Chegg is thea smarter way to student. As the leading direct-to-student learning platform, we strive to improve educational outcomes by putting the student first in all our decisions. We support students on their journey from high school to college and into their career with tools designed to help them pass their test, pass their class, and save money on required materials. Our services are available online, anytime and anywhere, so we can reach students when they need us most.

Students subscribe to our subscription services, which we collectively refer to as Chegg Services. Our primary Chegg Services include Chegg Study, Chegg Writing, Chegg Tutors, Brand Partnership, Test Prep and Internships.Chegg Math Solver. Our Chegg Study subscription service combines bothprovides “Expert Answers” and step-by-step Textbook“Textbook Solutions, and Expert Answers, which help” helping students understand and masterwith their course work. Chegg Writing is comprisedWhen students need help creating citations for their papers, they can use one of our writing toolsChegg Writing properties, including EasyBib, Citation Machine, BibMe, CiteThisForMe, RefMe and NormasAPA, whichCiteThisForMe. When students need additional help students create citations for their papers. Additionally, in October 2017, we launchedon a subject, they can reach a live tutor online, anytime, anywhere through Chegg Tutors. Our Chegg Math Solver subscription service on our BibMe writing tools property, that helps students prevent unintentional plagiarismunderstand math by providing a step-by-step math solver and find grammar and spelling mistakes in their writing. For students who need additional human help, Chegg Tutors provides live online help for a wide variety of topics online, anywhere and anytime.calculator. In October 2017, we acquired Cogeon GmbH (Cogeon), a provider of adaptive math technology and developer of the math application, Math 42, which will become Chegg Math, and which leverages artificial intelligence to provide additional homework help for students specifically struggling with math. We offer unique and compelling ways for student-relevant brands to reach and engage high school and college students through our Brand Partnerships. Chegg and Kaplan Test Prep (Kaplan) have launched co-branded test prep programs, in December 2017, starting as low as $99 to provide students with an online adaptive test preparation service. Our platform also provides access to internships to help students gain skills and experiences that are critical to securing their first job. In 2017,2018, over 2.23.1 million students subscribed to our Chegg Services, an increase of 45%38% year over year from 1.52.2 million in 2016.2017.

Through our strategic partnership with Ingram Content Group (Ingram) and agreements with otherprint textbook partners, we offer Required Materials, which includes an extensive print textbook and eTextbook library for rent and sale, helping students save money compared to the cost of buying new. To deliver services to students, we partner with a variety of third parties. We source print textbooks, eTextbooks, and supplemental materials directly or indirectly from publishers in the United States, including Cengage Learning, Pearson, McGraw Hill, Sage Publications, and MacMillan. In 2017,2018, students rented or bought over 5.4 million textbooks and eTextbooks from Chegg.

We offer products and services that help students improve their outcomes throughout their educational journey. Our offerings fall into two categories: Chegg Services, which encompasses all of our digital products and services, and Required Materials, which primarily includes our print textbook and eTextbook offering.

Our technology is designed to create a direct-to-student learning platform that will continue to enable our growth at scale. We employ technological innovations whenever possible to increase efficiency and scale in our business. Our products rely upon and leverage the information underlying our Student Graph discussed in more detail below. We will continue to invest in building technologies around our data, search and solutions. The key elements of our technology platform are:

In 2017, 4.22018, 5.1 million individuals paid for our products and services, up from approximately4.2 million and 3.5 million in 2017 and 3.12016, respectively.

In 2018, we had 14.5 million active users on our site, up from 11.5 million and 6.5 million in 2017 and 2016, and 2015, respectively. We define active users as users that have logged into a Chegg owned web or mobile application during a given time period.

We use several major direct marketing channels to reach students. We deploy search engine optimization (SEO) techniques designed to increase the visibility of Chegg.com content in organic, unpaid search engine result listings. We supplement our SEO efforts through search engine marketing using keyword simulation and bid management tools to analyze and categorize search keywords, optimize bidding, increase impressions and drive conversion. We also drive brand awareness through the use ofwith streaming radio and display advertising on major online and mobile advertising networks, such as Google Display Network. We integrate our textbook services on affiliates’ websites and work with a large advertising network that recruits individual online affiliates in exchange for pre-determined revenue share or commissions. We utilize three types of email marketing campaigns: onboarding programs to drive activation and retention, personalized cross-sell campaigns to deepen engagement, and promotional campaigns to drive sales and interests. We use social media to manage organic and paid programs across top websites, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. We also acquire and engage students through content generated by student bloggers, syndicated through partners, around key student concerns and interests such as

We secure contracts with brands through direct sales by our field sales organization, which sells brand advertising services to large brand advertisers and advertising agencies seeking to reach and engage college and high school students. This team has field sales people and inside client success managers as well as operations and marketing support. In January 2017, we signed a strategic alliance agreement with NRCCUA. Under this agreement, we provide fulfillment services for digital targeting products which NRCCUA sells to colleges and universities.   

We are committed to providing a high level of customer service to our students. We trust our students, understand the critical role our products and services have in their education, and strive to resolve all problems quickly and thoroughly. Our student advocacy team can be reached directly through phone, email, and online chat during business hours. We also proactively monitor social media to identify and solve problems before we are otherwise informed of their existence. We endeavor to respond to students’ concerns within five minutes.

While we do not have any competitors that compete with us across our business in its entirety, we face significant competition in each aspect of our business. The actual and potential competition in each of our primary areas of operations is described below.

We believe that we have competitive strengths, some of which are discussed above, that position us favorably in each aspect of our business. However, the education industry is evolving rapidly and is increasingly competitive. A variety of business models are being pursued or may be considered for the provision of digital learning tools, print textbooks and eTextbooks, some of which may be more profitable or successful than our business model.

We use proprietary technology to operate our business and our success depends, in part, on our ability to protect our technology and intellectual property. We rely on a combination of patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws, as well as contractual restrictions, to establish and protect our intellectual property. We maintain a policy requiring our employees, contractors, consultants and other third parties to enter into confidentiality and proprietary rights agreements to control access to our proprietary information. These laws, procedures and restrictions provide only limited protection and any of our intellectual property rights may be challenged, invalidated, circumvented, infringed or misappropriated. Further, the laws of certain countries do not protect proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States and, therefore, in certain jurisdictions, we may be unable to protect our proprietary technology.

As of December 31, 2017,2018, we had 2027 issued patents which will expire between 2032 and 20372036 and 1822 patent applications pending in the United States. We own threefour U.S. copyrights registrations and have unregistered copyrights in our software documentation, marketing materials and website content that we develop. We own the registered U.S. trademarks “Chegg,” “Chegg.com,” “CheggChegg, Chegg.com, Chegg Study,” “Chegg for Good,” “Student Hub,” “internships.com,” “Research internships.com, Research Ready,” “EasyBib” and “#1 EasyBib, #1 In Textbook Rentals,” and the Chegg “C” logo, among others as well as a variety of service marks. As of December 31, 2017,2018, we owned over 600 registered domain names. We also have a number of pending trademark applications in the United States and foreign jurisdictions and unregistered marks that we use to promote our brand. From time to time we expect to file additional patent, copyright and trademark applications in the United States and abroad.

We are subject to a number of laws and regulations that affect companies conducting business on the Internet and in the education industry, many of which are still evolving and could be interpreted in ways that could harm our business. The manner in which existing laws and regulations will be applied to the Internet and students in general and how they will relate to our business in particular, are often unclear. For example, we often cannot be certain how existing laws will apply in the e-commerce and online context, including with respect to such topics as privacy, defamation, pricing, credit card fraud, advertising, taxation, sweepstakes, promotions, content regulation, financial aid, scholarships, student matriculation and recruitment, quality of products and services and intellectual property ownership and infringement.

Numerous laws and regulatory schemes have been adopted at the national and state level in the United States, and in some cases internationally, that have a direct impact on our business and operations. For example:

As of December 31, 2017,2018, we had 8931,087 full-time employees. We also engage temporary, seasonal employees and consultants. None of our employees are represented by labor unions or covered by a collective bargaining agreement. We have not experienced any work stoppages and we consider our relations with our employees to be good.

Information about seasonality is set forth in the section “Seasonality of Our Business” in Part II, Item 7 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

We were incorporated in Delaware in July 2005. We launched our online print textbook rental business in 2007. We hired our current Chief Executive Officer in 2010, who implemented our current business strategy to create the leading direct-to-student learning platform for students to help them improve their outcomes. Beginning in 2010, we made a series of strategic acquisitions to expand our Chegg Services, including Cramster in 2010 to add Chegg Study, InstaEDU in 2014 to add Chegg Tutors, internships.com in 2014 to add to our Internship service, Imagine Easy Solutions in 2016 to add our Chegg Writing service and programmatic advertising, and Cogeon GmbH in 2017 to add whatChegg Math Solver, WriteLab in 2018 to add enhanced features to Chegg Writing, and StudyBlue in 2018 which will become Chegg Math.our flash tools offering. We completed our initial public offering (IPO) in November 2013, anda follow-on offering in August 2017.2017 and issued convertible senior notes in April 2018. Our common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “CHGG.” Our principal executive offices are located at 3990 Freedom Circle, Santa Clara, California 95054 and our telephone number is (408) 855-5700.

Our website address is www.chegg.com and our Investor Relations website address is investor.chegg.com. Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to reports filed pursuant to Sections 13(a) and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (Exchange Act), are filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)., which maintains an Internet site at www.sec.gov to access such reports. We are subject to the informational requirements of the Exchange Act and file or furnish reports, proxy statements, and other information with the SEC. Such reports and other information filed by the Company with the SEC are available free of charge on our website at investor.chegg.com when such reports are available on the SEC’s website. We use our www.chegg.com/mediacenter website as a means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. Accordingly, investors should monitor www.chegg.com/mediacenter, in addition to following our press releases, SEC filings and public conference calls and webcasts.

Although we began our operations in July 2005, we did not launch our online print textbook rental business until 2007 or begin generating revenues at scale from print textbook rentals until 2010. We began transitioningcompleted a transition to a new model for our Required Materials product line in August 2014November 2016 through our strategic partnership with Ingram to accelerate our transition away from the more capital intensivecapital-intensive aspects of the print textbook rental business. We completed our transition to a fully digital company as of November 2016 as Ingram now fulfills all print textbook rental orders. We continue to market, use our branding and maintain the customer experience around print textbook rentals, while Ingram or other partners fund all rental textbook inventory and have title and risk of loss related to textbook rentals for the textbooks they own.

Since July 2010, we also have been focused on expanding our other offerings, in many instances through the acquisition of other companies, to include supplemental materials, Chegg Study, Chegg Writing, Chegg Tutors, and Chegg Test

Our ability to fully integrate new products and services into our learning platform or achieve satisfactory financial results from them is unproven. Because we have a limited operating history, in particular operating a fully digital platform, and the market for our products and services, including newly acquired or developed products and services, is rapidly evolving, it is difficult for us to predict our operating results, particularly with respect to our newer offerings, and the ultimate size of the market for our products and services. If the market for a learning platform does not develop as we expect, or if we fail to address the needs of this market, our business will be harmed.

    

We face the risks, expenses and difficulties typically encountered by companies in their early stage of development, including, but not limited to our ability to successfully:

We have encountered and will continue to encounter these risks and if we do not manage them successfully, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects may be materially and adversely affected.

We expect our operating results to fluctuate in the future based on a variety of factors, many of which are outside our control and are difficult to predict. As a result, period-to-period comparisons of our operating results may not be a good indicator of our future or long-term performance. The following factors may affect us from period-to-period and may affect our long-term performance:

We have experienced significant net losses since our incorporation in July 2005, and we may continue to experience net losses in the future. Our net losses for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017 and 2016 and 2015 were $14.9 million, $20.3 million $42.2 million and $59.2$42.2 million, respectively. As of December 31, 2017,2018, we had an accumulated deficit of $391.6$406.6 million. We expect to make significant investments in the development and expansion of our business and our cost of revenues and operating expenses may increase. We may not succeed in increasing our revenues sufficiently to offset these higher expenses, and our efforts to grow the business may prove more expensive than we currently anticipate. We may incur significant losses in the future for a number of reasons, including slowing demand for print textbook rentals or our other products and services; increasing competition, particularly for the price of textbooks; decreased spending on education; and other risks described in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We may encounter unforeseen expenses, challenges, complications and delays and other unknown factors as we pursue our business plan and our business model continues to evolve. While Chegg Services revenues have grown in recent periods, this growth may not be sustainable and we may not be able to achieve profitability. To achieve profitability, we may need to change our operating infrastructure and scale our operations more efficiently. We also may need to reduce our costs or implement changes in our product offerings to improve the predictability of our revenues. For example, we recently transitioned substantially all of our print textbook rental revenues to commissions-based revenues. If we fail to implement these changes on a timely basis or are unable to implement them due to factors beyond our control, our business may suffer. If we do achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain or increase such profitability.

Our ability to attract and retain students and increase their engagement with our learning platform depends on our ability to connect them with the product, person or service they need to save time, save money, and get smarter. Part of our strategy is to offer students new products and services in an increasingly relevant and personalized way. We may develop such products and services independently, by acquisition or in conjunction with developers and other third parties. For example, in 2016, we acquired our Writing Tools service in the acquisition of Imagine Easy Solutions, and in October 2017 we acquired Math 42, in the acquisition of Cogeon GmbH (Cogeon) and in June 2018, we developed Chegg Test Prep internally, which we offer as a free service to students.acquired flash tools in the acquisition of StudyBlue, Inc. We recently partnered with Kaplan in August 2017, to provide their test preparation courses, practice products, and books through our website. The markets for these new products and services may be unproven, and these products may include technologies and business models with which we have little or no prior development or operating experience or may significantly change our existing products and services. In addition, we may be unable to obtain long-term licenses from third-party content providers necessary to allow a product or service, including a new or planned product or service, to function. If our new or enhanced products and services fail to engage our students or attract new students, or if we are unable to obtain content from third parties that students want, we may fail to grow our student base or generate sufficient revenues, operating margin or other value to justify our investments, and our business would be adversely affected.

In the future, we may invest in new products and services and other initiatives to generate revenues, but there is no guarantee these approaches will be successful. Acquisitions of new companies, products and services create integration risk, while development of new products and services and enhancements to existing products and services involve significant time, labor and expense and are subject to risks and challenges including managing the length of the development cycle, entry into new markets, integration into our existing business, regulatory compliance, evolution in sales and marketing methods and maintenance and protection of intellectual property and proprietary rights. If we are not successful with our new products and services, we may not be able to maintain or increase our revenues as anticipated or recover any associated acquisition or development costs, and our financial results could be adversely affected.

As part of our business strategy, we have made and intend to make acquisitions to add specialized employees, complementary businesses, products, services, operations or technologies. Realizing the benefits of acquisitions depends, in part, on our successful integration of acquired companies including their technologies, products, services, operations and personnel in a timely and efficient manner. We may incur significant costs integrating acquired companies and if our integration efforts are not successful we may not be able to offset our acquisition costs. Acquisitions involve many risks that may negatively impact our financial condition and results of operations, including the risks that the acquisitions may:

In addition:

Acquired companies, businesses and assets can be complex and time consuming to integrate. For example, we recently expanded into internships with the acquisition of internships.com in October 2014, into writing tools with the acquisitionacquisitions of Imagine Easy Solutions in 2016 and WriteLab in 2018, math technology with the acquisition of Cogeon in 2017.2017, and flashcard tools with the acquisition of StudyBlue in 2018. We are currently in the process of transitioning these users to the Chegg platform and integrating these brands into the Chegg platform. We may not successfully transition these users to the Chegg platform.platform and therefore may not realize the benefits of these acquisitions.

Our ability to acquire and integrate larger or more complex businesses, products, services, operations or technologies in a successful manner is unproven. We may not be able to find suitable acquisition candidates, and we may not be able to complete acquisitions on favorable terms, if at all. To finance any future acquisitions we may issue equity, which could be dilutive, or debt, which could be costly, potentially dilutive, and require substantial restrictions on the conduct of our business. If we fail to successfully complete any acquisitions, integrate the services, products, personnel, operations or technologies associated with such acquisitions into our company, or identify and address liabilities associated with the acquired business or assets, our business, revenues and operating results could be adversely affected. Any future acquisitions we complete may not achieve our goals.

    

We have added and plan to continue to add new offerings to our learning platform, including, for example, writing and math tools, to diversify our sources of revenues, which will require us to make substantial investments in the products and services we develop or acquire. New offerings may not achieve market success at levels that recover our investment or contribute to profitability. Because these offerings are not as capital intensive as our print textbook rental service, the barriers to entry for existing and future competitors may be lower and allow for even more rapid changes to the market. Furthermore, the market for these other products and services is relatively new and may not develop as we expect. If the market for our offerings does not develop as we expect, or if we fail to address the needs of this market, our business may be harmed. We may not be successful in executing on our evolving business model, and if we cannot provide an increasing number of products and services that students, colleges and brands find compelling, we will not be able to continue our recent growth and increase our revenues, margins and profitability. For all of these reasons, the evolution of our business model is ongoing and the future revenues and income potential of our offerings is uncertain.

We have expanded rapidly since we launched our online print textbook rental service in 2007. We anticipate further expanding our operations to offer additional products, services and content to help grow our student user base and to take advantage of favorable market opportunities. As we grow, our operations and the technology infrastructure we use to manage

We rely on Ingram to make new investments in the print textbook library and fulfill print textbook rental and sales orders. We purchase used print textbooks on Ingram’s behalf, including books through our buyback program, and invoice Ingram at cost. As we no longer own print textbooks, we have become increasingly committed to this strategic partnership. If our continuing partnership with Ingram is interrupted or if Ingram experiences disruptions in its business or is not able to perform as anticipated, Ingram may not be able to reimburse us for the books we have procured on its behalf or we may experience operational difficulties, an inability to fulfill print textbook orders, increased costs and a loss of business, as well as a greater than expected deployment of capital for textbook acquisition, that may have a materialan adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Furthermore, if we are unable to achieve the financial return targets set forth in our agreement with Ingram, we could be required to make additional payments to Ingram which could adversely affect our results of operations. Our strategic partnership with Ingram expires on May 20, 2020, subject to the early termination rights of the parties.

The print textbook rental distribution model requires our fulfillment partner, Ingram, to make substantial investments in its print textbook library based on our expectations regarding numerous factors, including ongoing demand for these titles in print form. To realize a return on its investments, we must rent each purchased textbook multiple times, and as such, we are exposed to the risk of not achieving financial return targets set forth in our agreement with Ingram, which could result in additional payments to Ingram and adversely affect our results of operations. We typically plan the textbook purchases based on factors such as pricing, our demand forecast for the most popular titles, estimated timing of edition changes, estimated utilization levels and planned liquidations of stale, old or excess titles in the print textbook library. These factors are highly unpredictable and can fluctuate substantially, especially if pricing pressure becomes more intense, as we have seen in recent rush cycles, or demand is reduced due to seasonality or other factors, including increased use of eTextbooks. We rely on a proprietary model to analyze and optimize the purchasing decisions and rely on inputs from third parties including publishers, distributors, wholesalers and colleges to make our decisions. We also rely on students to return print textbooks to Ingram in a timely manner and in good condition so that the print textbooks can be re-rented or sold. If the information we receive from third parties is not accurate or reliable, if students fail to return books or return damaged books, or if we for any other reason forecast demand inaccurately and cause Ingram to acquire insufficient copies of specific textbooks, we may be unable to satisfy student demand or we may have to incur significantly increased costs in order to do so, in which event our student satisfaction and results of operations could be affected adversely. Conversely, if we attempt to mitigate this risk and cause Ingram to acquire more copies than needed to satisfy student demand, then our textbook utilization rates would decline and we may be required to make additional payments to Ingram and our gross margins would be affected adversely.

When deciding whether to offer a textbook for rent and the price we charge for that rental, we also must weigh a variety of factors and assumptions and if our judgments or assumptions are incorrect, our gross margins may be adversely affected. Certain textbooks cost more to acquire depending on the source from which they are acquired and the terms on which they are acquired. We must factor in some projection of the number of rentals we will be able to achieve with such textbooks and at what rental price, among other factors, to determine whether we believe it will be profitable to cause Ingram to acquire such textbooks and for us to offer them for rent. If the textbooks Ingram acquires are lost, determined to be unauthorized copies, or damaged prematurely, Ingram may not be able to recover its costs or generate revenues on those textbooks. If we are unable to effectively make decisions about whether to cause Ingram to acquire textbooks and the price we charge to rent those textbooks, including if the assumptions upon which our decisions are made prove to be inaccurate, our gross margins may

Ingram predominantly relies on UPS to deliver textbooks from its textbook warehouse and to return textbooks to Ingram from our students. To a lesser extent Ingram relies on FedEx for delivery of print textbook rentals and on publishers, distributors and wholesalers to fulfill a certain portion of textbook sales orders and liquidations. As a result, our business could be subject to carrier disruptions and increased costs due to factors that are beyond our control, including labor difficulties, inclement weather, increased fuel costs and other rising costs of transportation and terrorist activity. If UPS were to limit its services or delivery areas, such as by the discontinuation of Saturday delivery service, Ingram's ability to timely deliver textbooks could diminish, and our student satisfaction could be adversely affected. If Ingram's relationships with its shipping vendors are terminated or impaired or if Ingram's shipping vendors are unable to deliver merchandise for us, Ingram would be required to rely on alternative carriers for delivery and return shipments of textbooks to and from students. Ingram may be unable to sufficiently engage alternative carriers on a timely basis or on terms favorable to them, if at all. If textbooks are not delivered on time to students, they could become dissatisfied and discontinue their use of our service, which could adversely affect our operating results.

We rely on third-party software and service providers, including AWS, to provide systems, storage and services, including user log in authentication, for our website. Any technical problem with, cyber-attack on, or loss of access to such third parties’ systems, servers or technologies could result in the inability of our students to rent or purchase print textbooks, interfere with access to our digital content and other online products and services or result in the theft of end-user personal information.

Our reliance on AWS makes us vulnerable to any errors, interruptions, or delays in their operations. Any disruption in the services provided by AWS could harm our reputation or brand or cause us to lose students or revenues or incur substantial recovery costs and distract management from operating our business. For instance, in February 2017, AWS experienced a widespread outage for half a business day, when during such time our learning platform was unavailable. Additionally, in December 2017, researchers identified significant CPU architecture vulnerabilities commonly known as “Spectre” and “Meltdown” that have affected both private and public cloud services, including AWS, that have required software updates and patches to mitigate such vulnerabilities and such updates and patches have required servers to be offline and potentially slow their performance.

We historically experience a disproportionate amount of activity on our website at the beginning of each academic term as students search our textbook catalog and place orders for course materials.materials as well as during Sundays of our Chegg Study rush. If too many students access our website within a short period of time due to increased demand, we may experience system interruptions that make our website unavailable, slowed or prevent Ingram from efficiently fulfilling rental orders, which may reduce the volume of textbooks we are able to rent or sell and may also impact our ability to sell marketing services to colleges and brands. In addition, during peak periods, we utilize, and Ingram utilizes, independent contractors and temporary personnel to supplement the workforce primarily in our student advocacy organizations, our subject matter experts and in Ingram's warehouses. Competition for qualified personnel has historically been intense, and we or Ingram may be unable to adequately staff our student advocacy organizations, our subject matter experts or Ingram's warehouses during these peak periods. Any understaffing could lead to an increase in both the amount of time required to ship textbooks, a student's question, or respond to a user's inquiry, any of which could lead to student dissatisfaction, and increase the amount of time required to process a rental return, which could result in an inability to achieve the financial return targets set forth in our agreement with Ingram. Moreover, UPS and FedEx, the third-party carriers that Ingram primarily relies on to deliver textbooks to students, and publishers, wholesalers and distributors that ship directly to our students may be unable to meet our shipping and delivery requirements during peak periods, especially during inclement weather. Any such disruptions to our business could cause our customers to be dissatisfied with our products and services and have an adverse effect on our revenues.

Computer malware, viruses, hacking, physical or electronic break-ins, spamming and similar disruptionsevents could lead to disruptions of our website services, our mobile applications or systems we use and interruptions and delays in our services and operations, andas well as loss, misuse or theft of data. For instance, in December 2017, researchers identified significant CPU architecture vulnerabilities commonly known as “Spectre”Any such events could harm our business, be expensive to remedy and “Meltdown” that allow malicious programs to gain access to data. While chip makers and companies that provide widely used operating systems have released patches and updates, this process is still ongoing.damage our reputation or brand. Computer malware, viruses, computer hacking and phishing attacks against online networking platforms have become more prevalent and may occur on our systems we use in the future. We believe that we could be a target for such attacks because of the incidence of hacking among students.students may increase our risk of being a target for such attacks. These threats are constantly evolving, making it increasingly difficult to successfully defend against them or implement adequate preventative measures.

Any attempts by hackersFor instance, in April 2018, an unauthorized party gained access to disruptuser data for chegg.com and certain of our family of brands such as EasyBib (the “Data Incident”). The information that may have been obtained could include a Chegg user’s name, email address, shipping address, Chegg username, and hashed Chegg password. To date, no social security numbers or financial information such as users' credit card numbers or bank account information were obtained. If we experience compromises to our security that result in website serviceperformance or availability problems, the complete shutdown of our internal systems, if successful, could harmwebsites, or the actual or perceived loss or unauthorized disclosure or use of confidential information, such as credit card information, our business,users may be expensive to remedyharmed or lose trust and damageconfidence in us, and decrease the use of our reputationservices or brand. stop using our services in their entirety, and we would suffer reputational and financial harm.

Our network security business disruption insurance may not be sufficient to cover significant expenses and losses related to direct attacks on our website or internal systems.systems we use. Efforts to prevent hackers from entering our computer systems are expensive to implement and may limit the functionality of our services.services, we may need to expend significant additional resources to further enhance our protection against security breaches or to redress problems caused by breaches and such efforts may not be fully effective. Though it is difficult to determine what, if any, harm may directly result from any specific interruption or attack, any failure to maintain performance, reliability, security and availability of our products and services and technical infrastructure, or the actual or perceived loss or unauthorized disclosure or use of the data we collect and develop may lead our users to lose trust and confidence in us or otherwise harm our reputation, brand and our ability to attract students to our website.website or may lead them to decrease the use of our services or applications or stop using our services in their entirety. Any significant disruption to our website or internal computer systems we use could result in a loss of students, colleges or brandsadvertisers and, particularly if disruptions occur during the peak periods at the beginning of each academic term, could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

We use complex proprietary software to process deliveries and returns of the textbooks and to manage other aspects of our operations, including systems to consider the market price for textbooks, general availability of textbook titles and other factors to determine how to buy textbooks and set prices for textbooks and other content in real time. We rely on the expertise of our engineering and software development teams to maintain and enhance the software used for our distribution operations. We cannot be sure that the maintenance and enhancements we make to our distribution operations will achieve the intended results or otherwise be of value to students. If we are unable to maintain and enhance our technology to manage the shipping and return of textbooks in a timely and efficient manner, particularly during peak periods, our ability to retain existing students and to add new students may be impaired.

It is important to our success that students be able to access our learning platform at all times. We have previously experienced, and may in the future experience, service disruptions, outages and other performance problems due to a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, third-party service providers, human or software errors and capacity constraints due to an overwhelming number of students accessing our platform simultaneously. If our learning platform is unavailable when students attempt to access it or it does not load as quickly as they expect, students may seek other services to obtain the information for which they are looking and may not return to our platform as often in the future, or at all. This would negatively impact our ability to attract students and brands and the frequency with which they use our website and mobile applications.

Our platform functions on software that is highly technical and complex and may now or in the future contain undetected errors, bugs, or vulnerabilities. Some errors in our software code may only be discovered after the code has been deployed. Any errors, bugs, or vulnerabilities discovered in our code after deployment, inability to identify the cause or causes of performance problems within an acceptable period of time or difficultly maintaining and improving the performance of our platform, particularly during peak usage times, could result in damage to our reputation or brand, loss of students, colleges and brands, loss of revenues, or liability for damages, any of which could adversely affect our business and financial results.

We expect to continue to make significant investments to maintain and improve the availability of our platform and to enable rapid releases of new features and products. To the extent that we do not effectively address capacity constraints, upgrade our systems as needed and continually develop our technology and network architecture to accommodate actual and anticipated changes in technology, our business and operating results may be harmed.

We have a disaster recovery program to transition our operating platform and data to a failover location in the event of a catastrophe and have tested this capability under controlled circumstances, however, there are several factors ranging from human error to data corruption that could materially lengthen the time our platform is partially or fully unavailable to our

We accept payments from students using a variety of methods, including credit cards, debit cards and PayPal. As we offer new payment options to students, we may be subject to additional regulations, compliance requirements and incidents of fraud. For certain payment methods, including credit and debit cards, we pay interchange and other fees, which may increase over time and raise our operating costs and lower our profit margins. For example, we have in the past experienced higher transaction fees from our third-party processors as a result of chargebacks on credit card transactions.

We rely on third parties to provide payment processing services, including the processing and information storage of credit cards and debit cards. If these companies become unwilling or unable to provide these services to us, our business could

Our industry is evolving rapidly and is becoming increasingly competitive. ManySome of our competitors have longer operating histories, larger customer bases, greater brand recognition and significantly greater financial, marketing and other resources than we do. Some of our competitors have adopted, and may continue to adopt, aggressive pricing policies and devote substantially more resources to marketing, website and systems development than we do. In addition, a variety of business models are being pursued for the provision of print textbooks, some of which may be more profitable or successful than our business model. For example, a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision may make it easier for third parties to import low-cost “gray market” textbooks for resale in the United States, and these textbooks may compete with our offerings. In addition, Follett has partnered with some colleges through its includED program, which allows schools to deliver required course materials directly to students by including them in the cost of college as part of tuition and fees. Such strategic alliances may eliminate our ability to compete favorably with our Required Materials product line because of the added convenience they offer to students, which may result in reduced textbook rentals, loss of market share and reduced revenues. In addition, our competitors also may form or extend strategic alliances with publishers that could adversely affect Ingram's ability to obtain textbooks on favorable terms. We face similar risks from strategic alliances by other participants in the education ecosystem with respect to our newer offerings. We may, in the future, establish alliances or relationships with other competitors or potential competitors. To the extent such alliances are terminated or new alliances and relationships are established, our business could be harmed.

We derive a significant portion of our net revenues from print textbook rentalrentals and, to a lesser extent, sale transactions, which occur in large part during short periods of time around the commencement of the fall, winter and spring academic terms. In particular, we, Ingram and Ingramother partners experience the largest increase in rental and sales volumes during the last two weeks of August and first two weeks of September and to a lesser degree in December and in January. The increased volume of orders that we, Ingram and Ingramother partners have to process during these limited periods of time means that any shortfalls or disruptions in our operations during these peak periods will have a disproportionately large impact on our annual operating results and the potential future growth of our business.

As a result of this seasonality, which corresponds to the academic calendar, our revenues may fluctuate significantly quarter to quarter depending upon the timing of where we are in our “rush” cycle and sequential quarter-over-quarter comparisons of our net revenues and operating results are not likely to be meaningful. In addition, our operating results for any given quarter cannot be used as an accurate indicator of our results for the year. In particular, we anticipate that our ability to accurately forecast financial results for future periods will be most limited at the time we present our second quarter financial results, which will generally occur midsummer and precede the “fall rush.” In addition, our other offerings, in particular

We base our operating expense budgets on expected net revenue trends. Operating expenses, similar to revenues and cost of revenues, fluctuate significantly quarter to quarter due to the seasonality of our business and are generally higher during the first and third quarters as we incur marketing expense in connection with our peak periods at the beginning of each academic term. Because our revenues were historicallyare concentrated in the fourth quarter and expenses are concentrated in the first and third quarters, we have experienced operating losses in the first and third quarters and operating income in the fourth quarter. As a result, sequential quarterly comparison of our financial results hasmay not been meaningful. We expect our seasonality to shift as a result of our strategic partnership with Ingram and our highest quarters for revenues and operating expense to coincide. Further, a portion of our expenses, such as office space lease obligations and personnel costs, are largely fixed and are based on our expectations of our peak levels of operations. The Ingram partnership has resulted in our operating

There is no guarantee that students will use our mobile applications, such as the mobile version of our website, m.chegg.com, Chegg Flashcards and Chegg Textbook Solutions, rather than competing products. We are dependent on the interoperability of our mobile applications with popular mobile operating systems that we do not control, such as Google's Android and Apple's iOS, and any changes in such systems that degrade our products’ functionality or give preferential treatment to competitive products could adversely affect the usage of our applications on mobile devices. Additionally, in order to deliver high quality mobile products, it is important that our products work well with a range of mobile technologies, systems, networks and standards that we do not control. We may not be successful in developing relationships with key participants in the mobile industry or in developing products that operate effectively with these technologies, systems, networks or standards. In the event that it is more difficult for students to access and use our applications on their mobile devices, or if students choose not to access or use our applications on their mobile devices or use mobile products that do not offer access to our applications, our student growth and student engagement levels could be harmed.

The third-party eTextbook Reader that we utilize is designed to provide students with access to eTextbooks from any device with an Internet connection and an Internet browser, including PCs, iPads, Android tablets, Kindles, Nooks and mobile phones. The third-party eTextbook Reader can be used across a variety of third-party operating systems. If this compatibility is not maintained, demand for our eTextbooks could decline and revenues could be adversely affected.

The textbook distribution market has begun shifting toward digital distribution. If demand for eTextbooks accelerates more rapidly than we expect, we could be required to make additional payments to Ingram under our inventory purchase and consignment agreement. Conversely, if the transition to digital distribution of textbooks does not gain market acceptance as we expect, capital requirements over the long term may be greater than we expect and our opportunities for growth may be diminished. In that case, we may need to raise additional capital, which may not be available on reasonable terms, or at all, and we may not realize the potential long-term benefits of a shift to digital distribution, including greater pricing flexibility and the ability to distribute a larger library of eTextbooks compared to print textbooks.

We rely on licenses from publishers to distribute eTextbooks to our customers and to provide some of our other products and services. We do not have long-term contracts or arrangements with most publishers that guarantee the availability

In addition, our ability to distribute eTextbooks depends on publishers’ belief that we include effective digital rights management technology to control access to digital content. If the digital rights management technology that we use is compromised or otherwise malfunctions, we could be subject to claims, and publishers may be unwilling to include their content in our service. If users are able to circumvent the digital rights management technology that we use, they may acquire unauthorized copies of the textbooks that they would otherwise rent from us, which could decrease our textbook rental volume and adversely affect our results of operations.

Our business strategy includes increasing our revenues from brand advertising. Brands may view our learning platform as experimental and unproven. They may not do business with us, or may reduce the amounts they are willing to spend to advertise with us, if we do not deliver ads, sponsorships and other commercial content and marketing programs in an effective manner, or if they do not believe that their investment in advertising with us will generate a competitive return relative to other alternatives. Our ability to grow the number of brands that use our brand advertising, and ultimately to generate advertising and marketing services revenues, depends on a number of factors, including our ability to successfully:

We believe that adhering to our core value of putting students first is essential to our success and in the best interests of our company and the long-term interests of our stockholders. In the past, we have forgone, and in the future we may forgo, short-term revenue opportunities that we do not believe are in the best interests of students, even if our decision negatively impacts our operating results in the short term. For example, we offer free services to students that require investment by us, such as our Internships service, in order to promote a more comprehensive solution. We also developed the Chegg for Good program to connect students and employees with partners to engage them in causes related to education and the environment. We formed the Chegg Foundation, a California nonprofit public benefit corporation, to engage in charitable and education-related activities, which we funded with one percent of the net proceeds from our IPO in November 2013. Our philosophy of putting students first may cause us to make decisions that could negatively impact our relationships with publishers, colleges and brands, whose interests may not always be aligned with ours or those of our students. Our decisions may not result in the long-term benefits that we expect, in which case our level of student satisfaction and engagement, business and operating results could be harmed.

Laws or regulations may be enacted which restrict or prohibit use of emails or similar marketing activities that we currently rely on. For example:

Even if no relevant law or regulation is enacted, we may discontinue use or support of these activities if we become concerned that students or potential students deem them intrusive or they otherwise adversely affect our goodwill and brand. If our marketing activities are curtailed, our ability to attract new students may be adversely affected.

We depend on the continued contributions of our senior management and other key personnel. In particular, we rely on the contributions of our President, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chairman, Dan Rosensweig. All of our executive officers and key employees are at-will employees, meaning they may terminate their employment relationship at any time. We compensate our employees through a combination of salary, benefits and equity compensation. Volatility or a decline in our stock price may affect our ability to retain and motivate key employees, each of whom has been granted stock options, RSUs or both. Competition for qualified personnel can be intense, and we may not be successful in retaining and motivating such personnel, particularly to the extent our stock price is volatile or at a depressed level, as equity compensation plays an important role in how we compensate our employees. Such individuals may elect to seek employment with other companies that they believe have better long-term prospects. If we lose the services of one or more members of our senior management team or other key personnel, or if one or more of them decides to join a competitor or otherwise compete directly or indirectly with us, we may not be able to successfully manage our business or achieve our business objectives. Our future success also depends on our ability to identify, attract and retain highly skilled technical, managerial, finance and media procurement personnel. Qualified individuals are in high demand, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area where our executive offices are located, and we may incur significant costs to attract them. If we are unable to attract or retain the personnel we need to succeed, our business may suffer.

Historically, investments in our business have substantially exceeded the cash we have generated from our operations. We have funded our operating losses and capital expenditures through proceeds from equity and debt financings, equipment leases and cash flow from operations. Although we currently anticipate that our available funds and cash flow from operations will be sufficient to meet our cash needs for the foreseeable future, we may require additional financing, particularly if the investment required to fund our operations is greater than we anticipate or we choose to invest in new technologies or complementary businesses or change our business model. Our ability to obtain financing will depend, among other things, on our development efforts, business plans, operating performance and condition of the capital markets at the time we seek

We are subject to regulations and laws specific to the education sector because we offer our products and services to students and collect data from students. Data privacy and security with respect to the collection of personally identifiable information from students continues to be a focus of worldwide legislation and regulation. This includes significant regulation in the European Union, and legislation and compliance requirements in various jurisdictions around the world. Within the United States, several states have enacted legislation that goes beyond any federal requirements relating to the collection and use of personally identifiable information and other data from students. Examples include statutes adopted by the State of California and most other Statesstates that require online services to report certain breaches of the security of personal data and a California statute that requires companies to provide choice to California customers about whether their personal data is disclosed to direct marketers or to report to California customers when their personal data has been disclosed to direct marketers. In this regard, there are a large number of legislative proposals before the U.S. Congress and various state legislative bodies regarding privacy issues related to our business. It is not possible to predict whether or when such legislation may be adopted, and certain proposals, if adopted, could harm our business through a decrease in student registrations and revenues. These decreases could be caused by, among other possible provisions, the required use of disclaimers or other requirements before students can utilize our services. We post our privacy policies and practices concerning the use and disclosure of student

Our business may also be subject to laws specific to students, such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the Delaware Higher Education Privacy Act and a California statute which restricts the access by postsecondary educational institutions of prospective students’ social media account information. Compliance levels include disclosures, consents, transfer restrictions, notice and access provisions for which we may in the future need to build further infrastructure to further support. We cannot guarantee that we have been or will be fully compliant in every jurisdiction, as it is not entirely clear how existing laws and regulations governing educational institutions affect our business. Moreover, as the education industry continues to evolve, increasing regulation by federal, state and foreign agencies becomes more likely. Recently, California adopted the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act which prohibits operators of online services used for K-12 school purposes from using or sharing student personal information and Colorado adopted House Bill 16-1423 designed to protect the use of student personal data in elementary and secondary school. These acts do not apply to general audience Internet websites but it is not clear how these acts will be interpreted and the breadth of services that will be restricted by it. Other states may adopt similar statutes. The adoption of any laws or regulations that adversely affect the popularity or growth in the use of the Internet particularly for educational services, including laws limiting the content that we can offer, and the audiences that we can offer that content to, may decrease demand for our service offerings and increase our cost of doing business. Future regulations, or changes in laws and regulations or their existing interpretations or applications, could also hinder our operational flexibility, raise compliance costs and result in additional historical or future liabilities for us, resulting in adverse impacts on our business and our operating results.

While we expect and plan for new laws, regulations and standards to be adopted over time that will be directly applicable to the Internet and to our student-focused activities, any existing or new legislation applicable to our business could expose us to substantial liability, including significant expenses necessary to comply with such laws and regulations and potential penalties or fees for non-compliance, and could negatively impact the growth in the use of the Internet for educational purposes and for our services in particular. We may also run the risk of retroactive application of new laws to our business practices that could result in liability or losses. Due to the global nature of the Internet, it is possible that the governments of other states and foreign countries might attempt to change previous regulatory schemes or choose to regulate transmissions or prosecute us for violations of their laws. We might unintentionally violate such laws, such laws may be modified and new laws may be enacted in the future. Any such developments could harm our business, operating results and financial condition. We may be subject to legal liability for our offerings.

In the ordinary course of business, and in particular in connection with merchandising our service to students, we collect, process, store and use personal information and data supplied by students and tutors. We may enable students to share their personal information with each other and with third parties and to communicate and share information into and across our platform. Other businesses have been criticized by privacy groups and governmental bodies for attempts to link personal identities and other information to data collected on the Internet regarding users’ browsing and other habits. There are numerous federal, state and local laws regarding privacy and the collection, storing, sharing, using, processing, disclosing and protecting of personal information and other user data, the scope of which are changing, subject to differing interpretations, and which may be costly to comply with and may be inconsistent between countries and jurisdictions or conflict with other rules.

    

We currently face certain legal obligations regarding the manner in which we treat such information. Increased regulation of data utilization practices, including self-regulation or findings under existing laws, or new regulations restricting the collection, use and sharing of information from minors under the age of 18, that limit our ability to use collected data could have an adverse effect on our business. In addition, if unauthorized access to our students’ data were to occur or if we were to disclose data about our student users in a manner that was objectionable to them, our business reputation and brand could be adversely affected, and we could face legal claims that could impact our operating results. Our reputation and brand and relationships with students would be harmed if our billing data were accessed by unauthorized persons.

    

We strive to comply with all applicable laws, policies, legal obligations and industry codes of conduct relating to privacy and data protection. However, U.S. federal, U.S. state and international laws and regulations regarding privacy and data protection, including the CCPA, are rapidly evolving and may be inconsistent and we could be deemed out of compliance as such laws and their interpretation change. In addition, foreign privacy, data protection, and other laws and regulations, particularly in Europe and including the DPD and the GDPR, are often more restrictive than those in the United States. Many of these laws and regulations, including the GDPR, are relatively new and it is not clear how these acts will be interpreted and the breadth of services and the methods of how we conduct or propose to conduct our business that will be restricted or otherwise effected by them. The costs of compliance with, and

Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with our privacy policies, our privacy or data-protection obligations to students or other third parties, our privacy or data-protection legal obligations or any compromise of security that results in the unauthorized release or transfer of sensitive information, which may include personally identifiable information or other data, may result in governmental enforcement actions, litigation or public statements against us by consumer advocacy groups or others and could cause students to lose trust in us, which could have an adverse effect on our business. Additionally, if third parties we work with, such as colleges and brands, violate applicable laws or our policies, such violations may also put our student users’ information at risk and could in turn have an adverse effect on our business.

The regulatory framework for privacy issues worldwide is currently in flux and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Practices regarding the collection, use, storage, display, processing, transmission and security of personal information by companies offering online services have recently come under increased public scrutiny. The U.S. government, including the White House, the FTC and the U.S. Department of Commerce, are reviewing the need for greater regulation of the collection and use of information concerning consumer behavior with respect to online services, including regulation aimed at restricting certain targeted advertising practices. The FTC in particular has approved consent decrees resolving complaints and their resulting investigations into the privacy and security practices of a number of online, social media companies. Similar actions may also impact us directly, particularly because high school students who use our Chegg Writing, Chegg Tutors, Chegg Test Prep and College Admissions and Scholarship Services are typically under the age of 18, which subjects our business to laws covering the protection of minors. For example, various U.S. and international laws restrict the distribution of materials considered harmful to children and impose additional restrictions on the ability of online services to collect information from minors. The FTC has also revised the rules under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act effective July 1, 2013. Although our services are not primarily directed to children under 13, our Chegg Writing service, in particular, could be used by students as early as in middle school, and the FTC could decide that our site now or in the future has taken inadequate precautions to prevent children under 13 from accessing our site and providing us information.

In 2012, the White House published a report calling for a consumer privacy Bill of Rights that could impact the collection of data, and the Department of Commerce seeks to establish a consensus-driven Do-Not-Track standard that could impact on-line and mobile advertising. The State of California and several other states have adopted privacy guidelines with respect to mobile applications. Our business, including our ability to operate internationally, could be adversely affected if legislation or regulations are adopted, interpreted or implemented in a manner that is inconsistent with our current business practices and that require changes to these practices, the design of our websites, mobile applications, products, features or our privacy policy. In particular, the success of our business has been, and we expect will continue to be, driven by our ability to responsibly use the data that students share with us. Therefore, our business could be harmed by any significant change to applicable laws, regulations or industry standards or practices regarding the use or disclosure of data that students choose to share with us or regarding the manner in which the express or implied consent of consumers for such use and disclosure is obtained. Such changes may require us to modify our products and services, possibly in a material manner, and may limit our ability to develop new products and services that make use of the data that we collect about our student users.

As a publisher and distributor of online content, we face potential liability for negligence, copyright or trademark infringement or other claims based on the nature and content of materials that we publish or distribute. We also may face

In addition, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has provisions that limit, but do not necessarily eliminate, our liability for caching or hosting or for listing or linking to, content or third-party websites that include materials or other content that infringe copyrights or other intellectual property or proprietary rights, provided we comply with the strict statutory requirements of the DMCA. The interpretations of the statutory requirements of the DMCA are constantly being modified by court rulings and industry practice. Accordingly, if we fail to comply with such statutory requirements or if the interpretations of the DMCA change, we may be subject to potential liability for caching or hosting, or for listing or linking to, content or third-party websites that include materials or other content that infringe copyrights or other intellectual property or proprietary rights.

We maintain content usage review systems that, through a combination of manual and automated blocks, monitors for and makes us aware of potentially infringing content on our platform. Nevertheless, claims may continue to be brought and threatened against us for negligence, intellectual property infringement, or other theories based on the nature and content of information, its origin and its distribution and there is no guarantee that we will be able to resolve any such claims quickly and without damage to us, our business model, our reputation or our operations. From time to time, we have been subject to copyright infringement claims, some of which we have settled. While these settlements have not had a material impact on our financial condition, we may be subject to similar lawsuits in the future, including in connection with our other services. The outcome of any such lawsuits may not be favorable to us and could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition.

We rely and expect to continue to rely on a combination of trademark, copyright, patent and trade secret protection laws, as well as confidentiality and license agreements with our employees, consultants and third parties with whom we have relationships to protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights. As of December 31, 2017,2018, we had 2027 issued patents and 1822 patent applications pending in the United States. We own threefour U.S. copyright registrations and have unregistered copyrights in our software documentation, marketing materials and website content that we develop. We own 4037 U.S. trademark registrations and 26 foreign registrations. As of December 31, 2017,2018, we owned over 600 registered domain names. We also have a number of pending trademark applications in the United States and foreign jurisdictions and unregistered marks that we use to promote our brand. From time to time we expect to file additional patent, copyright and trademark applications in the United States and abroad. Nevertheless, these applications may not be approved or otherwise provide the full protection we seek. Third parties may challenge any patents, copyrights, trademarks and other intellectual property and proprietary rights owned or held by us. Third parties may knowingly or unknowingly infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate our patents, copyrights, trademarks and other proprietary rights and we may not be able to prevent infringement, misappropriation or other violation without substantial expense to us. Additionally, if we fail to protect our domain names, it could adversely affect our reputation and brand and make it more difficult for students to find our website, our content and our services.

Furthermore, we cannot guarantee that:

If we pursue litigation to assert our intellectual property or proprietary rights, an adverse decision in any of these legal actions could limit our ability to assert our intellectual property or proprietary rights, limit the value of our intellectual property or proprietary rights or otherwise negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations. If the protection of our intellectual property and proprietary rights is inadequate to prevent use or misappropriation by third parties, the value of our brand and other intangible assets may be diminished, competitors may be able to more effectively mimic our service and methods of operations, the perception of our business and service to customers and potential customers may become confused in the marketplace and our ability to attract customers may be adversely affected.

We are a party to a number of third-party intellectual property license agreements. For example, we have entered into agreements with textbook publishers that provide access to textbook solutionsquestions and other content or questions for our Chegg Study subscription service, for which we often pay an upfront license fee. In addition, we have agreements with certain eTextbook publishers under which we incur non-refundable fees at the time we provide students access to an eTextbook. We cannot guarantee that the third-party intellectual property we license will not be licensed to our competitors or others in our industry. In the future, we may need to obtain additional licenses or renew existing license agreements. We are unable to predict whether these license agreements can be obtained or renewed on acceptable terms, or at all. Any failure to obtain or renew such third-party intellectual property license agreements on commercially competitive terms could adversely affect our business and financial results.

In addition, the publishing industry has been, and we expect in the future will continue to be, the target of counterfeiting and piracy. We have in the past and may continue to receive communications alleging that physical textbooks sold or rented by us are counterfeit. For example, we recently cooperated, and continue to cooperate, with a group of publishers in a series of audits which have identified several thousand potentially fraudulent textbooks which we have removed from our inventory. While our fulfillment partner, Ingram, has a system for inspecting the physical textbooks in our catalog of books, many of the books sold or rented to students are shipped directly from our suppliers, and, despite this inspection, unauthorized or counterfeit textbooks may inadvertently be included in the catalog of books we offer and may be, without our knowledge that they are unauthorized or counterfeit, subsequently sold or rented by us to students, or purchased by us through our buyback program, including on behalf of other buyers participating in our buyback program, and we may be subject to allegations of civil or criminal liability. We may implement measures in an effort to protect against these potential liabilities that could require us to spend substantial resources. Any costs incurred as a result of liability or asserted liability relating to sales of unauthorized or counterfeit textbooks could harm our business, reputation and financial condition.

Third parties may initiate litigation against us without warning. Others may send us letters or other communications that make allegations without initiating litigation. We have in the past and may in the future receive such communications, which we assess on a case-by-case basis. We may elect not to respond to the communication if we believe it is without merit or we may attempt to resolve disputes out-of-court by electing to pay royalties or other fees for licenses. If we are forced to defend ourselves against intellectual property claims, whether they are with or without merit or are determined in our favor, we may face costly litigation, diversion of technical and management personnel, inability to use our current website or inability to market our service or merchandise our products. As a result of a dispute, we may have to develop non-infringing technology, enter into licensing agreements, adjust our merchandising or marketing activities or take other action to resolve the claims. These actions, if required, may be unavailable on terms acceptable to us or may be costly or unavailable. If we are unable to obtain sufficient rights or develop non-infringing intellectual property or otherwise alter our business practices, as appropriate, on a timely basis, our reputation or brand, our business and our competitive position may be affected adversely and we may be subject to an injunction or be required to pay or incur substantial damages and/or fees.

In addition, we use open source software in connection with certain of our products and services. Companies that incorporate open source software into their products have, from time to time, faced claims challenging the ownership of open source software and/or compliance with open source license terms. As a result, we could be subject to suits by parties claiming ownership of what we believe to be open source software or noncompliance with open source licensing terms. Some open source software licenses require users who distribute or use open source software as part of their software to publicly disclose all or part of the source code to such software and/or make available any derivative works of the open source code on

We have devoted substantial resources to the development of our intellectual property and proprietary rights. In order to protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights, we rely in part on confidentiality agreements with our employees, book vendors, licensees, independent contractors and other advisors. These agreements may not effectively prevent disclosure of confidential information and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized disclosure of confidential information. In addition, others may independently discover trade secrets and proprietary information and in such cases we could not assert any trade secret rights against such parties. Costly and time-consuming litigation could be necessary to enforce and determine the scope of our proprietary rights and failure to obtain or maintain trade secret protection could adversely affect our competitive business position.

Our business is dependent on, among other factors, general economic conditions, which affect college funding, student spending and brand advertising. While the U.S. economy has recovered since the "Great Recession," state and federal funding levels at colleges across the United States remain below historic levels, which has led to increased tuition and decreased amounts of financial aid offered to students. To the extent that these trends continue or the economy stagnates or worsens, students may reduce the amount they spend on textbooks and other educational content, which could have a serious adverse impact on our business. In addition to decreased spending by students, the colleges and brands that use our marketing services have advertising budgets that are often constrained during periods of stagnant or deteriorating economic conditions. In a difficult economic environment, customer spending in each of our products and services is likely to decrease, which could adversely affect our operating results and financial condition. A deterioration of the current economic environment may also have a material adverse effect on our ability to fund our growth and strategic business initiatives.

We have employees in Germany, Israel, and India and we indirectly contract with individuals in the Ukraine andUkraine. Additionally, we own a minority stake in a learning platform for high school and college students in Brazil. Although today our international operations represent approximately 5% of our total consolidated operating expenses and we currently do not expect our international operations to materially increase in the near future, we expect to continue to expand our international operations and such operations may expand more quickly than we currently anticipate. However, we have limited operating history as a company outside the United States and our ability to manage our business and conduct our operations internationally requires considerable management attention and resources and is subject to the particular challenges of supporting a rapidly growing business in an environment of multiple languages, cultures, customs, tax systems, legal systems, alternative dispute systems, regulatory systems and commercial infrastructures. Operating internationally has required and will continue to require us to invest significant funds and other resources, subjects us to new risks and may increase the risks that we currently face, including risks associated with:

As part of our business strategy, we may make our products and services available in more countries outside of the U.S. market, where we are currently focused. The markets in which we may undertake international expansion may have educational systems, technology and online industries that are different or less well developed than those in the United States, and if we are unable to address the challenges of operating in international markets, it could have an adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.

The growth of our business and our brand depends on the ability of students to access the Internet and the products and services available on our website. Colleges that provide students with access to the Internet either through physical computer terminals on campus or through wired or wireless access points on campus could block or restrict access to our website, content or services or the Internet generally for a number of reasons including security or confidentiality concerns, regulatory reasons, such as compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which restricts the disclosure of student information or concerns that certain of our products and services, such as Chegg Study, may contradict or violate their policies.

We depend in part on colleges to provide their students with access to the Internet. If colleges modify their policies in ways that are detrimental to the growth of our student user base or in ways that make it harder for students to use our website, or if our competitors’ are able to reach more students than us, the overall growth in our student user base would slow, student engagement would decrease and we would lose revenues. Any reduction in the number of students directed to our website would harm our business and operating results.

Our business and operations could be materially adversely affected in the event of earthquakes, blackouts or other power losses, floods, fires, telecommunications failures, break-ins, acts of terrorism, inclement weather, shelving accidents or similar events. Our executive offices are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, an earthquake-sensitive area. If floods, fire, inclement weather including extreme rain, wind, heat or cold or accidents due to human error were to occur and cause damage to a warehouse of Ingram or its textbook library, Ingram's ability to fulfill orders for textbook rental and sales transactions could be materially and adversely affected and our results of operations would suffer, especially if such events were to occur during peak periods. We may not be able to effectively shift our operations due to disruptions arising from the occurrence of such events, and our business could be affected adversely as a result. Moreover, damage to or total destruction of our executive offices resulting from earthquakes may not be covered in whole or in part by any insurance we may have.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the Sarbanes-Oxley Act) requires, among other things, that we assess the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting annually and the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures quarterly. If we are not able to comply with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in a timely manner, the market price of our stock could decline and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the New York Stock Exchange, the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources.

Additionally, our independent registered public accounting firm is required to attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404. An independent assessment of the effectiveness of our internal controls

At December 31, 2017,2018, we had federal and state net operating loss carryforwards due to prior period losses of approximately $257$372 million and $195$273 million, respectively, which if not utilized will begin to expire in 2028 and 20182019 for federal and state purposes, respectively. A portion of the state net operating loss carryforwards expired in 2017.2018. At December 31, 2017,2018, we also had federal tax credit carryforwards of approximately $5.6$12.4 million, which if not utilized will begin to expire in 2030, and state tax credit carryforwards of approximately $6.4$9.4 million, which do not expire. These net operating loss and tax credit carryforwards could expire unused and be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities, which could adversely affect our profitability. For example, we have net operating loss carryforwards of $22$23 million related to our previous operations in Kentucky that will expire unused unless we have similar operations in Kentucky.

In addition, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the Code), our ability to utilize net operating loss carryforwards or other tax attributes, such as tax credits, in any taxable year may be limited if we experience an “ownership change.” A Section 382 “ownership change” generally occurs if one or more stockholders or groups of stockholders who own at least 5% of our stock increase their ownership by more than 50 percentage points over their lowest ownership percentage within a rolling three-year period. Similar rules may apply under state tax laws. As a result of prior equity issuances and other transactions in our stock, we have previously experienced “ownership changes” under Section 382 of the Code and comparable state tax laws. We may experience ownership changes in the future as a result of future issuances and other transactions of our stock. It is possible that any future ownership change could have a material effect on the use of our net operating loss carryforwards or other tax attributes, which could adversely affect our profitability.

Due to the timing of the enactment and the complexity involved in applying the provisions of the Act, we made reasonable estimates of the effects and recorded provisionalcomplete amounts in our financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2017. The2018. Subsequent to December 31, 2018 the U.S. Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and other standard-setting bodies have issued and may continue to issue guidance on how provisions of the 2017 Tax Act will be applied or otherwise administered that is different from our interpretation. As we collect and prepare necessary data and interpret the 2017 Tax Act and any additional guidance issued by the IRS or other standard-setting bodies, we may make adjustments to the provisional amounts that could materially affect our financial position and results of operations as well as our effective tax rate in the period in which the adjustments are made. Further, foreign governments may enact local tax laws in response to the 2017 Tax Act which may result in additional changes that could materially affect our financial position and results of operations.

The trading price of our common stock has been, and is likely to continue to be, volatile. Since shares of our common stock were sold in our IPO in November 2013 at a price of $12.50 per share, our closing stock price has ranged from $3.15 to $16.67$32.82 through December 31, 2017.2018. In addition to the factors discussed in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, the trading price of our common stock may fluctuate significantly in response to numerous factors, many of which are beyond our control, including:

The trading market for our common stock will depend in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. If one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our common stock or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our common stock price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our company or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause our share price or trading volume to decline.

Our status as a Delaware corporation and the anti-takeover provisions of the Delaware General Corporation Law may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control by prohibiting us from engaging in a business combination with an interested stockholder for a period of three years after the person becomes an interested stockholder, even if a change of control would be beneficial to our existing stockholders. In addition, our restated certificate of incorporation and restated bylaws contain provisions that may make the acquisition of our company more difficult, including the following:

ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

None.

Our corporate headquarters are located in Santa Clara, California and consist of approximately 45,00067,500 square feet of space under a lease that expires in February 2019.November 2023. We have additional offices in California, Oregon, Georgia and New York in the United States and internationally in India, Israel and Berlin, under leases that expire at varying times between 20182019 and 2022.2024. We believe our facilities are adequate for our current needs and for the foreseeable future; however, we will continue to seek additional space as needed to accommodate our growth. We also have an office space in Georgia, which we are subleasing, under a lease that expires in January 2021.

Our common stock has beenis listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “CHGG” since November 13, 2013.

We have never declared or paid any cash dividend on our common stock. Wedo not intend to retaindeclare or pay any future earnings and do not expect to paycash dividends in the foreseeable future. In addition, our credit facility contains restrictions on our ability to pay dividends.

ITEM 6. SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

The selected financial data set forth below should be read together with Part II, Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our consolidated financial statements and related notes included in Part II, Item 8, “Consolidated Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of our results in any future period.

ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

In July 2018, we acquired StudyBlue, Inc. (StudyBlue), a large network ofcontent library provider that allows students to create flashcards and professionals who leverage ourtheir own study materials. In May 2018, we acquired WriteLab, Inc. (WriteLab), an AI-enhanced writing platform, that teaches students grammar, sentence structure, writing style, and offers instant feedback to tutor inhelp students revise, edit, and improve their spare time and employers who leverage our platform to post their internships and jobs. In addition, because we have a large student user base, local and national brands partner with us to reach the college and high school demographics.written work.

Our strategy for achieving and maintaining profitability is centered upon our ability to utilize Chegg Services to increase student engagement with our learning platform. We plan to continue to invest in the expansion of our Chegg Services to provide a more compelling and personalized solution and deepen engagement with students. In October 2017, we acquired Cogeon GmbH, a privately held online learning company based in Berlin, Germany that provides adaptive math technology, primarily through its application, Math 42. We anticipate this acquisition to increase value to existing subscribers and deepen our reach into the high school market which will allow us to drive further growth in our existing Chegg Services. In addition, we believe that the investments we have made to achieve our current scale will allow us to drive increased operating margins over time that, together with increased contributions of Chegg Services, products, will enable us to accomplish profitability and become cash-flow positive in the long-term. Our ability to achieve these long-term objectives is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, including our ability to attract, retain, and increasingly engage the student population, intense competition in our markets, the ability to achieve sufficient contributions to revenue from Chegg Services and other factors described in greater detail in Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors.”

    

ITEM 8. CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY DATA