Document-sharing website Scribd was founded by Trip Adler, along with Tikhon Bernstam, and Jared Friedman in 2006. Adler got the concept of making something like Scribd, where people can post documents in diverse formats into posts or web pages using its iPaper format, while his father discussed the painful process of publishing academic papers. Back then, he was still a student at Harvard, where he teamed up with Jared Friedman and Tikhon Bernstam and worked on his idea for several months. Finally in March2007, Adler launched Scribd from his San Francisco apartment. His distinct idea worked and grabbed a large number of visitors and within one year, in 2008, Comscore reported Scribd as one of the top 20 social media channels. In 2009, October, Scribd started its branded reader for media companies like The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, TechCrunch, The Huffington Post, and MediaBistro.
The company today is the platform of tens of millions of different works, such as research reports, magazines, best-selling books, recipes, presentations, and several more. Currently, there are several publishers including some reputed names including Wiley, Harvard University Press, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Pearson, and Stanford University Press associated with Scribd and numerous media companies including Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, USA Today, Guardian Forbes and Fortune now use its branded reader to insert source material into their stories.
In 2009, Scribd was named as one the “World’s Most Intriguing Startups” by BusinessWeek, “10 Hot Startups” by Forbes and in 2010, “One of its Top 10 Most Innovative Media Companies” by Fast Company. Time Magazine called Scribd one of the “10 Start-Ups that Will Change Your Life”.
An avid surfer, Trip Adler keeps himself busy exploring new beaches in the world and playing playing the saxophone.
