John R. "Trip" Adler III is an American tech

executive Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive dir ...

who has served as the

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

(CEO) of Created by Humans since 2024. Previously, he co-founded

Scribd Scribd Inc. (pronounced ) 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 offering a wide selectio ...

in 2007, where he seved as the CEO until 2023.

Early life and education

Adler grew up in

Palo Alto Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

, California and attended Gunn High School. He graduated from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

with a

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

degree. His father, John R. Adler, is a neurosurgeon at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

and also an entrepreneur.

Career

After graduating from Harvard, Adler contemplated starting various online ventures, including a ride-sharing service, a

Craigslist Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is a privately held American company operating a classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, gigs, résumés, and discussi ...

-type site for colleges called Hulist, a call center called 1-800-ASKTRIP, and a social media site called "Rate your happiness." Adler received inspiration for Scribd from a conversation with his father, who had difficulty

publishing Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

academic paper Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes Research, academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or Thesis, theses. The part of academic written output that is n ...

in a medical journal. Adler then built Scribd with Jared Friedman, a fellow Harvard student, and they attended

Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...

in the summer of 2006. Scribd was launched from a San Francisco apartment in March 2007. In 2024, Adler co-founded Created by Humans.

Personal life

As a member of the Harvard Surfing team, Adler participated in the first Ivy League Surf Championships in May 2003. He also plays the

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

. In 2007, Adler earned the company's first $17 in revenue by playing the saxophone outside Scribd's office at Christmas time.

Awards and recognition

* Named to

TIME Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

’s list of tech pioneers of 2010 * Named to

Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...

’s list of best young entrepreneurs *

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

30 Under 30

References

External links

Adler's profile page on Scribd

Scribd CEO Trip Adler on the Economics of Ebook Subscription Models, the ‘Big Five,’ and the Competition
on Digital Book World
Scribd CEO Explains His 'Eureka' Moment
on CNBC
Scribd CEO Trip Adler Speaks!
on All Things Digital {{DEFAULTSORT:Adler, Trip Living people American computer businesspeople American technology chief executives American technology company founders American information technology businesspeople Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni Businesspeople from Palo Alto, California Year of birth missing (living people) Gunn High School alumni