Chegg

EdtechUSA

New to Unitard

📉 Public < $1B

Peak $14 BillionToday

−99%

from peak

🦄
Became a unicorn
2017
📈
Peak valuation
$14 Billion ’21
💔
Became a Unitard
~2023
💸
Last valuation
~$78M

Current status

Public (CHGG)

Live · CHGG· NYSE

as of 2026-10-23

$0.702▼ 3.81% today

≈ $78 Million market cap · −99.4% from peak

The rise & fall

8 moments · 2005–2025

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

2005

Founded as a textbook-rental company

Campus logistics first; the subscription “homework help” gold mine comes later.

Wikipedia

2017

Crosses $1B as a subscription business

Chegg Study makes the model work.

Macrotrends

Feb 2021

The peak: ~$14B in the remote-school boom$14B

The stock touches $115 as homework moves online.

Macrotrends

May 1 ’23

A ChatGPT problem, and a ChatGPT-powered response

Chegg says student interest in ChatGPT is hurting new-customer growth. In the same earnings announcement it pitches CheggMate, its own study tool powered by ChatGPT and developed with OpenAI.

Chegg · Q1 2023 earnings

2023

Slips out of the club

Free AI answers the questions subscribers used to pay for.

Macrotrends

2023–25

From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2023–25

Glassdoor reviews put a human face on the AI squeeze: employees described near-quarterly layoff rounds clustered around earnings from mid-2023 on, RSU grants shriveling with the stock, and India-based subject-matter experts watching student questions dry up.

2025

Deeper cuts, strategic review

More restructuring as revenue keeps sliding.

CNBC

Today

Still in the club — and still trading

Live · CHGG · NYSEas of 2026-10-23

$0.702▼ 3.81% today≈ $78M cap · −99.4% from peak

💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.

How it happened

Chegg is an education-technology company offering textbook rentals and online homework and study help, reaching a ~$14B market cap in 2021. The rise of free AI tools such as ChatGPT eroded its core homework-help subscription business, sending users and revenue into decline. Its public market capitalization fell roughly 99% to around $150M by 2026. The company's India-based subject-matter experts, meanwhile, said student questions dried up as free AI took hold.

Source: CNBC/TechStartups

Founders & leadership

Dan Rosensweig
CEO (long-time; returned as CEO Oct 2025)
Still there — Chief Executive OfficerLinkedIn ↗
Osman Rashid
co-founder & CEO (saw the textbook market as the thing to disrupt)
Now Chairman at Khan Academy PakistanLinkedIn ↗
Aayush Phumbhra
co-founder (rebranded the service as Chegg in 2007)
Now SVP & Partner at Powerlaw Capital GroupLinkedIn ↗
Josh Carlson
co-founder (left in Feb 2006, before the Chegg rebrand)
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