Ben Silbermann is an American entrepreneur who founded the popular application Pinterest that allows sharing of photos.
Born in 1982 into a family of ophthalmologists, Silbermann was raised in Iowa. A brilliant student, he attended the Research Science Institute at MIT, and then the Yale University from where he graduated with a degree in political science.
As a young boy, Silbermann had a fascination for collecting dried insects, stamps etc. and pinning them to card boards. It was this hobby that later gave birth to the idea of Pinterest. The site enables users to upload, save, and arrange images or videos that are called ‘pins’. Their collection is termed as a ‘pinboard’. Users can also browse other pinboards and ‘like’ them.
Prior to the creation of Pinterest in 2010, Silbermann worked at Google on its online advertising group. He left the company shortly after that, and started designing iPhone apps with his college mate Paul Sciarra. This did not work well, and soon the duo, along with their friend Evan Sharp started working on Pinterest.
The site was not successful in the beginning; it only had around 10,000 users in the first 9 months. But the following year, it shot into fame, and received media attention. Today, Pinterest has around 20 million users worldwide.