Jared Friedman (born 1984) is an American
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
and
angel investor
An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...
. He is a partner at
Y Combinator
Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Str ...
in San Francisco, where he invests in and helps startups. Previously, Jared was the co-founder and CTO at
Scribd
Scribd Inc. is an American e-book and audiobook subscription service that includes one million titles. Scribd hosts 60 million documents on its open publishing platform.
The company was founded in 2007 by Trip Adler, Jared Friedman, and Tikhon ...
, a digital library and document-sharing platform, which has 80 million users.
Scribd
Friedman co-founded Scribd with fellow
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
student
Trip Adler
John R. "Trip" Adler III is an American entrepreneur. He is the CEO and co-founder of Scribd, a digital library and document-sharing platform, which has 80 million users.
Background and early career
Adler grew up in Palo Alto, California and ...
. The pair attended
Y Combinator
Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Str ...
in the summer of 2006, and launched Scribd from a
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
apartment in March 2007.
In 2008, Scribd ranked as one of the top 20
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
sites according to Comscore. In June 2009, Scribd launched Scribd Store, and shortly thereafter closed a deal with
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...
to sell ebooks on Scribd. In 2012, the company became profitable.
In October 2013, Scribd launched a
subscription
The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, and ...
ebook
An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...
service, and signed a deal with
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
to make their backlist books available on Scribd.
[ Scribd currently has more than 300,000 titles from 1,000 publishers in its book subscription service.
As CTO, Friedman led one of the earliest and largest site-wide transitions of ]Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...
to HTML5
HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...
. Friedman was also notably opposed to the Stop Online Piracy Act
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a controversial proposed United States congressional bill to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to combat online copyright infringement and online trafficking in counterfeit goods. Introduced on Oc ...
(SOPA), and was quoted in Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to:
People
* Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer
* Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian
* Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and ma ...
, The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
, VentureBeat
''VentureBeat'' is an American technology website headquartered in San Francisco, California. It publishes news, analysis, long-form features, interviews, and videos.
History
The ''VentureBeat'' company was founded in 2006 by Matt Marshall, a ...
, ArsTechnica
''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...
, TechCrunch
TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare.
In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...
, and Fox News
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...
.[ Three days later, SOPA was postponed, which press outlets reported as the "death" of the bill.
]
Angel investor
Friedman is also an angel investor
An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...
. His investments and advisory positions include: Parse (company), Swiftype
Swiftype is a search and index company based in San Francisco, California, that provides search software for organizations, websites, and computer programs. Notable customers include AT&T, Dr. Pepper, Hubspot and TechCrunch.
History
Swiftype was ...
, Creative Market, Vayable, MuckerLab, FundersClub, Goldbelly
Goldbelly is an online marketplace for food products. Customers can order products from restaurants, bakeries, delis, etc. and have them shipped across the United States. The ordered food sometimes requires preparation and cooking.
History
...
, Instacart
Instacart is an American company that operates a grocery delivery and pick-up service in the United States and Canada. The company offers its services via a website and mobile app. The service allows customers to order groceries from participatin ...
, JamLegend
JamLegend was an online, browser-based music video game, similar to ''Guitar Hero'', developed by American studio Foobrew.
As of April 29, 2011, JamLegend ceased all of its activity and closed the site. A list of the artists that contributed has ...
, Rickshaw
A rickshaw originally denoted a two- or three-wheeled passenger cart, now known as a pulled rickshaw, which is generally pulled by one person carrying one passenger. The first known use of the term was in 1879. Over time, cycle rickshaws (also ...
, Madison Reed, Marco Polo, Colourlovers, Copyin, and Appszoom.
Friedman became the 16th full-time partner at Y Combinator
Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Str ...
in October 2015.
Honors
*Named to TIME
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
’s list of tech pioneers of 2010
References
External links
Jared Friedman
on Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Friedman, Jared
American investors
American chief technology officers
Harvard University alumni
Angel investors
American technology company founders
1984 births
Living people
Y Combinator people