Matt Madrigal, CTO at Pinterest: From Pizza Shop to Leading 580 Million Users

Episode Guest:

Matt Madrigal is the Chief Technology Officer at Pinterest, where he leads product management, engineering, and infrastructure for the platform. With a career spanning eBay, Google, and Fanatics, Matt is a seasoned e-commerce and tech leader passionate about building positive, high-impact user experiences.

Episode Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

1:23 From Chico to Pizza Shop: Matt’s First Job

3:45 Lessons in Work Ethic from Immigrant Parents

5:32 What Hard Work Really Means

8:01 The Cheers and Chores Philosophy

10:46 Breaking into Tech & Early Career Moves

13:30 Surviving the Dot-Com Boom

15:58 Joining eBay and Learning at Scale

19:15 Why Shopping & E-Commerce Hooked Matt

21:40 Choosing Managers vs. Missions

24:01 The Truth About AI & Early Career Jobs

27:18 What Makes a Great Software Engineer

30:12 The Red Flags in Tech Talent

32:14 Key Lessons from Google

35:17 Undoing Old Habits to Grow

37:20 Why Matt Said Yes to Pinterest

39:34 What Sets Pinterest Apart

42:01 Using Pinterest to Inspire Youth Spaces

44:00 Why Pinterest Is a Great Place to Work

46:19 Matt’s Biggest Life Lessons

48:35 Matt’s Duvet Flip: Solving Hard Problems with Great People

Episode Partners

Hg Foundation

Together with The Hg Foundation, we’re on a mission to motivate and inspire young people like you to explore, or even start a career in technology through inspirational talks from industry.

https://bit.ly/4mwzRGs

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