One of the hard parts about building a service that you use yourself is that it's easy to forget what it was like the very first time someone signs up. Every once in a while, I'll create a brand new account and give it a try and see how hard it is to find things that I really love, see if I'm using it or thinking about it differently.
— Ben Silbermann
I really believe that the raw ingredient of any creative business is the set of experiences that the team has, the set of skills. I think a simple fact is that if you have a different set of experiences based on how you grew up or how other people perceive you, or if you have a different set of skills, that will produce a better company.
I think that a lot of the most talented and driven people, they're not super deterred by failure. So if you put out a really big challenge, I think they get reality excited by that - they say, 'Hey, why not, let's go give it a shot, and if we fall short on that, at least we took a shot at doing something really important and meaningful.'
I think anyone who makes products has this simultaneous joy and, almost, shame looking at it. You look at it all day, and all you can see is all these things you want to make better.
The whole reason Pinterest exists is to help people discover the things that they love and then go take action on them, and a lot of the things they take action on are tied to commercial intent.
So many things that I was excited about as a kid were about proximity. The idea that somebody could grow up in rural Iowa and be into break dancing because of YouTube - that was a really simple, profound idea.
The biggest thing about Pinterest is that people are there saving ideas for their personal lives. Not to rile up other people or make a big statement.
No amount of technology is going to change the fact that people process information visually.
As a kid, I always idolized entrepreneurs. I thought they were cool people in the way that I thought basketball players were cool people. It's cool that some people get paid to dunk basketballs, but I'm not one of those people.
If Google teaches you anything, it's that small ideas can be big.
The companies that I really admire the most are the ones that have a deep visceral understanding of why people use their service, and they figure out ways of making money that are completely consistent with how people are feeling and what they are doing at the time.
I kind of think of engineering like the chefs at a restaurant. Nobody's going to deny chefs are integrally important, but there's also so many other people who contribute to a great meal.
When Pinterest works well, it helps you find things that are meaningful to you. We want to build a system that helps you do that.
I always read about these stories of entrepreneurs - it's like they're in the desert with no water, and they're the ones that survive. But I've been really fortunate to have people on my team who are optimistic about the future and who know that if you work through hard times that there's usually something good at the end.
I thought Google was the coolest place. People there were so smart and they were all doing these really interesting things. I just felt really lucky to be a part of it even in a small way.
I think there are a lot more people that don't use Pinterest in the world than do use it, so for most people, that first experience is really, really important. I think feeling really close and in touch with that first user experience is pretty basic to making it better every day.
The No. 1 challenge is getting people to understand that Pinterest isn't a social network.
For me, Google was the coolest place. It was the coolest place. People there were so smart. And they were all doing these really interesting things. I just felt lucky to be part of it even in a small way.
My parents are doctors, both my sisters are doctors, so I figured I'd just be a doctor too. Sometime in my junior year, I had this sudden realization that maybe that wasn't for me. I was sort of lost at sea.
At a small company, so much of the trick is focus. Not only can you only do a finite number of things, but you have to do them in the right order.
When you open up Pinterest, you should feel like you've walked into a building full of stuff that only you are interested in. Everything should feel handpicked for you.
I hope Pinterest is my last job.
There are a lot of really valuable services that are always pushing you to communicate with other people. But there are relatively few services that are about helping you be the person you want to be and fulfilling your ambitions.
I always just want to move along to the next step.
I was obsessed with this idea that these things that you collect, they just say so much about who you are. I can't say it came from hard-nosed business analysis... It was just something I really want to see built.
There's a lot of pressure to look like the last company that was successful.
Most people generalize whatever they did, and say that was the strategy that made it work.
I'd never managed anyone before, so I don't have a lot of experience. But I'm lucky - I have a lot of team members who have a really honest relationship with me.
We want the average person to use it and think that it makes the experience of using Pinterest better.
What you collect says so much about who you are.
I really think that even though Pinterest isn't a lot of people's idea of hard technology, it helps make everyday things a little bit better. And I believe that for most people, everyday things, those are everything.
I've worked on products where they go down in the middle of the night, and no one notices. You get the 'site down' notice, but it doesn't matter.
Google was like the only company that was like, 'We're making so much money; let's take a picture of every street in the world.' Nobody does that.
A lot of the future of search is going to be about pictures instead of keywords. Computer vision technology is going to be a big deal.
I really liked insects - all kinds: flies, grasshoppers, weevils.
From the outside, there's a perception Silicon Valley is full of really young, geeky guys. The reality is there are lots of different types of people there.
I always describe Facebook and Twitter to some extent as 'them time': it's time about the world and what's outside of you. Pinterest, for a lot of users, is 'me time.' What do I want my future to be? Who am I? What are the things I want to do?
So March 2010, we launched Pinterest, and we were at 3,000 accounts. And that wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't started building Pinterest actually in November 2009. And that alone wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't left my job to start a company in May 2008.
I used to wake up and look at our analytics and think, 'What if yesterday was the last day anyone used Pinterest?' Like, everyone collectively decided, 'We're done!' Over time I got more confidence.
I want Pinterest to be human. The Internet's still so abstract... To me, boards are a very human way of looking at the world.
I look around my neighborhood, and I see people hailing a cab or ordering their food and then paying for it all with their phone. I've read about that stuff for a really long time, and now it's starting to become commonplace.
Don't take too much advice.
I use Pinterest for everything. Book collections, trips, hobbies. It's all there. I planned my wedding on it. When I had a kid, I planned all his stuff on it. So it was nice to discover that I wasn't the only one.
One of the things I've learned is to be receptive of feedback.
We're trying to do something so that when the average person uses Pinterest, it has to make the service better.
