????本?西爾伯曼一直在盯著屋里的幾臺冰箱。Pinterest公司聯合創始人兼首席執行官和我一起站在該公司帕羅奧圖辦公區的休息室中，整個辦公區的面積只有一個車庫那么大。西爾伯曼剛剛參加完在德克薩斯州奧斯汀舉行的“西南偏南（SXSW）交互式電影節”，飛回帕羅奧圖。而兩天后，全新改版的Pinterest網站的即將上線。這一切確實會令人目不暇接。但此時此刻，西爾伯曼的全部注意力都集中在三臺亮閃閃的冰箱上。就在他短暫離開公司，前往奧斯汀時，這幾臺冰箱被完好地送過來，上面還打著Pinterest的標識。三臺冰箱放在房間后面窄小的區域內，就擺在桌上足球桌的后面。此刻，3名公司員工正在桌上足球桌邊開會。雖說只是3名員工，但其實已經占了公司員工總數的15%。“我只離開了一天，公司就這么上檔次了，”他說。“過去我們總是去好市多超市（Costco）解決吃飯問題。”

????如今，這些都是老黃歷了。那時，米特?羅姆尼（美國共和黨人，正在尋求競選總統資格——譯注）的妻子安還沒有開始在Pinterest上擺放家里人的照片，瑞茜?威瑟斯彭（奧斯卡影后——譯注）也還沒有沖著柯南?奧布萊恩激情澎湃地喊出“那是地球上最棒、最出色的技藝組合！”，美國陸軍也沒有發布該網站的使用指南，而Pinterest也還不是有史以來發展最快的網站。市場研究機構康姆斯科（Comscore）的數據顯示，3月份，Pinterest網站已擁有注冊用戶1,780萬，短短一個月就增加了52%。而且，網站目前尚未向所有人開放（只有受邀用戶才能加入）。

????也許有人是初次聽說Pinterest，這是個表面看似簡單，卻能讓人瘋狂上癮的社交媒體網站，用戶可在網站的數字公告欄上收集、共享圖片。多數社交網站都是首先在美國沿海地區熱衷于嘗試新技術的人中流行開來，Pinterest最忠實的用戶卻是一群來自中西部且熱衷于使用剪貼簿的人。她們大多數是女性，借助這個網站實現婚禮策劃、保存菜譜、交流廚房裝修的點子等等。

????由于發展迅速，今年29歲的西爾伯曼突然之間成了投資者和企業關注的焦點。他們絞盡腦汁，想要在Pinterest里插上一腳。蓋普公司（Gap）和西榆公司（West Elm）等大品牌以及在線精品店紛紛亮相于Pinterest，有些甚至已經嘗到了入駐這家網站帶來的甜頭。事實上，這些用戶發表的帖子剛好起到推薦信的作用，他們追隨者只需點擊產品圖片便能進一步了解詳情。2月份，Pinterest的流量甚至超過了Twitter、Google+、商務社交網站LinkedIn、以及YouTube等幾家社交網站的流量總和。同時，那些最初錯失對Pinterest投資良機的投資者（以男性為主）也開始后悔不已。去年10月，該公司在一筆融資交易中，從風險資本公司安德森-霍洛維茨（Andreessen Horowitz）融到了2,700萬美元，據說當時Pinterest的估價已達2億美元。（這家風投機構的聯合創始人）馬克?安德森就坦承，他開始根本沒有認識到Pinterest的價值，直到自己公司一名女性研究員堅持要求他重新予以考慮，他才開始改變看法。安德森稱：“從行業歷史來看，IT行業的產品最初主要是面向男人還是女人？毫無疑問是男人。”

????無論如何，西爾伯曼現在必須要擴充公司規模，適應網站用戶的爆炸式增長。這種超常規增長很難應對，對當事公司來說是個巨大的挑戰。大家應該記得“失敗的鯨魚”吧？Twitter當初就曾經為盛名所累。最近幾周，西爾伯曼及其團隊召開了周一例會，通常是到附近的瑪克辛酒館（Bistro Maxine）邊喝咖啡邊聊，討論如何確保網站周四改版后的平穩運行。【通常情況下，給亞馬遜（Amazon）的網絡服務部門簽署個支票就萬事大吉了。】當然，西爾伯曼還必須想法子賺錢。就這點而言，《財富》雜志（Fortune）了解到，Pinterest已經雇傭了蒂姆?坎道爾來負責擴建公司業務，他曾在Facebook擔任了多年的貨幣化總監。

????盡管Pinterest目前風光無限，已經成為硅谷當前最熱門的公司，但面對它的成功和管理這家公司所帶來的巨大壓力，西爾伯曼表現得出奇的冷靜。他講話時非常平靜，以至于我在和他談話時為了配合他，不得不壓低自己的嗓門。他的目光須臾不離掛在墻上的平板顯示屏，上面顯示著用戶使用Pinterest服務的實時數據。此外，談話過程中，他隔一會兒就要回復一下有關客戶支持的電子郵件。他說，他就是憑借這些看似平凡的工作才得以不斷完善Pinterest。Pinterest位于帕羅奧圖的辦公區中貼著一幅海報，上面寫著“快速行動，打破常規”（Facebook上的一句詞兒），但西爾伯曼在談到Pinterest時，仿佛在對待一件怕人碰碎的傳家寶。“當你打開Pinterest時，那感覺應該像是打開一本別人專門為你手工制作的書，”他解釋道。“里面的每樣東西都好像是你在乎的人親手為你挑選的。”

????譯者：大海

????Ben Silbermann can't stop staring at the refrigerators. The Pinterest co-founder and CEO and I are standing in the break room of his company's garage-size Palo Alto office. He's just flown back from Austin's SXSW interactive festival, and a redesign of his website is two days away. It's all a little overwhelming. But at this moment his full attention is focused on three glowing refrigerators. Sometime during his brief absence, a service has delivered them fully stocked and branded with the company logo. They're wedged into the tiny backroom behind the foosball table that three employees -- roughly 15% of his workforce -- are using for a conference. "I've been gone for one day, and it's so upscale," he says. "We used to just run to Costco all the time."

????That was before. Before Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, began organizing family photos on Pinterest. Before Reese Witherspoon gushed to Conan O'Brien that it was "a collection of the most amazing, wonderful craftiness on the earth!" Before the U.S. Army issued a guide for how to use it, and before Pinterest emerged as the fastest-growing website of all time. In March the site registered 17.8 million users, according to Comscore, a 52% jump in just one month -- and it isn't even open to everyone (would-be "pinners" must still request an invitation to join).

????Pinterest, for the uninitiated, is a deceptively simple-sounding, insanely addictive social media site that lets users collect and share images on digital pinboards. Most social-networking sites have first become popular among tech's early adopters along the country's coasts. But Pinterest found its most passionate users among the Midwestern scrapbooking set -- a mostly female group -- who have turned to it to plan weddings, save recipes, and post ideas for kitchen renovations.

????This growth has thrust Silbermann, 29, into the spotlight as investors and businesses alike try to figure out how they can get in on the action. Brands -- from large companies like Gap (GPS) and West Elm to online boutiques -- are tripping over themselves to establish a presence on it, and some are starting to reap the rewards of being "pinned," a de facto referral that prompts followers to click on product pictures to learn more. In February Pinterest drove more traffic to websites than Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn (LNKD), and YouTube combined. Meanwhile, the same (mostly male) investors who initially passed on Pinterest are kicking themselves. The company in October raised $27 million from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz in a deal that valued Pinterest at a reported $200 million. Marc Andreessen himself readily admits he didn't get it until a female researcher on staff urged him to reconsider. Says Andreessen: "Our industry historically … do we produce products initially aimed primarily at men or women? You'd have to say men."

????Amid all the noise, Silbermann must now build out a company that can keep up with Pinterest's user explosion. This type of hypergrowth has been a challenge for companies to manage -- remember the "fail whale" that signaled Twitter was suffering under the weight of its own popularity? In recent weeks Silbermann and his team have held a Monday meeting -- usually in the form of a coffee run to Bistro Maxine -- to figure out how to keep the site running on Thursday. (Writing a check to Amazon's web service unit usually does the trick.) Oh, and Silbermann must figure out how to make money. To that end, Fortune has learned, Pinterest just hired Tim Kendall, who spent many years as Facebook's director of monetization, to build out the business.

????Silbermann seems to be maintaining an almost eerily level head about Pinterest's success as well as the stress of running Silicon Valley's current "it" company. He talks so quietly that during our conversation I felt compelled to drop my own volume to match his. His eye is always on the wall-mounted flat screen that displays real-time data about how pinners are using the service. He takes a regular turn at answering customer-support e-mails, a mundane task that, he says, helps him make Pinterest even better. And while Pinterest's Palo Alto digs feature a poster with the words move fast and break things, a mantra at Facebook, Silbermann talks about Pinterest the way one talks about a fragile heirloom. "When you open Pinterest, it should feel like someone has hand-made a book for you," he explains. "Every item should feel like it's handpicked for you by a person you care about."