngest woman ever take a company public.\n\n1532\n01:07:05.400 --> 01:07:07.160\nShe's the youngest female billionaire.\n\n1533\n01:07:07.160 --> 01:07:08.680\nShe's got all these accolades, you know,\n\n1534\n01:07:08.680 --> 01:07:11.880\ntime 100 lists, four of 30 under 30, all these things.\n\n1535\n01:07:11.880 --> 01:07:16.680\nAnd yet she is still so down to earth and grounded.\n\n1536\n01:07:16.680 --> 01:07:18.760\nAnd I love in the episode when she talks about\n\n1537\n01:07:18.760 --> 01:07:21.000\nhow she's kind of come to that place.\n\n1538\n01:07:21.000 --> 01:07:23.280\nShe really focuses on, you know,\n\n1539\n01:07:23.280 --> 01:07:26.280\nwhat is my measuring stick of success?\n\n1540\n01:07:26.280 --> 01:07:29.120\nLike if I let all of these external accolades\n\n1541\n01:07:29.120 --> 01:07:31.840\nbe the thing that fuels me, like I'm losing,\n\n1542\n01:07:31.840 --> 01:07:33.440\nI'm losing sight of what's really important.\n\n1543\n01:07:33.440 --> 01:07:35.480\nI'm losing touch with my family,\n\n1544\n01:07:35.480 --> 01:07:37.360\nwith my members at Bumble,\n\n1545\n01:07:37.360 --> 01:07:38.720\nwith the people that I work with.\n\n1546\n01:07:38.720 --> 01:07:41.280\nAnd so one of the things she really urges,\n\n1547\n01:07:41.280 --> 01:07:43.800\nespecially women to do is to take a look\n\n1548\n01:07:43.800 --> 01:07:46.800\nat your measuring stick and figure out, you know,\n\n1549\n01:07:46.800 --> 01:07:49.920\nwhat it is that really matters to you.\n\n1550\n01:07:49.920 --> 01:07:52.040\n- Yeah. And I think, you know,\n\n1551\n01:07:52.040 --> 01:07:54.000\nwhen you can find what really matters to you,\n\n1552\n01:07:54.000 --> 01:07:55.480\nit gives you purpose in your life.\n\n1553\n01:07:55.480 --> 01:07:57.680\nAnd then, and when you're really lucky,\n\n1554\n01:07:57.680 --> 01:07:59.520\nyou can bring that purpose to business.\n\n1555\n01:07:59.520 --> 01:08:01.840\nAnd that's what's happened with her.\n\n1556\n01:08:01.840 --> 01:08:06.840\nAnd, you know, she's gone through a number of tough parts\n\n1557\n01:08:07.320 --> 01:08:08.200\nof her life.\n\n1558\n01:08:08.200 --> 01:08:12.000\nAnd she's decided that she's gonna pick herself up\n\n1559\n01:08:12.000 --> 01:08:14.000\nand learn from him and keep trying\n\n1560\n01:08:14.000 --> 01:08:15.920\nto make the world a better place.\n\n1561\n01:08:15.920 --> 01:08:18.200\nWhen you're as high profile as her,\n\n1562\n01:08:18.200 --> 01:08:19.960\nand people are watching you all the time,\n\n1563\n01:08:19.960 --> 01:08:22.320\nand, you know, to have that kind of pressure,\n\n1564\n01:08:22.320 --> 01:08:24.640\nto have that kind of intensity, you know,\n\n1565\n01:08:24.640 --> 01:08:26.920\ndirected towards you at such a young age,\n\n1566\n01:08:26.920 --> 01:08:29.040\nI can only imagine.\n\n1567\n01:08:29.040 --> 01:08:32.640\nBut I think this is a person that is learning every day\n\n1568\n01:08:32.640 --> 01:08:35.800\nand is going to become wiser and wiser over the years.\n\n1569\n01:08:35.800 --> 01:08:39.520\nSo, you know, I really love this conversation.\n\n1570\n01:08:39.520 --> 01:08:40.360\n- I love it too.\n\n1571\n01:08:40.360 --> 01:08:41.200\nI love it too.\n\n1572\n01:08:41.200 --> 01:08:43.240\nOne more thing, David, that I wanna just kind of like\n\n1573\n01:08:43.240 --> 01:08:48.240\nget you to debrief is, you know, Whitney took Bumble Public.\n\n1574\n01:08:48.240 --> 01:08:50.120\nShe stepped away as CEO.\n\n1575\n01:08:50.120 --> 01:08:53.480\nAnd then within, I think a year actually came back\n\n1576\n01:08:53.480 --> 01:08:56.400\nand took over as CEO again.\n\n1577\n01:08:56.400 --> 01:08:58.560\nAnd you talked to her in the episode\n\n1578\n01:08:58.560 --> 01:09:01.400\nabout how hard it was for her to kind of give up control.\n\n1579\n01:09:01.400 --> 01:09:02.400\nBumble is her baby.\n\n1580\n01:09:02.400 --> 01:09:03.800\nShe took it public.\n\n1581\n01:09:03.800 --> 01:09:07.040\nShe's grown it to millions and millions of members worldwide.\n\n1582\n01:09:07.040 --> 01:09:09.000\nAnd her answer really struck me.\n\n1583\n01:09:09.000 --> 01:09:12.000\nAnd I think that this kind of plays into the whole concept\n\n1584\n01:09:12.000 --> 01:09:13.320\nof focusing on the mission.\n\n1585\n01:09:13.320 --> 01:09:15.520\nShe says, you know, when she came back as CEO,\n\n1586\n01:09:15.520 --> 01:09:17.680\nthe only reason she was able to come back\n\n1587\n01:09:17.680 --> 01:09:19.440\nis because she had already given up control.\n\n1588\n01:09:19.440 --> 01:09:21.720\nShe says, I don't wanna make every decision.\n\n1589\n01:09:21.720 --> 01:09:23.200\nI'm done being the boss.\n\n1590\n01:09:23.200 --> 01:09:25.360\nI'm in it for the love.\n\n1591\n01:09:25.360 --> 01:09:27.320\nI'm in it for the mission.\n\n1592\n01:09:27.320 --> 01:09:30.720\nAnd so this concept of, you know, having control\n\n1593\n01:09:30.720 --> 01:09:33.840\nover everything versus having growth of your mission,\n\n1594\n01:09:33.840 --> 01:09:38.560\nit's a tension that a lot of leaders and founders face a lot.\n\n1595\n01:09:38.560 --> 01:09:40.480\nBut in Whitney's case, you know, she's focused\n\n1596\n01:09:40.480 --> 01:09:42.920\non the mission now and I think that they're well\n\n1597\n01:09:42.920 --> 01:09:46.920\nin their way to continuing to take over the dating suit.\n\n1598\n01:09:46.920 --> 01:09:49.800\n- Well, I think that's her growth, her personal growth\n\n1599\n01:09:49.800 --> 01:09:52.640\nis she realized that as that company has scaled\n\n1600\n01:09:52.640 --> 01:09:54.400\nthat she can't be in control of everything.\n\n1601\n01:09:54.400 --> 01:09:57.920\nBut what she can do is really evangelize, you know,\n\n1602\n01:09:57.920 --> 01:09:59.560\nthe purpose for the company.\n\n1603\n01:09:59.560 --> 01:10:02.680\nAnd I noticed how she gave credit to her people\n\n1604\n01:10:02.680 --> 01:10:05.840\nfor the ideas that were coming forward\n\n1605\n01:10:05.840 --> 01:10:07.720\nand the things that were gonna change her company\n\n1606\n01:10:07.720 --> 01:10:09.360\nis as she moves ahead.\n\n1607\n01:10:09.360 --> 01:10:14.360\nBut she's focused now on AI and using AI\n\n1608\n01:10:14.360 --> 01:10:19.360\nin every possible way to figure out how to mobilize love\n\n1609\n01:10:19.360 --> 01:10:21.080\naround the world.\n\n1610\n01:10:21.080 --> 01:10:22.960\nAnd that's the mission.\n\n1611\n01:10:22.960 --> 01:10:26.960\nAnd I also loved how she not only is using AI\n\n1612\n01:10:26.960 --> 01:10:30.080\nto grow her business, I love it how she's using AI\n\n1613\n01:10:30.080 --> 01:10:30.920\nto grow herself.\n\n1614\n01:10:30.920 --> 01:10:34.880\nI mean, she's created her own coach through AI,\n\n1615\n01:10:34.880 --> 01:10:38.200\nuses AI every day to get customer feedback.\n\n1616\n01:10:38.200 --> 01:10:40.120\nYou know, she's a great example, I think,\n\n1617\n01:10:40.120 --> 01:10:41.840\nfor the contemporary leader.\n\n1618\n01:10:41.840 --> 01:10:43.720\n- Well, David, for the love of love,\n\n1619\n01:10:43.720 --> 01:10:45.520\ngreat job on this conversation.\n\n1620\n01:10:45.520 --> 01:10:48.400\n(both laughing)\n\n1621\n01:10:48.400 --> 01:10:49.920\nWell, that does it for our episode\n\n1622\n01:10:49.920 --> 01:10:52.720\nof How Leaders Lead for Today for the Love of Love.\n\n1623\n01:10:52.720 --> 01:10:54.000\nWe'll see you next week.\n\n1624\n01:10:56.960 --> 01:10:59.540\n(upbeat 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