Quizlet is a multi-national American company that provides tools for studying and learning.[1] Quizlet was founded in October 2005 by Andrew Sutherland, who at the time was a 15-year old student,[2] and released to the public in January 2007.[3] Quizlet's primary products include digital flash cards, matching games, practice electronic assessments, and live quizzes. In 2017, 1 in 2 high school students used Quizlet.[4] As of December 2021, Quizlet has over 500 million user-generated flashcard sets and more than 60 million active users.[5]

History

Quizlet was founded in 2005 by Andrew Sutherland as a studying tool to aid in memorization for his French class, which he claimed to have "aced".[6][7][8] In to an AMA on Reddit, Sutherland said in the "first year and a half" he was "just playing around with it", but that he decided to make it public after convincing ~100 people to try the service.[9] He formed a company[when?] called Brainflare with his father as the CFO/Secretary to take care of business concerns.[6] Quizlet's blog, written mostly by Andrew in the earlier days of the company, claims it had reached 50,000 registered users in 252 days online (that is, on September 26th, 2007).[10] In the following two years, Quizlet reached its 1,000,000th registered user.[11] According to Sutherland, the company "almost died several times in the first few years" but "continued to grow."[12]

Until 2011, Quizlet shared staff and financial resources with the Collectors Weekly website.[13]

In 2011, Quizlet added the ability to listen to content using text-to-speech.[14] In August 2012, it released an app for the iPhone and iPad and shortly afterward one for Android devices.[13]

In 2015, Quizlet announced raising $12 million from Union Square Ventures, Costanoa Venture Capital, Altos Ventures, and Owl Ventures to expand its digital study tools and grow internationally.[15] In a blog post, Sutherland later described the first 10 years of the company as "ten years of bootstrapping".[12]

Quizlet hired Matt Glotzbach as CEO in May 2016 and launched a redesign in August 2016.[16] Also in 2016, Quizlet launched "Quizlet Live", a real-time online matching game where teams compete to answer all 12 questions correctly without an incorrect answer along the way.[17]

In 2017, Quizlet created a premium offering called "Quizlet Go" (later renamed "Quizlet Plus"), with additional features available for paid subscribers.[18][19] Glotzbach announced in 2018 that Quizlet would be opening offices in Denver, Colorado in 2018, announcing "a big vision at Quizlet to provide the most intelligent study tools in the world, and our expansion into Denver, a city with incredible tech ingenuity, will help us more quickly build the next generation of learning tools used by students everywhere".[20]

Andrew Sutherland left Quizlet at age 30 in 2020,[21] citing disagreements with the executive team and a desire for a change.[12]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Glotzbach announced he was opening Quizlet's premium service, Quizlet Teacher, for free to all users who have an account registered as a teacher.[22]

Quizlet made its first acquisition in March 2021, with the purchase of Slader, which offered detailed explanations of textbook concepts and practice problems, and eventually incorporated it into its paid platform, Quizlet Plus.[23][24][25]

In November 2022, Quizlet announced a new CEO, Lex Bayer, the former CEO of Starship Technologies.[26] In March 2023, Quizlet started to incorporate AI features with the release "Q-Chat", a virtual AI tutor powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT API.[27][28][29] Quizlet launched four additional AI powered features in August 2023 to assist with student learning.[30][31]

In July 2024, Kurt Beidler, the former co-CEO of Zwift, joined Quizlet as the new CEO.[32][33]

See also

References

  1. ^ Bhutta, Fatima (January 18, 2019). "Quizlet reaches 50 Million Users milestone". TechEngage. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  2. ^ Mullen, Audrey (August 20, 2019). "Going to School While Running a Startup: When Students Build Their Own Edtech". EdSurge. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  3. ^ "QUIZLET". The Innovation Economy, presented by Intel, in partnership with the Aspen Institute, PBS Newshour. Archived from the original on July 28, 2011. Retrieved January 25, 2021.
  4. ^ Kolodny, Lora (August 23, 2017). "Popular study app Quizlet faces a moment of truth as a new school year begins". CNBC. Retrieved January 12, 2023.
  5. ^ Woods, Jordan (January 13, 2023). "10 Best Apps That Act As Study Aids". Screen Rant. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  6. ^ a b Tynan, Dan. "Meet the Whiz Kids: 10 Overachievers Under 21". ABC News. Retrieved September 20, 2022.
  7. ^ Quizlet's Andrew Sutherland on The Morning Show, April 17, 2008, retrieved September 20, 2022
  8. ^ "QUIZLET: Join millions and Build Your Own Flashcards, Game Yourself to Smart". SF New Tech. November 2010. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
  9. ^ Sutherland, Andrew (2017). "Hi, I'm the founder of Quizlet, the most popular online learning service in the US. Ask Me Anything!". Reddit. Archived from the original on March 5, 2025. So for the first year and a half, I was just playing around with it. After getting about 100 people (mostly friends from the internet) to try it, I decided it would be worthwhile to make it public so anyone could make their own sets.
  10. ^ "50,000 registered users!". Quizlet. Retrieved April 22, 2021.
  11. ^ "Celebrating 10 Years of Quizlet.com". Quizlet. Retrieved April 22, 2021.
  12. ^ a b c Sutherland, Andrew (September 2021). "Goodbye Quizlet, Hello World". asuth.com. Retrieved March 5, 2025.
  13. ^ a b "Quizlet's Growth Puts It on the Top of the Edtech Stack". EdSurge. November 2012. Retrieved February 8, 2015.
  14. ^ "Quizlet Now Offers "Speller" Mode in 18 Languages". Free Technology for Teachers. July 2011. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
  15. ^ Kolodny, Lora (November 23, 2015). "Quizlet Raises $12 Million to Take Its Popular Study Tools International". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  16. ^ Kolodny, Lora (May 5, 2016). "YouTube VP Matt Glotzbach graduates to CEO role at Quizlet". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  17. ^ Kolodny, Lora (April 12, 2016). "Popular study app Quizlet creates a game for groups in the classroom, Quizlet Live". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  18. ^ Kolodny, Lora (August 23, 2017). "Popular study app Quizlet faces a moment of truth as a new school year begins". CNBC. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  19. ^ Duffy, Jill (October 1, 2021). "Quizlet Review". PCMag. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  20. ^ Svaldi, Aldo (October 30, 2018). "Quizlet online learning platform's new Denver office could bring 300 jobs paying average annual wage of $156K". The Denver Post. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  21. ^ Sutherland, Andrew. "About". asuth.com. Retrieved March 5, 2025.
  22. ^ "Free Quizlet Teacher to support remote learning". Quizlet. Retrieved April 22, 2021.
  23. ^ Hahm, Melody (March 25, 2021). "Exclusive: Quizlet acquires Slader as it aims to become the one-stop destination for students". Yahoo Finance. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  24. ^ Mascarenhas, Natasha (April 1, 2021). "How is edtech spending its extra capital?". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  25. ^ Luk, Serena (December 12, 2022). "Quizlet: A Growing Monopoly on Education". The Vice. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  26. ^ "Quizlet Appoints New Chief Executive Officer". PR Newswire (Press release).
  27. ^ Newton, Casey (March 3, 2021). "Who's actually getting rich off of AI?". The Verge. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  28. ^ Wiggers, Kyle (March 1, 2023). "OpenAI launches an API for ChatGPT, plus dedicated capacity for enterprise customers". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  29. ^ Kahn, Jeremy (March 1, 2023). "OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT for business customers". Fortune. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  30. ^ Ravaglia, Ray (August 10, 2023). "Quizlet Embraces AI And ChatGPT To Transform The Experience Of Studying". Forbes. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  31. ^ Ortiz, Sabrina (August 8, 2023). "Quizlet launches four generative AI-powered tools to simplify studying". ZDNET. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  32. ^ "Kurt Beidler Appointed as Quizlet's New CEO to Drive Global Growth". TechEdge AI. July 23, 2024. Retrieved July 24, 2024.
  33. ^ Anderson, Ted (July 22, 2024). "Daily Digest: Deutsche Bank looks to hire in San Francisco; Oakland Ballers fire coach". San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved July 25, 2024.
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