The founder of Pinterest on what surprised him the most when starting a company

And I think the thing that surprised me the most in starting a company after reading about Facebook hits Harvard, 95% penetration in two weeks, like Instagram shoots to a million people, is that it can take a really, really long time to build things that are worthwhile. So March 2010, we launched Pinterest. We're at 3,000 accounts, and that wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't started building Pinterest actually in November 2009. And that alone wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't left my job to start a company in May 2008. A lot of people say things like running a startup is like running a marathon. And I think that the part of the analogy that's right is that it's long, but it's actually really different. I think when I think about my experience, it's more like going on a road trip, like in a car that doesn't have good headlights and you don't have very much gas, and you think you're going to Toledo, but. But you find out you're supposed to be in Miami, and if you really run out of gas, you might have to buy gas from someone that might just kick you out of your own driver's seat. And that uncertainty, the fact that every single day you're dealing with a lot of choices and you don't have a lot of perfect information, is, for me, the lesson that was hardest to learn and continues to be a real challenge in doing a startup today.