Whitney Wolfe Herd on burning out — and bouncing back

In Brief

Whitney Wolfe Herd returned successful March to pb Bumble, the dating app she founded and took public, pursuing the unexpected departure of CEO Lidiane Jones. Now, successful a New York Times interview, Wolfe Herd opens up astir what happened.

“I had nary intentions of coming back,” Wolfe Herd says. Her post-Bumble beingness initially brought existential questions astir her identity, yet giving mode to regular meditation and committee calls from the sidelines. That changed erstwhile Jones reached retired to confess she was overwhelmed. Shortly aft that conversation, Jones resigned.

Wolfe Herd dismisses speculation of struggle betwixt them. “I deliberation the satellite wants radical –  peculiarly erstwhile it’s a pistillate to a pistillate –  they privation determination to beryllium immoderate riff. There’s nary riff,” she emphasizes.

Wolfe Herd recognized her ain burnout reflected successful Jones’s exhaustion. “I felt similar I was looking successful a mirror. I felt similar I was looking astatine myself a twelvemonth prior… [Jones] herself had made immoderate of the aforesaid mistakes I had made, which was moving that other hour, putting successful that other trip.”

Herd, who announced Friday connected Instagram that she’s expecting her 3rd child, addresses the company’s struggles successful her Times interview. With Bumble this week reporting first-quarter net that fell 7.7% year-over-year, she accidental that, “Bumble needs maine back. It’s an hold of maine to immoderate degree, and watching it autumn from its highest has been precise hard.”

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