Pod Insights How to Be a Better Human The future of finding love with Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd | ReThinking with Adam Grant About this episode What will dating look like in the age of AI? Whitney Wolfe Herd is the founder and CEO of Bumble, the popular dating app that has helped millions of people meet their match. In this episode, Whitney chats with Adam about her vision for the future of dating online and offline, her decision to take a break from leading Bumble, and the importance of platonic love. They also debate whether or not you have to learn to love yourself before loving someone else, and imagine a world in which AI agents vet potential partners before a first date.
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Host: Adam Grant (Instagram: @adamgrant https://www.instagram.com/adamgrant/ | LinkedIn: @adammgrant https://www.linkedin.com/in/adammgrant | Website: adamgrant.net/ http://adamgrant.net/)
Guest: Whitney Wolfe Herd (Instagram: @whitney https://www.instagram.com/whitney/)
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0:00 Chris Duffy? With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com/bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.
0:34 Chris Duffy? This episode is sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Here's a question this show asks a lot. What can one person actually do? Take protecting the environment. When the task feels so big, it's hard to know where to even begin. Turns out, the answer isn't doing it alone. It's teaming up with people who care as much as you do. With the help of 3 million supporters, the Natural Resources Defense Council is in court to defend ancient forests, pristine coasts, and the wildlife that depend on them. None of these places or species can be replaced. They're still here because people fought for them, in and out of court. And that fight needs your support today. Donate at nrdc.org/human, and your gift will be matched five times.
1:20 Chris Duffy? Hey, everyone. Chris Duffy here. On How to Be a Better Human, we try to offer you advice that might change the way you think about your life. And today, I want to share another podcast with you that I think might also make you think differently. It's actually called Rethinking, and it's Rethinking with Adam Grant. Now, if you don't already know Adam Grant's work, he's incredible. He's an organizational psychologist who explores the science of what makes us tick. And each week on his show, Adam talks to some of the world's most fascinating and influential people to uncover bold insights and surprising science that can make us all a little bit smarter. If you liked this episode, and I think you're going to, you can find more episodes of Rethinking with Adam Grant wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back with How to Be a Better Human next week. But for now, on to the show.
2:05 Speaker 01 I think we can do better in this next era, right? That was the mobile era. We're in the era of AI. And I want to make sure that we use AI to make love more human again. I don't want it to become devoid of human touch.
2:19 Speaker 02 Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast with Ted on the science of what makes us tick. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.
2:37 Speaker 02 Whitney Wolfe Herd has transformed the way that people find love. She co-founded Tinder and then became the founder and CEO of Bumble, which has more than 50 million active users. At a time when many people are fatigued with dating apps, Whitney has a new vision for the company she launched.
2:52 Speaker 01 You know, my whole goal is like, let's get you online to get you offline, so you can have that real human magic take place.
3:00 Speaker 02 I wanted to talk with her about the future of dating, but there was something else I had to ask about first.
3:07 Speaker 02 You did some rethinking recently. You stepped down from Bumble and now you're back as CEO, so I want to hear the backstory. Why'd you leave? Why'd you return?
3:17 Speaker 01 Well, I, you know, I had been in this building founder mode era since I was 22 years old. And I think it just became a part of who I was. And I had never really taken a break, ever. And if you think about the decade that we all lived through, you know, I went from Tinder to a lawsuit, to starting Bumble, to building Bumble, to selling Bumble, then taking Bumble public, pandemics in the middle, two babies in the middle, all the, all the things life throws at you. And I was super burnt out. I was exhausted.
3:58 Speaker 01 And I think, you know, I woke up one morning and just didn't really feel alive anymore inside and just felt like I had lost my joy. And I love Bumble. I've always loved Bumble, but I needed to find who I was outside of Bumble. So I took a breather and I actually had no intention of going back, Adam, but I realized, you know, with all the twists and the turns, Bumble and I, we weren't done. So I'm back with renewed purpose and perspective.
4:32 Speaker 02 How are you different as a leader now?
4:35 Speaker 01 I would say the biggest difference is their space. I, I don't think Bumble is the end of the world anymore. So when I was leading the company beforehand, all I had in my mind, everything that existed on planet Earth was Bumble. It was my whole life. It was my bubble. And when I stepped away for a year, I realized that Bumble is just one component of my life. I learned how to gear shift. I was stuck in the same gear for a decade. And I came back and now I know how to shift gears. So even in a day, we could have tough things going on and I know how to shift out of that gear into the next gear, compartmentalize, have focus, have, have clarity, have control over my thoughts.
5:20 Speaker 01 And I didn't have that before.
5:22 Speaker 02 It sounds like along with compartmentalizing, you also de-identified a little bit with Bumble.
5:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:28 Speaker 02 I'm, I'm thinking about organizational identification. And when we study it, we often use an overlapping circles measure where we say, okay, one circle is your identity as a person. The other circle is the organization's identity. Who are they and what do they stand for? And then, you know, are the circles totally separate? Do they partially overlap? Like Bumble's circle and your circle were one in the same.
5:48 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
5:49 Speaker 02 And now they're a little bit more separate and they overlap only partially. Is that accurate?
5:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, first of all, I think that's a brilliant framework. And the short answer is for a decade, the circles were on top of each other. I, I don't even know where one began and the other one ended. They were completely intertwined and it, it was suffocating, probably to team members as well, because if that was my whole circle, then it was expected to be their whole circle. And now I would say that the circle is completely separated for about a year. Right? It was a forced separation where I almost went to the extreme where I stopped wearing the Bumble hats and I kind of took all the yellow out of my closet and really went on this like breakup with Bumble, if that makes sense, to force an identity reset and to
6:38 Speaker 01 really force myself to carve out my own circle. And now with me returning after a little over a year away, it was like I brought that circle together to create harmony and like this nice overlap. But they don't suffocate each other anymore and they don't blend in an unhealthy way anymore. And I think that You know, I, I really am doing my best to maintain those boundaries because Adam, I don't know if you've seen this, but I don't think the circles are cemented. I think they can move. And I think the more you practice keeping those circles in the place that feels healthy
7:23 Speaker 01 and, and good for you, the better. But if you lose sight of it, they can start to kind of overlap too much or pull apart too much. So I like to check in with myself. Even yesterday I said to my husband, I said, I think I'm feeling a little bit burnt out. And I just left my phone at home for two, three hours. I took a walk, I went with the kids and I felt better afterwards. So now it's like really making sure those circles stay in a healthy position.
7:49 Speaker 02 I think that most of the investors and board members I know, they want CEOs and founders who, who have no, no space between the circles. They want you to live and breathe and sleep your mission and your company and your values. So tell me more about suffocation and what was so problematic about that?
8:12 Speaker 01 Well, I'd have come back a much better CEO. I actually don't think it's healthy when people can't see outside of themselves or outside of their organization. I actually think it's where you start to lose sight. It's almost like you live in a vortex, in a bubble and you can't see things from the outside. The biggest gift I was given with that year plus away was I was able to see Bumble from a different altitude, from a different lens. When you're always looking at something from the inside, from the center, from the nucleus, your perspective is inherently different than being able to kind of zoom out and take a pause and step out and look at it from a different corner of the room. I do think a lot of founders, you know, a lot of them, I know a lot of them, some of them are my best friends.
8:58 Speaker 01 It's it's almost such an insular view that it's impossible to be the customer. It's impossible to be the competitor. It's impossible to be the naysayer. You cannot wear those shoes if you are unwilling to step out of this like center stage role. And candidly, I'll be frank with you. I do believe there are seasons and starting a company. I'm not entirely sure you can get a company off the ground without that crazy obsession. I don't think Bumble would be where it was today had I not had those circles so on top of each other. But I think at a certain point, you have to outgrow it and you have to evolve and you have to allow
9:43 Speaker 01 growth to take place, or you stifle your opportunity. That's my fundamental belief.
9:49 Speaker 02 So it sounds like you're saying that whatever you might lose in terms of the sheer time and energy devoted to the company, that cost is outweighed by the benefit of having more perspective.
10:02 Speaker 01 Yes, I think perspective is the most underrated asset for a CEO or for a founder.
10:09 Speaker 02 You definitely seem less stressed now.
10:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm less stressed now, thank God.
10:15 Speaker 02 That's a good thing. The other thing, though, that I'm wondering about is, is there such a thing as too much perspective? There's a version of this, you know, of separating the circles that that basically leads to, eh, Bumble is just a company. Like companies, you know, they get founded and they grow and they die. And at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.
10:36 Speaker 01 I actually feel very opposite to that. I see Bumble as a catalyst to the thing I care most about in the world. So I see Bumble as more than a company. I see Bumble as a vehicle to deliver love to people's lives. And if I thought of it as just a mere company, I probably wouldn't be back at CEO, candidly, Adam. I would have gone and done something else. I cannot find something on planet Earth that feels more important to me than helping bring the world closer to love, especially in this moment of division, of loneliness,
11:16 Speaker 01 of people falling in love with their chatbots. I think we are at one of the more interesting moments to lean into love in all formats. And I think I went on this quest of self-love for a year, Adam, and what I realized was, oh, my God, I've walked away from the most powerful vehicle I have, which is Bumble, to actually scale and facilitate love for human beings around the world. I can't let it die. So that's why I'm back, because Bumble needs to outlive me. This opportunity with Bumble is something I cannot let fail under any circumstances.
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14:50 Speaker 02 Listening to you describe your passion for the mission, I'm realizing what I was hearing was you saying an app is not that important. But Bumble is much bigger than an app.
15:02 Speaker 01 Bumble is so much bigger than just an app. And I actually think apps are going to be irrelevant in a couple of years. So, you know, the, the high level goal with Bumble as a company beyond it being an app is to really build the world's smartest, most emotionally intelligent matchmaker. But that starts with matching you with yourself. So how do we actually use Bumble to help you get to know yourself, get to understand yourself so that you know when you're actually ready or not ready for a relationship with others? How can we use it as a vehicle to both find your person with Bumble, which is dating, and then find your people with Bumble BFF, which is Bumble for friends? So I see this living both online and offline. I see this being integrated into whatever future tech we're all living with, whether
15:47 Speaker 01 that's some device we're not even familiar with yet, or if it's a humanoid in your home. I mean, Bumble will outlive the iPhone, is my hope.
15:57 Speaker 02 Wow. A future with no apps. This is such an interesting and enticing vision. One of the things I have to react to that you said a minute ago is that you wanted to scale love. And maybe I'm just overreacting to Silicon Valley speak, but I'm like, you can't scale love. The whole point of love is that it's not scalable. Does that tension bother you at all?
16:19 Speaker 01 Well, I think maybe we're thinking about scale in different ways. Because scaling love, I don't mean in a social network capacity, like more members, more downloads, more this, more that. I'm not doing the like Silicon Valley jargon when I say that. I actually mean, how do we help people like themselves again? How do we help people out of this rut of loneliness? I think we're in a self-hatred epidemic. I actually think we're walking around with people who have been trained to hate themselves through social media, through candidly, the dating apps, right? I think we've had a role in, in the disconnection and the lack of real
17:02 Speaker 01 Connectivity, right? I don't mean digitally. I mean, real eye contact, real connectivity. And so I don't think Bumble's perfect right now. I don't like a lot of current Bumble. And that's what the team is actively rebuilding as we speak. But from where we started 11 years ago, there's no way to argue against the impact it's had in the world. I mean, I can't go to a grocery store without meeting Bumble couples. I literally don't go outside my house without meeting someone who met on Bumble. So it's quite magical, or whether that was another dating app. I think, you know, one to two to four people meet online now. And so when I say let's scale love, I mean, let's use the power of technology,
17:46 Speaker 01 which inherently has scale. We have millions and millions of people. How can we actually use technology and these millions of profiles that we have to bring love back online?
17:59 Speaker 02 Glad to hear that. You know, at some level, this is much easier for Bumble BFF than it is for dating. Because with friends, physical attraction is mostly off the table. With with couples, I don't need to tell you how how much more difficult it is to design to overcome that problem. And you made major headlines not too long ago with some provocative comments about how our own AI concierges are basically going to date each other to try to screen, like, okay, are you a major mismatch? Do you have deal breakers? Do you really think this is going to happen?
18:38 Speaker 01 Okay, so this is hilarious. I was speaking to a couple, like, top people in AI recently. And they said, you know what you should do? You should build dating agents for everyone, and then the agents talk to other agents. And they essentially go through thousands of agents and they declare who is right for you and who is not. And I said this and I got basically laughed off the stage. But it's not wrong, because if you look at the way AI agents are being used in so many industries, this is already happening. People have already built this capability in other functions. And candidly, Adam, if you have the data that I have,
19:22 Speaker 01 some of the biggest complaints that people have with with dating apps is dead end matches. Like, people end up on these dates and they're like, oh. That person is wrong for me. Like, why did I waste my time and energy going out and meeting someone who I had nothing really in common with? You don't have to replace the humanity in love. You can actually just save people time, effort, stress, rejection, judgment by leveraging technology to actually procure better compatibility, right? And so, is this tomorrow? No. Is this a reality in the future? Certainly. And if I don't do it, somebody else will.
20:04 Speaker 01 I've already been pitched three or four companies that are doing precisely this in the last few months. So it's not that obscure when you think about it. And frankly, everyone laughed at us too in 2012 with Tinder and laughed at me with Bumble in 2014, like, oh, you're gonna meet a stranger on an app? Oh, that's so crazy. Why would anyone do that? Well, you blink 10 years later, everyone's gotten married off one of these apps. So, you know, everything seems crazy until it doesn't.
20:32 Speaker 02 What does this look like, though? Is there essentially gonna be an AI agent that's swiping left on people?
20:38 Speaker 01 No, I think-
20:39 Speaker 02 Are they gonna dialogue? And do you arm your AI with a list of questions to ask? What does this actually mean?
20:45 Speaker 01 Here's what it actually could look like. It's not so dissimilar from current day algorithms, right? Machine learning is essentially looking at signals and matching you accordingly, right? So it's all about predictability and preferences and personalization. It's not supposed to be so crazy and out there in sci-fi. It's really just about better predictability because I think if you were to go around and chat with a bunch of singles that are using Bumble or various other apps, it's kind of needle in a haystack. You're kind of just playing a guessing game until something works out. And we don't want you to do that. We want this to be really relevant to you and productive. And back to your point about Bumble for friends. A lot of relationships start as friends first. And the reason why people become friends is because they have shared values and they
21:30 Speaker 01 have shared interests and they have shared personality quirks, or they're attracted to each other's minds and spirit and the way they go out in the world. And so when we reimagine this and relaunch, this is actually our moonshot is like friends first. And if it leads to love, spectacular. But friendship is the foundation, and I do believe that's the future of love.
21:51 Speaker 02 So that means, though, that people are going to have to be more selective about their friends, if they're finding friends in the hopes of finding love, right?
21:58 Speaker 01 Well, I don't think it's so much like that, because I also think there's a lot of serendipity and spontaneity involved here. So we hear countless stories of young women or people going out and meeting someone on Bumble for friends. And then that friend introduced them to their friend group, and they fell in love with someone in that group. Had it never been for that connection on Bumble for friends, they would have never met that person. So it doesn't have to be this direct, like, we matched on Bumble and we fell in love because we chatted on Bumble. And so I think it really is that ripple effect of just taking the first step and making that first move and just building a connection with someone. I also think meeting people in groups is a lot easier than meeting people one-on-one.
22:39 Speaker 01 So, you know, it's not this awkward, hey, are you Adam from your profile? And like, sitting down at a coffee shop randomly, it's much more about showing up to that Bumble safe Bumble event, or that Bumble pickleball thing, or whatever it might be, and just hanging out in community and in groups. Humans are designed to be in groups. Like, we love to be in groups. It's actually quite awkward to be one-on-one in the beginning. And so I think this, this like, group format is incredibly interesting.
23:09 Speaker 02 That's fascinating. And also, I think to your earlier point, it has the potential to kill two birds with one stone, in terms of helping people overcome a little bit of loneliness. It's a lot more efficient, too. Thinking about all the one-on-one dates you could do versus showing up to meet a group of people and, you know, okay, like, I have somebody I'm interested in talking to, or maybe I don't, but I didn't have to meet all of them separately.
23:33 Speaker 01 That's exactly right. And you know, it's interesting too, if you meet in a small group, the chances, it's just math, the chances of hitting it off with someone goes up, right?
23:42 Speaker 02 I think this speaks to one of the other things I love about this group concept, which is to quote the great psychologist Chris Rock, when you meet somebody for the first time, you're not just meeting them, you're meeting their representative.
23:54 Speaker 01 Yes.
23:55 Speaker 02 And I think this is a huge problem on first dates in particular, where people tend to put their best foot forward, they're on their best behavior. And you might be swayed by how they treat you, and you have no idea how they treat other people. And maybe then you're starting to pay attention to how they treat the restaurant server or the Uber driver.
24:13 Speaker 01 Right.
24:14 Speaker 02 You get to see them in a group setting, and you see how they interact with a whole bunch of people. And they're not equally motivated to impress them all.
24:21 Speaker 01 Absolutely. I could not agree with you more. I think we don't really know people until we really know people. And that can take a while. So I totally agree. The power of groups is magical. And you also can see people's humor, or their ability to have empathy in a sad story. I mean, there's so much you get out of seeing someone in a bigger environment. So we're very bullish on this, you know, Bumble for friends, our new tagline is find your people. Because, you know, I think the last decade, we've been so focused on find your person, find your person, find your person. But just what if, through finding your people, you find yourself, and then you find your person. And I think there's
25:03 Speaker 01 something really special about the prioritization of that, right? I think there's been this broken narrative of a bunch of people walking around thinking they're halves, and they need to find their other half to become a whole. And I believe that you actually really do become a whole through wonderful friends in your life, and the people that build you up, and the people that encourage you, and they help you be better. And that's usually a platonic relationship. And so I think Bumble is going to be Known for love beyond romance pretty soon here. That's my hope.
25:38 Speaker 02 Yeah, what's the term that's in vogue for this? The other significant others.
25:42 Speaker 01 That's right. Yeah, I like that. I actually haven't heard that one in a while.
25:46 Speaker 02 Well, you reheard it here first.
25:48 Speaker 01 We always hear everything from you first, Adam. You're you are our oracle.
25:53 Speaker 02 That's a scary thought. Please rethink it immediately. I want to say one more thing about the the group dynamic, which is I do wonder if it's going to be harder for introverts than extroverts.
26:04 Speaker 01 That's really interesting.
26:05 Speaker 02 Are you concerned about that?
26:06 Speaker 01 No, because we have all of it. Right? Whatever works for you. We still have the one to one friend finding mode as well. Right? So, you know, if you are introverted or you are extroverted or you're somewhere in between, like you should be able to use these products to achieve finding your people in whatever way works for you.
26:26 Speaker 02 Everything is always easier for the ambiverts in the middle of that scale.
26:30 Speaker 01 Oh, gosh, yeah.
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28:19 Speaker 02 All right, let's do a lightning round. Quickfire questions. Are you ready?
28:23 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
28:24 Speaker 02 Who are your dream dinner party guests, dead or alive?
28:27 Speaker 01 Walt Disney.
28:29 Speaker 02 What is the worst advice you see given to founders?
28:34 Speaker 01 These people in suits show up and they're like, oh, we need to handle or manage the founder. And it's such a broken model because I think if people wouldn't do that, whether it's investors or, you know, people that think they're the grown up in the room, I actually think so many companies would not have crumbled. I don't think that's appropriate. I think it's disempowering and actually crumbles the energy of the company. And so I think over-management, over-hiring, overscaling, over-bloating, over-maturating, for no real reason. It's like it torches the magic.
29:12 Speaker 02 That was not a lightning answer, but I'll take it.
29:14 Speaker 01 Oh, sorry about that. I forgot we're in lightning mode.
29:17 Speaker 02 What's the question you have for me?
29:19 Speaker 01 Okay, what's your honest opinion on what dating apps have done to culture over the last 10 years?
29:24 Speaker 02 Oh.
29:25 Speaker 01 You can't hurt my feelings.
29:26 Speaker 02 I'm not worried about hurting your feelings. Look, I'd like to speak with better evidence, and I haven't read the literature on the impact of dating apps on culture. So I'm a little bit out of my comfort zone. But I think it's a mixed bag, like most technology. I think there have been upsides and downsides. I actually think it's been leveling, very much so, I think, both for women and for introverts. I think the introvert piece is pretty obvious. A lot of introverts would not go to a bar or would not go to whatever event was necessary to meet people. And the fact that you can find potential love on your phone
30:11 Speaker 02 has been liberating. I think you've played a huge role, Whitney, in empowering women to have a sense of ownership and freedom, frankly, from gross behavior by men. And I think that's been a huge step forward. I think on the flip side, I guess my biggest beef with dating apps is they reinforce our tendency to judge people way too quickly. We already did too much thin slicing of, I see somebody and I've had 0.4 seconds of interaction with them and I already am judging them. And now we're doing that with the one photo that you happened to post.
30:55 Speaker 01 Right.
30:56 Speaker 02 Like the most trivial. Actually, here, I want to read you something hilarious that I got. I'll paraphrase it for you.
31:04 Speaker 01 OK, I love it. Let's hear it.
31:06 Speaker 02 I got an email from a woman, I think it was last summer, saying, hey, I know this is a little weird, but I wanted to thank you. And she says, I came across a guy on a dating app and everything about him was wrong. Everything. But he listed you as the person he'd want to have dinner with.
31:31 Speaker 01 Oh, wow.
31:32 Speaker 02 And I swore that if anyone ever mentioned Adam Grant, I would give them a chance.
31:37 Speaker 01 Wow.
31:38 Speaker 02 And we're planning our wedding now.
31:39 Speaker 01 What? Oh, my god.
31:41 Speaker 02 I was like, whoa, you just put way too much stock in somebody knowing who I was and liking some of my work. But that aside, so interesting that that one little detail changed your opinion. And it shouldn't.
31:53 Speaker 01 But it's not one little detail. It's a mindset, though. It's a behavior signal, right? If you like Adam Grant, if that's who you want to have dinner with.
32:03 Speaker 02 You're a huge dork, is the takeaway.
32:05 Speaker 01 No, no. It tells you everything about that person. You understand quite rapidly what that person values, what they're interested in, what sparks their interest. So I actually, I understand that 100%. But you're right, like, over judgment is bad.
32:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, but that is also so broken that if he happened to give a different answer to that question, or she didn't happen to get that far, she would have swiped the other way and then they're not getting married and then maybe their future children don't exist. And I don't know whether that's a good or bad thing. Maybe she would have found love with someone else. Maybe he would have found someone who didn't judge his taste in cars so quickly. But it's just, I don't think it's great that dating apps have amplified our tendency to have those knee jerk reactions to other human beings.
32:56 Speaker 01 Do you find it that different from how people actually act in the real world, though?
33:01 Speaker 02 No.
33:01 Speaker 01 Because let me play this. Let me play this back to you. That guy was standing at the bar next to her and she looked at him and she thought, mm, not for me. Don't like his shorts. His shoes are weird. Whatever. He ordered a weird drink. Whatever it was about him that signaled to her, not for me. But then she overheard him speak, saying that, oh, God, if only I could have dinner with one person, it'd be Adam Grant. And then she turns her head and says, wait, you love Adam Grant? Tell me more. So my question is like, are, and I'm not defending us at all, but are dating apps responsible for it? Or is it just maximizing how humans already behave?
33:42 Speaker 02 I think, I think you're right. I think that the same thing could, could and often does happen in a bar. I think what's different, though, is the number of signals you're getting and how 3D they are. And I think that dating apps have flattened people in a way that just makes it easier to swipe. And I think in a bar, or wherever they were to meet in person, you're more likely to be presented with the conflicting cues. You're more likely to see the nuance and the ambiguity and the 3D version of the human. And I don't love that dating apps have, I don't want to say exploited, how quick we are to judge, but
34:22 Speaker 02 maybe capitalized on it. And I think a better app would force you to look at multiple signals before you make a determination. But of course, that, that goes counter to the goal of efficiency.
34:34 Speaker 01 I think you're totally right. And this is the big debate that we all have because what's interesting is every time we've tried to put more friction in and, you know, kind of say, you have to look at more photos, you have to read their bio, you actually get a lot of blowback saying like, you're forcing me to spend time on people that I'm telling you I'm not interested in. But I think what you're saying is it's like the paradox of choice. And, and we're kind of perpetuating this, this thing that social media has maybe been responsible for, which is the over amplification of choice and the overselling of there's always a bigger, better deal out there. The grass is always greener.
35:15 Speaker 02 I think you're right. I think designing for more friction is not the answer. I do wonder if there's a way to get faster to, well, I guess to complexifying cues, right? To signals that tell you right away, this person is not exactly who you think they are. Right? Like the, the person who's wearing the Grateful Dead shirt in their photo, like also, you know, reads Maya Angelou. Right? Like finding that out would be immediately intriguing.
35:42 Speaker 01 Right. But see, that's the whole point of that dating coach that I was talking about. The entire purpose of my original concept of your matchmaker should talk to my matchmaker is precisely to avoid people over judging or underestimating someone's quality. Because a photo isn't going to cut it. And a random bio is not going to cut it. So imagine if it knew your favorite Maya Angelou quotes and books and knew, you know, that you've studied, you have a PhD in X, Y, and Z. But yeah, maybe you've got a backwards hat on and you're like, you're just covered up in a ski mask in your photo.
36:23 Speaker 01 And so someone would have said, no, this actual digital matchmaker can intervene and say, wait a second, you've missed something great here. And so I think having someone be there to actually help people stand out beyond just some random profile was really the end state goal, because the story you just told is exactly what would have happened to me and my husband. And we joke about it. I would not have swiped right on him. His photos were ridiculous. And so, you know, I've been trying to solve for this for 10 years. I'm like, how would I have avoided missing my husband on my own product?
36:56 Speaker 02 Okay, so your vision for the future of dating is we're gonna have AI coaches that are gonna basically encourage us to give people second chances from time to time. And then they're gonna get us off the apps and send us out into the world to meet a bunch of people.
37:13 Speaker 01 I think my vision for the future of love is very simple. Love first starts with getting to know yourself, getting to understand yourself, starting to really understand who you are and why you do the things you do, and understand what really matters to you. How do we help you really understand who you are first? So that's the first place. The second future of love for me is to really go out and help you find truly compatible people on your behalf, whether that's a human in the loop or some hybrid of human matchmaker and AI matchmaker, but to really bring people that are genuinely compatible for you, not just someone you thought was quote unquote "hot," right? This should not be hot or not going forward.
37:58 Speaker 01 And then really getting you offline. Like, I genuinely believe we can use AI to make love more human again.
38:05 Speaker 02 Wow, that's an exciting vision. I just wanna say for the record, I definitely wanna debate you on your first point, that you should know yourself as a precursor to finding love.
38:15 Speaker 01 Okay, let's debate this.
38:16 Speaker 02 Yeah, okay, good.
38:17 Speaker 01 Okay.
38:18 Speaker 02 I see the argument. I also think it's, for many people in many situations, backward.
38:23 Speaker 01 Okay, tell me more.
38:24 Speaker 02 You come to know yourself by falling in love and getting your heart broken and seeing what versions of you get elicited by the people you're with, and then discovering who you wanna become in a relationship. And I worry that people doing the work and going to therapy and meditating and journaling until they know who they are and then looking for love will actually stunt their growth as opposed to saying, no, we discover who we wanna become in relationships, not before relationships.
38:57 Speaker 01 Okay, so it's an interesting debate, and I actually don't 100% disagree with what you're saying. However... I think I'm coming at it from a different lens. I'm coming at it from living through a lot of really painful relationships and realizing at the end of it, had I just had a little bit of self-love, a little bit of self-respect, a little bit of confidence, I could have avoided multiple years of hell and heartache and pain. So I don't disagree in the fact that you learn a lot about yourself through relationships. However, my hope and wish is that I don't meet more women in their 40s and 50s that are on the ground and have lost every ounce of who they are through abusive, toxic relationships.
39:42 Speaker 01 And so when I say if we could just help people learn to understand themselves better so that they can have that confidence and have that that belief in themselves that when they do go out into the world and date various people, they don't come back a shell. So I think it's like a bit of a different approach.
40:02 Speaker 02 Yeah, no, I think I agree with everything you just said. And so I guess we had different ideas in mind about what it meant to know yourself.
40:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:09 Speaker 02 And what I was thinking about is figuring out what you want through experience. And what you're saying is before you gain that experience, you should figure out how you deserve to be treated.
40:20 Speaker 01 Amen. You just nailed it.
40:22 Speaker 02 No, you nailed it. I was reflecting back to you what I heard.
40:25 Speaker 01 Okay, well, we both said it. And so I think what matters most is you can't understand what works for you in a relationship without real human relationship experience. That's true. But you shouldn't get into a relationship feeling like you're not worthy and that you don't deserve to be treated with respect. So if we can help you build that muscle and that strength before you get out there to learn what does work for you and doesn't work for you, we'd leave the world off a whole lot better.
40:52 Speaker 02 Beautifully put. I love that. Whitney, thank you. This was so much fun.
40:58 Speaker 01 Thank you, Adam.
41:01 Speaker 02 My main takeaway from Whitney is that there's a risk in defining yourself by your work. Yes, you can have too little attachment to your job and your organization, but you can also be too strongly attached to the point where you lose the ability to see it clearly and objectively. And I think a little bit of distance from the things we care about can be healthy.
41:26 Speaker 02 Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is produced by TED with Cosmic Standard. Our producer is Jessica Glaser. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our engineer is Asia Pilar Simpson. Our technical director is Jacob Winnick. And our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Roxane Hyalash, Ben Ben Cheng, Julia Dickerson, Tansuka Sung-Manivon, and Whitney Pennington Rogers. Original music by Hansdale Sue and Alison Leighton Brown.
41:53 Speaker 02 Last thing, just on a purely amusing note. You were a little hard on Hot or Not. I honestly miss it. And let me tell you why.
42:01 Speaker 01 Tell me, please.
42:02 Speaker 02 I actually used to use it to convince people they're more attractive than they think they are. You just put their photos on and then show them that other people think they're hot.
42:10 Speaker 01 Oh, my God. I will call the product team right now. We will get Adam Mode Hot or Not rebuilt for you.
42:20 Chris Duffy? This episode is sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Here's a question this show asks a lot. What can one person actually do? Take protecting the environment. When the task feels so big, it's hard to know where to even begin. Turns out, the answer isn't doing it alone. It's teaming up with people who care as much as you do. With the help of 3 million supporters, the Natural Resources Defense Council is in court to defend ancient forests, pristine coasts, and the wildlife that depend on them. None of these places or species can be replaced. They're still here because people fought for them, in and out of court. And that fight needs your support today. Donate at nrdc.org/human, and your gift will be matched five times.
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44:07 Speaker 02 Hi there. It's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast, and this episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. I get to spend my days studying how people think and what it actually takes to change our minds. It's work I find deeply meaningful. But even in meaningful work, there's still busy work. The admin, the repetitive processes, the invisible load that pulls attention away from what really matters. That's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work. They actually do it. Start to finish, cases closed, requests handled, no extra work for you. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com.
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