Pinterest, Inc.

What does Pinterest, Inc. own?

The company owns and operates the Pinterest visual discovery platform and Pinterest Business, the advertiser-facing tools division. It has no significant subsidiaries beyond international offices.

Is Pinterest publicly traded?

Yes. Pinterest trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker PINS. It went public in April 2019.

Who founded Pinterest?

Ben Silbermann, Evan Sharp, and Paul Sciarra founded Pinterest in March 2010 in San Francisco. Silbermann remains CEO and the largest individual shareholder.

Where is Pinterest headquartered?

The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and maintains offices in major cities worldwide.

Who owns Pinterest?

As a public company, ownership is dispersed among institutional investors including Vanguard and BlackRock. Founder Ben Silbermann retains significant voting control through dual-class shares despite holding roughly 7 percent of stock.

How much revenue does Pinterest make?

The company generated approximately $4.2 billion in revenue in 2025, nearly all from advertising on its platform.

Who is the CEO of Pinterest?

Ben Silbermann returned as CEO in May 2026, resuming the role he gave up in 2022 when Bill Ready succeeded him. Ready departed, and Silbermann now leads the company again.

Ben Silbermann, a Yale graduate and former Google product manager, co-founded Pinterest in March 2010 with Evan Sharp and Paul Sciarra. The idea grew from Silbermann's earlier shopping app, Tote, which failed commercially but revealed that users loved collecting images of products they wanted. Pinterest launched as an invite-only visual bookmarking tool and grew through word of mouth among craft, cooking, and design communities.

Growth was rapid through the early 2010s. The platform's predominantly female user base and wedding, recipe, and DIY content made it a cultural fixture, and by 2015 it had surpassed 100 million users and begun monetizing through promoted Pins. International expansion followed, and by 2018 the platform had become a meaningful advertising business.

The company went public on the NYSE in April 2019 at a $10 billion valuation, a disappointing debut after early private rounds valued it higher. The post-IPO period brought leadership changes: Paul Sciarra departed in 2012, Evan Sharp moved to a creative role and later left to join LoveFrom, and Ben Silbermann stepped back from the CEO role in June 2022, replaced by former Google commerce executive Bill Ready.

Ready's tenure focused aggressively on making Pinterest shoppable, integrating product feeds, checkout, and AI-powered recommendations. The strategy produced revenue growth but also tension between commerce and the platform's original inspiration-driven identity. Silbermann returned as CEO in May 2026, resuming the role he had given up four years earlier, signaling a return to product-led strategy under founder direction.

Fiscal 2025 produced approximately $4.2 billion in revenue, up roughly 15 percent, with the company investing heavily in AI personalization and video. The platform crossed 500 million monthly users in 2025, though growth has concentrated in international markets with lower monetization than the U.S. and Europe.

The company publishes an annual ESG report covering its environmental and social programs but holds no major third-party certifications:

Environment: Pinterest has committed to carbon neutrality for operations and reports progress on renewable energy in its data centers. Its impact is limited relative to manufacturers or logistics companies.

Content and Safety: The company has invested in mental health resources, body positivity content policies, and restrictions on weight loss ads. These policies position it as a comparatively positive platform, though enforcement consistency is periodically challenged.

Workforce: Pinterest has reported improving diversity metrics and maintains employee programs for parental leave and mental health support. It has faced internal criticism over pay equity and promotion rates, addressed through published pay transparency reports.

The platform consistently ranks among the top digital destinations for product discovery and has received recognition for its positive-content policies relative to competitors. Its shopping features have won industry awards for commerce innovation, and it appears regularly on lists of best places to work in technology. The company's AI recommendation advances have been covered in technology press as a competitive response to TikTok.

Leadership Instability: The CEO transition from Silbermann to Ready in 2022 and back to Silbermann in 2026 has drawn scrutiny over strategic direction. Critics question whether the return signals stability or reflects the board's inability to find a durable growth model.

Content Moderation: Pinterest has faced periodic criticism over medical misinformation, eating disorder content, and AI-generated spam overwhelming genuine user content. Its policies are stricter than competitors' but enforcement gaps persist.

Copyright: The platform's visual nature creates ongoing tension with photographers, artists, and brands over unauthorized use of images. It operates a takedown system but faces periodic litigation from rights holders.

Addiction and Mental Health: Like other platforms, Pinterest has been named in litigation alleging harms to younger users, though its relatively benign content positioning has kept it a secondary target compared with Meta and TikTok.