Le Journal

He is the one and only Hawkeye and it should be him in multiple other movies and Disney should pay him what he is worth. #keepreenerhawkeye

Bumble is restructuring to centralize its product, engineering, and design under one leader. As a result, chief product officer Michael Affronti has left the company after holding the role for a year.Amy E. Price/SXSW Conference & Festivals via Getty ImagesBumble's chief product officer, Michael Affronti, has left the company.Affronti was one of two remaining executives hired before founder Whitney Wolfe Herd took back the CEO role.In an end-of-year message to staff, Herd said she had taken a "hard, honest look at where our business stands."Bumble's chief product officer is out as the result of a recent leadership restructuring within the dating app company, Business Insider confirmed.Michael Affronti, Bumble's chief product officer and one of two executives who remained after Whitney Wolfe Herd was reinstated as CEO, has left the company after a year in the role.In an end-of-year message to staff obtained by Business Insider, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd shared that she and Affronti, who was hired in January 2025, had "mutually agreed that the best path forward for the company is to centralize Product, Engineering, and Design under one leader."Vivek Sagi, previously the company's chief technology officer, now holds the new title of chief product and technology officer. A source familiar with the matter said that much of Bumble's engineering talent is based in Austin, where Sagi is based."I know this news will land differently across the organization," Herd wrote in the December note. "Michael has been a strong leadership presence across Bumble, and I want to thank you all in advance for supporting one another as we move through this transition."Affronti was one of two remaining executives who worked under Lidiane Jones, who served as Bumble's CEO from January 2024 to March 2025. After Herd, who founded Bumble, announced her return as CEO in 2025, a string of executives left, including the company's CMO, CTO, CLO, and CBO.David Ard, Bumble's chief people officer, is the only C-suiter left at Bumble who was hired before March 2025, when Herd officially took over.In her message to staff, Herd described a "year of meaningful transformation for our company.""Over the past several weeks, and in close partnership with our Board, we've taken a hard, honest look at where our business stands and what our members need from us right now," Herd wrote. "What's become clear is that we need to sharpen our focus so we can stabilize our core, prioritize our product investments with intention, and set ourselves up for a confident return to growth."Bumble had a rough 2025. The company's stock has fallen 52.35% in the last year.In response to Herd's note, Affronti sent his own note to the company's staff."I have a strong, enduring belief in Bumble's mission and in our ability to return to growth and become a truly massive, category-defining business," Affronti wrote. "I feel incredibly positive about the direction we're heading and the clarity we now have to operate in a way that lets our teams do their best work."Before joining Bumble, Affronti served as a senior vice president and general manager at Salesforce. Jones, Herd's predecessor, came to Bumble from Salesforce as the former CEO of Slack.Bumble announced Affronti's hiring on January 6, 2025. 11 days later, the company announced Jones' exit and Herd's reemergence as CEO.Affronti will now be "cheering loudly from the outside," he wrote in his message.Read Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd's full message to staff:Team,I want to share that, after thoughtful discussion, Michael and I have mutually agreed that the best path forward for the company is to centralize Product, Engineering, and Design under one leader. As a result, Michael will be departing Bumble today. We are incredibly grateful for the impact he has made during his time…

I would love for this years Halloween fright and horror nights at universal studios Orlando Florida resort to do something with a cyberpunk theme would be fun or a cool steampunk theme would also be a nice fit during this years event at least for a brand new original haunted spooky creepy bloody gory fun house or maze style walkthrough attraction or a cool epic scare zone would be fun.

Lindsay Kaplan is a former marketing executive and cofounder of Chief, a networking company for women.Courtesy of Lindsay KaplanAttention is a hot commodity in the age of social media overload — especially for startups.Lindsay Kaplan, a former marketing executive, is joining consumer-focused VC fund Bullish.She shared with Business Insider what it takes for startups to "break through the noise" right now.Startups don't just need cash to be successful. Like many of us, they also thrive on attention.Lindsay Kaplan, a former marketing executive and cofounder of Chief, a networking company for women, wants to coach startup founders on what it takes to build culture-driving brands."You can have as much money as you want to pour into the algorithm and buy ads," Kaplan told Business Insider. "But if you don't have the right founder who's able to build a community and the attention that you need to build a real product that people want, all of that money … is meaningless."After stepping away from her role as chief brand officer at Chief last year, Kaplan is pivoting her career to focus on working with startup founders. She's taking her own lessons as a founder, marketing exec, and investor in startups over to Bullish, a consumer-focused venture capital fund. She's joining the firm as a venture partner, the company exclusively told Business Insider.Bullish has invested in several consumer hits, including Warby Parker, Harry's, Peloton, and Casper, Kaplan's former employer.Bullish invests in early-stage startups, typically from pre-seed to Series A, Kaplan said. The categories she's most interested in span loneliness, dating, parenting, health, and identity and belonging."AI can be a tool to help those problems," Kaplan said, but she's acutely aware that not all AI is going to be a hit with real-life people.What does it take to get people to care about your product?Cracking how to "break through the noise" helps, Kaplan said.How startups can 'break through the noise'"What a consumer cares about is what is in it for them. What do we get out of it?" Kaplan said. "Founders are so used to pitching VCs that it's really hard to switch gears and start thinking about: Why should a customer care?"When it comes to consumer-facing AI startups, brands need to think outside the box.Kaplan said that "contrarian" plays can be useful when marketing a startup in a crowded space.For instance, while so many tech companies are shouting AI from rooftops, some are strategically letting AI take a back seat."The best brands emerging are using AI, they're not necessarily making their startup fully based in AI," Kaplan said.Kaplan pointed to Rocco, a smart fridge brand she angel invested in, as an example."It's a smart fridge, but the brand doesn't lead with 'AI-powered appliance,' it leads with design and functionality," Kaplan said. "The AI makes the product better without becoming its identity, which is how they've managed to generate incredible buzz and traction in one of the most commoditized categories in consumer hardware."Marketing AI has been a tricky battlefield for brands.Look no further than the Friend AI ads across New York City. The ads promoting the startup's AI companion pendant were defaced by locals.Other marketing and advertising agencies, such as Day Job, are being tapped by AI companies specifically to help translate their brands to everyday people — in other words, potential customers.Startups and the creator economyKaplan said startups trying to reach consumers have a unique tool at their disposal: creators.Kaplan said the creator economy "rewrote who controls distribution" on social media by shifting who stirs buzz about brands and how people learn about them."Early adopters have really become the creators," she said.While startups…