CEO of Pinterest. Seems he is doing good at pinterest. He is also trying to create a humane social media movement.
Quotes
And so we want to be part of a healthier social media diet. And I think actually with Gen Z, Gen Z is now more than 40% of our users. It’s our largest, fastest growing demographic, and that is in spite of us having done things that actually turns social features off for a lot of those users. So if I go deeper into other things that we have done, you know, we’re the only social media platform that is private only for users under 16. And when I say private only, it’s not a feature you can re-enable, you know, because it was clear to me that it wasn’t safe for users under 16 to be contacted by strangers online. And I also thought that not only was that a right thing to do, I was hopeful that there would be real consumer demand for a safer space. And when we made that change, you know, our stock price actually dropped like 20% when we did that ‘cause people thought it was just gonna wreck us with young users. And a year later we nearly doubled and it actually became one of the defining reasons that we are winning with young users is that, you know, while there’s all this talk of how Gen Z is struggling with rising rates of anxiety and depression, I think they are more in tune than ever with the fact that social media isn’t good for them. In fact, 48%, you know, Pew Research, uh, that came out said 48% of of Gen Z knows that social media isn’t good for them, but they can’t necessarily quit it because it’s become a collective action problem where their friends are there so they have to be there.
Bill Ready: We’ve also advocated for thoughtful regulation around these things because I do think, you know, I’m a capitalist, but I do think this is an example of a market failure where you have a race to the bottom happening and you probably do need a thoughtful baseline. And in the same way that you don’t have regulation dictating every sensor and airbag that’s in a car now, you don’t need regulation that goes down to that level. But can you create a common standard that measures, say, impact on emotional wellbeing, and then let all of us be held accountable to that and then compete on that? I think it’s possible.
Adam Grant: So are you saying that Pinterest is gonna be the Volvo of social media?
Bill Ready: I would take that. Um, you know, I think this is one of the most important issues of our time, right? And so what I’m hoping we can do is not just build a big business, but actually create a movement around this. And, you know, I’d love it if 20 or 30 years from now I can look back and say, yeah, not just as a CEO, but as a dad, as a human, that we made a dent in that problem.I think growth as a strategy. You know, growth is not a strategy, and I think that’s been pretty pervasive in Silicon Valley. Growth at all costs. And I think in Silicon Valley, where you have all these platforms with hundreds of millions or billions of users, the customer has become sort of nameless and faceless. And so you get these like dystopian sounding conversations, like “harvesting value from users,” when it’s like, wait a minute, these are, these are real people, these are human beings. Like if, if they were standing here in front of you, could you look them in the eye and make that case? Um, I grew up in little town in Kentucky. My parents had a little auto repair shop, and, and when I worked in that shop with them, like I had to go face the customers. And if I messed up, I had to explain to them what I did and how I was gonna make it right. And so I try to gauge my decisions on like, well, I still see all those users looking back, and we’ve got 570 million of them, so I don’t get to actually talk to all of them, but, uh, if I was looking them in the eye, could I explain what I did and why I thought it was right? And I think that’s missing, and I think it’s a way better strategy than growth at all costs. 1