1. Why does Pinterest view Google as its primary competitor?

Like all successful e-commerce companies, Pinterest taps into a simple truth.

In Pinterest’s case, the simple truth is that people love to collect things, and show off their collections to others. Founded in 2009 by Ben Silbermann, Evan Sharp, and Paul Sciarra and launched in March 2010, Pinterest allows you to create virtual scrapbooks of images, video, and other content that you “pin” (save) to a virtual bulletin board or pin board. Categories range from Animals to Videos, with Food

& Drink, DIY & Crafts, Home Décor, and Women’s Fashion among the most popular. Find something that you particularly like? In addition to saving and perhaps commenting on it, you can re-pin it to your own board or follow a link back to the original source. Find someone whose taste you admire or who shares your passions? You can follow one or more of that pinner’s boards to keep track of everything she or he pins. As of February 2017, there were over 75 billion pins on Pinterest on more than 1.5 billion different boards.

Pinterest originally positioned itself as a social network. However, it has changed its tune and now describes itself as a visual search tool for discovering and saving creative ideas (and potential purchases), with less emphasis on sharing with friends. Search has