Welcome to a tech policy podcast. I'm Ashken Kazarian. On today's show, we're going to talk about a very exciting website, Pinterest.

Joining me, I have Erica Shemizu Banks, who leads federal policy for Pinterest, she's going to walk us through what

Pinterest does, what their policy positions are, and also we're going to chat about a lot of

a policy questions that TechReed and Works on.

Erica, thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks so much for having me.

So for our listeners who don't know what Pinterest is, which I don't know if you live

under a rock or maybe in another country, what is Pinterest? Well, the rock fair, but Pinterest is actually

becoming quite the global company. We're in over 20 countries. And Pinterest is the visual

discovery engine for finding and saving recipes, outfits, products, home decor, and other ideas, really any ideas you want to try.

Our mission is to inspire everyone to create a life they love.

And so far globally, 32 million people are finding inspiration on Pinterest every month. That's our

monthly average users. And then in the U.S., that's 87 million people. I wonder how many of them

are like brides. I've heard a lot of brides use Pinterest. I imagine it's probably the majority.

I mean, you know what? The wedding planning process I've heard as I was part of a bridal parties multiple times is very exhausting.

So thank you for doing your part and making it easier and creating inspiration for everyone here.

Our pleasure.

So does Pinterest work similarly to other big platforms?

Is it like part search engine, part content host?

So in a way, yes, but I think what separates us from most social media companies is that,

first, we actually don't consider ourselves a social media company.

We call ourselves personal media because going back to our mission of inspiration

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