Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd is going through a state of affairs that few tech executives ever encounter: watching her personal life story dramatized on display — with out her involvement.
Hulu’s new biopic concerning the 35-year-old entrepreneur premiered on Sept. 8. Swiped stars Lily James as Wolfe Herd and traces her dramatic rise from Tinder cofounder to Bumble CEO and youngest girl to take an organization public. However Wolfe Herd herself says the mission has left her deeply uneasy.
In an interview with CNBC’s Julia Boorstin, Wolfe Herd admitted she solely realized of the movie as soon as it was already “off to the races,” with a script in hand and manufacturing underway. Her discomfort ran so deep that she requested her lawyer to intervene.
“I even was asking my lawyer two years ago, ‘What do I do? I don’t want a movie made about me. Shut it down!’” Herd recalled.
As she acknowledged, public figures usually have little authorized recourse to cease tasks primarily based on publicly recognized tales.
The expertise has been unsettling. Wolfe Herd stated she finds the thought of a film about her life “too weird,” confessing she hasn’t been capable of watch the trailer all through. On the similar time, she expressed some appreciation for the casting selection, calling it an “honor” to be portrayed by James. Nonetheless, the combo of feelings has left her conflicted.
“I’m obviously both terrified and maybe slightly flattered,” she stated. “But the strangeness and the fear of it outweighs any flattery.”
The movie arrives at a second when Hollywood has more and more turned to Silicon Valley for inspiration. Hulu’s The Dropout chronicled Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, Apple TV+’s WeCrashed dramatized Adam Neumann and WeWork, whereas older movies put the lives of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg on display.
These tasks attempt to infuse the adrenaline of Silicon Valley invention with the staidness of enterprise actuality. And Wolfe Herd’s profession—with its mixture of early success, controversy, and in the end a billion-dollar IPO—matches neatly into the style.
Certainly, Wolfe Herd’s story is, in some ways, cinematic. Born in Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah, to a household invested in each philanthropy and property growth, she launched her first enterprise earlier than 21, which was a bamboo tote bag mission to lift funds for these affected by the BP oil spill of 2010. She was instrumental in Tinder’s meteoric rise however left following a high-profile lawsuit, solely to cofound Bumble in 2014—a courting app premised on ladies making the primary transfer.
In 2021, Wolfe Herd turned the youngest girl in historical past to take an organization public, ringing the Nasdaq bell together with her son on her hip. At this time, Bumble boasts thousands and thousands of customers and a fame for selling safer, extra empowering on-line interactions.
However success doesn’t at all times imply management over your individual story. Hulu’s movie, directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg and drawing extensively from public information, lawsuits, and media accounts, bypassed Wolfe Herd’s participation from the beginning. Some critics have described the film as entertaining however “thin,” counting on the broader narrative of girlboss ascent whereas acknowledging the dearth of deep enter from its topic.
It at the moment has a 37% ranking on Rotten Tomatoes.
For Wolfe Herd, the problem is much less about accuracy than concerning the lack of company. As somebody who constructed her profession by upending conventional dynamics and giving ladies extra management over their interactions on-line, having no say in how her personal story is informed feels dissonant.
She admits she could ultimately watch the movie, however not with out hesitation.
“I guess I gotta get some popcorn and stay tuned,” she stated with a wry resignation.
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