‘We’re about to shut Venmo down’: How Pinterest’s CEO once saved Venmo
Venmo co-founder Iqram Magdon-Ismail was on the verge of shutting down the money startup when then-CEO of Braintree Bill Ready swooped in to acquire the company. Both companies would later be acquired by fintech giant Paypal, and Venmo went on to change how we send each other money. Ready is now the CEO of the creative discovery engine Pinterest and Magdon-Ismail founded the new social media app JellyJelly.
The two tech entrepreneurs sat down for The 1 on 1 with CNN, reflecting on how they built Venmo alongside Magdon-Ismail’s co-founder Andrew Kortina. Ready and Magdon-Ismail swap stories of sending $1 payments to people at bars to sign them up and facing the controversy of the app’s social feed. They discuss on how the tech world has changed with AI coding tools and users’ relationship with social media. They reflect on what they’ve learned about about business leadership and how their upbringings shaped their entrepreneurial journeys.
Watch the latest episode of The 1 on 1 with CNN at CNN.com/The1on1.
0:00: Intro
00:46: Stories from Venmo’s start-up days
01:55: Venmo was on the brink of shutting down when they started working together
04:34: Signing up users in early Venmo days
06:02: The controversial Venmo social feed
09:53: The experience of selling to PayPal
13:17: Founding a start-up business versus running a business at scale
15:04: If Ready and Magdon-Ismail swapped roles
18:09: Magdon-Ismail’s new social app JellyJelly and Ready’s role at Pinterest
23:01: What would the other do in different situations
24:11: How their upbringings shaped their entrepreneurial journeys
Sponsored by Microsoft.
#Pinterest #Venmo #Startup
