YouSaid · the spoken record

Ben Silbermann

lines on the record: 41
first: 2020-01-17
most recent: 2020-01-17
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I was walking in the RD floor or the innovation floor upstairs. I am really excited about technologies that help you visualize what a product can look like in India. And it looks different depending on the vertical. It could look like I can render this in my home. We're releasing a product called AR Tryon that lets you kind of try on makeup. It'll let you try on accessories and we'll do it without kind of smoothing the skin on your face just to help you make a decision. But I think that's really exciting because it means that not only can you see products, but you can imagine, will they fit my life? And I think from a retail perspective, that's a really exciting development.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, those are the two answers, and I have to balance both as the CEO. I'm responsible to the company, but while we see real business opportunity ahead of us and while we feel like we can fulfill that mission best as an independent company rather than a bolt-on property, we'd love to run it as an independent company.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I fell in love with internet. And like a lot of people, I thought the internet would be this positive place that could connect people in a positive way, that could lead people to feel really good. And it didn't turn out that way. And I think Pinterest has an opportunity to fulfill part of that promise. And I think it's important too. I think that the customers we serve are often underserved. I think a lot of internet wasn't built with the needs of especially women in mind. I think that when we talk to our users, they love having a place where they can think about themselves rather than think about the image they want to project to other people. We hear people say, like, I have enough ways to tell my story. What I don't have is a way to think about what I want and what I need in a place that I won't be judged. And the science says there are a lot of really positive outcomes when people have that safe space. They're more open-minded. They're more goal-oriented. They have higher self-”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll tell you from a business perspective, and I'll tell you more from a mission and personal perspective. From a business perspective, we see a lot of opportunity. I see a huge opportunity to help retailers and help consumers connect, but not connect over just a sale or just a deal, connect over literally what they want their future to look like. And we see a lot of realistic opportunity ahead of us. And I think with my practical business CEO hat, that's the hat that I have to take. And so while we see real growth opportunities, we wanted to do it independently. I think the mission part of it is I would really like to see mass market products that put a value like inspiration at their core.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean I mean, the advantage is access to liquid capital in the market. And look, we have a really ambitious roadmap ahead of us. We obviously have really big competitors, like the biggest tech companies in the world. And we know that the market will go up and down. So having access to liquid capital means that we can take a big bet if we wanted to look at an acquisition. It means we can take a big bet in R&D if we see a big platform change that we feel like is fundamental to our business.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How is it? Well, it's still pretty new. We went last year. Honestly, a lot is the same. I mean, the mission of the company is the same. The strategy is the same. I think the big difference and the thing that I'm getting is... Well, I think what we're getting used to is we have a brand new group of stakeholders in the business. And so we have to educate them, tell us what our long-term plans are. And then inside the company, we have to make sure that people are focused on our users and our customers. I'd always read that. Every CEO tells you that. I think living through it and actually doing the work to repeat that messaging, that's been a change for me. So that's new.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If we were to sell, what will we sell first I don't know. Pinterest is such a broad platform. I don't know, maybe like a branded coffee mug.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I think that as a platform, we can really help a lot of folks. And that's going to be where we invest our time and energy right now. We don't have like a skunk works team building a fulfillment center. We're really focused on how do we give you the best inspiration and then how do we help you turn that inspiration into reality.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that where our kind of core competency is today is really trying to build those inspirational businesses. And what I can say is we have years of roadmap ahead to tell people find the right thing, tell people visualize what that could look like in their life, and then to facilitate handing them off to a retailer or a brand that fits what they need. And so I can say we have years ahead of us to build that out. I think for that reason, I do think that we can help a lot of companies, and we have. And some are companies that maybe no one's ever heard of, like the Tie Bar, some are kind of marquee brands. We were working with Patagonia. They didn't want to do traditional advertising, right? Their brand, they're very clear about who they are. They have a very clear value-based message. They wanted to tell that message, and they wanted to tell at Pinterest at this moment of inspiration rather than just pushing product after product and retargeting.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there's been a real dichotomy, really, in a few minutes, between, I do want to talk about diversity at the very end, but between those who, you know, Satya is here talking about how we can help merchants, which I think is probably in contrast to Amazon, which is now in their businesses and stuff like that. Are you a helper of merchants? You said you'll never get into, is that really a never, never start to sell things, never start? That's not an adjacent business to yours? Because others have done that. Like Amazon started off as we're a platform, we're just helping them, and then moved in. You know, people move into spaces. Sonos just sued Google and Amazon. Genius sued Google. Like these companies move in.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But that's not going to grow your brand. So you're not going to grow the number of people that know about Rothies by only bidding on the word Rathis. So that can't be your only strategy. And people have spent, and there have been huge businesses built on there. I think the question a lot of people are asking is like, how do I reach people at the very, very beginning of that journey? And that's disproportionately valuable. And that moment of inspiration is when you have a chance to influence where someone's going to go with that purchasing journey.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Single message, it goes everywhere. And I'm not saying that for everyone. Increasingly, they want to market to a very specific segment and they want to reach them at a very specific time. I also think that just bidding on your brand name, spending all of your money on people that are already typing your brand name in, it's hard to grow the number of people who've heard about you.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that When we talk to CMOs, they're seeing diminishing returns in truly mass reach in a way that wasn't true before.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And to reach it with a level of precision and accountability in spend. And that's very, very new. So that both creates a lot of opportunities and I think it creates challenges for brands that are not clear on exactly who they are and who they want to reach.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It really varies by category and by brand. And it's funny, it kind of goes back to what I said about what the core value proposition is. There are some companies and their core value proposition is value, right? And for them, knowing that that's the place where you get the highest quality at the best price is absolutely important. I think what you're seeing now is a lot of brands that are focused on a really narrow segment of self-expression and really driving that story forward. That's a little bit new because it hasn't been until probably the last few years when you could tell that story and reach hundreds of millions of people. You know, Pinterest, there are 320 million people globally, but just in the US, you have eight in 10 moms, you have three and four female millennials, you have 50% millennials overall. And that's just on one platform. And so even a small company now has the power to reach a huge sizable audience.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, there's no thing that sometimes they're price leads, sometimes just the thing you want leads, sometimes it's convenience. Is there anything you see trending more than the others across your platform what works really well? And I'd love to know what doesn't work.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, by the time somebody knows the exact model of shoe or the exact brand of furniture, the job on that community. They just want convenience. They just wanted to ship. But how did they figure that out? And I think the way you figure that out is you start from the point of inspiration and you work backwards.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's funny, you know, when we talk to CMOs, what we'll often hear from them is they're tired of bidding on their own keyword or spending money only on retargeting because by the time you're doing that, you've already generated the demand. You're just accelerating the time between when somebody expresses the demand that you generate and they purchase. The question is, how do you reach them before they've actually decided which brand they actually care about? And the answer to that, I believe, is you have to be on the platforms that are the moment of inspiration. And that's one way I think pictures can really help a lot of those companies.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think it's going to be a one size fits all. I think that there are some people in the offline world that would go from boutique to boutique, and there's some people that love the convenience of having a one-stop shop. And I think that that means that if you're not Amazon, you have to be really smart about being where consumers are. And reaching them before they've already made up their mind.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have it. So, how do you look at then? You're talking about this idea of merchandise, of getting inspiration. These are all about merchandising, inspiration, these things. How does that stack up online against a company like Amazon? Do you consider them merchandise? Because they don't really do merchandise. They just have it. That's really their whole problem. We have it. We'll get it to you quickly. You know, in fact, it's in your backyard right now, you know, not getting stolen because we have a key to your house. That's their whole thing. Not kidding. They sent that thing where they're like, can we have the key to your house? I was like, no. It was really an intro, but it was a great ask on their part. What's the difference? What's the way it's going to spin? Is that the sort of way it goes or is it this idea of pulling in inspiration as you're leading the tip of the spear?”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, we work with a lot of stores that honestly are doing an amazing job with this. We work with folks like Home Depot, like Target, and what they've become really great at is they play at the inspiration level. So they've been good at doing what they've done for years, which is merchandising. They customize their creatives for Pinterest. They tell a really good story of inspiration. But then on the back end, they're also uploading their product catalogs. So when somebody's ready to say, hey, I want to pull the trigger on that. I actually want to get that look or I want to complement what I have, their products are right there front and center.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Find people that are just looking for style inspiration, but they haven't decided which brand is the one that's right for me. They may not even know the name of menswear brands. And so to reach them at that moment means that they can build a new loyal customer over time. And they've been on Pinterest for a while. They see great returns on their ads. And I think that story, you just see it repeating again and again. People think something like a Warby Parker, which was kind of a pioneer there as a one-off. I think you're just going to see that story repeated. And that's why As a brand being a really good storyteller and showing up in the places that people are engaging with their passions is becoming a priority. And increasingly, that's online.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, you used to have if you controlled the biggest stores, by definition you controlled the brands because you controlled the means of distribution. So when I say it's becoming more like the internet, it means that now a very small company can tell a story. They can source the merchandise. They can manufacture it and they can ship it. And what you're seeing is a lot of the brands that are able to connect with people at the moment of inspiration are able to grow faster than I think a lot of people thought was possible before. That's a really big deal. That's going to change a lot of things. And you saw the same thing happen in news. You see the same thing happening in media. And I think platforms like Pinterest can play a really big story in that. I'll give you an example. You know, we have a lot of users that will use Pinterest for style inspiration. And there's the company in Chicago. It's a menswear company. It has a female CEO, so the opposite of what you were joking on before. It's called the Tie Bar. They saw that. They can now upload their catalog into Pinterest.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, like I think we've all seen a look that we like, but where do I get that particular chair? That's what our users have been telling us they've wanted for a long time. And our goal is to bridge that gap for them.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I think what's changing now is the ability to stitch that together in a really, really big way. So look on Pinterest, people use the product for tons of different things. They'll use to redecorate their whole home, to plan their wedding. They'll use it for a passion, like designing a skateboard or collecting their favorite sneakers. And they've been telling us that they want to be able to back from there into the products. And there aren't a lot of easy ways to do it. And I think everyone's been in that moment. You're trying to buy a gift for someone that you care about. It's still really hard. We have so many choices, but to actually go from inspiration all the way backwards to the product, that is a huge white space. And I think that's the next big frontier for shopping.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look, I think what's really different is that it starts with this idea of how do I want to visualize my future? And it starts from this place of I want to get inspired. That's actually an old idea. If you walk into a department store, if you flip through a really well-curated fashion magazine, it always started with an image of what could be rather than a white screen with a bunch of products on it. I think what's changing now”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look, I think the way the world is going is that people are going to find inspiration in a lot of places. We want Pinterest to be the home of inspiration. And we're going to have to manage that handoff with a merchant. We're not in the business of building warehouses. We're not in the business of manufacturing competing products. But we do have to say this is a trustworthy merchant. And when you see that mark, we have to put our name behind it. Because when anyone interacts with a service, they just get a feeling. They get a feeling, can I trust this? Do I not trust this? Is this a place where I feel safe? Is it not? Is it inspiring or could I encounter things that are harmful? And I think you have to take that broader perspective because at least I know as a consumer, that's how I engage with online services. And that trust gets built over time.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You can't only be on the platform, obviously, if you violate the terms if we know that you're a scammer, we'll take you off, but we're only going to proactively push verified merchants into the shopping surfaces to begin And there's a big difference there. And so we'll try to market. And over time, we believe that when somebody using Pinterest sees that mark, they'll think that's verified, that's something valuable, just like the way that you see prime and you're like, that can get to me in two days. And that's something that you have to build over time.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People sign up and then we have a team that's then looking through these merchants. And we're willing to start small and expand over time because we think that you can always credit into trust. It's really dangerous to debit out of it. And so if your first purchase on Pinterest doesn't show up, or if it turns out to be a scam, whether or not we were the merchant of record, which we're not, that reflects poorly on our brand. That undermines your trust in the platform. And that's not something that we want. And so we're taking a start at small, start with a trusted group and expand. I think that the other approach that some folks have taken is to start super wide and try to clean it up. That's just not where we're going.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there's scams, they're products that they get to your door, they're nothing like what you look like. You can't return it properly. So the approach that we're taking, we're building a program. It's called the Verified Merchant Program. We're verifying all the merchants manually. We're looking at are the products quality? Do they have a track record of shipping? Do they have return policies? And then we'll tell users these are verified. And I think that's good for those merchants because we'll then give those merchants a way to reach people that are there getting inspiration.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One, people need to have an environment where they know they can go and feel inspired. They're not going to get bullied. They're not going to encounter content that's offensive to their values. They're not going to encounter content that's harmful, actually, to their well-being. Then our job is to show people things that they find inspiring, and that's where machine learning and personalization come in. And that's what we've spent a lot of the last eight, ten years building. And then the step after that is they want to go buy it. And that means that we have to show them products for merchants that they can trust. And that issue of trust, I think now has become even a bigger deal than it was a few years ago.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, you know, when we think about why people come to Pinterest and why they shop, I don't know anyone who wakes up and they say just like, I want to buy products. My microphone, but go ahead. Okay, your mother. I guess in my experience, most people start with some idea of a problem they want to solve or what life wants to be. And that question of how do you go from inspiration backwards into products that are from brands you trust, that are from retailers that are at your price point, that to me is the big opportunity online. If you know what you're looking for, like if you know the name of the product, you can buy it. You can buy it from multiple retailers, you can price compare, you can get it shipped to you in two days, sometimes same day. But most people, if you think about what they want to wear, if you think about what they want their home to look like, they don't have the words to describe that. That's the problem that we want to solve. You asked how these two issues connect.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and the point of that product is it gives you access to kind of clinically approved exercises that medical professionals have designed. And we're now scaling that out. So we're scaling that out internationally as of this week. And I'm not saying that that solves the whole problem, but I think it's a useful example to think through.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Depressed, I'm anxious. I mean, this is something that affects everyone, right? And the question that you have to ask yourself is like, what do you do in that situation? And there's one argument on one side that you just serve up anything. What we decided to do in the short term is we said, hey, we should make sure it's easy for people to access self-help resources, a 1-800 number. And then we started interviewing kind of clinical psychiatrists and institutions saying, what do you think would be good? And what they said is, hey, we think it would be good to get people access to the help they need if it's acute, to normalize the feeling of being sad, but you never want to normalize the behavior of self-harm. It's a huge public.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think that the way we think about it is, again, it starts with what is a platform design for inspiration, what makes that good, and what makes it bad. And that's different from claiming that you're the public square. It's different than you're saying we're the communication network for the world. And we think about what are things that are inspiring, and then what are the things that are the enemies of that? So if you go to Pinterest and you're thinking, what do I want to look like in the future? Who do I want to be? And someone says, you look terrible, are they bully you? That obviously goes against that mission. And so then we have to think, how do we scale that and make that global and acceptable everywhere? So last year, one thing that we were thinking through was we knew Pinterest is used a lot for inspiration, but some people also use it for very emotional outcomes. They say, I'm feeling sad. And we wanted to figure out what's the right course of action there. And so as a starting point, we started where some other companies go.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just said doesn't get set a lot. You have to take some responsibility. How do you think that in terms of, because there is, the downstream effects are a society that's either polarized or there's damaging information or people actually get hurt, which has happened.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Made the decision then that as a starting point we would just not serve up content because we couldn't ensure that we were giving people great information. And then over the last six or eight months we've started to put in information from really credible institutions, folks like the CDC, National Institutes of Health. And that's because we think that that content actually has an impact on people's lives. And so if you don't take some responsibility for what people see, you're at some level responsible for the downstream consequences of that.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, I can give you a small example and I can give you a big example. So a small example is when we started Pinterest, we knew that it was a platform that in theory could be used for anything. And we wanted it to be a place where people use it for inspiration. And so when you're small, we curated the people that joined the service. I used to send out an email which said, here are kind of the rules of etiquette on the service, because our belief was that people will follow by example. Where it gets complicated, and it's been complicated for everyone, is when you get to scale. So now we're at 320 million people all over the world. And so we have to think about how do we scale that to all these different geographies and all these different situations. So one example recently we had to think through was a couple years ago, you know, we noticed that people were starting to use Pinterest to search for some medical information. And that wasn't the intent of the platform. We're not doctors. We saw people searching for things like vaccines.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“About deliberately engineered because some of this stuff I'm going to be kind when I say unintended consequences because I think many of these companies, and including you all, should have known that possibly this could happen because you look at humanity and that happens everywhere you go. But you have unique problem in that you own a store, people aren't going to suddenly load it up with child pornography or violent images or hate speech or hate products or whatever in a store. You just don't load up the shelves of a store. But in the case that you have, or even if it's Facebook, wherever things are sold or information is, people do that. They can do that without, and the way you architect and design it. So talk about the idea of sort of design ethics in terms of what has to happen.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of the people who use your service, you have to care about the content and the things they do on that service. And so that's the approach that we've taken.”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“of what the company's there for. And so different companies, they have different missions. Ours has always been about being the place people go for inspiration, for inspiration for everyday things, what they wear, where they travel. And from that mission, all of our other decisions come out of that. I think that the best companies start from their mission, and then they think about how do all their decisions contribute to that mission or they go away from it. So I remember in 2010 when we started the company, I think back then it was just sort of a foregone conclusion that if you build technology platforms, good things will automatically happen. And I think the lesson that everyone's learned over the last few years is that if you want positive things to come out of internet technology, they have to be deliberately engineered that way. And at least to Pinterest, my belief is that if you care about the well-being,”
2020-01-17 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Silbermann · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT