Ben Silbermann, cofounder and longtime CEO of Pinterest, announced his resignation as the social media site's leader on Tuesday.
Bill Ready, who previously ran Google's e-commerce business, will take over as CEO on Wednesday, while Silbermann moves into the newly created position of executive chairman.
Silbermann was largely responsible for Pinterest's expansion, helping the site reach 400 million monthly active users. During the pandemic, there was a huge surge in interest. and its stock skyrocketed, nearly reaching $90 per share at its peak. However, over the last year, the company's stock has plummeted, closing Tuesday below $20. (Shares were up 4% in after-hours trading.)
There have been issues within the company. Pinterest settled a lawsuit last November in which it was accused of failing to address "widespread claims of race and gender discrimination." According to the complaint, Silbermann surrounded himself with "yes-men, marginalizing women who dared to challenge Pinterest's White, male leadership clique."
In addition, in 2020, the company paid $20 million to its former COO Françoise Brougher, who claimed she was paid less than male colleagues, was not invited to important meetings, and was fired after speaking out about these issues.
At the same time, under Silbermann's leadership, Pinterest has received praise for combating misinformation about vaccines and climate change by providing vetted content rather than its usual algorithmic search results. This distinguished the site from other social media behemoths such as Twitter and Facebook in recent years, as both struggled to control the spread of conspiracy theories and outright lies.
Pinterest has also been successful enough to attract competitors, including Google. In 2020, the search giant launched Google Collections, which allowed users to organize their search requests into, well, collections, which had a very Pinterest-like quality to them.
“I want to thank every employee—past and present—who helped build Pinterest,” Silbermann wrote in a LinkedIn post. “So much attention goes to founders and CEOs. But the truth is, everything worth building is built by a team. I feel so lucky that thousands of exceptional, wildly talented, creative and kind people joined our journey. Being part of the Pinterest team with all of you has always been the best part of the job.”
Ready's appointment as CEO comes at a time when Pinterest has become increasingly focused on e-commerce. To accelerate its goals in the space, the company acquired The Yes, an AI shopping platform, earlier this year.
Prior to his two-year stint at Google, Ready was PayPal's chief operating officer and Venmo's CEO, all of which will fit in nicely with the company's plans. For example, earlier this year, he assisted in the launch of a Google feature that allowed users to navigate from a store listing on a search-result page to the company's checkout site with a single click.
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