a o ben silverman made it point to distinguish the company around privacy and manipulation pinterestks to be a safe place for brands to advertise, and for consumers to find inspiration. >> pinterest isn't a social network and it isn't about other people and celebrities. it's about yourself, your dreams and ras pragzs. >> they're evaluating the platform with the sim criteria that they do facebook, twitter and snap looking at revenue growth. while pinterest doe consider itself a social company, giving control to its unders is right in line with both facebook and snap. silverman saying he and his team are focused on rung the company for the long term. we'll see if the after the stock gains today instors also hold on for the long firm. for "nightly business report" i'm julia boorstin los angeles. >>> zoom is actually profitable. its goal is to make video communications frictionless and it's not just earnings that investors care ab they also like to see growth and zoom's ceo said he hagra strategy to the brand. >> i think that first of all, we started from s&p customers and we are theav o

cofounder and ceo of pinterest ben silverman is with us at post nine.to see you. >> thank you. >> give investors a peak at what the road show sounded like when you made your pitch? what were the key points >> we really focused on how people use the products every day. we explained to folks that people use pinterest to get inspiration from everything to the recipes they cook and the things they put in their home. it's not a social network. it's about yourself and your dreams and aspirations. >> does that mean that high impact users don't matter in ways they do for platforms like twitter, for example >> we care a ton about our users, but we really think about it utility. we want people to use it to get things done in their life. we're less focused on making it a place where you talk to your friends or follow celebrities. >> a number of analysts ahead of this ipo today have come out and said despite the fact that i know pinterest has been distancing itself from that social media category have come out and made the argument that, being categorized alongside

silverman --as ben n, ceo of pinterest.nd zoom, the provider of video conferencing services went public on the nasdaq. i spoke with their ceo minutes after shares started trading. ande finalize the price today was a big jump. there are other things, too. we just go back to work. emily: how do you live up to it now? the market is huge. over $40 billion of opportunity. our employees so far, they are very excited and very happy as long as we stay humble and continue working as hard as we can. i think we will be ok in the long run. emily: many people talked about in zoom is a rare unicorn that you are profitable. should we expect you to grow profits this year or focus on investing to improve topline growth? mr. yuan: i think we should focus on them both. we want to grow for sure. that is our top priority. but we want to have a disciplined approach, right? i think we can focus on growth and of the same time, focus on the positive. talked about your immigration struggles. the u.s. government denied your visa eight times before th

. >> there's ben silverman on the post of the exchange next to stacey cunningham of the new york stockhange. haven't heard a lot from ben he has made some appearances at recode conference out in california investors will get to know him in a hurry. >> yeah. this is the benign play. it's benign. it didn't hurt anybody. >> didn't hurt anybody they're not about sharing. >> no. they're about you buying shoes. >> going deep on you, exploring yourself. >> right, explore yourself while we're waiting, union pacific is up $6, okay that is, again, csx. i defy you to tell me that the economy is not getting better and better. >> we'll talk to lance fritz at 10:30. >> so good ask him about hiring people coming out of jail so good at that. >> the degree to which they've taken share. their pricing power becomes more evident. >> fabulous ceo, so umble. i've tried to get him to say basically how good they are. that's not his style but he is a really good ceo. >> zoom, the other major ipo today. both of these names, by the way, well over subscribed i think 20 times the case i've heard for pinterest. mor

--ly: that was ben silverman pinterest.ceo of they were not the only company to go public.his company went public on the nasdaq and i spoke with the ceo. >> we have finalized the price, today, it is out of our control. we just need to go back to work. emily: how do you live up to it? , i would say the market opportunity is huge. over $40 billion in market opportunity. the customer, they do trust us and our employees are also very excited. humble andwe stay continue working as hard as we can. i think we'll be ok in the long run. talked aboutave how zoom is a rare unicorn. should we expect you to grow profits? or focus on improving topline growth? we wanted to grow for sure, that is our global priority. time, we have to have a much more disciplined approach. we have to have the right balance and focus on growth. you were last on the show to talk about immigration struggles. has deniedvernment your visa eight times before they finally approved it. now you are taking a company public. first, i visited the view's office who finally gave me approval to come to silicon valley. i l

i spoke with ben silverman, the ceo after the company listed its shares on the new york stock exchangeben: we really talk to investors about how people use the site everyday. people use it to get inspiration. it is really more about your personal inspirations and less about your friends. it is not about following celebrity in the news. that is how our users see the product every day. emily: you launched pinterest nine years ago. many companies have gone public more quickly with much deeper losses. why did you feel like now is the right time? ben: we are proud of the progress we made over the last few years. we figured we were at a part where people can have access to market capital. --ot of great companies have we had a lot of patient investors and employees, so it is a nice moment to provide liquidity for both parties. emily: some investors might look at pinterest and say you're just another digital marketing company. what makes your advertising model unique from other platforms? ben: it is really lined up with what advertises want. to inspire your customers. to get them to buy servic

earlier today, i spoke with the pinterest ceo ben silverman after the stock hit the public markets and how he would describe pinterest to the public today? take a listen. ben: we really talked with investors about how regular people use the product every day. they use it everyday to get inspiration for a range of things. everything from the clothing they wear to their home. it is about your personal inspiration. it is less about your friends, it is not really about following celebrities in the news. we wanted to make sure everyone understood that. that is how our users use the product every day. emily: you launched nine years ago. many companies have gone public much more quickly with much deeper losses. why did you feel like now is the right time? ben: we are proud of the progress we have made. we felt we were at the point of stability so we could be in the public market. we were also excited to have opportunities to have access to public market capital. the reason is that a lot of great companies have acquired other companies. finally, we have had patient investors and employees, so

only opened up 80% let's talk about both, start with ben silverman calling sidewalk ally, the company is more about utility for people to get things done and less of a place to talk for friends or to follow celebrities we are not a social media company. for more, let's bring in directing manager of loop ventures amazing response to pinterest. are you surprised? a 25% pop? either the bankers screwed up in pricing it or people really like pinterest. >> it's a discovery platform, it's not a social network. we think it will be comped like a social network the good thing about pinterest is, it's a great business. people tell pinterest how they see the world in pictures. facebook and twitter are trading 6 to 8 times next year's reve e revenue. it feels like the market is pricing in a lot of that -- >> first of all, i think the term social media is outdated and done do you think there was a strategic reason why the ceo of pinterest kept saying, we're not social media you want that stain? >> yeah, i think social media's a bad word right now >> two words >> two bad words combined into one. i t

ceo ben silverman is looking to expand more internationally and to make it easier for small and mediuminesses to advertise on pinterest through their new self-service platform. back over to you. >> really instructive video there, julia. thank you very much. >>> we have pinterest and zoom this week, uber and slack still coming. you have a handful of others already making their public debut. joining us with more on the rush of tech companies to the public markets is business professor and ipo historian jay ritter as well as our own bob pisani. good morning, guys. bob, your thoughts on pinterest to begin with? >> my hope here is that pinterest might be a model for other kinds of pricing. there's a tsunami of companies going public this year, more than 200 of them. many of them think they have very high valuations, at least the public seems to think so. pinterest valued theirs below the last round of funding and my hope is that the public has been dieing for more tech ipo for a long time. they'll get them this year. that tsunami might sattate that desire a little. i think pinterest was ver

even ben silverman has to remain actively in the company, not sell a bunch of shares in order to maintaint voting power. >> that's interesting. i like that. it's very much in line with ben. he's just not -- he's not someone that's -- if you meet him you're like why don't even want to be ceo. he's very thoughtful. he does things like this. he's very analytical. i'd be interested to see how he does with investors. i'm not going to be in any of those rooms. he's not easy to interview, although i do talking to him. i do enjoy talking to him away from the spotlight. he's more interesting out of the spotlight than in the spotlight which is odd. >> his interview with you on stage was memorable for that very reason. we'll see how it goes. the. >>> the uk announcing this code of practice for tech companies saying that internet sites could be fined or blocked if they fail to tackle what they're classifying as online harms and we see regulation around the world, kara, branch out from your standard gdp art? >> it's britain, by the way, which has much stronger libel laws. they also don't have the firs

we're expecting executives including ben silverman and todd morganfeld to present to investors today.se luncheons are really supposed to help the executives explain and communicate the story of pinterest to investors. the company is -- serves as a virtual bulletin board of sorts which various how-tos and inspiration on how to decorate a home or wedding, but it also provides investors a chance to ask their questions and get those questions answered by executives. we've been speaking with investors as well as advisers to the company and some of the main questions that they're expecting are that surrounding slowing monthly active user growth as well as the potential for monetization surrounding e-commerce and the ability to purchase things on the platform which you can already do but the company does not generate any revenue from that. ad revenue sustainability. that encompasses the bulk of their monetization strategy. how sustainable is that as monthly active users growth continues to flatten now, media are not allowed inside the road show lunch when it begins today at 12:30 but we plan

they are underwriting this deal so so, this morning, ben silverman met with their sales force to helpnd craft a message for selling the more than $1 billion worth of stock they need to sell to investors as you mentioned, that valuation are seeking a valuation of about $9 billion, which may help compel more investors to come to the table. because at least psychologically speaking it makes them feel like they got a discount to what private investors paid two years ago. i'm told they plan to really pitch this company as one of discovery versus that of search. and that essentially means that they think that the discovery aspect of the business model where you can look and find different inspirations on cooking and wedding planning and so forth would be more compelling to advertisers, kelly. >> we'll look more into this as this progresses, leslie. but want to ask you about the drama at lyft accusing the underwriter of short selling against it >> cnbc obtained a letter p written from lyft and ipo effectively accusing morgan stanley of creating a special product that would help free ipo lyft

the lyft guys were understated and ben silverman at pinterest was understated. >> the rock star ceo theren evan spiegel premium in snap, you don't have that in these names right now. >> coming up, the deliveries and orders of its 737 jets plummet in the first quarter one of the traders said this is just the tip of the iceberg and a big week from the banks and the ceos and they get grilled on the hill and the group is up for earnings and karen says there is meing out ossothabthe stocks that wall street is getting all wrong. she will explain when "fast money" returns >>> breaking news out of washington treasury secretary steven mnuchin just left the hearing on the hill in the international financial policy elan moi is there tracking the treasury secretary >> melissa, he has been on the hill all day long. he ended that marathon day of testimony with a heated exchange with house financial services committee chairwoman maxine waters this exchange was not about trump's tax cuts or trump's tax returns or about tax cuts or even about trade, it was about what time he was supposed to leave. >> what

boil down the challenge for ben silverman and team to thrive in this environment with all these big competitorsnk competitively they've proven themselves to be relatively successful at this point you can't price in the $10 billion almost range and not have real revenue. the revenue reported was almost $800 million it's a real growing concern. i think to the point of ipo pricing back in my day when paypal was going public if you didn't pop 100% on a day off you weren't a good company 60% day was a bad idea seems like things are a little more rationale and better these days think pinterest needs to keep growing and they are operating in a competitive market dominated by facebook and google. >> you are dealing in loans to consumers, a deal with walmart recently how important is an ipo for your future >> you know, i don't see ipo as an end i think it's an important means of giving investors and employees liquidity they deserve. venture capitalists need their time to recoup the gains hopefully and put it back into the economy. i see that as an important responsibility for a company also having publi

latest private valuation back in 2017 we're here at jpmorgan where the executives including ceo ben silverman attended a teach-in with the sales force to help explain to them how to market this deal to investors, based on this morning's terms, they're looking at selling upwards of a billion dollars worth of stock now, i'm told in pitching this deal, they're looking at differentiating pinterest from your traditional social media company. now, they make money based on ad revenue, displayed on their site, for those of you who are unfamiliar with pinterest, they allow users to learn new things like how to cook, how to decorate for a wedding, they really showcase these inspiration inspirational broo aal boards tl save they've only recently started monetizing they did disclose this morning their first quarter projections showed revenue of about $201.9 million. that's the most high end of the range that they showcased for those projections. that would imply, though, top line growth of about 54% although there are losses, they still would post losses from operations in the first quarter, those seem t