Good morning. It's Thursday, April 23, and welcome to this week's Business & Finance newsletter. Today, we're covering dating app Bumble, trademarks, and mortgages, given that mortgage rates have been yo-yoing between the high 5% and low 6% ranges over the last few months. As always, if you have feedback for us, we're all ears! Just hit "reply" on this email to send us a note.
Thank you for being a reader!
—Phoebe Bain, 1440 Business & Finance Section Editor
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Bumble 101
Founded in Austin, Texas, in 2014, Bumble is the second-largest dating app by market share in the US. In a crowded industry, it found success by positioning itself as female-centric, with its defining feature being that only women could initiate conversations on the app.
Bumble CEO and founder Whitney Wolfe Herd has said she was inspired to create a safer dating app for women after witnessing the harassment she saw female users face on Tinder (Wolfe Herd cofounded Tinder and served as its VP of marketing). Wolfe Herd became the youngest female CEO to ever take a company public with Bumble's 2021 IPO.
But as of early 2026, Bumble's stock price had decreased roughly 90% since its IPO, falling from more than $70 per share to around $4 per share as of mid-April 2026.
The company has faced numerous controversies in recent years, including a poorly received 2024 rebrand (complete with a hotly debated campaign that critics argued denounced celibacy) and a large round of layoffs in 2025 that many claimed Wolfe Herd mishandled.
Explore everything else we've found on Bumble.
Also, check out ...
> Bumble's origin story includes a Russian billionaire, a Tinder cofounder, and a private jet. (Listen)
> Whitney Wolfe Herd is considered the youngest self-made female billionaire. (Listen)
> Whitney Wolfe Herd sued Tinder for sexual discrimination and harassment. (Read)
> Hulu debuted a movie about Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2025. (Read) |
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In partnership with Plaid |
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Get a Pulse on AI in Finance |
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Your customers have probably never heard of intelligent finance. But they’re already embracing it.
In fact, 55% of Americans have used AI for financial tasks in the last year, and 86% of AI users say it helps them better understand their finances. Plaid’s new research answers the question every company is asking: How much AI are your customers actually ready for? The answer is more than you might think.
See what your customers really want from AI. Get real perspective from 2,000+ consumers in Plaid’s new report on intelligent finance. Download now. |
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What are trademarks?
A form of intellectual property, trademarks are legal identifiers that distinguish a service's or product's ownership. Anything that uniquely identifies a brand, like logos, phrases, images, and even scents, can be trademarked—as long as that identifier isn't the product's primary purpose and is distinct. To receive a trademark, brands must file with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Trademarks are intended to protect businesses from infringement and consumer confusion. They can also boost brand awareness, allowing companies to use exclusive branding and stand out from competitors. It generally takes less than $1K to file a trademark, but having one can be worth millions of dollars in brand value. However, businesses risk losing exclusive rights to any trademarks that become general words (think: aspirin or thermos).
Similarly, trademarks have to be maintained. Not using a trademark or failing to update the filing can constitute abandonment, meaning that trademark is back in the public domain and up for grabs.
Explore everything else we've found on Trademarks.
Also, check out ...
> See some of the trademarked scents in the US. (View)
> Read about the time the tech company Apple tried to trademark an actual apple (the fruit) in Switzerland. (Read)
> Frisbee, Jet Ski, and Dumpster—explore a list of words you might not realize are trademarked. (Read)
> Search the official trademark database. (Explore) |
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Mortgages, explained
Mortgages are a type of property loan that financial institutions, such as banks and credit unions, can offer when a prospective buyer decides against paying a property’s full cost in cash.
The lender provides funds to the borrower to purchase the property, and the borrower pays them back over a fixed time period, typically between 10 and 30 years. On top of paying back the base cost of the property, also called the “principal,” the borrower pays monthly interest to the lender.
Most buyers also pay a down payment—a portion of the property’s overall cost—to help reduce interest on their loan. Conventional, jumbo, fixed-rate, adjustable-rate, and government-backed loans are the most common types of mortgages.
In 2024, 74% of homebuyers took out a mortgage. Debt owed on mortgages made up about 70% of US consumer debt as of 2025. In 2024, homebuyers typically paid more than five times their income for a home, compared with 1965, when buyers typically spent less than three times their income.
Explore everything else we've found on Mortgages.
Also, check out ...
> A brief history of mortgages. (Read)
> How so-called "assumable" mortgages are landing homebuyers a 3% rate. (Watch)
> Use this mortgage calculator to figure out how much you can borrow. (Explore)
> How mortgages evolved from exclusive agreements for the wealthy into a key part of homeownership today. (Watch) |
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One Story We're Taking Stock In |
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Over the past three years, a startup called Mercor that pays white-collar workers to help teach AI systems how to do their jobs has received roughly $500M in funding from big names in venture capital, including Peter Thiel and Jack Dorsey.
It's not tough to imagine why one would be willing to feed AI information that could make their career obsolete: Many office workers are anxious about layoffs and trying to pad their emergency savings funds with side hustles like Mercor while they still can.
What's more difficult to understand is why Mercor's three 20-something college-dropout founders are being trusted by Silicon Valley's elite to replicate white-collar, professional work with AI, when none of them has ever had a full-time job. The feature story below—one of the most fascinating pieces we've read in a while about AI's impact on white-collar work—helps explain why Mercor is so highly valued anyway. |
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> The $10B startup training AI to replace the white-collar workforce. (Read) |
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> How VC investment in AI has grown since 2020, visualized. (1440 Topics) |
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In partnership with Plaid |
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Who’s Afraid of AI in Finance? |
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Not consumers. Plaid’s new consumer survey report breaks down what’s next for intelligent finance. And it seems that the future is bright. In fact:
> 55% of people have used AI for money tasks in the last 12 months
> 86% of AI users say it helps them better understand money
> 50% of people say managing money without AI will soon feel outdated
Learn what your customers actually want out of AI and how to meet their expectations with insights from Plaid’s new report, The state of intelligent finance. Dig into the full findings here. |
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Please support our sponsors! |
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We curate hundreds of resources into 1440 Topics each week. Here are some of our favorites from the world of business and finance.
> Why the ultra-rich don't pay taxes like you do.
> Who gets the lowest rates on private student loans?
> The US states where Americans 65 and older are still working, visualized.
> What would Frasier's net worth be today?
> How life looks different with a $75K household income versus $150K.
> Watch Ray Dalio's TED Talk on building an idea meritocracy.
> The reclusive billionaire who ran Sears before its bankruptcy.
> Watch Steve Jobs unveil the first iPhone in 2007.
> The difference between long- and short-term capital gains.
> See a chart of public trust in the Federal Reserve. |
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