“I think the thing that I’ve learned is that really great people, they actually want to work on hard problems.”

Don’t take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give ~ with a few exceptions ~ generalize whatever they did. Don’t over-analyze everything. I myself have been guilty of over-thinking problems. Just build things and find out if they work.

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.

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.

Just build things and find out if they 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.

You think you’re going to Toledo but you’re actually going to Miami and you might not have enough gas so you might need to buy gas from someone who might take you out if you aren’t driving well

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.

People say doing a startup is like a marathon. It’s actually a roadtrip at night with no headlights.

I always just want to move along to the next step.

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.

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.

We want the average person to use it and think that it makes the experience of using Pinterest better.

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.

Most people generalize whatever they did, and say that was the strategy that made it work.

Don’t take too much advice.