Scribd Inc. reviews

First of all, I'd like to sincerely thank you for your honest and detailed feedback. While we didn't respond to this review publicly earlier, we did read it, and I can say happily that in the last year since the review was left we have made massive changes in the organization that have directly addressed most of the issues raised. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I think it's important to address the issues raised head on, so with full transparency, here is where we stand on each of them. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▶ Little to no organization, vision or commitment.◀ This review was written before Scribd established its vision, at a time when its vision was very much in flux. I'm happy to report that we have now settled on a vision of building the "Library of the Future" and have been 100% committed to this. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▶ Questionable decisions often made with short sighted goals.◀ At the time this review was written, Scribd was still looking for its long-term strategy, so I am not surprised to hear this feedback. Now that we have a five year vision, we have made and continue to make long-term investments. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▶ Long past the startup window. Time to grow up.◀ We agree. We've been making changes to become a more adult company at many levels, from expanding our leadership team with seasoned managers to instituting rigorous financial and engineering process, to cleaning up our physical workspace and making it more professional. People who tour our office now are surprised at how much it has changed since Scribd's "adolescence". ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▶ Hygiene among some of the staff - seriously.◀ No comment on this one :). ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▶ Freedom to work on whatever you want.◀ This was listed as a pro, but in full honesty, I don't think it deserves to be one. As part of growing up as an organization, people do not get to work on "whatever they want": we do have set plans and assignments. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▶ Step back and get some experienced people in there to run the company who know what they are doing and listen to them. ◀ Good idea. Since this review was written we've hired some all-star executives: a VP of marketing who ran marketing at Twitter, a CFO with experience running finance and operations at numerous top startups, a VP of business development with over 10 years executive experience, and several others. Getting these people in place has been critical for us to get the company operating at the next level and we're very luck to have them. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▶ Get a board that's engaged and can guide the company.◀ We have made major changes to our board specifically to address this. The new board is more engaged and active in guiding the company. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▶ The company still has a chance to change publishing◀ Six months after this review was left, Scribd launched the world's first unlimited subscription for eBooks, with some of the largest publishers in the world participating. Industry observers called it "the biggest step for the publishing industry since Amazon released the Kindle", and it has been covered in literally thousands of news stories, publications, TV shows and radio programs. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ We still have a lot of work to do, but I am pleased with the impact we have had so far and look forward to launching more disruptive products and business models. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▶ Conclusion◀ I would be grateful if you would be willing to engage in a dialog with us about your experiences at Scribd and how we can improve the organization. We are extremely receptive to constructive criticism and constantly looking to make our company better. As a former employee, please feel free to reach out to me directly, either with your real name or anonymously so we can learn from your feedback.

Although this review was written several years ago, I feel it is important to respond for people who are reading this now and are wondering what it says about Scribd. (Note: I left the same response on the prior review, as the review is almost identical). ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ While I don't know who wrote this, I am not surprised that someone who worked at Scribd in 2011 would have written this. At that time, Scribd was struggling to find a viable product and business model. As we tried different ideas looking for the future of Scribd, our strategy changed frequently, leading to turmoil and confusion internally. Products were launched, then yanked from the marketplace when they didn't perform. Not surprisingly, we lost several good people, one of whom may have written this review. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ As one of Scribd's co-founders, I take personal responsibility for the clumsy way we handled this time in Scribd's history, and I do not blame people who were there for their harsh criticism, which is warranted. Pivoting a 50 person company is a difficult task for any management team, but that is no excuse: we could have done it better and have learned a lot from our mistakes. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ What I can say is that not long after this review was written, Scribd found its true vision: a scalable model that would power our business profitably ever after, a product consumers love, and a mission which we can all be genuinely excited to work on. Since we began building "The World's Digital Library" over two years ago, our strategy has not changed once, and the company is infinitely more stable and enjoyable to work for. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I sincerely believe that if this individual had stayed around to see Scribd pull out of its rough time period and into its current renassaisance, they would tell you the same thing. It is our loss that they left before they had a chance to see the turnaround. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━