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.
BEN SILBERMANNAs 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.
BEN SILBERMANNDon’t take too much advice.
BEN SILBERMANNI 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.
BEN SILBERMANNI want Pinterest to be human. The Internet’s still so abstract… To me, boards are a very human way of looking at the world.
BEN SILBERMANNMost people generalize whatever they did, and say that was the strategy that made it work.
BEN SILBERMANNThere’s a lot of pressure to look like the last company that was successful.
BEN SILBERMANNI think the thing that I’ve learned is that really great people, they actually want to work on hard problems.
BEN SILBERMANNJust build things and find out if they work.
BEN SILBERMANNOne of the things I’ve learned is to be receptive of feedback.
BEN SILBERMANNWe want the average person to use it and think that it makes the experience of using Pinterest better.
BEN SILBERMANNIf Google teaches you anything, it’s that small ideas can be big.
BEN SILBERMANNI 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.
BEN SILBERMANNWe’re trying to do something so that when the average person uses Pinterest, it has to make the service better.
BEN SILBERMANNI 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.
BEN SILBERMANNI 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.
BEN SILBERMANNI always just want to move along to the next step.
BEN SILBERMANN