Scribd, Inc.

Last week, we hosted our first-ever all-company offsite, ScribdFest, in the breathtaking surroundings of Vail, Colorado. With the mountains as our backdrop, the entire Scribd, Inc. team came together to brainstorm, strategize, and bond. Our week-long agenda was packed with workshops, planning sessions, knowledge sharing, and, of course, plenty of time to celebrate our Scribd, Inc. community and build lasting connections. Plus, we got exciting previews of upcoming features, initiatives, and product enhancements. We’re more engaged, connected, and inspired than ever to fuel our mission of sparking human curiosity—into 2025 and beyond!

Our VP of Brand Marketing and Communications, Gemma Craven, shares a behind-the-scenes look at the book industry’s Big Night Out: “On Wednesday night, the book industry gathered for the 75th National Book Awards, with over 800 people in attendance at Cipriani Wall Street in New York. The stunning location, formerly the National City Bank Building, has ‘awards show’ written all over it, with guests dining beneath its Greek Revival ceilings and marble stairways. The Scribd, Inc. team was proud to represent at the event, celebrate the winners and meet with partners from across the industry.   Hosted by The National Book Foundation, Presenter of the National Book Awards and emceed by SNL alum Kate McKinnon, the annual 'Oscars for books' recognizes winners in five categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature and young people’s literature. A total of 1,917 books were submitted this year, with the judging panels deciding the winners just hours before the ceremony began. Jon Batiste opened the proceedings at a Steinway, telling the audience he was adding '250 years of music' to his stunning rendition of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Lifetime achievement awards were given to Black Classics Press publisher Paul Coates, and Demon Copperhead author Barbara Kingsolver, who won the distinguished contribution to American letters award. James by Percival Everett won the National Book Award for fiction, while author Jason De León won the nonfiction category for his book Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling. Shifa Saltagi Safadi won the young people’s literature category for her novel Kareem Between. Lena Khalaf Tuffaha won the poetry category for her collection Something About Living, and the translated literature prize was won by Taiwan Travelogue author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translator Lin King, who translated the book from Mandarin Chinese. Congratulations to all the winners and kudos to the National Book Foundation for an inspiring event!”

Scribd, Inc., is proud to share the latest evolution of Everand, your go-to destination for millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, podcasts, and more. Today, we invite you to expand your world with the exponential growth of our premium catalog, available in the US. Explore over 1.5 million ebooks and audiobooks — now featuring over 150,000 new and bestselling titles — with our new Plus and Standard plans that offer unrivaled choice and value. Read more from our CEO Tony Grimminck about these exciting updates.. https://bit.ly/4eb1cK3

Every year Scribd, Inc. activates Hack Week, an internal employee initiative dedicated to exploring new ideas, cross-functional collaboration, and innovation outside the day-to-day. In line with this year's theme – Control Alt Delete – 100+ employees came together to think through how to eliminate outdated and unnecessary elements to make our worksteams more efficient. We sought to understand the root causes of clutter to create alternative paths forward and prevent them in the future. The team conducted 25+ projects resulting in the happy deletion of 62,000 lines of code, the archiving of over 700 slack channels, the building of new processes, and so much more. Congratulations to our 2024 Hack Week winners! 🏅 Abby Gleason – Impact Award for breadth & depth of impact across all employees 🏅 Noah Tuller – Ways of Working Award for most exciting process or workflow change 🏅 Keith B. – Creativity Award for most creative or unexpectedly useful control/alt/delete 🏅 Harrison Anderson – Cross Functional Award for best showcase of cross-functional collaboration 🏅 Liam Bui – Technical Award for most technically interesting application #innovation #collaboration #teamwork

We're excited to share Everand Originals author Roxane Gay on The Daily Show in conversation with Michael Kosta discussing her new essay, "Stand Your Ground," available exclusively on Everand. View the full clip here: https://lnkd.in/gbKB4Ea3

At Scribd, Inc., we don’t just want to make information available, we want to make knowledge accessible. Earlier this year, we began leveraging Anthropic’s Claude generative AI to attach high quality metadata to over 100 million pieces of content across Scribd and SlideShare. This meaningful enhancement makes uploads more discoverable, shines a light on contributing community members, and empowers people across the globe to find answers faster than ever before. Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/gmdHWJq2

We’re excited to announce our latest AI-powered innovation designed to spark curiosity. Introducing Ask AI: a new chat interface that will enable a richly personalized and immersive experience across our portfolio of products. On Scribd this tool will allow users to deepen their understanding of any document or presentation with instant analysis, key takeaways, and the ability to expand on concepts. On Everand, Ask AI can answer all types of queries, deliver tailored reading recommendations across our vast catalog of titles, helping users discover new content, while benefiting our publishing partners and boosting author visibility. Whether you’re reading, writing, or sharing, Ask AI will transform your journey. Hear more from Beck Kloss, Andrew Weinstein and Steve Neola on our latest news via Publishers Weekly.  https://lnkd.in/guqzqyhQ

As the rest of the world was gearing up to watch some of the world’s greatest athletes compete, Scribd, Inc. employees were gearing up for our own annual Step Into Summer challenge, our warm-weather ode to shared activity and community. Our employees spent a few weeks tracking their steps (or step-equivalents from other physical activities including cycling, rock climbing, and even surfing!) and sharing photos of their favorite walking routes, epic views, fitness friends, spotted wildlife, and PRs. This year 49 employees participated across 3 countries, logging a total of 4,725,895 steps. Converted into miles, that's enough to walk from our San Francisco HQ all the way to Columbus, Ohio! What annual summer events does your company host? #employeeculture #summer 

Last month our Women+, Pride, and BIPOC Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) co-hosted a book club diving into an Everand Original – Built for This by Julia Turshen — a powerful memoir that focuses on embracing positivity through powerlifting, released earlier this year as the launch title of the Roxane Gay & Everand Originals series. Dozens of employees participated in the book club conversation, and Julia's words inspired vulnerable conversations around the meaning of strength, progress, failure, and validation. Cross-collaboration amongst our ERGs is crucial for celebrating interconnected identities through fostering diverse perspectives and ensuring every voice is heard and valued. Scribd’s Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are employee-led, inclusive communities designed to build connection, support personal and professional growth, and advance learning opportunities. These groups serve as safe spaces and platforms for advocacy, aiming to foster positive evolution of workplace culture by encouraging collaboration among employees from various backgrounds. In addition to Women+, Pride, and BIPOC, Scribd also has an ERG for Caregivers. What ERGs does your company offer? #employeeresourcegroups #pride #bipoc You can learn more about Julia’s piece at the link below.

At Scribd, Inc., our employees have the opportunity to work from almost anywhere in the world through our Scribdflex benefit. Although a favored perk, employees have increasingly been asking for more regular in-person co-working opportunities. So how do you bring ~300 dispersed employees across various cities together? Our CEO, Tony Grimminck, partnered with our People Experience team to brainstorm. The goal was to maximize the benefits of gathering – community, cross-functional connection, and collaboration – without a return-to-office mandate. Our answer: Hub Days - a once per month in-person co-working (and fun!) session taking place across 8 different cities and 3 countries. Amid some expected initial skepticism, our employees have found an overall positive energy and appreciation for in-person Hub Days, with many meeting co-workers and teammates they hadn’t interacted with in-person before. We’re only two Hub Days in so far and excited to see how this initiative grows in the months to come. We’re curious: how does your company bring employees together? #remotework #connection #coworking