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William Ready

Chief Executive Officer & Director, Pinterest

Search every verified William Ready interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. During Pinterest’s second quarter 2026 earnings call on August 5, 2026, Ready reported that the platform reached a record 640 million monthly active users and revenue grew 18% year-over-year. He stated that the company has achieved cost per transaction at less than 8% of the cost of comparable closed proprietary models by using open-source AI models, and he remarked that any CEO not taking advantage of open-source models is “almost certainly wasting a lot of their shareholders’ money.” Ready noted that 39% of Gen Z users now consider Pinterest the first place to go for search, and that more than 70% of Gen Z sees the platform as more personalized than alternatives. In a June 2026 interview at the Cannes Lions festival, Ready discussed Pinterest’s evolution into a shopping destination, noting that over half of the platform’s more than 80 billion monthly searches are from users looking to spend money. He emphasized that consumers are craving authenticity and meaning, and that Pinterest’s focus on a positive, safe environment is both a moral choice and a good business decision, as studies show better engagement and conversion when products appear in a positive context. Ready also highlighted that 85% of Pinterest users come to the mobile app directly, describing the platform as a destination beloved by its users.

Recent appearances

  • Pinterest Q2 2026 Earnings Call | Revenue Up 18% as Active Users Hit Record 640M

    August 05, 2026 · 📺 i101

    Pinterest Q2 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Twitter - https://x.com/i101yt If you find our work useful, please support us by purchasing a Super Thanks— it truly helps us a lot. #earningscall #StockMarketNews #conferenceCall Earnings Call | Earnings Conference Call | Earnings concall | concall | quarterly results | Stock News | Full Year results | Fiscal Year results | investment news | stock latest news | Annual Meeting of Shareholders | Annual Meeting of Unitholders | Special and Annual Meeting of Shareholders | AGM | Annual General Meeting If you want us to remove your company's earnin…

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  • Pinterest Is Now A Shopping Destination — And Gen Z Likes It

    June 29, 2026 · 📺 Insider News

    Pinterest sees more than 80 billion searches a month according to CEO Bill Ready, and over half of those are people looking to spend money. Ready joined CEO editor in chief Jamie Heller on stage in Cannes to talk about the changes he's brought to Pinterest since becoming CEO in 2022. The conversation touched on how the platform is using AI, how it's partnering with advertisers, and how it's attracted so many Gen Z users. Read "Pinterest CEO Bill Ready wants advertisers to see the platform as a search engine for shopping": https://bit.ly/4vufZsJ -----------------------------------------------…

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  • Pinterest Sees Payoff From Custom AI

    May 06, 2026 · 📺 Bloomberg Technology

    Pinterest's first-quarter sales topped analysts' estimates as the platform leaned into the use of its own custom AI models to drive down costs and increase user engagement. Pinterest CEO Bill Ready joins Caroline Hyde on “Bloomberg Tech.” -------- Like this video? Subscribe to Bloomberg Technology on YouTube:    / @bloombergtechnology     Watch the latest full episodes of "Bloomberg Technology" with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow here:    • "Bloomberg Tech" With Caroline Hyde and Ed...     Get the latest in tech from Silicon Valley and around the world here: https://www.bloomberg.com/tec…

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  • Pinterest Inc (NYSE:PINS) Q1 2026 Earnings Conference Call

    May 05, 2026 · 📺 Insider Trading

    Press Release: https://s204.q4cdn.com/369458543/files/doc_earnings/2026/q1/earnings-result/Q126-PressRelease.pdf Earnings ...... welcome to Pinterest earnings call for the first quarter ended March 31st 2026 joining me on today's call are Bill Ready Pinterest ...

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  • $PINS Pinterest Q1 2026 Earnings Conference Call

    May 04, 2026 · 📺 EARNMOAR

    05/04/2026 Q&A: 27:05 Pinterest, Inc. operates as a visual search and discovery platform in the United States, Canada, Europe, and internationally. The company's platform allows people to find ideas, such as recipes, home and style inspiration, and others; and to search, save, and shop the ideas. It also provides various advertising products to help advertisers meet users; and ad auction that allows to serve ads to users at relevant moments while optimizing business outcomes for advertisers. The company was formerly known as Cold Brew Labs Inc. and changed its name to Pinterest, Inc. in April…

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  • These Early Lessons Guided Pinterest CEO Bill Ready’s Toughest Call

    February 03, 2026 · 📺 CNBC International and CNBC International Live

    Pinterest CEO Bill Ready reflects on the pivotal decisions behind his rise from small-town-Kentucky to Silicon Valley—and the bold move that reshaped the platform for a new generation. 0.00 Bill Ready's Journey: Small-Town Roots to Tech Leadership 7:37 The Leap to College: Mentors and Early Entrepreneurial Lessons 13:12 Embracing Vulnerability: Building Strong Teams and Personal Balance 23:04 Why Making Pinterest Safer Was Bill Ready's Best Decision 33:15 Bill Ready's Vision: Shaping AI and a Positive Digital Future #CNBC #CNBCPodcast #ExecutiveDecisions ----- Subscribe: @cnbci CNBC Int…

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  • Why Pinterest Cut 15% of Staff

    January 28, 2026 · 📺 The Information

    Pinterest CEO Bill Ready discusses the restructuring aimed at turning the platform into an "AI-powered shopping assistant.

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  • Protecting Kids from Big Tech: Kara Swisher, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan

    January 06, 2026 · 📺 Which Side of History with Jim Steyer

    Stanford University professor Jim Steyer leads a lively discussion on the influence of big tech on democracy and America's youth.

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  • Pinterest CEO on AI Roadmap, China’s Emergency Nvidia Meeting, AWS’ New AI Model | Dec 10, 2025

    December 11, 2025 · 📺 The Information

    Pinterest CEO Bill Ready talks with TITV Host Akash Pasricha about using open-source AI models to rival proprietary leaders and how AI chatbots will change advertising. We also talk with Asia Bureau Chief Jing Yang about China's emergency meetings on the Nvidia H200 chip and DeepSeek's model development, and The Information’s Miles Kruppa about the UAE fund becoming a major financier for big US data center projects. Lastly, we get into custom models and the future of the AI model battlefield with AWS Director of Technology Shaown Nandi. Articles discussed on this episode: https://www.thei…

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  • Pinterest CEO on AI-Generated Content

    December 11, 2025 · 📺 The Information

    Pinterest CEO Bill Ready explains the platform's policy on AI-generated content, focusing on transparency and giving users the ability to control what they see. Full interview:    • How Pinterest Is Using AI for Positivity   #AI #ContentModeration #Pinterest

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  • How Pinterest Is Using AI for Positivity

    December 10, 2025 · 📺 The Information

    Pinterest CEO Bill Ready shares his primary reason for joining Pinterest: to prove there is a positive alternative to social media's business model that maximizes view time through triggering content. He details how Pinterest is setting out to tune its AI for positivity, aiming to ensure users "leave the platform feeling better". TITV airs on YouTube, X and LinkedIn at 10AM PT / 1PM ET. Or check us out wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to: The Information on YouTube:    / @theinformation   The Information: https://www.theinformation.com/subscr...

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  • Pinterest, Inc PINS Q3 2025 Earnings Call

    November 10, 2025 · 📺 Fyfull

    Pinterest, Inc PINS Q3 2025 Earnings Call --------- In this video, we'll cover the latest quarterly earnings results, key financial ...

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Notable quotes

“I'd love to wake up in a world where social media companies, tech platforms, AI platforms are competing on their safety record the same way the auto manufacturers compete on theirs.”

“At Pinterest we were the first and still the only platform to do private-only for under 16; it was a really tough decision because, as a dad, I looked at what was happening and very clearly I could see that it's not safe for kids to be contacted by strangers online.”

“Effectively we turned off the social features for users under 16 because as a parent you know I looked at what was happening and you know it makes sense when you just say it out loud it's not safe for kids to be contacted by strangers online.”

“With the coming of you know ever more powerful AI, that's even more important. So I think the, you know, the political world starting to take interest and care about this, that's a global phenomenon. And I think rightly so because there's such tremendous influence.”

“Advertisers will go where consumers are actually making purchasing choices, and it's not a zero-sum game — there's room for both chatbots and platforms like Pinterest.”

“We can take open-source models and fine-tune those and get similar performance to the very best proprietary models at less than 10% of the cost.”

Other executives at Pinterest

The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →