Bumble set out to empower women in the dating world. Now, Whitney Woolfe aims to change the world of work for women, starting with Bumble's office. With a "no bitching culture" and only four male employees out of 32, the company practices what it preaches.
Photographer Jeff Wilson got the opportunity to capture how the company works for WIRED's October cover feature. In August, Bumble moved into a new corporate headquarters, but at the time of Wilson's shoot the entire operation was being run out of a small condo in a high-rise in downtown Austin.
"With 15 to 20 people occupying a small two-bed-one-bath, the options for meeting rooms are slim to none, making the bathroom the only a viable option" says Wilson, who is also based in Austin. "You don't often see such serious business being conducted in a bathtub" he says, "but they did it regularly".
In this case, Wilson got to sit in on an actual meeting. "I’m using a fairly wide lens, which tends to exaggerate the distance between camera, subjects and environment, so it’s actually a much tighter squeeze than it looks. I think the photograph speaks to the reality that the meteoric rise of the company had them bursting at the seams", he says.
"Shooting corporate headquarters can often be a dry, serious affair where nobody wants to exhibit even a whiff of humanity," Wilson explains. "It was a gift to be able to shoot something that was quirky and a touch absurd that still had the benefit of being true."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
