9781422270455
9781422270455
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THE STORY BEHIND THE APP Pinterest
JACKSON PETERS
MASON CREST MIAMI
Mason Crest PO Box 221876, Hollywood, FL 33022 (866) MCP-BOOK (toll-free) • www.masoncrest.com
Copyright © 2024 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. First printing 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ISBN (hardback) 978-1-4222-4780-8 ISBN (series) 978-1-4222-4773-0 ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4222-7045-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Peters, Jackson, author. Title: Pinterest: the story behind the app / Jackson Peters. Description: Hollywood, FL: Mason Crest, 2024. | Series: Tech titans | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023015348 | ISBN 9781422247808 (hardback) | ISBN 9781422270455 (ebook) | ISBN 9781422247730 (series) Subjects: LCSH: Pinterest. | Online social networks. Classification: LCC HM743.P56 P47 2024 | DDC 302.30285--dc23/eng/20230413
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023015348 Developed and Produced by National Highlights, Inc. Editor: Andrew Luke Interior and cover design: Tara Raymo • CreativelyTara Production: Crafted Content LLC Publisher’s Note: Websites listed in this book were active at the time of publication. The publisher is not responsible for websites that have changed their address or discontinued operation since the date of publication. The publisher reviews and updates the websites each time the book is reprinted.
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CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Story of a Startup . ......................................... 7 Chapter 2: Rise to the Top . ..................................... 21 Chapter 3: Market Domination . ................................. 33 Chapter 4: Beyond the Boardroom . ........................... 47 Chapter 5: On the Horizon ............................................. 61 Series Glossary of Key Terms . ....................................... 74 Further Reading . ................................................ 76 Internet Resources ......................................................... 77 Index . ............................................................................... 78 Author’s Biography & Credits . ..................................... 80 KEY ICONS TO LOOK FOR:
Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text while building vocabulary skills. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic sports moments, and much more! Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented there. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.
WORDS TO UNDERSTAND
IT: information technology—the use of computers to store and move information ophthalmologist: a physician who specializes in dealing with the structure, functions, and diseases of the eye résumé: a record of a job applicant’s past jobs and qualifications technology: anything that humans invent to make something easier or achieve something new
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chapter 1
STORY OF A STARTUP
THE POWER OF PINTEREST Ben Silbermann’s childhood years were filled with a love of collecting, encompassing everything from colorful stamps to dried-out insects that he’d gather and pin to cardboard. Little did anyone know that he would grow up to turn his deep connection to collecting things into a dynamic digital platform that would soon become one of the most magnificent innovations of the 21st century. The path to Pinterest began in 2009, when Silbermann shared his idea for an online platform that would showcase people’s collections with Evan Sharp and Paul Sciarra. Both men played instrumental roles in helping Silbermann shape this idea into a multi billion dollar company. Nowadays, more than 400 million people around the world visit Pinterest every month, grabbing everything from recipes to home decorating tips from the jaw-dropping 240 billion ideas (and counting) that have been saved on the website. Continually evolving, Pinterest has become one of the tech industry’s great success stories, impacting lives around the globe every day.
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Growing up, Silbermann looked up to technology and business pioneers like Steve Jobs.
DIGITAL COLLECTIONS As a child, Silbermann loved collecting things. Two of his favorite items to collect were insects and stamps. “Collecting tells a lot about who you are,” he explained. Before the invention of Pinterest, Silbermann said he noticed that “there wasn’t a place to share that side of who you are.” Pinterest users can use the website to “pin” their interests on a virtual board, a little like a stamp or insect collection.
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GROWING UP Before Silbermann was even born, it seemed that his path had already been chosen for him, since his parents, Jane and Neil, were both ophthalmologists , working together at a family practice in Des Moines, Iowa. Silbermann, however, had many interests outside of medicine, such as technology , business, and collecting things. When the Internet began to boom in the 1990s, he was still in high school and was soon drawn to the World Wide Web. He used the Internet to look up successful entrepreneurs like George Eastman, Walt Disney, and Steve Jobs, admiring the way they had all started their own businesses. Silbermann never thought he would one day become one of them. YALE YEARS After graduating from Roosevelt High School, Silbermann left Des Moines for the East Coast to study medicine at Yale University. At first, he was looking forward to being a doctor, but within two years, he began to rethink his career path. Convinced that medicine was not right for him, he considered business as a possibility. When Silbermann asked his friends for business advice, they told him to prepare a résumé and start going on job interviews to get a feel for the direction he wanted to take. Colleges and universities sometimes host job fairs where students can interview with companies that visit the school. Silbermann went to a fair, résumé in hand, and began talking to different companies. He interviewed for a position with a consulting firm, and was offered a
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Story of a Startup
When Silbermann first came to Yale University, he was on the path to becoming a doctor. But soon, he’d change his plans and move toward technology.
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job in Washington, DC Excited for this opportunity, he switched his major, and in 2003, he graduated from Yale with a degree in political science before moving to DC.
NEW VISIONS Silbermann’s work responsibilities varied from day to day. He started working in IT , but soon felt like he needed to move on. He began researching his options. One night, he watched a movie with his girlfriend about Silicon Valley. The movie, Pirates of Silicon Valley , showcased how Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had gone on to own very successful businesses in the tech industry. It also showcased how many tech companies found their start in the area of California known as Silicon Valley. Soon after watching the movie, Silbermann quit his job in Washington, DC and moved to the West Coast with his girlfriend, Divya.
SILICON VALLEY Silicon Valley is located on the West Coast of the United States, in northern California. It was originally named after the many silicon-chip innovators and manufacturers that were based in the area. Many new companies hoping to find success in the world of technology get their start there.
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Story of a Startup
GOOGLE IT Google was growing steadily by the time Silbermann arrived in California, and he dreamed of working for the company. Despite not having a computer science or engineering background, he managed to secure a job in customer support. The projects he worked on were mostly centered around product design recommendations. He listened to feedback from people who used Google products, and then made suggestions to the design team so they could make improvements. Unfortunately,
Working at Google, Silbermann learned many things that would help him create and run Pinterest.
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he was never allowed to work on these products directly, since he didn’t have the right background to do it. With his girlfriend’s encouragement, he bid goodbye to Google and said hello to his dream of starting his own company. Getting a startup off the ground, however, is incredibly hard, and he had trouble finding those all-important investment dollars to make his new company, Cold Brew Labs, a success. As it happened, luck found him in the form of Paul Sciarra, a friend from college who was living in New York. TOTE One of the first projects the two worked on was Tote, an iPhone application that allowed users to look up any product they wanted from their phones. At the time, nothing like it existed. Silbermann, however, encountered two major problems while working on Tote. Firstly, he needed to index every single item he could get his hands on, so he had to go to retail stores to catalog everything that could be found in the store individually. There were thousands of items in each location, and he was doing all the hard work alone while Sciarra was on the other side of the country. The second problem was getting his app released to the public. All iPhone applications needed to be reviewed by Apple before they were made available in the application store. Meanwhile, the money he had saved from working with Google was dwindling, and investors were unwilling to put money into a company that hadn’t really accomplished anything yet. After a few months of hard work, it was clear that Tote was not going to work, so they abandoned the idea.
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Story of a Startup
Silbermann had trouble with the time it took to get Tote approved for sale on Apple’s App Store.
STARTING PINTEREST Although Silbermann thought Tote was a good idea, he never truly felt passionate about it. His new project, however, got his heart racing. He thought back to his love of collecting as a child and imagined what collections would look like on the Internet. No one had ever built a website showcasing collections before. This could be the first. At about the same time, Silbermann met Evan Sharp, who would later become the third co-founder of Pinterest. He was a talented architect working in New York, and as someone who had also been a collector in his childhood, he was interested in Silbermann’s ideas for the future of Pinterest. Sharp took over the engineering aspect of the job, and along with Sciarra, the trio formed a great team.
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Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp discusses technology, digital language, and more in this 2014 interview.
DESIGNING PINTEREST A website showcasing collections of all sorts could take many different forms. Sharp suggested a grid layout to make the platform easy to use, since grids are made up of simple columns and rows. According to Sharp, every detail of the first layout was carefully planned. The size of each box, as well as the location of the text in that box, was no accident. Even the colors used were thought through. The first people to receive access to the website were the friends and family of the owners. Pinterest purposefully restricted how fast people could sign up; for a long time, users could only join through receiving an invitation from an existing member. By the time the site was finished, Silbermann had noticed a trend that worried him. Many of the most popular websites on the
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Story of a Startup
SHARP GUY Evan Sharp studied history at the University of Chicago and then architecture at Columbia. Before Pinterest, he worked as an architect and had experience as a product designer at Facebook.
Pinterest didn’t come together overnight, but Silbermann’s hard work and previous mistakes would soon pay off.
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