Rachel Lee Goldenberg’s Swiped is, in its own way, a pretty original story that knows a simple truth; it’s tough being a woman out here. And that doesn’t change even when a woman is climbing the seemingly magical tech ladder all the way up to the CEO’s chair. Whitney Wolfe Herd had a too-good-to-be-true ascent, and that wasn’t necessarily the best thing for the person she wanted to be. Accountability and a gut-punch of disillusionment came to Whitney at the very same time. She didn’t have a great time realizing that she’s not necessarily safe just because she’s the cool girl in the boys club. But that lesson translated into a glorious win when Whitney decided to use her position to push for the changes that she believed in. I mean, can you imagine the ideas that had to come together to make Bumble a space where women would be relatively safer in an online dating space? Whitney pulled that off.
Spoiler Alert
What was Whitney Wolfe Herd’s role at Tinder?
You’d have to be absolutely out of your mind or have a really desperate reason to be a woman and walk into a bro-dominated tech startup. In 2012, Whitney was a little bit of both. She was practically a genius and popular in college back when she lived in Salt Lake City. That couldn’t have made for a very smooth transition into the kind of adulthood that Whitney wants to use to change the world. But Whitney’s pitch about an app that connects volunteers to orphanages in Thailand isn’t going to work on the leftist billionaire, some of the many creepy guys, and men who give shout outs to the launch of a new flavor of their favorite energy drink. It’s woo-hoo and a whole lot of testosterone all around Whitney and her big idea. She’s almost about to give up when chance drops her in the path of someone who’ll have a complicated impact on her life. Sean Rad seems like one of the better ones. He listens to her without immediately overwhelming her with a list of his achievements. That’s a win at a tech bro convention, right? But Sean does way more than that. Not only does he give her a few pointers on what not to say in front of a bunch of posers with money–they’re not gonna like Whitney very much once she whips out her college degrees–but he also gives her his card. Now, that’s only important because this guy right here is a pretty big deal in the Hatch Labs. He’s an entrepreneur who’s been working on a whole bunch of projects. Let’s just say that anything Sean can “gamify,” he usually goes ahead and does that. He’s currently obsessed with his new venture, Cardify. Whitney doesn’t mean to be a plus one on Sean’s meeting with a restaurant chain, but true to herself, she was very early to reach the Hatch Labs. But here’s where you really get to know Whitney. She’s got the kind of confidence that makes her sell Cardify, something she doesn’t even know or understand, to clients who were a bit iffy even after Sean’s pitch. It’s a site with a basic reward system where customers would pool points and get gifts, which is bound to have an effect on the number of times they visit the restaurant chain. You can see why Sean’s so impressed by Whitney. What she actually sells to the client is a dream. A dream that he can take someone as gorgeous as her out on a date. A whip-smart young girl who’s attractive and knows how to use that? Now that’s the kind of person Sean needs on his team. But Whitney has plenty of reasons to reject his very generous offer of the position of the Marketing Director. Whitney would rather take her chances in the non-profit biz because, unlike tech, it’s not a bro zone. Women actually get to climb the ladder in non-profit. So Sean’s completely ignorant pow-wow about how Bill Gates earned billions before curing malaria or something doesn’t even stand. Bill was a man. He had it easier than a woman will ever have in the world of tech. But Whitney is reminded that it takes money to change the world. And if it’s money and an opportunity she wants, there’s no better place than the Hatch Labs. Whitney and Tisha are quick friends. It’s from Tisha that Whitney learns a fundamental truth about tech that should get her worried. Any new launch that doesn’t get 1 million subscribers in the first year is basically a goner. And Cardify is really behind. That’s why Sean’s meetings with his team mostly consists of him trying to get them to push Cardify. But Sean’s focusing on the wrong thing here. They have a goldmine in their hands with their dating website, Match Box. Sure, it’s not doing great right now, but it’s got a lot of potential. Sean’s not a fan of the name. And it’s Whitney’s lightbulb moment that gives them the winner. Hatch Labs’ dating site will now be known as Tinder, with all the excitement of a first spark and the heat of chemistry. It’s not that it doesn’t bother Whitney when she sees signs of sexist biases and the general grossness of dudes working on a dating site. But Whitney loves it at the top. She wants to be one of the guys so that she can be the only girl in the room with Sean when he makes the big decisions. And for that, she turns a blind eye when she sees that nobody was even looking at Tisha when she did a lot of work on the brand new swipe feature that gets a big rise out of the room. The only one who gets applauded is the man who did the presentation. But Whitney stoops a bit lower than that at times too. She even joins in on blatant objectification of women to convince the boys that she’s one of them. But she’s flying too high to look down and see the consequences of her silence and her complicity in the Hatch Labs being a pretty bad place for a girl to work. She’s contradicting her own values. But it’s hard not to get swept up in all the approval she’s getting from Sean and his friend and co-founder of Tinder, Justin. They trust her immediately and jump right on her idea of flying to Salt Lake City and targeting the demographic that she knows through and through. Whitney was a sorority girl just a year back. So it takes her no time to blend right in when she takes Tisha along and visits SMU to get the young crowd to use Tinder. Whitney knows how to sell things, alright. She plays on the girls’ insecurities just right to get them to join, and the frat boys are easy. Soon enough, all her hard work pays off. True to its name and Whitney’s prediction, Tinder catches on like wildfire amid the youth. There isn’t much more to Whitney’s life than Tinder at this point. Even the dates she goes on are for research. And the flaws she finds in the other dating sites, she digs out of her unwitting dates. That’s the information that she uses to make Tinder sleeker and better. The sign up process gets shorter, and they can now work on developing an app because the young people have now joined Tinder. Whitney singlehandedly pulls off the impossible and brings the subscriber numbers up to a million within months of working on Tinder. So yeah, she earned the co-founder title that Sean generously offers her in front of the wild crowd of their colleagues. Whitney’s on top of the world.
Why did Whitney leave Tinder?
Well, I can’t say that Whitney’s trouble at Tinder didn’t have a lot to do with Justin Mateen. They had a goofy meet-cute. And against her better judgment, Whitney let herself get swept up by Justin’s awkward confession that he likes her. The first red flag about Justin that sort of caught Whitney off guard was how he didn’t even bother to discuss it with her before disclosing their relationship to Sean. He apparently doesn’t see a problem with it because they’re friends and technically, he’s her boss too. But even though she could ignore this, she can’t possibly gaslight herself into believing that Justin doesn’t mean to steal credit when he very evidently does so in front of Hatch Labs’ owner. He says he only chimed in because she wasn’t saying anything when Mr. Hugh congratulated them about the huge success at the SMU campus. But Whitney knows that Justin was being sketchy. There’s no smile on his face when Sean calls Whitney a co-founder of Tinder in front of everyone. He should’ve been happy for his girlfriend, right? Instead, Justin is grumpy because there’s a woman in the gang of boys now. At a party to celebrate Tinder’s success, Whitney is still too proud of her contribution to the success of the dating site to speak ill of the company to Marta, a reporter from Forbes. She also turns down Badoo CEO Andrey Andreev’s insanely terrific offer to join Badoo as their CMO. It would’ve been a great feat for Whitney to be the first female CMO to the most popular European dating site. But she rejects the offer out of sheer loyalty and love for the dating app she considers her baby. Things sort of come crashing down all at the same time when she actually gets to know Justin, and along with him, Sean and JB, the men who actually run Tinder. Tisha made her privy to the very troublesome issue of unsolicited inappropriate pictures being sent by men on the platform. Women’s reports do nothing to stop men from going on doing the same thing, because the platform doesn’t have any policy to hold them accountable. Whitney gets how unpleasant it must be for Beth, a young Cornell graduate, to be reduced to the job of deleting those pictures. So when she brings it up at their next meeting, she expects Sean to take it seriously. But neither Sean nor her boyfriend, Justin, wants to do anything to mess with the system that’s been making them rich beyond their dreams. It’s here that Whitney feels totally stumped to see her boyfriend’s true face. She didn’t know that Justin is the kind of guy who’d say wildly misogynistic things like claiming most of the reports are done by women who were aggrieved by men rejecting them. Speak for yourself, Justin. But Sean’s no better either. Not only does he dismiss the very real issue with the platform that Whitney brought up, but he immediately comes up with a plan to turn the narrative around instead of fixing their policies and making Tinder safer for women. But Whitney doesn’t want to lose her place, so despite being horrified by their grossness, she doesn’t really fight it. It bothers her more and more when Justin, Sean, and JB make it clear that she’s not a part of the team. No matter how Sean wants to play it, it can’t be a coincidence that Whitney isn’t asked to join them on stage when Tinder wins the Crunchie for the hottest new startup. It’s far from an oversight when Whitney’s name is kept out of the Time Magazine article on Tinder. They’re shunning her from the fruits of her own labor. And Justin couldn’t be further from a supportive boyfriend. Any man with the slightest bit of sense would’ve seen the break-up coming. But as you’d expect, Justin is a sore loser. When Whitney breaks up with him, he has no problem saying what he really thinks. Whitney was already pretty sure about her decision. But when Justin implies that she used him to get to the top and shames her to no end, Whitney knows for sure that she’s done the right thing by dumping him. She didn’t expect Justin to be a crybaby. But to her horror, he’s far worse than that. In the months to come, Justin bombards her with texts that range from insults to threats. It gives her no joy to take it up with Sean. But she’s being constantly harassed by someone she has to work with. And it’s really affecting her work. But Sean’s reassurances are just as useless as they sounded. Justin doesn’t plan to stop harassing Whitney for dumping him. And at a certain point, Whitney can’t deny the clear signs that she’s being pushed out. They don’t include her in the meetings anymore. And to make the space absolutely terrible for her, Justin even gets his pals to call her names. It’s sad that Whitney still hopes for a good outcome when she drags her shaky legs into Sean’s office for one last time. But the man she meets this time isn’t behaving like the man she thought she knew. Sean was never Whitney’s friend. Justin wasn’t kidding when he cornered her at the party and told her that Sean will always pick his boys over her. Whitney didn’t believe that. She thought Sean values her. So it’s an incredibly traumatizing experience for her when Sean switches his tone with her and asks her to quit if she can’t coexist with Justin. Bros over anyone with a brain, I guess. But to Whitney, this isn’t just losing a job. She’s losing all the credit for the tireless work she put into making Tinder a blazing star in dating culture. Her lawyers are more realistic than she would like. Whitney thought that the evidence that she collected of all the ways Tinder is a terrible place for a woman to work would win her the case. But in the billionaire’s business, winning means getting a large sum. Tinder wants to pay her off in exchange for her signing an NDA. It’s devastating for Whitney to come to terms with the truth that she can’t hurt a hair on Sean and Justin’s heads. They’ll pay an amount that means nothing to them, and they’ll continue to harass women who come to work for them. Whitney felt too weak against the systematic misogyny that she had dreaded before Sean swept her off her feet with his offer. If she goes public with this, even if she wins the case, she’ll be an outcast for life. Employers will know her name and face as that of a woman who accused her previous bosses of discriminating against her and harassing her. How could Whitney go through that?
How Did Whitney Start Bumble?
Signing the NDA did nothing to keep Whitney safe. Sean and his boys are the kind of people who like to stay ahead of the narrative. It’s obvious that people who know that they’re in the wrong wouldn’t want the victim’s voice to be the first thing that the press hears. So just in case Whitney decides to speak to anyone, Sean and co leaked their own narrative. Whitney’s chased for scoops, severely harassed on the internet for months, and people even make threats on her life. Whitney’s state now really makes you look back on a joke she once made with Tisha on a horror tour of LA. Just as they were talking about their big dreams, the tour guide mentioned Black Dahlia, a girl who’d come to LA with big dreams and had been found mutilated. Whitney didn’t want to believe that was a bad omen. But she was likely right anyway. A woman trying to reach the highest ranks of the tech world doesn’t need bad omens to get in life-threatening trouble. Men take care of the trouble department without any help. It takes time for Whitney to realize how selfish she’s actually been. Soon after her departure from Tinder, when Tisha calls her out on her silence when the women in the office asked for her help, Whitney isn’t really ready to take a look in the mirror. But she goes through all the choices that she’s made while trying to hold on to her sanity. That’s always a can of worms. What Whitney sees in her introspection is a person who didn’t want to believe that her female coworkers were being mistreated until the bad things happened to her. But the good thing is, she doesn’t want to be that person anymore. It’s easy to get caught up in the thrill of approval and success and forget what really matters. You can hardly blame a girl for relishing a win for a change. But Whitney shouldn’t have betrayed her own values and pushed away her friends when they needed her. Most importantly, she shouldn’t have betrayed the person she set out to be. The only decent thing to happen after Sean tried to sweep everything under the rug and pretend that no one ever did anything to Whitney was the fact that he got fired. He couldn’t have liked it too much. But after he had articles published about how Whitney doesn’t deserve any credit for Tinder’s success, he kind of had it coming.
A new chance falls into Whitney’s lap when the real businessman recognizes the opportunity to pounce and nabs her for his dating site, Badoo. Whitney thought Andrey didn’t hear anything about her Tinder scandal. But Andrey couldn’t care less about what a bunch of whiny little boys had to say about Whitney. He’s filled the CMO position at Badoo. But he is eager to harness Whitney’s unique genius and fund her dreams. The problem is, the memory of working on a dating app has been too traumatic for Whitney. She’s so disturbed by the horror that awaits women online that her big idea is a platform where women support women. I mean, yeah, if she hears herself, she’d know that nobody would go for that. And Andrey knows better than to mention anything new and slow down her natural gift at coming up with original ideas. So he waits until the light comes back in her eyes again. If the problem with dating is men not being held accountable for harassing women, the solution isn’t running away from dating. For Whitney, the only way to actually contribute and do something good is to create a dating app that is safe for women. Andrey doesn’t need any convincing. But Whitney understandably has to put in some work with Tisha. She wants to fix her mistakes. And the person she’s wronged the most is Tisha. Whitney’s so sincere in her apology that someone as no-nonsense as Tisha has to forgive her right away. And like a true girl’s girl, she takes Beth along with her when she quits the job that’s basically a bunch of insufferable men hanging out. The scenes where the three women brainstorm their new venture is straight out of a dream for any woman really. She may not legally be allowed to discriminate based on sex when hiring, but the unofficial plan is to hire 90% women. Whitney isn’t immediately sold on the name, Bumble. But when the three of them take Andrey’s suggestion to check out the cowboy scene in Austen, and Whitney actually hears out Tisha, she’s immediately charmed by the connotations of the hive, the sense of community, and the feminine energy of the queen bee. So Bumble it is. But what makes them different? Well, for starters, they’re gonna be a no second chances app. That basically means that the moment a creep is reported, they’re banned for life. That already sets Bumble miles apart from a male-dominated space like Tinder, be it the office or the app. But the cowboy scene has more than one way to inspire Whitney. When she is in two minds about going for the smoking hot cowboy who’s been smiling at her from across the bar, Beth mentions how it’s the norm for the man to make the first move in dating. That’s what Whitney wanted to change in the first place. So the idea that she notes down in the bar before going over to the handsome cowboy is that Bumble will be an app where women will make the first move. She follows her own rule when she walks over to the man who introduces himself as Michael, but she doesn’t take Beth’s advice and decides to take her chances on a clear note. She comes clean about the scandal about her that’s just a Google search away before they can talk. And luckily, Michael turns out to be one of the good ones. He’s not threatened by what the media has said about Whitney. And their chemistry lasts far longer than both of them initially expected. They get engaged really soon. And Whitney’s happiness is only doubled by the thriving venture she’s leading alongside her hive at Bumble. It’s obvious that Tinder won’t take it well. But they’re salty enough to drag Bumble to court on meaningless charges in a desperate attempt to hurt the competition and scare Whitney. But Whitney isn’t who she used to be when she worked for Tinder. She now has the courage to fight them head on and speak her truth in front of the press when the lawsuit business comes at them out of nowhere. This time around, Whitney’s success actually feels good to her. Her life isn’t a space infested with awful men anymore. And her workplace is an open, kind space where ideas spark and emotions are nurtured. Bumble’s success is synonymous with Whitney.
Wait, did you think Andrey Andreev was one of the good ones? I wouldn’t blame you, and neither would Whitney. He’s never seemed anything but empowering, unbiased, and generous. But his company is unsurprisingly not too different a place than the Hatch Labs. The heartbreaking news comes to Whitney when she’s about to launch her new ideas, Bumble BFF and Bumble Bizz. Marta’s story has been sporadically moving ahead in the background. We’ve heard her phone calls with a certain Jessica, an employee of the Magic Lab who is done with their sickening culture. Marta catches Whitney completely off guard with the Forbes article on Andrey Andreev and his company’s crazy disturbing activities involving drugs, sex, and prostitutes. You can only imagine how women are treated in a place where these things are allowed at work parties. The first time Whitney met Marta, she was too anxious to lose her position in Tinder to say anything against Sean and Justin. And this time, all she can say is what her experience has actually been. Andrey has always been good to her. But it bothers Whitney that that’s her official statement on the matter. Sure, she’s made Bumble’s parent company happy, and Andrey has personally come down to thank her for her support. But how can Whitney run a dating app that doesn’t give second chances to creeps and buy into Andrey’s whole “we’ll make big changes” speech? It could be terrible for Bumble if Whitney speaks up against Andrey. So the PR agent is just doing her job when she advises Whitney to stick with the statement of support.
But during Swiped’s ending, Whitney has grown into a woman who can’t possibly pretend to be an ally and work for a predator. So on the platform meant to promote her brand, an initiative that will connect women and inspire entrepreneurship, Whitney does the right thing. This is her chance to correct the mistake she made in the past by staying silent while other women got hurt. And she makes the most of it by publicly stating that she in no way supports the terrible things Andrey and his group of perverted men have been doing in the Badoo office. The women who’ve come forward have risked everything. And Whitney gets that the least she could do as a woman who holds a position of power and influence is support other women. Whitney’s personal growth in the process of her finding her footing in the business world has been nothing short of chaotic. But that’s what Whitney thrives in. And keeping right in tune with the whimsical theme of her life, things surprisingly don’t fall apart after her statement about Andrey. For once, Whitney’s courage gets the right result. Andrey loses his job. And the man freaking Whitney out by showing up unannounced is Matthew Slate of the Blackstone Investment Group. He’s come to fill Whitney in on the changes that have happened without her knowledge. From the sounds of it, they plan to make Badoo, Magic Lab, and Bumble much safer places for women to work in. That’s something that Whitney can get behind. She’ll be the CEO of it all anyway. Now is her time to make sure that the companies she runs are safe, warm places that reject abuse and biases at the first sign. And while you have to celebrate the fact that she goes on to have it all–the family, her company, and the fame of being the first self made female billionaire–her biggest win is as a person, and as a woman. Her move in support of the women affected by the perversion Andrey and his offices bred is a glowing example of empathy and fairness. Just because he didn’t hurt her, it doesn’t mean that he’s incapable of hurting other women. And I think that’s a really important thing to remember in any discourse about abuse and harassment. Dismissal is easy. But having a perspective that isn’t reduced to your personal experiences is the only way to be reasonable when it comes to the people around you. Whitney achieved that in the process of finding her place in the world.
