20VC: Bumble's Whitney Wolfe Herd on How The Best Leaders Manage Intense Pressure, How To Think Through Risk vs Reward Frameworks & What it Truly Means to Listen so Your Teams Will Talk

Whitney Wolfe Herd is the Founder and CEO @ Bumble, changing the way people date, find friends, and the perception of meeting online, for the better. Women make the first move. Over an incredible 6 year journey, Whitney has scaled Bumble to a community of over 100 million across six continents. Bumble has facilitated an incredible 1.8 billion first moves as of 2021 and so many more by now. Prior to founding Bumble, Whitney was the Co-Founder and VP of Marketing @ Tinder. In Todays Episode with Whitney Wolfe Herd We Discuss: 1.) Founding Bumble: How Whitney made her way into the world of startups with her co-founding Tinder? What happened when Whitney left Tinder in a very public way? How did that and the scrutiny that came with it, impact her? How did she change? 2.) CEOship 101: What does "High Performance" mean to Whitney? What are the biggest benefits and biggest downside of transparency? What are the few things that as a leader, you cannot be transparent about them? What does it mean to truly listen as a leader? What are the biggest mistakes leaders make when it comes to listening? 3.) Risk and Pressure in Leadership: What is the single moment of highest pressure Whitney has been through in the Bumble journey? How does Whitney deal with pressure as a leader today? How has that changed? How does Whitney approach risk as a leader today? What is too risky? How does Whitney think through her own decision-making framework? 4.) Whitney: The Mother and Wife What does Whitney believe makes a truly successful marriage? How does Whitney not lose an inch of performance as a public markets CEO and also be an amazing mother to two children under the age of 2? What does Whitney know now that she wishes she had known when she started Bumble? As a leader and mother, what gets easier with time, what gets harder? Items Mentioned in Today's Episode with Whitney: Whitney's Favourite Book: Shantaram

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  You are listening to 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings. And while I'm so excited for the episode today, I probably haven't used a product of any founder we've had on the show as much as I've used this one. And hence, I really wanted to make this one happen for a long time, so much so that I actually tweeted that I wanted this guest on the show. And thanks to the wonderful Juliet de Bourbournier at Bond Capital. I was connected to Whitney. And there we have it. I'm thrilled to welcome Whitney Wolf-Herd, founder and CEO at Bumble. Changing the way people date, find friends, and the perception of meeting online for the better. Women make the first move. Over an incredible eight-year journey, Whitney scaled Bumble to a community of over 100 million across six continents. Bumble has facilitated an incredible 1.8 billion first moves as of 2021, and so I'm sure many more by now. And then in February 2021, Whitney took Bumble public on the NASDAQ.

• 0:45Harry Stebbings?

  And prior to founding Bumble, Whitney was the co-founder and VP of Marketing at Tinder. But before we move into the episode today, if you are a venture capitalist or corporate strategist, I want to tell you about Tegus. Tegus is the only company in the world that aggregates qualitative information on private companies from seed stage to pre-IPO. With Tegus, you can access other VCs and founders' expert call transcripts from previous rounds to help source fast-growing companies, create compelling emails to get a founder's response, and diligence companies when a round is moving fast. I use it personally, and I think it's insanely brilliant. Tegus is also providing the most flexible and highest-quality way to run your own expert calls. With no upfront fees or call minimums, the ability to do 30-minute calls,

• 1:28Harry Stebbings?

  and simply paying the expert's rate at an average cost of $300, Tegus makes expert calls easy. Find out why a majority of the top venture funds are using Tegus on a daily basis. Head over to tegus.co/growth for your free trial. And speaking of insanely great products, are you and your team still using your personal phone numbers for work? Well, OpenPhone makes it incredibly easy to get dedicated business phone numbers and keep all your work conversations separate and organized. And there's a couple of things in particular that I love about OpenPhone. Each phone number comes with its own inbox for managing calls, texts, and voicemails, making it easy to keep track of every conversation. Numbers can be shared with your teammates, too. Make outgoing calls answer in

• 2:10Harry Stebbings?

  Coming and even respond to text threads together, all from the same phone number. And even better on work-life balance, set your business hours and mute numbers so that customers and clients can only reach you when you're working. My word, I wish I had the same, I might have a happier girlfriend then. And then you can sign up and start using your new business phone in minutes. Visit openphone.com/20vc. That's openphone.com/20vc to save 20% on your first six months. And finally, I love history and you know what happens when you look at the history books of Silicon Valley? Cooley is all over it. They are the global law firm built around startups and venture capital. Since forming the first venture fund in Silicon Valley, Cooley has formed more venture funds than any other law firm in the world with 50 plus years.

• 2:55Harry Stebbings?

  Working with VCs, they help VCs form and manage funds, make investments, handle the myriad of issues that arise throughout a fund's lifetime. So to learn more about the number one most active law firm representing VC-backed companies going public, head over to Cooley.com and also check out Cooleygo.com. But now I'm so excited to hand over to the one and only Whitney Wolfherd, founder and CEO at Bumble.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 3:25Harry Stebbings?

  Whitney, I'm so excited for this show. I mean, I bombarded your messages with intro requests from other people before this. So I'm so glad that you took the time to join me.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  Well, I'm so excited to be here and thank you so much.

• 3:37Harry Stebbings?

  Not at all. I've wanted to do this one for a while. I actually listened to you on Tim Ferriss a while ago and I loved it. And I've actually just listened to it again on the treadmill. So it's kind of funny and cool to hear your voice again, just talking to me this time. I want to start with a little bit on you and the context. So tell me, we see Bumble today, but what was that founding aha moment for you? And what was that real first day?

• 3:56Speaker 02

  I would say it was the intersection of a few things. So thing one was I had just left this incredibly fast-growing rocket ship of a startup that I helped found as one of the co-founders, which was Tinder. And I was 24 at the time. Basically, the way I left became very public. I'll never forget waking up one morning and seeing. Buzzfeed alert, New York Times alert, all these things. I was like, what is happening? What is happening? Put this back in the box. Why is this happening? It was such an overwhelming, scary experience. And then what followed, I would say, day one of what would eventually become Bumble. And what followed was a lot of online hate, a lot of abuse, a lot of direct attacks towards me

• 4:40Speaker 02

  through my different social media channels. I took it so personally and it literally shattered my soul. I was super depressed, I was super anxious and actually became a bit paranoid. That was the beginning of what led to the problem solving quest, which was, okay, Whitney, pull yourself together. You're about to turn 25 years old. You've got a roof over your head, you have resources and you have a family and you have all these things that so many people don't have. But what they do have is they have online hate. So what does that 13, 14, 15 year old or whatever age, what are they doing when they get attacked on the internet? And I had this overwhelming kind of clarity and drive to find a way to fix it.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  This is broken. You cannot do this on the streets. You cannot do this for the privacy of somebody's home in real world. Why is the internet allowing us to be so nasty? And so that was kind of day one of I want to start a kinder, more civilized digital space and through the lens of women. So I wanted to ultimately start a, at the time, a women's only, girls only, social media platform where you would have to come on to this product. And instead of just free flowing commentary with each other, we'd have to pay each other a compliment to get in. It was basically compliments only because I had this theory that, and I don't know if Harry, you've ever gone through this, but have you ever been in like such a bad mood?

• 6:08Speaker 02

  And everything is going wrong that day. And you kind of have it out for everyone around you in the grocery store or wherever you are. And then someone pays you a compliment and you're like, whoa, I love you. That was so nice of you. Have you ever had that happen to you where compliments just turn your day around?

• 6:22Harry Stebbings?

  I have, but if I'm in a really bad mood, I just say, well, you clearly want something, so fuck off.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  Okay, well.

• 6:28Harry Stebbings?

  That could be a really bad day. If it's a bad day, yeah, totally. Little things make a massive difference.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, like someone holding the door open or saying, hey, I like your hat or like cool glasses or you got a great smile or whatever it is. So I just basically had this assumption that if we could kick conversations off with kindness, it would lead to kinder interactions. Enter complete course correction shortly thereafter. I met who would become my business partner and kind of the person that would provide the original funding and a lot of the tech resources. And he had basically tried to convince me to be the the marketing person for his dating app in Europe. And I was like, oh, hell no, like, no way. And long story short, he said, listen, I'm in love with the passion. I'm in love with the concept, but I'm not interested in social networks. I'm interested in dating apps because it's what I know.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  So instead of going to Silicon Valley and raising money for this, why don't you just figure out a way to do this in dating and I'll let you start your company with whatever kind of mission of kindness and women and whatever it is you're interested in. But my one caveat is you got to figure out how to do this in dating. So long story short, that was kind of the original beginnings of what would then become Bumble. And then I would say the most important moment in Bumble's history, probably from a unique selling point and what kind of gave us our legs early on was the fact that we make the first move.

• 7:49Harry Stebbings?

  I have so many questions. I spoke to many members of your team. I spoke to Juliette and many mutual friends. Everyone cited your leadership as the element that we really had to focus on today. And we chatted a little bit before you said about kind of two children under two, being a rock star CEO, running a public company. And the first thing I have to ask is, high performance means a lot to a lot of different people. If I say the words high performance to you, what's the first thing that comes to your mind, Whitney?

• 8:14Speaker 02

  Wow, high performance is just waking up every day and giving it your best. I know that sounds so cheesy and sounds like something on your second grade like bulletin board in school, but really it's true. Just get up, lead with heart and give it your best. I try to not overthink the day and try to keep that North Star so.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  In focus, right? How do we give women control over their experience? How do we make these digital spaces a little bit safer? How do we actually help our team members enjoy what they're doing every day? I do not want people to come to work and hate their lives, right? I think the only thing I could really point to is I really do try to somehow put myself in other people's shoes instead of only think about myself in that day. But I'm not entirely sure if that's the ticket or not. It's just all I know how to do at this point.

• 9:07Harry Stebbings?

  You said about kind of give it your best. I'm totally with you. My question to you is, how do you know when to stop? Sometimes projects don't work, sometimes new product features don't work. And give it your best, there is a limit to actually, we should stop doing this. How do you think about when's the right time or when to know when to quit?

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Ego is a huge issue for a lot of people and projects and things. And I'm sure I've been guilty of this in the past. You have your heart so set on something that you can't see past the reality of the situation. The perfect balance is a healthy dose of heart and data. So how can you actually take your belief system on this feature or this initiative or this direction? But then you've got to back it up. How do you let your customer and your members actually be the leaders? Because so often it's easy to point to the most experienced people in the room, okay? Who graduated from this fancy college and has the most experience and can speak super well. But the people that actually matter the most are the people using your product and telling you,

• 10:08Speaker 02

  this doesn't work, or yeah, you've got a blind spot, or you're missing this. And so being able to balance that is really important. Now, there's a caveat, because usually the most vocal people are not the masses. So you get like the Twitter people who are like, you screwed this up and you have to do this this way and you need to do it that way. But then when you actually run the deeper analysis, there's like three people that think that. And there's a huge group of others that don't. So I would say being really diligent about listening. I think listening is the magic word, like listening to your members, listening to your team, listening, listening, listening, instead of just listening only to yourself.

• 10:46Harry Stebbings?

  How do you know when to listen to customer feedback versus when to ignore it and progress with the original plans? Because sometimes customers need to be led to a product vision that they don't maybe see. How do you think about when to listen versus when to go on your own and go on your gut?

• 11:00Speaker 02

  A key difference here, you have to listen always, right? Acting is different. When do you act on what you've heard? That's a totally different situation. I think you have to always listen. When a leader stops listening is when a leader starts failing. I think that is number one thing I have seen throughout my very intense career is when people stop listening, that's when they start imploding. I think you have to always listen. So even on that one rogue tweet that says, hey, I hate the color of this, or whatever random thing they can come up with, listen and actually take five seconds to say, wait a second, is that color really what they say it is? Okay, no, no, it's not, moving on.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  So always listen, but then really reflect and then run the analysis. And if the analysis supports it, then you can actually act on it. You don't have to let every single opinion just blow you in the wind, but you should let every single opinion form a thought in your mind and hear it. And then you can take that and then really act on it.

• 12:00Harry Stebbings?

  I love that when a leader stops listening, they start failing. When you think about your leadership style today, if you're self-reflective, sitting in an armchair and you hear me ask, how would you describe your style of leadership today? There's many different styles, there's no right or wrong. But how would you describe your style? And then how has it changed from being the 24-year-old in the hypergrowth journeys of Tinder? How have you seen it evolve?

• 12:23Speaker 02

  So I'm 100% not read three business books a week and then become your own like hopped pod version of what everybody else has done leader. That's definitely not my style. My style is just a derivative of our values and of our mission. So if we are really trying to create a kinder environment online, that means we have to lead with kindness. If we are trying to create a more accountable and transparent digital space and spaces, right? That means we have to lead with those values. We have to lead with accountability. We have to lead with vulnerability. If the leader can't reflect the values of a business, they shouldn't be leading that business. Hard stop. When the leader is not aligned with what the company is actually trying to do,

• 13:08Speaker 02

  it's actually no longer a leader. A misfit.

• 13:10Harry Stebbings?

  Can I ask, on the transparency element, are there any elements where one can't be transparent? So I often say to founders that I work with, you can't be transparent on fundraises because teams get excited and then demotivated if it doesn't come through or M and A. They get excited about an exit and then if it doesn't come through, it's very difficult to get over. Are there any elements for you that you find challenging to be transparent about because it's actually unproductive?

• 13:33Speaker 02

  But you can be transparent about not being able to talk about it. That's the key differentiator. People start getting spooked when there's no transparency around the need for privacy. So let's just give it, let's do an example there. Let's say the team wants context on some future looking initiative, but we have to keep it super confidential because if it were to get out, it would violate X, Y, or Z. I'm making up a random scenario. By just saying nothing is where the lack of transparency comes in and where fear starts building. It's better to actually just say, I know everyone wants to have information on this topic and we'd love to talk about this, but to be fully transparent with you, we cannot. And we really respect your privacy around this at the moment.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  And I promise you, as soon as we can, you will hear from us immediately. So that it doesn't look like there's some secrecy taking place. And I think transparency can still preserve privacy. There's a difference between privacy feeling scary and confidentiality feeling scary. And then a difference between confidentiality feeling understandable. I think that's the magic piece is like, how do you transparently explain that there are certain things that have to be preserved in confidence?

• 14:45Harry Stebbings?

  God, there's so many little tidbits, Whitney. I like transparent about not being transparent. You're right, you can say, hey, we're doing a fundraiser, but understandably, we can't talk so openly about it because of X, Y, and Z. So I totally agree and I feel like I should be taking notes. By the way, I don't read business books either. I barely read tweets and so a book would be far too extenuating. I do want to ask, I think leaders change, actually often in moments. Like I changed a lot when I lost my first company and it really shaped me in a lot of ways. Is that like one or two moments where you look back on and go, wow, in that moment, I changed a lot as a person? As a leader.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  I think there's a blessing and a curse in my personal story. And that's that I went through such a life altering situation at such a young age with my departure from the first dating company. It like stripped me down completely to my core, right? It was standing on that stage completely bare and staring at you. It was that moment that people have nightmares about, but never actually happens to them. I think that changed me so much. What it did was it actually said, hey, you've got nothing left to lose. So run as fast as you can. And who gives a whatever about what you do next? Like, it's okay, you've got this because your greatest fear of being completely villainized

• 16:04Speaker 02

  or laughed at or abused, it's behind you, it happened. And so hit the ground and run. But I would say I've changed every single day at Bumble, I swear. Bumble has been the craziest chapter book of like six billion chapters. Every day comes with another crazy, sometimes incredible, sometimes devastating moment. I really just try to think about it as if you're river rafting or something. You just like paddle to the left and you paddle to the right. Hold your breath on some days and you're gonna go underwater and you're gonna flip upside down, but like you get back on and then there's gonna be like easy, slow, lazy river days. And you're just in it for the long run. And so I would say every moment has changed me, but a lot of people were like, wow, did you change at the IPO? I'm like, not really. You just kind of rise to the occasion.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  And I think that's what separates the folks that can be in these things for the long run versus the folks that can only be there for maybe a couple of chapters is who can actually deal with all those twists and turns? Because not everyone out there is up for like a level four rapid. Some people are just down for the lazy river and that's fine. You just have to be committed to all sorts of terrain if you're going to stick out these businesses for a very long time. So I'm excited. I'm like, what's around the next corner? Who knows, but we'll get through it.

• 17:21Harry Stebbings?

  How do you handle and deal with pressure? Everyone has their own coping mechanisms. How do you think about handling and dealing with pressure to approach the next rapid, ready to go?

• 17:30Speaker 02

  That's a great question. I think we went through a couple rough chapters over the in recent history. And someone sent me a quote that I loved. And now I've seen the quote like everywhere, like I actually saw it in a grocery store the other day. So I guess it's actually a pretty common quote. I thought it was the most insightful thing, which it still is insightful if this person listens. I love you for sending me this quote, but it said, pressure makes diamonds. I think we just have to remind ourselves that pressure is part of it. And anything worth going through is going to be hard. And so if you can turn that pressure into a different sensation in your mind, instead of looking at it as this scary doomsday sentiment or feeling and like you've got to run away from it. How do you actually make pressure motivate you?

• 18:15Speaker 02

  And how can you actually let pressure be this building block to your next level? Pressure will lead to something good if you let it instead of letting it just crush you. I've tried to do a few things. I think, first of all, can you laugh about the situation? Like, can you just sit down and just like actually have a laugh? Because things feel so crazy. Sometimes just laughing is the only thing that works. You have to find the humor in these like huge feelings. Also, just saying like this too shall pass. My mom always said, this too shall pass, this too shall pass. Whatever was happening in that day at school or wherever, like it's so true. Like, go to sleep, tomorrow is a new day. So I think I've just tried to do that for now. I can't even count how many days we've been in this, but thousands of days.

• 19:00Harry Stebbings?

  I mean, first, I say the same on this too shall pass is one of my favorites. But second, I have this like mind blown moment on pressure makes diamonds. And so I feel like I'm in the chapter before where you saw it in the grocery store. Cause that is a fantastic quote. You mentioned running as fast as you possibly could post the experience when you were much younger. I'm intrigued, risk is an interesting subject and many people have different like relationships to risk. How do you feel about your relationship to risk today? And has it changed over the years?

• 19:28Speaker 02

  So my husband, who at the time when this happened was my boyfriend, his grandfather became like the most important person in my entire world. So much so that actually our first son is named after him and was born on his birthday. And he passed just three days later. So it was this like crazy, beautiful and devastating moment all in one, but. I'll never forget, I think it was probably one of my lower days and it was post leading Tinder. And I can't remember exactly what the context was. He's a very wise man, very wise man in some frantic state. And he looked at me, he held my hands and he said, well, what do you have to lose? And that has been this resounding message in my head my entire career.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Every time there's some huge moment of risk, I just remind myself of granddaddy saying that to me is what do you have to lose? And so every time some huge risk presents itself, I really just say, what do we have to lose? And if what we have to lose is greater than the reward, then that's how you really measure it. But truly, if you don't have that much to lose, just go for it. Run, go, do it. I think so many people forget to calm down and actually say, what is actually at stake here? Is it really the end of the world if this thing doesn't work? And oftentimes don't realize that it's not. But people's fear of not slowing down and actually thinking about the real, actual consequences, not their made up fears, is what really holds people back from taking risks.

• 20:52Harry Stebbings?

  I was chatting to a mentor the other day and they said, a lot of the time, things seem very big in the moment, but very few things you will actually remember in 10 years. The head of sales that left and it's a disaster, it's a disaster. In 10 years, you'll be like, I don't remember that. And so I think it's important to remember that also. I've been lucky with great mentors. You did incredibly well, very young. Did you have mentors in your younger days? Do you have mentors now? And what have been some big lessons if you have had some?

• 21:18Speaker 02

  First of all, I love that you brought up the will this matter in 10 years? Because I will say that I used to use the number nine, sometimes I use the number five. You can use really any number you want, but I used to do this thing where do the exercise. Okay, does this matter in five minutes? Does this matter in five days? Does this matter in five weeks? Does this matter in five months? Does this matter in five years? If it doesn't matter in five months or five years, it just really reframes everything. And so many things that we think will matter in five years really only matter for five minutes or five days or five weeks maximum. And I think that's such a healthy way to calibrate our reactions to things and our responses to things. But as far as the mentor piece goes, so this is gonna sound really crazy and weird and

• 22:01Speaker 02

  a lot of people will probably disagree with this, but it's just my personal framework. I literally make every single person my mentor. I don't care if it's the person that is giving me a ride from the airport to a work event, or if it's someone that checking you in somewhere. Try to learn something from everyone. I've been forced to take that framework because at a younger age, I didn't really have strong mentors. And so I tried to just listen to everyone and I love the quote that be kind to everyone because everyone is fighting their own battle and you never know what someone's going through. And the other thing is it's so easy as humans to judge. You just judge, judge, judge, judge, which is interesting in this business of like people making an instant judgment on someone multiple times.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  But I really fundamentally believe that it's hard to hate anyone if you know their story. It's really hard to genuinely dislike someone when you've heard their story. And so I try to take something from everyone. Put that all together and that's kind of how I've built my belief system. Take something good away from everyone you meet and that becomes this own mentor system in and of itself.

• 23:06Harry Stebbings?

  I think mentors often help you think about the big decisions as you scale. And things get easier and things get harder. I'm interested, when you think about the journey with Bumble, what's got easier with time and what's actually got harder?

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Ooh, what's gotten easier?

• 23:21Harry Stebbings?

  I don't know, that's a tough one.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  It's probably like with kids, they say like little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems. Like little company, little problems, big company, big problems. Maybe it's the same framework, but you build this muscle and you learn how to deal with things. I would say I take things a lot less personally, like truly it's become harder to hurt my feelings and that's something I'm really, really proud of. It used to be really easy to hurt my feelings, like really anyone could make me cry. Like any tweet from maybe even like a fake user, like maybe there was no one even behind it, it's like a bot. I could cry all day because of it. Now it's really hard to hurt my feelings and so now I feel like my muscle of responding versus reacting has gotten really strong. And that is something I'm really proud of.

• 24:06Harry Stebbings?

  What's got harder?

• 24:07Speaker 02

  Everything else.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  Let's see. Listen, I just think that there's scale now. Like, our responsibility has grown. With responsibility comes a lot more need to actually deliver has grown. I think that we've got a lot of investors now versus maybe just one or two. And so there's just a whole layer of complexity there. But it's exciting and I've never been more energized about Bumble and its future than today. I haven't lost that that passion. I know so many founders and it's sad, but they were like the most passionate people I'd ever come in contact with. And then they hit this level of scale and they're like, oh, my God, I'm so bored. Like, I gotta go start another startup. I'm really like honored that Bumble has kept me so passionate.

• 24:51Harry Stebbings?

  I do want to touch on parenting before we do a quick fire round. I think it's such an incredible experience. I love kids. I can't wait to have kids. But Whitney, I'm also-

• 25:00Speaker 02

  You can borrow mine whenever you want.

• 25:02Harry Stebbings?

  Oh, great, I'll take them. Yeah, fantastic. This is wonderful. I honestly adore kids, but I'm slightly terrified that, you remember life pre-kids? You would just like crush it at work for hours and hours and hours. And you're the only thing that really matters. I mean, your husband matters, but it's not a baby, respectfully. And so like, I'm terrified, Whitney, that suddenly I will be not able to continue working in the same way and become a bit mediocre. How do you retain being a rock star CEO of a public company with two kids under two? Give me some confidence, please.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  So here's how I look at it. I actually, this is probably a terrible metaphor or analogy because I've never driven a stick shift. But before children, I kind of feel like I was just grinding in like the same gear all the time until I like blew the engine because I would just go and go and go. I'd work all day, every day, all day, every day. And I would never shift gears. But when you have children who are forced to shift gears, when you get back into work gear, you're actually driving a lot smoother and you're driving a lot faster. And it's actually a much better ride. I know that's a terrible analogy, but because you give your break to your mind and you give yourself this shifting of gear, I'll give it my all at work and I'll get through all my calls and my meetings and be really creative

• 26:17Speaker 02

  and get everything done in like a chunk of time. Then you shift gears and you go and you play with your kid. You focus on them and you deal with where's the water bottle? Or what happened to the snacks? Or this like mundane but beautiful- Chapter of the day and then all of a sudden that gear is kind of grinding. You're ready to shift back into work gear and like now it's like this smooth transition. And so I would actually say having children has made me a better person at work because when I show up at work, I'm fresh minded, not fresh because I'm completely exhausted. Let's just be clear. I would say that it's just this interesting transition that allows you to really show up in a different way versus grinding in that same same gear all the time for years straight.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  So I think you would be in love with it and it's definitely exhausting, but it's beautiful. I'm just grateful that I've had the opportunity to have two great little kids.

• 27:09Harry Stebbings?

  Final one, how has it fundamentally changed how you communicate with your team? Again, children change so much about you. How has becoming a parent changed communication with your team?

• 27:19Speaker 02

  Maybe I'm more mindful about hours of the day. I think I will be very self-aware in saying that I probably was not the most aware of like messaging or calling someone at like bedtime hours or dinner time hours because I was like, I mean, who eats dinner? Who goes to bed? You know, like, what do you mean?

• 27:37Harry Stebbings?

  Unproductive to do meal.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  What's wrong with you? Like, who does bath time with anyone at that hour of eight? No, I'm just kidding, but it's made me much more aware of people's lives being not just work. And I think this is a downside of a lot of founders. We assume that the whole world is obsessed with whatever they're building, when in reality like they have to go through carpool and pick up kids and put food on the table and do all these things. So I would say I'm a bit more mindful of people's personal lives, which thank God I've come to that place because that's not a great way to lead. So I'm glad that we've moved away from the very mindful of hours and time and being mindful of that.

• 28:15Harry Stebbings?

  A hard realization I came to is that as a founder, even if you have great team members, they won't ever be obsessed as you will be. You can't be more obsessed or you shouldn't be more obsessed. I found that a tough realization actually to come to, but I totally agree with you and I do not have any respect for timings of day. So I clearly need to have these children soon. So again, if you need a babysitter, I'm here whenever you need. But I do want to do a quick fire round. So I say a short statement and then you give me. Me your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay?

• 28:42Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 28:43Harry Stebbings?

  So I ask favorite book often Whitney and I always like, oh, that's fascinating and wonderful. And I never read any of the books because it's always like sapiens, which would just bore me to death. So I didn't really want to ask your favorite book because I, A, I didn't really like reading either. So what's your favorite like bit of content? Could be a Netflix TV show, could be a movie, could be a magazine. What do you like? Ah, this bit of content I loved recently.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 29:05Harry Stebbings?

  So like mine was Top Gun. I loved the original Top Gun and the new Top Gun, I thought was sensational.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Okay, see, I watched the original Top Gun the night before the new Top Gun. With all due respect, I loved the new Top Gun, but I just don't think anything can ever replace the original one.

• 29:22Harry Stebbings?

  Whitney, he's thirty years older. What more do you want from a man?

• 29:28Speaker 02

  I thought the first one just like had more chemistry. The first one had more passion. The second one was awesome and the visuals were badass and was cool. I think I was just nostalgic for that era of the first one, maybe.

• 29:40Harry Stebbings?

  I mean, tough crowd, Whitney.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  I know, like, nobody asks me movie critiques because they're not gonna get like high scores. But let's see, favorite content. I'm burnt on a lot of the digital content right now, which I would say is actually inspiring a lot of interesting things that we can do in the future at Bumble Inc. I think content has become somewhat corrosive and that's problematic in my mind. Content that I have enjoyed, and this is not like that riveting, but I actually like the stuff coming off of the toxic side of things, which is like these like good news movements and like these happier platforms that highlight good things versus a barrage of bad things. But the book thing is funny. I love that you brought that up because everyone is always like sapiens or this like fascinating like.

• 30:26Harry Stebbings?

  The hard thing about hard things.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  But you know what? I still will say this to this day. I've read so many books since then, but nothing will ever replace Chaturam. Have you ever read that?

• 30:35Harry Stebbings?

  I've not.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  It's a thousand pages, so probably not like in your near future, but it's just a beautiful book and it takes you somewhere completely different. It's such a departure from everything we do and think about all day, every day. And it's the book I read when I was backpacking through Southeast Asia. As a post grad before the startup lives started, but it's a beautiful book. It's worth a read for anyone that has time to sit around and read a thousand pages, which none of us do.

• 30:59Harry Stebbings?

  I might do a Cliff Notes on that one. What's your biggest strength as a leader? And what's your biggest weakness as a leader? Thirty seconds on each.

• 31:06Speaker 02

  Oh gosh, I think I have a lot of weaknesses. Okay, so maybe this is a weakness or maybe it's a strength. I'm not sure. I'm not great at paying myself compliments or identifying the strong suits, which has made me consistently motivated to do better, be better, do better, be better. And maybe that's a good thing because I'm always like, that's not good enough. Let's go to the next thing. Okay, that's not great enough. Let's go to the next thing.

• 31:25Harry Stebbings?

  Do you know what's funny? And we'll probably take this out. I asked this of a lot of CEOs, male and female CEOs, and all of the male CEOs go straight to strength. This is what I'm amazing. I'm world class at this. Two minutes later, a minute over the one minute, they stop and I go, and your weakness? Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Um, and sorry, I don't mean to make it bad, but it's so funny to see like the male arrogance and the female self-deprecating humility, where they start with a weakness as well.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  I don't think you should take that out because I think it's actually very interesting. And I would say it's symbolic for what a lot of women experience in the business world. Because maybe women have an ability to be a bit more vulnerable and self-aware at times and less like, oh, I am incredible and like, let me tell you about my accolades. And maybe that's a downside and maybe it's not, but it's something to be debated.

• 32:18Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, okay. I will keep it in on your say so. There we go. What three traits would you like your children to adopt?

• 32:24Speaker 02

  Well, what do I want for my children? I want my children to be kind, caring individuals. I want them to see the best in others and not possess an ounce of jealousy or comparison. And I want them to just wake up every day and try to find the joy in the day and just to be happy. I don't want them to feel like they're under pressure to become or to do or fit a certain mold. I want them to get outside and find the joy in like the day and that's all I can really ask for.

• 32:52Harry Stebbings?

  What's the secret to a wonderful and happy marriage?

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Oh goodness, I think you have to actually like your partner, not just love them. And I'm very fortunate to just absolutely.

• 33:03Harry Stebbings?

  What's the difference? Sorry.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  Marriage is like, people love each other, okay? Yes, you have a love for people, but like, do you actually like each other? And I really like my husband. I genuinely would rather hang out with him over anybody else. And I love him, but like, I also super like him. Does that make sense? So I think that keeps the magic alive, because when you like someone, you also have a deep level of respect and admiration. And you find joy in spending time with them. If you look at a lot of these couples, they love each other, but they also like borderline hate each other. It's this weird thing. So I think you have to have both. You have to love and like each other.

• 33:39Harry Stebbings?

  The hard thing is, I've always been like the fat nerd who like no girl ever liked. And then you get like.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  I do not believe that.

• 33:44Harry Stebbings?

  I was a super fat nerd. And then like, it is, I was awful, but you get a bit better looking and fitter. And suddenly girls like you.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  I know. This is amazing.

• 33:51Harry Stebbings?

  And so now I'm back on Bumble.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  I was just gonna say, okay, are you back on Bumble yet?

• 33:55Harry Stebbings?

  Back on Bumble, and I have a problem for you. My friend, he told me, because I was like, it must be really ugly. Because no girls have ever liked me on Bumble. And he's like, oh, no, you don't get it. You need to pay for the spotlights. And I'm like, ah. And he was like, spend like three hundred dollars a month, put every second of the day, just spotlight, spotlight, spotlight.

• 34:13Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh.

• 34:14Harry Stebbings?

  And so I've done it for two days. Whitney, my funnel has exploded.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  Hey, I like it. When I see you in person, we will sit together and we will curate your Bumble profile.

• 34:25Harry Stebbings?

  I think we need a Bumble optimization session, actually.

• 34:27Speaker 02

  Let's do it. Okay, we will do that. Yes, we're going to do it. But I love that you're back on Bumble. And I really am excited to meet you in real life, I hope sooner than later. And hopefully doing something fun like the paint party in Stockholm, like you and Juliette, or whatever you're up to. That all sounds way more exciting than my life.

• 34:43Harry Stebbings?

  I can't wait. Now, I want to do a final question. And it's next five years for you and for Bumble. If we have this chat in twenty twenty seven, where would you like to be then?

• 34:52Speaker 02

  So I guess high level by twenty twenty seven, Bumble Inc. will have really truly driven countless kinder connections and made people actually connect versus get more disconnected. I think the internet is actually this really interesting place where it claims to connect you with others, but actually it just disconnects you. So I hope Bumble Inc. will just build real deep connections for people across all relationship spectrum. So love, friendship, business, even just looking for an activity buddy or trying to connect with someone on a question that you can't get answered, but all with this through line of kindness and accountability

• 35:35Speaker 02

  and removing a lot of the toxicity that we're all struggling with on the internet. If you look on a global level, I think there's these two huge issues. One, that toxicity is overtaking the internet, which is leading to unhealthy relationships and disconnected relationships. And then the second thing is that women still just are not in control. I mean, look at America right now. We don't even have choice of our bodies. And so that's really Bumble Inc.'s entire focus right now. It's like, how do we drive high-end connections over their experience? And so by twenty twenty seven, I hope we will have done that on a much larger scale and created some real change in the world.

• 36:09Harry Stebbings?

  Whitney, as I said at the beginning, I want to do this one for a number of years now. I've had so much fun. Thank you for being so brilliant. I loved it and honestly, just a joy to do.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  And no, I had so much fun with you too. And candidly, I wish we weren't even on a podcast or like having a coffee or something in London or somewhere awesome. And we could just talk for hours. So I hope we can do that at some point. And thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

• 36:34Harry Stebbings?

  My word, we had so much fun with that one. I want to say huge thank you to Whitney for being such a great guest to have on and being so open and transparent. I think it really came across in the conversation. So huge thanks for that. But before we leave you today, if you are a venture capitalist or corporate strategist, I want to tell you about Tegus. Tegus is the only company in the world that aggregates qualitative information on private companies from seed stage to pre-IPO. With Tegus, you can access other VCs and founders' expert call transcripts from previous To help source fast growing companies, create compelling emails to get a founder's response, and diligence companies when a round is moving fast. I use it personally and I think it's insanely brilliant. Tegus is also providing the most flexible and highest quality way to run your own expert calls.

• 37:18Harry Stebbings?

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• 38:01Harry Stebbings?

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• 38:43Harry Stebbings?

  Cooley has formed more venture funds than any other law firm in the world with 50 plus years. Working with VCs, they help VCs form and manage funds, make investments, handle the myriad of issues that arise throughout a fund's lifetime. So to learn more about the number one most active law firm representing VC-backed companies going public, head over to Cooley.com and also check out CooleyGo.com.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  As always, I so appreciate all your support and I cannot wait to bring you an incredible episode on Wednesday.