Pinterest is making me hungry.
I'VE LOGGED ON TO THE SITE, AS I OFTEN have since buying my house, in search of furniture. Pinterest's recommendation systems have risen to the challenge, accurately clocking my recent saves of rugs and nightstands as signs I might be looking to furnish a bedroom.
Pinterest, though, wants to go beyond showing me more of the same. It wants to inspire, as CEO Bill Ready tells me in a recent conversation. The platform pushes me to consider not only fabric swatches but also outfits and travel destinations and other things I might like, for as long as I feel like scrolling. On this day, interspersed among the bed frames and side tables, the feed also served up churro cheesecake bars, lemon ricotta pasta, and something called Thai spaghetti salad.
Now I'm browsing recipes, each click sending positive reinforcement to the artificial intelligence systems the company is counting on to usher it into a new era. A few minutes later, my stomach starts to growl. I feel inspired … to order DoorDash. Furnishing my bedroom will have to wait.
As Ready will explain, what I've just experienced represents the core tension of the platform. Pinterest is designed to help me curate collections of beautiful and useful things. But the future of the business lies in getting me to buy them—without ever leaving Pinterest.
For most of the company's life, that hasn't been possible. Pins, as the company calls content, didn't include realtime pricing and inventory information until 2018. The company makes its money through advertising; its e-commerce efforts have been slower to develop.
Fixing that is Ready's job. He became Pinterest's second-ever CEO in June 2022, when cofounder Ben Silbermann took the title of executive chairman after almost 13 years running the company. At the time, Pinterest's stock had collapsed 78% from its February 2021 peak, and the service was shedding users, dropping from 478 million in March 2021 to 433 million 15 months later.
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