Whisper does have enormous potential for good and also enormous potential to make money (it has an estimated $200 million valuation). PHOTOS: Silicon Beach’s Most Powerful Take Selfies
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He notes that Whisper has referred thousands of users to the National Suicide Hotline since 2012, when he founded the company with tech entrepreneur Brad Brooks, a former business partner of Heyward’s father, Andy (creator of the animated TV series Inspector Gadget): “You can’t have a service where people are coming on and saying things that are really sad … and not feel like you should do something.” “I never really liked school - it was physically painful to go,” he says, his shaggy hair grazing his forehead.
Heyward says celebrity gossip is not commonplace on Whisper, which he created for people to express feelings without fear of discovery or reprisal - something he might have used while attending Santa Monica’s Crossroads school. “ is just a nonissue because it’s not a part of what the service is.” “Can we not talk about that?” sighs Heyward as he lounges on a couch at the 40-person startup’s spacious, loftlike Venice headquarters. If the app catches on in Hollywood - as the similar, snarkier app Secret has caught fire in Silicon Valley - suddenly every PA, hairstylist and ex-spouse will have a platform to spill their guts with anonymity. The company flags posts with proper names - and potentially libelous content - for review and won’t let posters gossip about just any Tom, Dick or Harry, but it’s still a potential powder keg.
But that one post changed everything, and today Whisper’s 26-year-old CEO, Michael Heyward, finds himself at the helm of a potentially game-changing app. Until the Paltrow post, the 2-year-old platform where people anonymously share secrets (from “I have a phobia of public restrooms” to “I’m tired of being unhappy in my marriage”) had remained relatively obscure. LIST: Silicon Beach Power 25 - A Ranking of L.A.’s Top Digital Media Players But more telling was Huvane’s next email to Gawker: “What exactly is Whisper anyway?” Paltrow’s publicist, Stephen Huvane, denied the affair in an email to Gawker’s Defamer, which had picked up the post, calling it “absolutely 100 percent false” (though Paltrow and Martin would “consciously uncouple” the following month). “WITH ENTERTAINMENT LAWYER KEVIN YORN,” the poster finished the sentence. There was no signature, no screen name, nothing to indicate who the anonymous poster might be. In February, a one-sentence message appeared on the secret-sharing app Whisper: “ GWYNETH PALTROW IS CHEATING ON CHRIS MARTIN,” it said in white block letters.
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