Bill Ready - Success Story of Pinterest's New CEO

Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are out. But there's another social media platform emerging as an effective tool for corporate promotion.

Since its 2010 debut, the online picture bulletin board known as Pinterest has grown tremendously. According to a recent analysis from the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based content-sharing service Shareaholic, it also drives more traffic to business websites and blogs than YouTube, Google+, and LinkedIn put together.

As of June 28, 2022, Ben Silbermann, co-founder of the well-known picture and link-sharing website, Pinterest, stepped down from his position as CEO after serving in that capacity for 12 long years.

As posted by Pinterest, "With effect from June 29, 2022, co-founder, CEO, and president of Pinterest, Bill Ready, will take over as CEO and a member of the Board of Directors, replacing co-founder, CEO, and president Ben Silbermann in the newly formed position of Executive Chairman."

With more than 400 million active users each month, Pinterest has established a robust advertising company that increased sales by double during the pandemic. Additionally, Pinterest has been utterly committed to prioritising Pinners, constantly enhancing its roadmap, supporting artists, shopping, and expanding globally.

Read this article further, to know about the journey of Bill Ready, starting from his early life, education, his current state, and much more.

Bill Ready - Biography

Bill Ready - Early Life, and Education
Bill Ready - Career
Bill Ready - Investments
Bill Ready - Pinterest

Bill Ready - Early Life, and Education

At the age of 13, Bill Ready began working as a mechanic at his father's Kentucky auto-repair business. It didn't take him long to consider other career options that wouldn't require bringing greasy messes home.

In order to pursue an MBA at Harvard Business School, he studied information systems and finance at the University of Louisville, where he graduated as valedictorian.

Mr. Ready was appointed CEO of Braintree, which assists companies including Hotel Tonight and 37Signals in processing credit card payments online, after experiences at McKinsey & Co. in Chicago and three startups.

Bill Ready - Career

Bill has established and expanded several cutting-edge payments firms, giving him extensive expertise in both the payments and technology sectors.

In June 2022, Bill Ready was appointed CEO of Pinterest. Prior to that, Bill worked as the president of Google Commerce and a board member of Venminder for ten years.

Ready began working for Google in January 2020 as the President of Commerce before being promoted to President of Commerce, Payments, and Next Billion Users in April 2021.

Bill served as COO of PayPal before joining Google. In this role, he was in charge of product development, engineering, and end-to-end customer service for PayPal's consumer, merchant, Braintree, Venmo, Paydiant, and Xoom businesses. Additionally, he served as co-chair of PayPal's Operating Group, which is responsible for achieving the organization's sales and profit targets.

In his role as CEO, Bill and his team created one of the most cutting-edge and significant firms in the payments sector. Bill joined PayPal in 2013 after Braintree was acquired by the company.

The world's most disruptive companies, such as Uber, Airbnb, Houzz, and HotelTonight, are all powered by Braintree's industry-leading payment solutions, which the company designed with a focus on mobile-first experiences, easy developer tools, and outstanding customer service.

Bill served as an executive in residence at Accel Partners, a renowned Silicon Valley venture capital and growth equity company, before joining Braintree. Bill, a seasoned professional in the payments sector, took over as president of iPay Technologies in 2008 and saw the business through a period of significant sales and profitability development before it was sold to Jack Henry & Associates in 2010 for $300 million.

He was an early engineer at two more successful startups, Emphesys (merged with Humana in 2001), and Netzee (IPO in Nov 1999), as well as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Company, where he mentored top financial technology businesses.

Bill Ready - Investments

Two investments were made personally by Bill Ready.

Bill Ready - Pinterest

The social networking platform Pinterest's founder and longstanding CEO, Ben Silbermann, made his departure from his position known on June 28.

Bill Ready, who formerly oversaw Google's e-commerce division, would take the CEO post as of 30th June, with Silbermann moving into the new role of executive chairman for Pinterest.

Google has copied Pinterest's business model due to the latter's relative success. In 2020, the search engine giant released Google Collections, which allowed users to organise their search searches into collections that much resembled Pinterest.

The promotion of Ready to CEO coincides with Pinterest's recent shift in emphasis toward e-commerce. The business bought The Yes, an AI purchasing platform, earlier this year to further its objectives in the field.

Prior to his two years at Google, Ready held the positions of Chief Executive Officer of PayPal and CEO of Venmo, both of which will be well suited to the ambitions of the business. He contributed to the introduction of a Google feature that allowed users to go directly from a store listing on a search results page to the store's checkout page.

“There’s no better time to join Pinterest,” said Ready in a statement. “I have long admired the brand and platform that Ben and the Pinterest team have created and everything the Company stands for. Having built multiple businesses from zero and operated at the scale of billions of users, I have a deep appreciation for what it takes to scale a business like this to the next level. I look forward to the many opportunities ahead in Pinterest’s next chapter of growth and success.”

FAQs

Who is Bill Ready?

Bill Ready served as vice president and chief operating officer of PayPal and CEO of Braintree and Venmo and has also been the president of commerce at Google in January 2020.

What is the age of Bill Ready?

Bill Ready is 40 years old.

What is the net worth of Bill Ready?

The net worth of Bill Ready is approximately $48 million.