Microsoft’s Pinterest tilt is craftier than it looks

New York: Microsoft Corp. recently expressed interest in buying Pinterest, the roughly $50 billion social scrapbooking site, according to the Financial Times. That may seem an odd target for a predominantly business-focused software group. But Chief Executive Satya Nadella has steered $1.8 trillion Microsoft towards social networks. The fact a deal with Pinterest might slip past regulators has added appeal.

Microsoft bought the maker of Minecraft for more than $2 billion in 2014, LinkedIn for $26 billion in 2016, and GitHub for $7.5 billion in 2018. There’s not much in common between young gamers, career strivers and programmers, but they have all been fast-growing sites that users are somewhat fanatical about. Pinterest is another.