Bill Ready spent years pushing to make Pinterest safer for young users, long before regulators started focusing on the issue. As governments and parents intensify scrutiny of the impact of social media on teens, this focus is starting to pay off for the company.
“We’ve long been focused on creating a more positive platform; one that focuses on time well spent, not just time well spent,” the CEO told analysts during Pinterest’s Q1 earnings call yesterday (May 4). “This foundation has become even more important as the broader online ecosystem faces increasing scrutiny around young people’s mental health, wellbeing and safety online.”
Reddy, who previously served as head of commerce at Google, COO of PayPal and CEO of Venmo, became Pinterest’s top executive in 2022. Since then, he has steered the platform toward stricter protections for young users, including a 2023 policy that makes the accounts of users under 16 private by default.
When Pinterest introduced the change, “a lot of people thought it would hurt our relationship with Gen Z,” Reddy said. Instead, Generation Z has become the platform’s largest and fastest growing audience, now accounting for more than half of users. At the end of the first quarter, Pinterest had 631 million monthly active users, up 11 percent from a year ago.
Investors responded positively. Pinterest stock rose 9 percent today after the company reported $1 billion in first-quarter revenue, an 18 percent increase that beat Wall Street estimates. The company reported a net loss of $73.5 million, but adjusted EBITDA came in at $207 million, up 20 percent year over year and beating expectations.
Artificial intelligence has also played a role in the company’s growth. Ready credits ten straight months of “double-digit user growth” to improvements in AI-driven personalization and content curation. Earlier this year, Pinterest announced plans to cut up to 15 percent of its workforce as part of a restructuring that shifts more resources toward AI development.
However, Reddy frames AI as a tool to enhance user safety, not undermine it. After taking over as CEO, he sought to ensure that the technology would avoid amplifying harmful or sensational material and instead showcase more constructive content. He also urged other tech leaders to prioritize moderation, product design, transparency, and teen protection in their AI efforts.
In a recent op-ed for Time magazine, Reddy praised Australia’s ban on social media use for children under 16 — although Pinterest is exempt. “I believe that if tech companies fail to prioritize the safety of young people, other governments should follow Australia’s leadHe wrote, describing today’s youth as “living the greatest social experiment in history.” Other countries, including Austria, Denmark, France and the United Kingdom, are considering similar state-level regulations.
The push for tougher rules comes as big tech companies face increasing legal and political pressure over their influence on young users. Earlier this year, Meta and Google were found negligent in a California case involving features linked to harming a minor’s mental health, a ruling that could open the door to broader accountability for addictive design.
Pinterest has tried to put itself on the other side of this debate. The company has supported measures such as phone-free schools and age verification requirements in app stores.
“We are seeing a clear trend where parents, policymakers and governments are raising the bar on online safety for young people,” Reddy told analysts yesterday. “This is a conversation we’ve been pushing for for a long time — we believe social media companies should compete on their safety records, in the same way that car manufacturers compete on their safety ratings.”
