Herd Mentality

Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd wants nothing less than to create a female internet, but first she has to get a lot more women (and men) to see things her way. Misogynists welcome.

- Nicole Laporte

“We’re not one of our Competitors that’s just trying to hook people up,” says Whitney Wolfe Herd, the 30-year-old CEO of Bumble, the online dating platform where women have to initiate potential interest. “We’re trying to say, ‘Let’s change thousands of years of behavior. Globally.’ Do you see why this is so challenging?”

It’s an early afternoon in late May, and Wolfe Herd is in the posh ski village of Deer Valley, Utah, for Bumble’s annual retreat. A light snow falls outside despite the fact that it’s almost summer, and Wolfe Herd—slim, blond, and dressed in skinny jeans and furlined ankle boots—gives off an après-ski vibe. Although she’s prone to bouts of angst— at one point during her state of the company address to Bumble’s employees, she admits, “I have terrible anxiety. I have it right now. I kind of feel like I’m going to faint”—she’s chill when discussing Bumble and her ambitions.