Evan Sharp (born 1982) is an American billionaire Internet entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and chief design and creative officer of

Pinterest Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information (specifically "ideas") on the internet using images, and on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboard ...

, a visual discovery engine. He joined the company's board of directors in March 2019.

Early life

Sharp was born in 1982. He was raised in

York, Pennsylvania York ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Yarrick''), known as the White Rose City (after the symbol of the House of York), is the county seat of York County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in the south-central region of the state. The populati ...

and attended York Suburban School District. Both his parents were park rangers. His father was an enthusiastic computer hobbyist. As a child, Sharp spent a lot of time tinkering with his father's Macintosh and taught himself how to code. Sharp attended York Suburban High School where he graduated in 2001. During his high school years, he spent his free time creating icons and user interfaces. He graduated from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, where he earned a bachelor's degree in history. He subsequently studied architecture at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Career

Sharp met

Ben Silbermann Ben Silbermann (born July 14, 1982) is an American Internet entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and executive chairman of Pinterest, a visual discovery engine. which lets users organize images, links, recipes and other things. Early life Silbe ...

in New York through a mutual friend in 2009 and they immediately connected over their love of the Internet. Together with third cofounder

Paul Sciarra Paul Sciarra (born c. 1981) is an American Internet entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of Pinterest. Early life Sciarra was born circa 1981. He graduated from Yale University. Career Sciarra worked at venture capital firm Radius Ventures, LLC. I ...

, the three built the very first version of Pinterest from a small apartment in New York City on West 103rd Street. He soon thereafter moved to California, where he worked as a product designer at

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

. The first desktop version of Pinterest was launched in March 2010 from a makeshift office — a two-bedroom apartment in the heart of Palo Alto that they shared with another start-up. Sharp is credited with designing and coding Pinterest and the Pinterest grid for the initial product launch in March 2010. Over the years, he has overseen the creative, product and design teams On October 14, 2021, Pinterest announced that Sharp would leave his post as a Chief Design & Creative Officer at the company to join

Jony Ive Sir Jonathan Paul Ive (born 27 February 1967) is a British industrial and product designer, as well as businessman. Ive was the chief design officer (CDO) of Apple Inc. from 1997 until 2019 (known as senior vice principal of industrial desig ...

's LoveFrom. Sharp will reportedly stay on Pinterest's board of directors and serve as the company's advisory.

Honors and awards

In 2018,

, British

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...

er and outgoing

Chief Design Officer Chief Design Officer (CDO), or design executive officer (DEO), is a corporate title sometimes given to an executive in charge of an organization's design initiatives. The CDO is typically responsible for overseeing all design and innovation aspects ...

(CDO) of

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

, chose Sharp as the figure in technology he believes will change the future. Interviewed by Wired Magazine, Ive said about Sharp: “He understands that complex problems can be simplified and often resolved visually. Nuance and subtlety characterize his work. He doesn’t just address a functional imperative.” Sharp was named one of the most creative people in business by Fast Company in 2014.

Personal life

Sharp married Christina McBride in 2014. He resides in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. According to ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'', he is worth an estimated $1 billion as of 2018.

References

External links

Evan Sharp
on Pinterest {{DEFAULTSORT:Sharp, Evan Living people 1982 births People from York, Pennsylvania Businesspeople from San Francisco University of Chicago alumni Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation alumni American Internet company founders American billionaires Pinterest people