Comment by solardev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by solardev | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

One person I'm inspired by is Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder and CEO of the dating app Bumble: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Wolfe_Herd

When she was younger, she was kinda a bleeding heart type, selling tote bags and clothing to benefit environmental and human rights causes, then working in an orphanage. She went on to become the VP of marketing for Tinder, but left because of sexual harassment.

She went on to create Bumble, teaming up with a Russian billionaire (that part is admittedly shady). Within a few years, she herself became the youngest self-made female billionaire.

Since then, they've been getting mixed press... allegations of sexual harassment at the office (https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2019/07/08/exclusi...), a paid week off after COVID (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/dating-app-bumble-gives-work...), etc.

Overall I just think it's cool to see a woman who didn't grow up in tech get pissed off at the misogyny and forge her own path in reaction, despite all the doubt and vitriol she faced along the way.

I'm not sure if I would consider the societal effects of Tinder and Bumble as positive and inspirational. If anything is has impaired gender relations, lead to the massive spread of STDs and arguably made the world a worse place.

And regarding Wolfe Herd herself, it's the eternal question, how "self-made" can one be as the child of a very wealthy and well-connected property developer of Jewish background? How many free attempts at entrepreneurship would she have had until eventually something panned out?

I dunno, I think any social app like that has its pros and cons. I met many amazing women on them, including my current partner, and also exes that I still consider dear friends. You don't have to use them just for no strings attached high risk sex if that's not your thing. It never was mine, but I still met some really cool people on there. Certainly a less toxic place than, say, Facebook or reddit... less of a herd mentality when you're just meeting one on one, I suppose.

But sure, they can have downsides too. I actually just got a check in the mail from Bumble because they were subject to a gender discrimination class action suit for prohibiting men from messaging first. And some of my female friends had terrible issues with overwhelming spam and dick pics on those services (part of why Bumble was a hit), along with guys just being assholes in various ways. I never had a bad experience with them, myself, even though the dates didn't always work out. You get out of it what you put into it.

As for Herd, a lot of CEOs come from privileged backgrounds and it's not something we fault them for. Even given that privilege, very few go on to found companies that become household names. And still fewer end up even remotely decent people. For every Herd, there's a hundred Larry Ellisons and Bernie Madoffs and Weinstein, predatory sociopaths out to exploit everyone around them.

If Herd's only crime is that she grew up privileged, eh, that doesn't seem so bad. She had to face many challenges her male peers didn't, just on account of her being an ambitious woman.

I think self made in this context just means she actually had to work for her wealth, as opposed to being a straight up heiress like Paris Hilton.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com