Whitney Wolfe Herd

Whitney Wolfe Herd
Wolfe Herd in 2018
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Born	Whitney Wolfe 1 7, 1989
Birthplace	Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Entrepreneur, business executive
Known for	Founder of Bumble, co-founder of Tinder
Education	Southern Methodist University (BA)
Children	2
Awards	Time 100 Most Influential People (2018)

Whitney Wolfe Herd (née Wolfe; born July 1, 1989) is an American entrepreneur and business executive who founded the dating application Bumble and serves as its executive chair and CEO. Before launching Bumble, she was a co-founder and Vice President of Marketing at Tinder, where she played a central role in building one of the first mainstream mobile dating platforms. Wolfe Herd's departure from Tinder in 2014 was accompanied by a high-profile sexual harassment lawsuit that drew widespread attention to workplace culture in the technology industry. She subsequently founded Bumble, a dating app distinguished by its requirement that women initiate conversations in heterosexual matches — a design choice rooted in Wolfe Herd's stated goal of shifting power dynamics in online dating. In February 2021, Wolfe Herd took Bumble public on the Nasdaq, becoming one of the youngest women to take a company public in the United States. She was named to the Time 100 list of most influential people in 2018 and has been recognized as one of the most prominent figures in the technology and dating industries.

Early Life

Whitney Wolfe was born on July 1, 1989, in Salt Lake City, Utah. She grew up in Utah before relocating to Texas for her higher education. Details about her family background and upbringing prior to college remain limited in publicly available sources.

While still a student at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Wolfe demonstrated entrepreneurial interests. She launched a clothing line called Tender Heart, which was covered by the university's campus newspaper, The SMU Daily Campus. The venture reflected Wolfe's early inclination toward building consumer-facing brands, a skill set she would later apply in the technology sector.

After completing her studies at SMU, Wolfe moved to Los Angeles, where she entered the technology startup world. It was in this environment that she became involved with a group of entrepreneurs who were developing what would become Tinder, one of the most consequential mobile applications in the history of online dating.

Education

Wolfe Herd attended Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. During her time at SMU, she was involved in entrepreneurial activities, including the launch of a clothing line. Her time at the university coincided with a period of growing interest in mobile technology and social networking platforms, and her post-graduation career trajectory led her directly into the technology startup ecosystem of Los Angeles.

Career

Tinder (2012–2014)

In 2012, Whitney Wolfe joined a team of entrepreneurs working on a mobile dating application that would become Tinder. She served as the company's Vice President of Marketing and is credited as a co-founder of the app. In her marketing role, Wolfe was instrumental in driving early user adoption of Tinder, particularly among college-aged users. She reportedly traveled to university campuses to promote the app, a grassroots marketing strategy that helped Tinder gain rapid traction among young adults.

Tinder's introduction of the "swipe right" mechanic to indicate interest in a potential match fundamentally changed the landscape of online dating, transforming it from a desktop-centric activity into a mobile-first social experience. The app grew to become one of the most downloaded applications worldwide, and Wolfe's marketing contributions were a significant factor in its early success.

However, Wolfe's tenure at Tinder ended acrimoniously. In June 2014, she filed a lawsuit against Tinder and its parent company, alleging sexual harassment and discrimination by co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer Justin Mateen, as well as other senior executives at the company. The lawsuit alleged that Mateen had sent Wolfe threatening and derogatory text messages and that she had been stripped of her co-founder title because the company's leadership felt that having a young female co-founder "ichael make the company look like a joke."

The case attracted significant media attention and became one of the earliest high-profile sexual harassment claims in Silicon Valley's technology industry, predating the broader Me Too movement by several years. In November 2014, the lawsuit was settled for a reported sum of just over one million dollars. As part of the settlement, Wolfe was prohibited from publicly discussing many details of the case. Mateen was suspended from Tinder following the public disclosure of the lawsuit.

Founding of Bumble (2014)

Following her departure from Tinder, Wolfe Herd initially considered stepping away from the dating app industry entirely. However, she was approached by Andrey Andreev, the Russian-British entrepreneur and founder of the social networking platform Badoo, who proposed a partnership to build a new dating application.

Wolfe Herd founded Bumble in 2014, headquartering the company in Austin, Texas. The app's defining feature was its requirement that women make the first move in heterosexual matches — a design choice intended to address what Wolfe Herd described as the pervasive problem of unwanted messages and harassment that women experienced on other dating platforms. In conversations with same-sex matches, either party could initiate contact.

Wolfe Herd has stated that her original vision for Bumble extended beyond dating. Speaking at South by Southwest (SXSW) in 2018, she said, "What I originally wanted to do with Bumble is rewrite the Internet," attributing the company's success to its fundamental belief that women should be able to make the "first move" in romantic connections.

The app distinguished itself in a crowded dating app market through this women-first approach, as well as through features such as time-limited matches (conversations expired if not initiated within 24 hours) and photo verification. Bumble grew rapidly, attracting millions of users and establishing itself as the primary competitor to Tinder in the United States.

Expanding Bumble Beyond Dating

Under Wolfe Herd's leadership, Bumble expanded beyond romantic connections. The platform introduced Bumble BFF, a feature for finding platonic friendships, and Bumble Bizz, a networking tool designed to facilitate professional connections. These additions reflected Wolfe Herd's broader ambition to create a platform that addressed multiple dimensions of human connection, not solely dating.

Wolfe Herd also advocated for legislative changes aimed at curbing online harassment. She worked with legislators in Texas to support a bill that would outlaw unsolicited sexually explicit images, a common form of harassment on dating platforms. The effort reflected her stated commitment to using technology and policy to create safer digital spaces.

By 2017, Forbes described Bumble as "America's fastest-growing dating app," noting its billion-dollar valuation and its emergence as a major force in the technology and social media industries.

Bumble IPO and Public Company Leadership

On February 11, 2021, Bumble, Inc. went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol BMBL. The initial public offering (IPO) was a landmark event that made Wolfe Herd, at age 31, one of the youngest women to take a company public in the United States. The IPO was also notable because Wolfe Herd was the youngest woman to serve as CEO of a publicly traded company at the time.

On its first day of trading, Bumble's share price surged significantly, and the company's market capitalization reached approximately $13 billion. The strong debut made Wolfe Herd a billionaire, with Management Today reporting that she became the world's youngest female self-made billionaire. She owns approximately 23 million shares of Bumble, Inc.

Departure and Return as CEO

After leading Bumble through its IPO and early years as a public company, Wolfe Herd stepped back from the day-to-day CEO role. However, by 2025, she returned to active leadership of the company amid challenges facing the dating app industry more broadly. In a May 2025 interview with The New York Times, she discussed her plans for reinvigorating Bumble and addressing a decline in dating app usage among Generation Z.

In an August 2025 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Wolfe Herd discussed new directions for Bumble, including the integration of artificial intelligence into the platform's matchmaking capabilities. She made the notable confession that she "would never have swiped right on her husband," suggesting that traditional swipe-based mechanics may be insufficient for creating meaningful connections and that AI could play a role in improving outcomes for users.

Wolfe Herd has stated that she views the challenge of modern loneliness as a central problem that technology can help address. In a Time interview, she discussed her belief that technology, when designed thoughtfully, can serve as a cure for loneliness rather than a contributor to it.

Personal Life

Whitney Wolfe Herd is based in Austin, Texas, where Bumble is headquartered. She has two children. Wolfe Herd has been open about the challenges of balancing leadership of a major technology company with parenthood, a topic she has discussed in various media interviews.

Details about Wolfe Herd's personal relationships have been addressed in media coverage primarily in the context of her professional narrative. In her 2025 interview with The Wall Street Journal, she referenced her husband, noting that the couple's connection illustrated the limitations of algorithm-based matching and swiping mechanics.

Much of Wolfe Herd's public profile has been shaped by her experience at Tinder and the subsequent lawsuit. Due to the terms of her 2014 settlement with Tinder, she has been restricted from publicly discussing many details of that period, a limitation she acknowledged in a 2015 interview with The Washington Post.

Recognition

Wolfe Herd has received numerous honors and accolades throughout her career. In 2014, Business Insider named her one of the "30 Most Important Women Under 30 in Tech."

In 2018, Time magazine included Wolfe Herd on its annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in the world, recognizing her impact on the technology and dating industries. Her inclusion on the list acknowledged both the commercial success of Bumble and its cultural significance as a platform that shifted norms around gender dynamics in online dating.

Following the Bumble IPO in 2021, Wolfe Herd received widespread recognition as one of the youngest women to lead a company to a public offering and was described as the world's youngest female self-made billionaire by multiple publications.

Paper magazine, Grazia, and numerous other publications have profiled Wolfe Herd extensively, with coverage focusing on her role in transforming the dating app industry and her advocacy for women's safety in digital spaces.

In 2025, Wolfe Herd's story was adapted into the Hulu film Swiped, which dramatized her experiences at Tinder and the founding of Bumble. Time magazine and other outlets covered the film, noting its portrayal of the events that led to the creation of one of the world's most prominent dating platforms. Fortune reported on the film's focus, noting that Swiped concentrated primarily on Wolfe Herd's time at Tinder rather than her subsequent work building Bumble.

Legacy

Whitney Wolfe Herd's career has been defined by two major contributions to the technology industry: her role in co-founding Tinder, which introduced swipe-based mobile dating to a mainstream audience, and her creation of Bumble, which introduced a women-first model to the dating app ecosystem.

Bumble's design principle — requiring women to initiate contact — represented a deliberate challenge to the norms of online dating, where women often reported being overwhelmed by unsolicited messages. The app's approach influenced the broader dating industry, with competitors subsequently introducing features aimed at giving users, particularly women, more control over their experience.

Wolfe Herd's sexual harassment lawsuit against Tinder in 2014 also had a lasting impact on the technology industry's reckoning with workplace culture. Filed years before the Me Too movement brought widespread attention to sexual harassment and discrimination, the case was among the first high-profile lawsuits to publicly challenge the behavior of executives at a major Silicon Valley startup.

Her legislative advocacy for laws against unsolicited sexually explicit images — often referred to as cyberflashing — contributed to broader discussions about digital harassment and the responsibilities of technology platforms in protecting users.

As of 2025, Wolfe Herd continues to lead Bumble as the company navigates a rapidly changing landscape in which dating app fatigue, particularly among younger users, poses a significant challenge. Her stated focus on integrating artificial intelligence and addressing the broader societal issue of loneliness reflects an evolution in her thinking about the role of technology in human connection.