When building hair millions of dollars company Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble, was once inspired by another successful manager: Jeff Bezos.
The flock sometimes watched videos of Bezos speaking, and in one of them, “he said something I’ll never forget and I agree with 1,000%,” she told CNBC Make It in 2019.
The gist was that “when people can hide behind a screen, when they are essentially anonymous, they lose their kindness gene,” said Wolfe Herd.
Indeed, an Amazon spokesperson told The New York Times in 2001 that Bezos had said, “There is something about email that turns off the politeness gene in people.”
The quote resonated with Wolfe Herd: “That’s been a guiding principle for me, because we’ve always tried to take responsibility in everything we do [at Bumble]
For example, in 2018, Bumble banned images of weapons on the platform.
“Ultimately, online behavior can both reflect and predict how people interact in the real world,” the company wrote on its website at the time. “Bumble has a responsibility to our community and a greater goal of encouraging offline accountability.”
Some argue that dating apps have problems in this area – in February, Slate reported “liability and transparency issues” on several sites, including Bumble.
But when Bumble went public in February, Wolfe Herd echoed the sentiment.
“People build meaningful digital relationships first, and then the physical follows,” she told Reuters. “This really is a phenomenal shift towards safety and technical more responsible experiences.”
In the company’s first quarterly report since its release on Wednesday, Bumble reported higher-than-expected revenue of $ 165.6 million. While Bumble also reported a net loss of $ 26.1 million, the company had 2.7 million paying users for the fourth quarter, which is an increase of 32.5% from the fourth quarter of 2019. When asked about the growth of Bumble on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Wolfe Herd cited the company’s commitment to “safety and accountability.”
“We’ve always been committed to … protecting the customer and really focusing on the needs of women,” Wolfe Herd told CNBC on Thursday. “This drives user acquisition, engagement and converts paying customers.”
Bumble did not immediately respond to CNBC Make It’s’s request for comment.
—Reporting by Sarah Berger
Checking out: Use this calculator to see exactly how much your third coronavirus stimulus check could be worth
Do not miss: