Technology
Bumble’s new CEO talks about her key mission: diversifying the company
Since the Bumble hit IPO at the height of the pandemic, investor enthusiasm for the dating site has cooled. At least Bumble stock is currently trading at around $11 per share, a far cry from the $76 it reached on its first day as a public company in February 2021.
Investors are, after all, fickle, which is a challenge for nearly every publicly traded company. The greater concern for Bumble is user fatigue. People aren’t downloading dating apps as enthusiastically as they once were, which suggests less subscription revenue. Younger people, especially, are wanting to use other platforms to search out love, including TikTok, and even Snapchat Discord.
Now it’s Lidiane Jones’ job to reverse these trends. This is the difficult task facing many CEOs tasked with rescuing businesses from the post-pandemic doldrums: in publishingIN retail sales and Automotive branchamongst other industries. The end result is, after all, uncertain. But Jones, who was recruited to Bumble in January from Slack — where she was also hired as chief change officer and left after just 10 months — has a game plan, as she recently explained over a din of lunchtime diners at a San Francisco restaurant.
Some of them are related to artificial intelligence, which Bumble’s rivals are also leaning into this harder. Part of this has to do with “margin expansion.” Jones told me that lots of it’s about bringing joy back to an experience that isn’t any longer enjoyable for nearly half of the participants. Much of that conversation follows, edited for length and clarity.
Like many CEOs right away, you’ve got found yourself in a situation where you’ve got needed to lay off people almost immediately – in Bumble’s case, 30% of your 1,200 employees. That’s quite a bit to know quickly. How did you take care of it?
I had some onboarding occurring before I even began. (Bumble founder) Whitney (Wolfe Herd) was incredibly involved in my onboarding process, which put me on a quick track to learning the organization. She really supported me. I believe it made an enormous difference. I’m also deeply convinced that in case you are planning a change, be really thorough and thoughtful in order not to reveal the company to an extended, multi-stage process.
In the second quarter of this 12 months, you relaunch the Bumble app. I read that you simply are reconsider whether women should make the first movewhich looks as if an enormous change.
Our brand awareness is so high it’s amazing. And in case you ask anyone about Bumble, they’ll say it’s about women, and the core of that does not change. We are a company that actually cares about empowering women.
But as we approach our tenth anniversary, it’s an amazing time to think about how we are able to best serve our mission. For us, it’s really about how we express women’s empowerment today and over the next 10 years. What we really need to do is move from women taking the first step to women deciding (who should take the first step). We give women more control and suppleness to decide on what is true for them.
By inviting women to make the first move, do you’re thinking that Bumble has had an impact on who uses the platform? Friends have told me that men they meet on the platform are likely to be more passive, which sometimes causes them dismay.
Historically, we have seen that lots of men who consider in women’s empowerment will come to Bumble. I’ve heard this sentiment about passivity (men) a number of times, but not that always. Our ultimate goal is definitely to offer our customers with an amazing experience.
Other areas of interest include security and artificial intelligence. What can Bumble users expect after the relaunch?
If you’re thinking that about the development of this amazing technology in the context of dating, it is barely pretty much as good and as protected as the company’s data security and security practices. Our customers’ privacy and trust have all the time been extremely strong; we have now all the time had a high bar for healthy connections.
We’ve developed lots of AI and lots of technology over the last 10 years that actually protects in-app behavior, and we are able to tune the models to reflect our values and security guidelines. But we would like to go even further. An enormous a part of Bumble’s DNA advocates for policies that make women feel protected, and we would like to be at the forefront of not only driving the great advancements in technology, but in addition advocating for policies that keep people protected online.
Bumble has long physically verified its users to make sure user profiles should not bots or scams, but doesn’t check criminal background. Will this modification with artificial intelligence?
We check the background. We will certainly work with different (players). But for me it is a priority. I believe that is one other essential step for us.
What else should people know about the upcoming update?
This is actually the starting of a new pace of innovation for Bumble. This is the starting of a new set of experiences. We update the appearance of the profile, we update the visual language of the application, we would like to have more contact with our users, and the tone of voice must be fun and joyful. We’re taking a look at AI to assist amplify a few of the turning points in people’s lives which might be particularly concerning, like making a profile, which will be really difficult. We really have the desire to make dating fun again – that is really the most vital thing.
User fatigue is difficult to beat. Will the new application be accompanied by a new user acquisition strategy?
Bumble has all the time been great at social marketing: organizing events and finding ambassadors who really need to represent the brand. This has been somewhat disrupted during the pandemic; we’re taking this moment before our launch to resume lots of community events because there are lots of people who find themselves looking forward to connecting in person again, and that is the place to begin.
Bumble has all the time been about greater than just dating. Dating plays an enormous role on this, but we have now all the time believed that connections and friendships are needed, so we’re increasing our investment in our capability for friendship because we consider that many individuals just want to begin by hanging out with other people.
Bumble for Friends launched last 12 months. Will we ever see you develop this as a standalone entity?
We are still collecting customer feedback. I’ve heard enthusiastic cases of each. We’re still investigating it.
Technology
Entrepreneur Marc Lore on ‘founder mode’, bad hiring and why avoiding risk is deadly
Entrepreneur Marc Lore has already sold a complete of two corporations for billions of dollars. Now he plans to start out delivering takeaway food Wonder made public in a couple of years, at an ambitious valuation of $40 billion.
We recently spoke in person with Lore in New York about Wonder and its ultimate goal of constructing meal planning easier, but we also touched on Lore’s management philosophy. Below is a part of what he said on the topic, flippantly edited for length and clarity.
Lore on the so-called founder modewhere founders and CEOs actively engage not only with their direct reports, but in addition with “skip level” employees to make sure that small challenges don’t grow to be big ones (Brian Chesky works this fashion, as does Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, amongst others):
Yes, I didn’t just like the founding mode because I operate in a different way. I focus very much on the concepts of vision, capital and people. We meet weekly with the leadership team and spend two hours every week on the core elements of vision, strategy, organizational structure, capital plan, our performance management systems, compensation systems, behaviors and values - akin to: things you’re thinking that are already set.
You think, “Oh, yeah, we’ve done certain behaviors before. We have already established the values. We dealt with performance management. We have our strategy.” But as you grow and develop quickly, it’s amazing how much it evolves over time, and you must sustain with it… and just speak about it and speak about it.
When everyone is fully aligned and you have got really good people, you simply allow them to do it; I do not have to get entangled in any respect. So I won’t go into the small print of what people do, so long as they know the nuances of the strategy and vision. When you connect that together with your team and they achieve that with their very own team, everyone is moving in the correct direction.
What Lore thinks about hiring the correct people:
I actually, really care about hiring rock stars. That is, one and all (I hire). I used to think you could possibly interview someone and inside an hour resolve whether or not they were a rock star. I actually thought so, and I believe other people think so too.
It’s not possible. I’ve employed hundreds of individuals. You cannot tell in an hour-long interview whether someone is a rock star, and it’s normal to get honeyed. Someone talks about a great game, sounds good, says the correct things, has the correct experience, and then it doesn’t work out and you wonder why.
I began going back to resumes and attempting to draw correlations, and I discovered that there was a definite pattern that superstar resumes had that distinguished them from non-superstar resumes. This doesn’t suggest that somebody who doesn’t have a superstar resume cannot be a superstar. I miss these people, it’s okay. But after I see someone with a superstar resume, they’re almost all the time a superstar. When I interview them, I already know that I would like to rent them, and it’s more about ensuring that I’m not missing anything from a behavioral, cultural, or values standpoint – we would like it to be compatible.
However, your resume must show a demonstrable level of success in each position you have got worked in. This means multiple promotions. This means staying with the corporate long enough to advance, and leaving and moving from one company to a different is a giant step. Superstars don’t move sideways. They don’t move from a great company to a bad one because bad corporations must pay more to draw people, so sometimes they shake loose individuals who should not that good, who just need to go for the cash.
But you discover someone who’s (at the highest) 5% and you take a look at their CV and it’s like: boom, boom, promotion, promotion, promotion, promotion, promotion, promotion, and then a giant jump… promotion, promotion, big jump . When I get a resume that shows a visual level of success, I take it and pay them what they need. It’s very essential for me to get this superstar there. And you are constructing an organization of superstars.
You have to have a correct performance management system in place in order that they know exactly what they should do to get to the following level. Because superstars are very motivated. They need to know what they should do to get to the following level, especially Generation Z. They need to know and get promoted every six months.
Finally, Lore talks about his belief that taking more risks is the solution to secure a startup’s future, even when this approach could seem counterintuitive to many:
People all the time underestimate the risk of the establishment and overestimate the risk of introducing change. I see it over and all over again.
If you have got a life-threatening disease and the doctor says, “You have six months to live,” at that time you may go on a trial drug or anything, even when it’s extremely dangerous (it should look good). Basically, you are trying to take a risk to avoid inevitable death.
If you are super healthy and every thing’s going great and someone says, “Take this experimental drug; it can make you live longer” (many individuals will say), “You know what? It’s too dangerous. I’m really healthy. I don’t desire to die from this drug.”
However, startups are very different from large corporations. When you’re employed at a big company like Walmart (whose US e-commerce business Lore tracked selling is certainly one of his corporations), it’s about incremental improvement. There is no incentive to take risks.
As a startup founder, you’ll likely die. Every day that you just live and do that startup, there is a risk that you’re going to die. The probability is 80% and only a 20% likelihood it should actually work. So you have got to take this into consideration when making decisions. You must search for opportunities to take risks to cut back your risk of death. The establishment is the worst thing you may do. Doing nothing is the most important risk you may take.
Technology
Australian government withdraws disinformation law
The Australian government has withdrawn a bill that might have imposed penalties on online platforms as much as 5 percent their global income in the event that they fail to stop the spread of disinformation.
The bill, backed by the Labor government, would enable the Australian Communications and Media Authority to create enforceable rules on disinformation on digital platforms.
IN statementCommunications Minister Michelle Rowland said the bill would “provide an unprecedented level of transparency, holding big tech accountable for its systems and processes to prevent and prevent the spread of harmful misinformation and disinformation online.”
However, she said that “based on public statements and conversations with senators, it is clear that there is no way this proposal could be passed through the Senate.”
When a revised version of the bill was introduced in September, Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly Twitter), criticized it in a one-word post: “Fascists.”
Shadow communications minister David Coleman was a vocal opponent of the bill, arguing it could encourage platforms to suppress free speech to avoid penalties. Because the bill seems dead now, Coleman sent that it was a “shocking attack on free speech that betrayed our democracy” and called on the Prime Minister to “rule out any future version of this legislation”.
Meanwhile, Rowland in his statement called on Parliament to support “other proposals to strengthen democratic institutions and keep Australians safe online”, including laws to combat deepfakes, enforcement of “truth in political advertising during elections” and regulation of artificial intelligence .
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese can be moving forward with a plan to ban children under 16 from using social media.
Technology
Department of Justice tells Google to sell Chrome
Welcome back to the week in review. This week, we take a look at how the Department of Justice ordered Google to sell Chrome to break its monopoly, whether OpenAI by chance deleted potential evidence in a copyright lawsuit filed by The New York Times, and the way artificial intelligence corporations are exploiting TikTok for research purposes. Let’s do it.
The U.S. Department of Justice argued that Google should get rid of its Chrome browser to help break the corporate’s illegal monopoly on online search. U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled in August that Google is an illegal monopoly for abusing its power within the search industry, and the Department of Justice’s latest filing says Google’s ownership of Android and Chrome poses a “significant challenge” to pursuing countermeasures aimed toward establishing a competitive search engine market.
Anthropic raised a further $4 billion from Amazon and agreed to make Amazon Web Services the first training site for its flagship generative artificial intelligence models. Anthropic can be working with Annapurna Labs, AWS’s chip manufacturing division, to develop future generations of Trainium accelerators, custom AWS chips for training artificial intelligence models. Amazon’s recent money injection brings the tech giant’s total investment in Anthropic to $8 billion.
OpenAI by chance deleted potential evidence in The New York Times and Daily News’ copyright lawsuit, say the publisher’s lawyers. As part of the lawsuit, OpenAI agreed to provide two virtual machines so the lawyer could seek for copyrighted content in its AI training kits. However, within the letter, lawyers for the publishers claim that OpenAI engineers deleted all publisher search data stored on one of the virtual machines.
News
Kim Kardashian meets Optimus: The fashion mogul had hands-on experience with Tesla’s bipedal humanoid robot. In videos posted to X, Kardashian encourages Optimus to make a heart out of his hand, dance like he’s at a luau and play rock, paper, scissors. Read more
Oura’s valuation exceeds $5 billion: The smart ring maker has received a $75 million investment from glucose device maker Dexcom. The investment, which constitutes Oura’s Series D financing round, raises the corporate’s valuation to over $5 billion. Read more
Let’s organize a celebration for Partiful: The customizable event planning app challenges legacy solutions like Evite, Eventbrite, and Facebook Events, is a favourite amongst Gen Z users, and was just named a top app of 2024 by Google. Read more
Talk to me in your language: Microsoft will soon allow Teams users to clone their voices so that they can talk to others in up to nine languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. Read more
Hackers attack Andrew Tate: According to The Daily Dot, hackers breached a web-based course founded by an influencer and self-confessed misogynist, exposing data on nearly 800,000 users. Tate is currently under house arrest awaiting trial on sex trafficking and rape charges. Read more
What makes a bank a bank? The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ruled that each one digital services that handle significant volumes of transactions needs to be subject to bank-style supervision, which could impact Apple Pay, Cash App, Google Pay, PayPal and Venmo. Read more
A more conversational Siri: According to sources cited by Bloomberg, Apple is developing a new edition of Siri based on advanced multilingual models in an attempt to meet up with more natural-sounding competitors comparable to Google Gemini Live. Read more
Making Money With TikTok Brains: Several AI-powered research tools are taking advantage of the “PDF to Brainrot” trend, during which the text of an uploaded document is read in a monotone voice against a backdrop of “weirdly satisfying” vertical videos like Subway Surfers gameplay. Read more
Threads attacks Bluesky: As Bluesky’s user base surpasses 20 million, Instagram Threads has begun rolling out a brand new feature called custom feeds to capitalize on user demand for more personalization. Read more
ChatGPT within the classroom: OpenAI has released a free online course to help elementary and middle school teachers find out how to introduce ChatGPT into their classrooms. However, some educators are concerned about this technology and its potential for error. Read more
Do we want one other day by day word game? Normally I’m an evangelist for word games and crosswords, but I feel like we’re quickly approaching market saturation. Netflix has launched a brand new day by day word puzzle game in partnership with TED called TED Tumblewords. Read more
Analysis
Please don’t send X-ray images to the chatbot: People often turn to generative AI chatbots to ask questions on their health concerns and higher understand their health. Since October, X users have been encouraged to upload their X-rays, MRIs and PET scans to the AI-powered chatbot, Grok, to help interpret the outcomes. Medical data is a special category subject to federal protections that, usually, only you may circumvent. But simply because you may does not imply you need to. As Zack Whittaker writes, it’s price remembering that what goes on the Internet never leaves it. Read more
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