Ben Silbermann

Last updated
Ben Silbermann
Silbermann face.jpg
Silbermann at the South By Southwest Interactive conference in March of 2012 in Austin, Texas, United States
Born (1982-07-14) July 14, 1982 (age 41)
Nationality American
Alma mater Yale University
Occupation Executive Chairman of Pinterest
Known forCo-founding Pinterest
SpouseDivya Bhaskaran

Ben Silbermann (born July 14, 1982) is an American Internet entrepreneur. [1] He is the co-founder and executive chairman of Pinterest, a visual discovery engine [2] which lets users organize images, links, recipes and other things. [1]

Contents

Early life

Silbermann was born in Iowa in 1982. [3] [4] He was raised in Des Moines, Iowa. His parents, Jane Wang and Neil Silbermann, are ophthalmologists. [5] In 1998, Silbermann attended the Research Science Institute at MIT. He graduated from Des Moines Central Academy and Des Moines Roosevelt with the class of 1999. He then graduated from Yale University in the spring of 2003 with a degree in Political Science. [6]

Career

Before Pinterest (which launched in March 2010), Silbermann worked at Google in the online advertising group. [7] [1] However, after a short time with the company he left and started designing his own iPhone apps with friends. After his initial application, Tote, failed to gain traction, [8] he teamed up with Evan Sharp to create a pinboard product that would eventually be named Pinterest. [7] Silbermann says that the genesis of Pinterest came from his love of collecting as a kid. "Collecting tells a lot about who you are," he said, and when they looked at the web "there wasn't a place to share that side of who you were." [9] Raising capital to start Pinterest was a hurdle that Silbermann thought laterally about. Silbermann entered the NYU Stern Business Plan Competition. "The prize was meeting with venture capitalists First Mark Capital in New York, which gave us half our money." [10] A little over nine years after starting Pinterest, the company held its IPO in April 2019 which valued the company around 12 billion dollars.

On June 28, 2022, it was announced Silberman would step down as Chief Executive Officer and transition to the role of Executive Chairman. [11] [1] Google executive Bill Ready will become Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors. During this time, Silbermann was listed on the Forbes billionaires 30 under 30 list. [1]

Personal life

Silbermann is married to Divya Bhaskaran, with whom he has two children. [12] His wife graduated from Clark University in 2004 with a degree in Psychology. The couple resides in San Francisco, California. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theodore Roosevelt High School (Iowa)</span> Public secondary school in Des Moines, Iowa, United States

Theodore Roosevelt High School, usually referred to simply as Roosevelt High School or TRHS, is a public secondary school located on the west side of Des Moines, Iowa. It is one of five secondary schools in the Des Moines Independent Community School District, and was named after the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kum & Go</span> Convenience store chain in the United States

Kum & Go is a convenience store chain primarily located in the Midwestern United States. Started by William A. Krause and Tony S. Gentle, the company is headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa and operates 400 stores in 13 states—primarily in its home state of Iowa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Pate</span> 28th and 32nd Secretary of State of Iowa

Paul Danny Pate Jr. is an American businessman and politician serving as the 32nd Secretary of State of Iowa since 2015, previously holding the office from 1995 to 1999. Pate is the past president of the National Association of Secretaries of State. A member of the Republican Party, he was also in the Iowa Senate from 1989 to 1995 and Mayor of Cedar Rapids from 2002 to 2006. He was an unsuccessful candidate for his party's nomination for Governor of Iowa in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tippie College of Business</span>

The Tippie College of Business, also known as Tippie, is the business school located at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. Established as the College of Commerce in 1921, Tippie is one of the oldest and highest-ranked business schools in the United States. The college is named after 1949 graduate Henry B. Tippie, marking the first academic division at the University of Iowa to be named after an alumnus. The college is located in the Pappajohn Business Building, which is named after 1952 graduate Des Moines venture capitalist John Pappajohn. Since 1923, the college has held the gold standard of accreditation, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Today, with over 50,000 alumni and 4,700 students in programs spanning from BBAs to PhDs; the college houses six academic departments, 12 centers and institutes, and four student-managed endowment funds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Worthan</span> American politician

Gary Worthan is a former Iowa State Representative from the 11th District. He served in the Iowa House of Representatives from 2007 to 2023, having won a December 13, 2006 special election to replace the deceased Mary Lou Freeman, who had run unopposed in the general election. Smith was born and lives in Storm Lake, Iowa. He has an A.A. in farm operations from Iowa State University.

Christine Romans is an American broadcast journalist, author, and a Senior Business Correspondent for NBC News. She previously served as the chief business correspondent and anchor for CNN's Early Start.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Merwin Coad</span> American politician (born 1924)

Merwin Coad is an American former politician from the Democratic Party who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Iowa's 6th congressional district for six years, serving from January 1957 to January 1963. His election snapped the Republican Party's fourteen-year hold on every U.S. House seat from Iowa. Coad is the earliest-serving living member of the House, having been first elected in 1956.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biz Stone</span> American blogger; co-founder of Twitter

Christopher Isaac "Biz" Stone is an American entrepreneur who is a co-founder of Twitter, among other technology companies. Stone was the creative director at Xanga from 1999 to 2001. Stone co-founded Jelly, with Ben Finkel. Jelly was launched in 2014 and was a search engine driven by visual imagery and discovery. Stone was Jelly's CEO until its acquisition by Pinterest in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pinterest</span> American photo sharing platform

Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information like recipes, home, style, motivation, and inspiration on the internet using images and, on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboards. Created by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp, Pinterest, Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evan Spiegel</span> American business magnate (born 1990)

Evan Thomas Spiegel is a French-American businessman, co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc. Spiegel was the youngest billionaire in the world in 2015. As of March 2023, he had a personal net worth of $2.7 billion according to Forbes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Bucksbaum</span> American businessman and philanthropist

Matthew Bucksbaum was an American businessman and philanthropist. Matthew and his brothers Martin and Maurice co-founded General Growth Properties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Hollod</span> American businessman

Chris Hollod is a venture capitalist, angel investor, and advisor in Los Angeles. Hollod was the co-founder and chief executive officer of Tailwind Acquisition Corp. which merged with Terran Orbital in March 2022 in a $1.8 billion deal. Over the course of his career, Hollod has completed more than 150 deals across five different investment entities, including investments in Uber, Airbnb, Houzz, Spotify, Pinterest, Duolingo, Airtable, Oscar Health, Flexport, Casper, and Warby Parker.

Harry H. Stine is an American billionaire businessman, the founder and owner of Stine Seed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evan Sharp</span> American Internet entrepreneur

Evan Sharp is an American billionaire Internet entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and chief design and creative officer of Pinterest, a visual discovery engine. He joined the company's board of directors in March 2019.

Paul Sciarra is an American Internet entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of Pinterest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Derrius Quarles</span> Social entrepreneur and human rights activist

Derrius Quarles is a social entrepreneur, human rights activist, recording artist, product designer, and author. Born on the South Side of Chicago in 1990, he is the Co-Founder and former Chief Executive Officer of BREAUX Capital, an award-winning financial technology company serving Black Men and Million Dollar Scholar, an education social enterprise as well as the Founder of DQ and Partners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fritz Lanman</span>

Fritz Lanman is an American entrepreneur and investor in early-stage technology companies. He led the seed and Series A financings in ClassPass in 2014 and became CEO in 2017. In 2021, ClassPass was acquired by Mindbody Inc., valuing the former at $1 billion. In August 2022, it was announced that Fritz would take over as CEO of MindBody. In addition to his role at ClassPass, he is notable for leading the initial financings of Pinterest, Square, Wish, and Flexport, as well as leading the Microsoft deal team decision to invest $240 million in Facebook in 2007, an investment now worth over $8 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryan Cohen</span> Canadian entrepreneur and investor

Ryan Cohen is a Canadian entrepreneur and activist investor. He founded e-commerce company Chewy in 2011, and was the company's chief executive officer (CEO) until 2018. Cohen is the chairman and CEO of GameStop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baiju Bhatt</span> American entrepreneur

Baiju Prafulkumar Bhatt is an American entrepreneur of Indian descent. He was the chief creative officer and co-founder, along with Vladimir Tenev, of Robinhood, a US-based financial services company.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Ben Silbermann". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-09-19.
  2. ↑ "All about Pinterest". Pinterest help. Retrieved 2019-08-03.
  3. ↑ "30 Under 30: The Essential Names to Know - Ben Silbermann, 29, and Evan Sharp, 29, Pinterest co-founders". Elle. May 11, 2012.
  4. ↑ Flynn, Liz (2019-06-09). "10 Things You Didn't Know About Ben Silbermann". Money Inc. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
  5. ↑ "Most Popular E-mail Newsletter". USA Today. 2011-10-28.
  6. ↑ Hempel, Jessi (April 9, 2012). "Is Pinterest the Next Facebook?". Fortune . 165 (5): 109–114. Archived from the original on September 6, 2012.
  7. 1 2 Shontell, Alyson (March 13, 2012). "Meet Ben Silbermann, The Brilliant Young Co-Founder Of Pinterest". Business Insider. Archived from the original on October 13, 2012.
  8. ↑ Ben Silbermann at Startup School 2012 . Retrieved 19 July 2013.
  9. ↑ Matthew, Panzarino (May 30, 2013). "Pinterest's Ben Silbermann on turning his collection hobby into a product and not making money". The Next Web .
  10. ↑ "Interviews with the world's best entrepreneurs". British GQ. 2019-02-13. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
  11. ↑ Griffith, Erin (2022-06-28). "Pinterest's Ben Silbermann steps down as chief executive". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-09-26.
  12. 1 2 "Ben Silbermann". Forbes. Retrieved November 17, 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.