2015 Year in Review HALLOWEEN Truth seekers. Entrepreneurs. Eternal optimists. It’s not easy living by your core values 365 days a year, but at Pluralsight, we aren’t afraid to put in the work to do just that. Staying true to these values is the reason we accomplished so much in 2015. We overhauled our approach to product development, building a user-centric design and product team. We launched a new brand and website, saying goodbye to our old logo and hello to a fresh look. We welcomed two companies and over 200 course authors Pluralsight Halloween...................... 3 into our family, and we added 1,000+ courses to our library. We Pluralsight in the press..................4-5 celebrated Halloween decked out as “Star Wars” and “Lord of the By the numbers...................... 6 Rings” characters, and spent a day giving back to our communities. Awards highlights...................... 7 Could we have done these things without leading with our core Our customers..................8-9 values? Maybe, but the output wouldn’t have been the same. Evolving our product............... 10-11 And we certainly wouldn’t have had as much fun along the way. Meet our authors .............12-13 Acquisitions.............. 14-15 I hope you enjoy a peek into our world as you look back at a year Brand launch .............16-17 we’re really proud of. With what we have in store for 2016, you’ll Employee photos.............. 18-19 want to keep watching. Hack Day................... 20 Our rules and values.....................21 — Aaron Skonnard, CEO 2 3 Making headlines We stirred up all sorts of press in 2015, with major publications covering our two With lynda.com selling for $1.5 billion, Pluralsight could prove an even bigger outcome for all acquisitions, standout company culture and how we’re squashing the skills gap. involved if it maintains its current pace. The company’s doubled sales for five years in a row, with $82 million in bookings last year. It’s also doubled its headcount through half a dozen acquisitions in the last 18 months with an eye for more. Alex Konrad | 4/9/15 But what makes Pluralsight so unique is their specific attention to promoting a unique culture, one free of usual boundaries, where everybody — from the CEO to the newest employee — is created equal and openness takes precedence above all else. Think of it as the business equivalent of a hippie community — just replace the weed, body odor, and general joblessness with motivated Pluralsight has transformed into a significant acquirer these days, having spent at least $190 and productive individuals. Basically, a place John Lennon would have loved to work at. million snapping up online education startups over the past two years. Recent deals include the $36 million acquisition of learn-to-code site Code School and an even larger $75 million Christopher Rawle | 1/20/15 for skill measurement startup Smarterer. Harrison Weber | 7/9/15 Pluralsight, one of the largest online teaching platforms valued at roughly $1 billion, offers courses solely focused on highly technical engineers. Its courses cover everything from software coding languages, like Javascript and Ruby, to IT and design software, like VMWare and Adobe. The two companies [Pluralsight and Code School] will also work together to help students decide Eugene Kim | 1/26/15 which courses to take—and in what order to take them—to advance their careers, and to create an evaluation system to help students prove what they’ve learned. Klint Finley | 1/26/15 For instance, Pluralsight’s Authors are gurus and innovators in their own right - and their reputation and expertise appeal directly to today’s discerning IT professional. On-demand learning allows you to address all of these requirements by giving employees control over their own learning. Today’s workforce want their information in a searchable format of their choice so they can digest a short burst of training to upskill rapidly - and on a device of their choosing. The CEO is the pace setter of the company–the one who drives growth and strategy, mission and values. One such CEO is Aaron Skonnard of Pluralsight. This visionary grew his company Chloe Green | 9/22/15 from humble beginnings to a multinational organization with 450 employees. Ryan Westwood | 11/24/15 4 5 Democratizing professional technology training We’ve been working with top industry experts to crank out the best technology training imaginable. See how our library has grown this year to better address critical skills gaps at companies across the planet! BY THE NUMBERS 2015 AWARDS HIGHLIGHTS Courses released this year 2698.89 Inc 500 | 5000 (No. 338) 1000+ New hours of training added in 2015 Forbes Most Promising Companies (No. 42) Total courses Customers Entrepreneur’s Top Company 150+ Cultures for 2015 (No. 20) 4,600 Countries served 2M+ Most popular new courses Most popular categories DEV IT CREATIVE 1. Microsoft 6. Open Source 1. Building a Web App with 1. PowerShell: Getting Started 1. Introduction to Maya 2016 2. C# 7. ASP.NET ASP.NET 5, MVC 6, EF7 2. Ethical Hacking: Understanding 2. Introduction to Unity 5 and AngularJS Ethical Hacking 3. JavaScript 8. Angular 3. Professional Tips for 2. Getting Started with Entity 3. Ethical Hacking: Hacking Modeling Complex Shapes 4. .NET 9. ASP.NET MVC Framework 6 Web Applications 5. Visual Studio 10. SQL Server 3. C# Fundamentals with Visual Studio 2015 6 7 t Companies lead with Customer love our learning: Whether they’re dishing out positive vibes on Twitter or telling us how we’ve boosted their company’s productivity, our fans aren’t shy when it comes to sharing their praise. If I see a future need today, I don’t have to hire a new person who’s an expert at 9 of the top 10 something to fill that need. Instead, most-profitable I can train up one of my existing people US technology One of our new technicians had used because Pluralsight has the courses to companies Pluralsight on his previous job and asked fill those skills gaps. me to take a look at it...We were pleasantly -Adam Kavan, Associate Director of Networks and Systems surprised at the quality of the training, how current it was and how in-depth. GET IN ON THE TWEET LOVE -Richard DiMichele, IT Training Manager. @PLURALSIGHT 10 of the 12 leading animation studios 8 leading finance We are involved with Pluralsight today because of organizations who was generating content and because what they generated was as good online as it was in person, if not better. What I’m really looking for is content that’s relevant and content that is good quality. I think from the very beginning when we started working with Pluralsight, that’s what we found. -Spenser Aden, Director of Product Architecture. 15 of top 20 defense contractors 8 9 Product prowess This year marked the transformation of our product, and the arrival of a new and improved learning experience. We put our customers first, listening to their feedback and adapting to roll out a total refresh in 2015. Can’t stop. Won’t stop. We always have our ears tuned to our customers on what they want to see next. New course page | Learner & admin dashboards | Fresh Android & iOS apps | Shareable playlists Updated search & browse | New invite options & more! 10 11 2015 AUTHOR STATS Meet our authors - the best in the biz We work with top thought leaders and experts in the fields of dev, IT and creative. Meet a few of the bright minds that power Pluralsight! NIGEL POULTON 18 Average years of Pluralsight author Nigel Poulton has been hooked on experience of our technology since he was a kid—with everything about it seeming completely magical to him. And these days, author base Nigel gets to bring that magic into his everyday life as an IT pro. Nigel has worked in the industry for 15 years, writes a popular, longstanding blog on storage, hosts the In Tech We Trust podcast and spends his free time rooting for his favorite football (soccer) team and with his family. Learn more about Nigel $4.3M SIMON ALLARDICE Projected royalties In 2015, Simon Allardice, one of the of our 5 highest- world’s best teachers of development- paid authors related topics, joined Pluralsight full- time. He dropped his first course, iOS 9 JULIE LERMAN Fundamentals, in November. He finds joy Julie Lerman, the leading independent authority in delivering courses that saves our users on Microsoft’s Data Access Technology: Entity time—helping them learn a topic a little Framework, is proud of all of her courses—but bit quicker, a little bit easier and a bit 206 especially the one that she co-authored with Steve more memorably than they would from New expert authors Smith on Domain-Driven Design Fundamentals. Her someone else. favorite course, what she deems her “passion course,” added to our network Learn more about Simon is Automated Testing for Fraidy Cats Like Me. Learn more about Julie 121 Newly published authors 12 13 Here we grow again Welcome, HackHands and Code School! Devs looking to turn it up a notch (and have fun doing it) were excited to learn that Code School joined In July, HackHands joined Pluralsight, leading the way for on-demand mentoring via screenshare and video the Pluralsight team in January. Its interactive, in-browser coding challenges and themed tutorials are chat. “I’ve worked in a lot of corporate cultures,” co-founder Forest Good said. “Pluralsight gets it right.” perfect for techies looking to add a new skill to their resume.