Ben Silbermann, a founder and chief executive of Pinterest, resigned Tuesday after more than a decade of running the digital pinboard service and making it public.
Pinterest gave no reason for the change. Mr. Silbermann, 39, will become Executive Chairman. Bill Ready, who has led divisions within PayPal and Google, has been named Pinterest’s new chief executive.
Mr. Silbermann helped found Pinterest in 2010 and oversaw its growth into a place where 431 million people, mostly women, store and share ideas for shopping, hobbies, and recipes. Last year, the company generated $316 million in profit on $2.6 billion in revenue.
Through a spokeswoman, Silbermann said the decision to step down as CEO came after reviewing Pinterest’s goals late last year. The company wants to make it easier for people to take actions based on the things they store on Pinterest, including shopping. Mr. Ready, who has two decades of experience working for payments and e-commerce businesses, has “skills that would complement mine to achieve this goal,” Mr. Silbermann said.
In 2019, he floated Pinterest amid a rush of so-called unicorn startups that had waited as long as possible to tap into public markets and garnered skyrocketing valuations from private investors.
Pinterest shares peaked at $85 in February 2021 and closed at $19.70 Tuesday, valuing the company at $13 billion — just slightly more than it was worth before it went public. Shares rose 4 percent in after-hours trading on news of Mr. Silbermann’s departure as chief executive.
Pinterest had built a reputation as a “nice” company that eschewed the start-up playbook of macho, swaggering Silicon Valley hype, in part because of its female user base and Mr. Silbermann’s press-shy reputation. But in recent years, the company has come under fire when employees spoke about their experiences with racism and sexism in the workplace.
In 2020, two former Pinterest employees, Ifeoma Ozoma and Aeroca Shimizu Banks, tweeted about racist and sexist comments, unequal pay and reprisal they had experienced at the company. Françoise Brougher, Pinterest’s No. 2 executive, has also filed a lawsuit for gender discrimination and retaliation. The events inspired employees to organize a digital strike in protest. Shareholder lawsuits followed.
Last year, Christine Martinez, an entrepreneur and friend of Silbermann’s, also sued the company for breach of contract and idea theft, alleging she helped create Pinterest with him and Paul Sciarra, another founder.
Ms. Brougher’s lawsuit resulted in a $22.5 million settlement, including a $2.5 million joint donation to charities targeting women and people of color in the tech industry. Ms. Ozoma helped sponsor a new California law that broadened protections for employees who speak out about discrimination and harassment in the workplace.
