The Culture at Scribe
Ranked the #1 Company Culture in America by Entrepreneur Magazine
Our Company Culture is the
Operating System for our Tribe
In fact, we think culture is so important we’ve created the Scribe Culture Bible, a living document that lays out what we believe, why we believe it, and how we live by it. The values outlined in our Bible are baked into our DNA and are evident in every interaction we have with each other and our Authors.
Our Values
We believe that business is about meeting the needs of people. So we show up with empathy, caring, and understanding for people.
Because of this, we believe work life and personal life should not have artificial walls between them. At its core, a relationship with a human is the same at work as it is anywhere else. We share our goals and achievements, failures and celebrations with each other. Plainly put, we bring our whole selves to our work, and we support and cherish that in each other.
At its core, accountability is acknowledging and accepting your responsibilities, and getting them done to the set standard. It means producing the necessary results for your role. It means living by the values and principles of the tribe.
Accountability means you do what you say you will do.
We value holding each other accountable, and we value people who hold themselves accountable.
We want to make people’s lives better…in essence, to serve them.
This question defines everything we do:
“Does this serve the people we care about?”
If yes, then we are in.
If no, then why do it?
We tell everyone that our success isn’t about money or possessions or sales. Those things are nice, and we want them sure, but they aren’t the point.
Learning means that we don’t see ideas as part of our identity, but just something we hold for a time, always subject to change as we search for the best truth we can find. It means we realize that all “truth” is temporary, and are always looking for the best “truth.” We understand that “knowing” is a temporary state, and we should never assume anything we “know” is permanent and unchangeable. It means we listen to other people, we get feedback, we test, we adapt, and then we repeat that process over and over–because learning never ends.
Optimism is both a skill and a superpower, and when applied correctly, an optimistic tribe can do anything.
Our optimism is not blind. Our optimism is not about ignoring reality, nor pretending that trade-offs don’t exist. And our optimism is never about plastering a fake smile on our faces in the face of real pain and suffering.
Our optimism is that we can–and will–find a way to do the things that matter. We will work through, and learn from, whatever problems or obstacles arise. We will create the lives and reality we want…as long as we believe we can, and put in the work.
Our Principles
Always make the right decision for the tribe as a whole, before you make the right decision for yourself.
Always do right by people—ALL PEOPLE we interact with.
Allow everyone to bring their whole selves to work, and support them when they do.
To be a tribe that continually truly learns, we must constantly ask questions.
The only way to create an environment of learning, sharp decision-making, and perpetual improvement is to have honest, candid, and timely feedback between all members of the team.
Because everyone in this tribe owns a share of the company profits, we expect everyone in this tribe to think and work like what they are: an owner.
We always do our best at that moment. But we always expect to find a better way later on. In essence, we know everything we are doing now is going to be replaced eventually by something else. All of our processes are already “broken.”
No one gets points for “being right,” and no one loses points for “being wrong,” because there are NO individual points; the only thing that matters is the TRIBE getting it right as a unit.
This is a military term that means everyone, regardless of rank, shares the same experience, the same sacrifice, and the same effort.
Individual learning is great and the foundation of learning, but it can be slow and difficult. Shared learning moves everyone forward at the speed of the whole tribe.
We almost called this principle “How you do one thing is how you do everything.” We have learned the hard way that impeccable attention to details, all details, is necessary for us to do a great job.
Still skeptical about our culture?
We get it. It’s almost too good to be true, isn’t it!? That’s why we invited an investigative journalist to observe how we work, interview members of our Tribe, join us for our annual company-wide Summit, and document it all.
Curious about our origins?
It all started with a simple question from a frustrated entrepreneur who needed a way to get her ideas out of her head and into a book.
The Scribe Tribe
Scribe is composed of 85+ full-time Tribe members and 100+ freelancers who work with us to further our mission of unlocking the world’s wisdom.
AUTHOR MARKETING
FAVORITE BOOK: Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
FAVORITE BOOK: A Discovery of Witches, Deborah Harkness
FAVORITE BOOK: Life of Pi, Yann Martel
FAVORITE BOOK: Boundaries, Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend
FAVORITE BOOK: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis
FAVORITE BOOK: Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
FAVORITE BOOK: In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
FAVORITE BOOK: Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
FAVORITE BOOK: : From Excuses to Excursions: How I Started Traveling the World, Gloria Atanmo
FAVORITE BOOK: Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
FAVORITE BOOK: What if?, Randall Munroe
FAVORITE BOOK: The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
FAVORITE BOOK: A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’engle
FAVORITE BOOK: Candide, Voltaire
SCRIBE BOOKS
FAVORITE BOOK: The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
FAVORITE BOOK: One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
FAVORITE BOOK: The Magician’s Nephew, C.S. Lewis
FAVORITE BOOK: Modern Romance, Aziz Ansari
FAVORITE BOOK: Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
FAVORITE BOOK: Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery
FAVORITE BOOK: The Stand, Stephen King
FAVORITE BOOK: The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
FAVORITE BOOK: Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
FAVORITE BOOK: The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
FAVORITE BOOK: Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling
FAVORITE BOOK: Waiting for Snow in Havana, Carlos Eire
FAVORITE BOOK: Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
FAVORITE BOOK: The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
FAVORITE BOOK: Where The Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
FAVORITE BOOK: The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt
FAVORITE BOOK: A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
FAVORITE BOOK: How to Kill a Rock Star, Tiffanie DeBartolo
FAVORITE BOOK: Life of Pi, Yann Martel
FAVORITE BOOK: Neuromancer, William Gibson
FAVORITE BOOK: The Awakening, Kate Chopin
FAVORITE BOOK: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
FAVORITE BOOK: Kushiel’s Dart, Jacqueline Carey
FAVORITE BOOK: The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
FAVORITE BOOK: To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
FAVORITE BOOK: Detective Comics
FAVORITE BOOK: Zen Shorts, John Muth
FAVORITE BOOK: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
FAVORITE BOOK: The War of Art, Steven Pressfield
FAVORITE BOOK: Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
FAVORITE BOOK: All The Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
FAVORITE BOOK: Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
FAVORITE BOOK: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling
FAVORITE BOOK: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling
FAVORITE BOOK: The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
DESIGN
FAVORITE BOOK: Mutant Message Down Under, Marlo Morgan
FAVORITE BOOK: Zodiac, Neal Stephenson
FAVORITE BOOK: A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
FAVORITE BOOK: In the Lake of the Woods, Tim O’Brien
FAVORITE BOOK: Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
MARKETING
FAVORITE BOOK: The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz
FAVORITE BOOK: The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
FAVORITE BOOK: American Gods, Neil Gaiman
FAVORITE BOOK: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
FAVORITE BOOK: Six Tales of the Jazz Age, F. Scott Fitzgerald
FAVORITE BOOK: The Ascent of Humanity, Charles Eisenstein
FAVORITE BOOK: They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, Hanif Abdurraqib
FAVORITE BOOK: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling
FAVORITE BOOK: Tiny Beautiful Things, Cheryl Strayed
FAVORITE BOOK: Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl
OPERATIONS
FAVORITE BOOK: Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo
FAVORITE BOOK: The Crystal Shard, R.A. Salvatore
FAVORITE BOOK: Hyperion, Dan Simmons
FAVORITE BOOK: The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
FAVORITE BOOK: Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert
FAVORITE BOOK: Factory, Antler
FAVORITE BOOK: The Most Human Human, Brian Christian
FAVORITE BOOK: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
FAVORITE BOOK: Get Good with Money, Tiffany Aliche
FAVORITE BOOK: The Courage to Be Disliked, Ichiro Kishimi
FAVORITE BOOK: I Got There, JT McCormick
FAVORITE BOOK: Mark Twain in Hawaii, Mark Twain
FAVORITE BOOK: Homecoming, Justine Harrington
CO-FOUNDERS & CEO
FAVORITE BOOK: Neon Bible, John Kennedy Toole
FAVORITE BOOK: Sum: Forty Tales From The Afterlives, David Eagleman
FAVORITE BOOK: Xenophon’s Cyrus the Great: The Arts of Leadership and War, Larry Hendrick
TREATS AND LOVE DEPARTMENT
FAVORITE BOOK: The Perfect Cookie, Om nom nom
FAVORITE BOOK: Steak, Mark Schatzker
FAVORITE BOOK: Mailman: A Novel, J. Robert Lennon