Pinterest’s Tardy CEO Shakeup

What timing! No one could say they were surprised that Ben Silbermann is stepping down as CEO of Pinterest—that’s something we’ve expected for a while. After all, while he and his co-founder, Evan Sharp, built the business into a public company worth $13 billion—even after the stock plunge of recent months—Silbermann lately has been grappling with falling user numbers in the U.S. No, what is surprising is Pinterest’s timing. It waited six days after the board appointed his successor, former Google executive Bill Ready, to make the announcement, securities filings show.

In other words, Pinterest not only dragged its feet in replacing Silbermann, it even moved slowly to announce it! Sure, under disclosure rules, Pinterest had four business days to announce the changes, a timeline it appears to have met. But it’s hard to think of a single good reason why Pinterest would wait until the eve of Ready’s first day of work to release the news. Certainly, anyone who has sold Pinterest stock since June 22, when Pinterest’s board took this momentous decision, would be a little upset. Pinterest stock jumped 4% in after-hours trading today when news of the management reshuffle finally became public, so you can see what those sellers have missed out on.