Scribd Inc.
(pronounced /ˈskrɪbd/) operates three primary platforms: Scribd, Everand,
and SlideShare. Scribd is a digital document library that hosts over 195 million
documents. Everand is a digital content subscription service o ering a wide selection of
ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, podcasts, and sheet music. SlideShare is an online
platform featuring over 15 million presentations from subject matter experts. [1][2][3]
The company was founded in 2007 by Trip Adler, Jared Friedman, and Tikhon Bernstam,
and headquartered in San Francisco, California. Tony Grimminck took over as CEO in 2024.
History
[edit]
Scribd began as a site to host and share documents.[2] While at Harvard, Trip Adler was
inspired to start Scribd after learning about the lengthy process required to publish
academic papers.[4] His father, a doctor at Stanford, was told it would take 18 months to
have his medical research published.[4] Adler wanted to create a simple way to publish and
share written content online.[5] He co-founded Scribd with Jared Friedman and attended
the inaugural class of Y Combinator in the summer of 2006.[6] There, Scribd received its
initial $120,000 in seed funding and then launched in a San Francisco apartment in March
2007.[7]
Scribd was called "the YouTube for documents", allowing anyone to self-publish on the site
using its document reader.[4] The document reader turns PDFs, Word documents,
and PowerPoints into Web documents that can be shared on any website that allows
embeds.[8] In its first year, Scribd grew rapidly to 23.5 million visitors as of November
2008.[9] It also ranked as one of the top 20 social media sites according to Comscore. [9]
In June 2009, Scribd launched the Scribd Store, enabling writers to easily upload and sell
digital copies of their work online.[10] That same month, the site partnered with Simon &
Schuster to sell e-books on Scribd.[11] The deal made digital editions of 5,000 titles
available for purchase on Scribd, including books from bestselling authors like Stephen
King, Dan Brown, and Mary Higgins Clark.[12]
In October 2009, Scribd launched its branded reader for media companies including The
New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Hu ington Post, TechCrunch,
and MediaBistro.[8] ProQuest began publishing dissertations and theses on Scribd in
December 2009.[13] In August 2010, many notable documents hosted on Scribd
became viral phenomenons, including the California Proposition 8 ruling, which received
over 100,000 views in about 24 minutes, and HP's lawsuit against Mark Hurd's move
to Oracle.[14][15]
