Evan Sharp Is Ready to Harness the Power of Technology for a Higher Purpose
The Pinterest co-founder isn’t planning to change the world, but he might end up doing just that—again.
While many tech founders seem to bask in the glow of a spotlight, Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp would rather be anywhere else—particularly if “anywhere else” is outdoors and among some plants. And while his peers are building rocket ships and tweaking algorithms in an attempt to increase our collective screentime, Evan has his sights set on a “radically better” future where we’re less connected to our phones and more connected to ourselves and one another. (He currently has his hands in two start-ups—one created in partnership with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone—that he hopes will help steer society closer to that future.) There’s a place for technology in this utopia, Evan says, but it will be a tool, not a trap; instead of dragging us further down the rabbit hole of mindless scrolling, it will be synthesized into a more purpose-driven existence.
Sure, he helped shape one of the world’s most influential social media platforms, but Evan’s life today is low-tech by design. Scroll down for a glimpse inside it. (Spoiler alert: It includes both crystals and Billie Eilish.)
GODMOTHERS: What are you reading right now?
EVAN SHARP: A lot of Tibetan Buddhist texts, and stuff like that. I’m trying to read a book on the history of the Western mind. And gardening stuff.
GODMOTHERS: Gardening?
ES: Yeah, gardening, landscaping, nature. I’m a big fan of the mama planet.
GODMOTHERS: Were you a big reader as a kid?
ES: I think I read every single science fiction book in the public library in my hometown.
GODMOTHERS: Is there one that sticks out?
ES: A weird little book called Engine Summer.
GODMOTHERS: You have a 6-year-old and a 2-year-old, so I imagine you’re reading a lot of children’s books right now?
ES: All the time.
GODMOTHERS: What’s your current favorite?
ES: The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton. That’s kind of where we are with books right now.
GODMOTHERS: Is your 6-year-old reading?
ES: She is. It’s amazing. She also has a Yoto that she listens to all the time. Maybe too much. But she’s learning. I gave her The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe and was like, “This is probably too old for you,” so she immediately listened to the entire thing.
GODMOTHERS: That feels advanced for a 6-year-old?
ES: Well, I don’t know. She may have only liked it because I said she was too young for it. I probably didn’t need to say that. But it’s a classic.
GODMOTHERS: Are you going to write a book?
ES: Yes? I mean, should I? What do you think?
GODMOTHERS: If you have something to say? Otherwise, please don’t.
ES: I do feel like I have something to say.
GODMOTHERS: What would your book be about?
ES: I mean, I think the intersection of American history, technology, and God is a really interesting overlap. I have an American history degree.
GODMOTHERS: How did you end up with a history degree?
ES: Well, I tried to be a music major, but I picked too late, and being a music major would have meant another full year of school. So I went with history.
GODMOTHERS: And after college?
ES: When I graduated, I had no plan. It was bad. So I went to the job fair, and the first table was for City Hall in Chicago, and they asked, “Do you want a job?” And I was like, “That’s interesting? Maybe I do?” And they said, “Great, you’re hired.” I showed up on the first day, and they told me I’d be processing liquor licenses. I thought, “OK? I’m only 22? But that sounds fine?” I quickly realized that half of my job was, someone would come in with a form, and they didn’t know how to fill out. And then I’d have to send them across the street. It was like, “Can the form just fucking say what you have to do? It’s not hard. It’s a Microsoft Word doc.” I got obsessed, and we fixed them all.
GODMOTHERS: I mean, forms in general. Could you fix all of them? If you send your kids to summer camp, it’s like 65 pages of, name/address/birthday, name/address/birthday. And I feel like it takes me longer than it should to come up with their birthdays, every time.
ES: I think I know my kids’ birthdays.
GODMOTHERS: They’re harder to remember than they should be?
ES: Instead of numbers, we should name the years. Every year, at the end of the year, we should be, like, this is the year of the trumpet or whatever.
GODMOTHERS: What would 2025 be?
ES: Well, we’re not done yet. But what did we call it back in the day when there was a TV show that everyone knew was bad, but we all watched it anyway, because it’s what was on? Like, we’ve all seen this before. They’re just recycling the characters.
GODMOTHERS: 2025 is the year that jumped the shark?
ES: What do I know? I’m not a politics guy. I’m a tech guy.
GODMOTHERS: I mean, so far it’s deeply accurate. How do you get your news these days?
ES: I just read The New York Times, and then close it after 60 seconds because it annoys me. And then The Wall Street Journal. I skip down to the two articles that are interesting. And then the local paper, the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s mostly newspapers.
GODMOTHERS: Physical newspapers? Apps?
ES: Websites. Not apps.
GODMOTHERS: Do you use any apps?
ES: One or two. Pinterest.
GODMOTHERS: You still use Pinterest?
ES: I do.
GODMOTHERS: What else?
ES: My phone has one screen of apps. That’s it. Google Maps, Podcasts, Spotify. I found that if I have The New York Times app, I just open it all the time. That’s not good. I don’t want to do that. Why do I need to know what’s going on? So if I have to go to Safari and make myself type out n-y-t-i-m-e-s-dot-c-o-m, I usually stop halfway through. I figure if something’s really important, I’ll hear about it.
GODMOTHERS: What podcasts are your favorites?
ES: Do you have any good ones?
GODMOTHERS: Currently, Pop Pantheon. But unless you’re VERY into pop music, you won’t like it.
ES: We did just have Chappell Roan do a Pinterest pop-up at Coachella, which was good. And Billie Eilish was my most-listened-to artist last year. She’s so fucking good. But my podcasts are just a weird nerd podcast and a basketball podcast.
GODMOTHERS: What’s your team?
ES: The Warriors. If you’re at all into sports and you live in San Francisco, that’s your team. And Steph Curry is the most fun person to root for in sports. Plus, I met him, and he was like, “I love Pinterest.” There are a LOT of public figures using Pinterest under fake names. Actors, athletes, CEOs. I’m not going to out anyone, but the CEO of one of the most visible companies in the world once said to me, “When I feel down, I go on Pinterest and look at inspirational quotes and I feel better.”
GODMOTHERS: It’s nice. It’s a wholesome outlet. So every celebrity has a secret Pinterest account? Name names?
ES: I’m not going to tell you!
GODMOTHERS: That’s some deep journalism for when I’m up late. How late are you staying up at night?
ES: God damn it, I went to bed at 1 a.m. last night. If I’m up at midnight, I can’t go to bed. There’s too much fun stuff to do! So I don’t sleep enough.
GODMOTHERS: What were you doing up late?
ES: Well, I was trying to write, but I ended up mindlessly scrolling on YouTube, which is terrible. I hate it.
GODMOTHERS: What does your YouTube algorithm look like?
ES: Random comedians, random basketball. Last night I was watching a weird guy who travels to random towns and just talks to everybody.
GODMOTHERS: If a “pet peeve” is something that annoys you more than it should, what are your “pet joys”—the small things that inspire a disproportionate amount of joy and delight you more than they should at face value?
ES: I have a lot of crystals.
GODMOTHERS: Crystals? Tell me more?
ES: Weird crystals, but also, I grew up finding rocks and fossils. I don’t know why, but I still have a lot of them. If I were at our other house, I could turn the camera and show you, like, seven crystals.
GODMOTHERS: Where are you getting your crystals?
ES: They just show up. People give me crystals. I wouldn’t call myself a crystal guy. It’s not an active hobby. I’m not reading about crystals. But, like, last year, the day before we were pouring the foundation for our house in San Francisco, my buddy was like, “You have to meet this spiritual dude who’s in town. He’s amazing.” I was like, “Sure?” I wasn’t expecting much, but he was a very posh British guy with a really powerful presence—a really powerful presence—who told me he was an energetic alchemist. I told him about the renovation and the foundation, and he told me, “You need to put crystals in the foundation.” My knee-jerk response was, “That’s great, but we’re pouring it in 12 hours. And I can’t even buy a pair of pants in San Francisco. There’s, like, no retail. Literally all the stores are closed. Sorry, man.” But he told me to try, so I checked Google Maps, and there were 17 crystal stores. The only thing you can buy anymore in San Francisco—I’m not even kidding—is crystals. So my daughter and I bought crystals and he charged them and we put them in the foundation.
GODMOTHERS: Are you, you know, researching the different types of crystals? Or charging them in the moonlight? Are there any rituals involved? Or are they just hanging out in your home, making you happy?
ES: I put them against my body and they change my awareness. If you just hold one against your heart, it can change your energy. Some more, some less. And they change it in different ways. So I could probably read about them, but I prefer not to have the science and just pick one in the moment and feel the energy and put it back.
GODMOTHERS: Any other pet joys?
ES: Buildings and nature. And music. Those are too grandiose, but that’s the shit I love. Gardening. If I have free time and really want to enjoy something, I usually go and work with plants.
GODMOTHERS: What’s growing at the moment?
ES: Well, I’m in Sonoma County, so, kind of anything I want. I have orange trees and grapefruit trees and pomegranates and persimmons, and also a kitchen garden—cucumbers, lettuce, and tomatoes. You just put it in the ground it grows. Strawberries go crazy. I’ve got a whole bed and my son just walks around stuffing himself.
GODMOTHERS: Obviously, your public persona is “tech guy,” but it seems like your life is pretty analog.
ES: I have a Tesla, but that’s for the convenience, not the “tech.”
GODMOTHERS: Are there any other tech things you like?
ES: I mean, I don’t really like Tesla—I just have one. Everything else is analog. I’m simple. My life is my family. My kids’ perfect little Waldorf school. The garden, the creek, the house in the city we’re still working on. Meditation and spiritual stuff. I’m much less into tech.
GODMOTHERS: What’s your favorite notebook?
ES: It’s by Emilio Braga, a Portugese brand.
GODMOTHERS: Pen or pencil?
ES: Pen. Unless I’m drawing, then pencils. Muji colored pencils are the good ones.
GODMOTHERS: What are your favorite local businesses?
EVAN: There’s a bookstore called Levin & Company in Healdsburg. They’re great. There’s an amazing butcher that I go to all the time, Journeyman. And a great local bakery, Quail & Condor, that The New York Times just found, so it’ll be crowded now. And there’s a little place called Forager that’s a boutique-y retail store with candles and honey.
GODMOTHERS: Are you a procrastinator?
ES: Yes. I wrote every paper in college at 1 a.m. the night before it was due. It was terrible.
GODMOTHERS: Kindred spirits. What do you procrastinate now?
ES: I almost can’t do anything until the deadline is looming. I’m very intrinsically energized, so if I’m not inspired to do something, it’s hard for me to override the urge to do something else. But I’ve figured it out. I’m in charge at work, so we have to have deadlines there. I can function.
GODMOTHERS: Your bills are paid?
ES: Yes, I pay the bills. And they’re always paid.
GODMOTHERS: Have you learned anything new recently?
ES: A lot around meditation. I’ve been learning and reading and practicing, and it’s the most incredible stuff in the world to me. It’s just unbelievable.
GODMOTHERS: Is it a formal practice? Like, Transcendental? Or just, breathe in, breathe out?
ES: Tibetan Buddhist mostly. So it’s “formal” in that way. It’s based in religion, kind of—but it’s not a religion that’s dogmatic or exclusionary.
GODMOTHERS: Did you grow up with religion?
ES: I grew up going to a Protestant church, which I looked to. My dad’s family was all preachers and musicians, but my parents weren’t, like, talking about religion or expressing religious ideas. My family goes to church on the holidays, and now that my daughter’s 6, I’m trying to think about community. You have to find that community. It’s hard.
GODMOTHERS: It is hard. It’s what we’re trying to do at Godmothers: help people find their people. Speaking of Godmothers, the name of the store was inspired by “fairy godmothers”—so not “godmothers” in the religious sense, but the magical women in your life who have supported and shaped you. Who are the godmothers who have shaped your life?
ES: Well, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, one of Godmothers’ co-founders, has really actively played that role for me. She’s my No. 1.
GODMOTHERS: What’s the best advice she’s ever given you?
ES: It’s not necessarily advice, but she can sort of channel what I need. That’s what she’s wired to do—or what she’s taught herself to do. She tells me what I need to hear. “You’re in your own way. Stop trying ot fix ALL the world’s problems. You’re overthinking it.” It’s always spot-on.
GODMOTHERS: I read an old interview where you said you felt like you weren’t a good manager when you started.
ES: Oh, almost terrible. I’m still barely passing.
GODMOTHERS: What are you doing differently?
ES: Well, I have really good managers helping me manage. They’re all better than I am.
GODMOTHERS: What are you bad at managing?
ES: Letting people do the work, giving them space, giving them autonomy.
GODMOTHERS: What are you good at?
ES: Synthesizing huge amounts of information into something simple and interesting and distilled, and giving it a form that’s familiar or usable. I think that’s what I’m good at.
GODMOTHERS: So … Pinterest? Your brain works like Pinterest?
ES: Well, yeah. Pinterest is a version of that.
GODMOTHERS: In a 2018 interview with Wired, Jony Ive—at the time, Apple’s chief design officer—called you a person “who will make a measurable impact on our future.” Pinterest was almost a decade old by then (it would IPO six months later) so at that point, it’s safe to say you had already changed the future. Will you change it again?
ES: I mean, I don’t know? No? I mean, maybe? I don’t know! It would be an honor to have the ability to have that level of impact. But I don’t know.
GODMOTHERS: So you’re not looking to change the world? That’s not what gets you out of bed in the morning?
ES: I try to do my best and what I think is good. But I don’t know if it’s “right.”
GODMOTHERS: With the benefit of hindsight, you seem to be making the right moves. You were behind a lot of Pinterest’s anti-social network changes—things like removing follower counts so users would be less focused on the “popularity contest” aspect of the platform and more focused on its intended purpose, inspiration.
ES: I mean, social media. The whole thing is completely fucked up.
GODMOTHERS: I have a teenage son, I can attest to that. He wanted TikTok because all his friends had it, and we fought it and fought it and he finally wore us down. TikTok was the ONLY thing we fought about, and I was like, “I don’t want the back-and-forth of our relationship to be a fight about TikTok.”
ES: If all his friends have it and he doesn’t, that’s bad in its own way, too.
GODMOTHERS: It was. So we gave in. And now we don’t fight about TikTok, but he’s asking for creatine. So I don’t know which is worse?
ES: I mean, creatine’s not bad, he wants to bulk up! But I know what you’re saying. It’s terrible. Obviously, it’s horrible. Why would we not think it’s horrible? We’re spending our lives looking at screens. There’s data that says in the U.S. and the U.K., people spend 40 percent of their awake hours looking at a screen. And that’s not a good place to spend 40 percent of your time. And I’m there, 40 percent of my time is there, because what else are you going to do at this moment in time? But we can change that. We can do radically better.
GODMOTHERS: Can you do that, please?
ES: I’m trying. I have two companies right now that are intended to give people the power to do better.
GODMOTHERS: While also fighting all the other nerds who are trying to keep us on our screens for even longer?
ES: I’m not fighting.
GODMOTHERS: But there are forces of evil. Someone has to take them down?
ES: A shaman friend once explained that any act of war is an act of the devil. Basically, Gandhi was right. Nonviolence is the only path for me. Even the devil needs a place to go, a sanctuary. You have to give everything sanctuary.
Join us at Godmothers on June 13, when Evan Sharp and Biz Stone will take the stage to share how their perspective on tech has shifted since they’ve stepped away from Silicon Valley.
Engine Summer by John Crowley.
The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton.
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis.
Quotes have been edited for length & clarity. All products mentioned were independently selected. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.