Ryan Schiller

He recalls feeling isolated at Yale after his sophomore year and worrying that what he said in class would be judged; with no coding experience, he taught himself by searching online in the summer of 2019 and produced a crude first version of Librex in about a month and a half.⁠[1]

In September 2019 he released Librex on iOS; the name combines libre (free) and exchange.⁠[2]

Schiller and Daria Kozeko founded Librex through the accelerator program of Yale’s Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking and launched it first on their own campus.⁠[3]

After his classmate Arthur Azvolinsky joined, the two rewrote the app over winter break and launched the full version; by February 2020 it had more than 100 daily active users.⁠[1]

On March 5, 2020, Librex launched at Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth CollegeDartmouth College is a private institution of higher education in Hanover, New Hampshire, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded by Eleazar Wheelock, it received a royal charter on December 13, 1769. The 1819 Supreme Court ruling in Dartmouth College v. Woodward preserved its private status. Alongside undergraduate liberal arts education, Dartmouth includes the Geisel, Thayer, Tuck and Guarini schools. It enrolled 7,273 students in fall 2025 and held a $9 billion endowment at June 30, 2025. Sian Leah Beilock, in office since June 2023, remained president as of October 2026.Open the full entry, and Schiller said it had more than 2,000 users there by the end of March; some students criticized sexist and racist content on the app.⁠[4]

Schiller said that content flagged by users was reviewed by a team of student moderators applying three criteria: be legal, be nice and be specific; he said that unlike the geographically bounded Yik Yak, Librex kept discussion among students of the same college.⁠[4]

The same month Librex also expanded to PrincetonPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry. Schiller said one motivation was surveys showing that students routinely hide their views, and pointed to online clashes among Yale students over a “Universal Pass” grading policy during the pandemic.⁠[3]

In May and June 2020, during Dartmouth’s Student Assembly elections, disparaging posts targeting a vice-presidential candidate appeared on Librex. The app’s content policy barred naming people who were not public figures, but some users got around it by using initials.⁠[5]

Schiller said he subsequently enlarged the moderation team to increase its racial and socioeconomic diversity and introduced a new moderation portal that immediately notified moderators of content flagged by users and by the app’s AI.⁠[5]

In August 2020 Librex expanded to Rice University, where about 700 students had signed up by October; some students criticized users who used anonymity to post slurs. Schiller responded that targeted threats, sweeping statements against core identity groups and illegal activity had no place on Librex, saying: “Librex does not support hate speech.”⁠[6]

By September 2020 Librex had about 11,000 registered users, 3,200 of them active daily; Schiller was its only full-time employee, and removals were decided by about two dozen volunteer moderators through debate.⁠[2]

Schiller favored minimal intervention, arguing that misinformation should be pushed to the bottom of the feed by the community through comments and votes rather than removed by moderators.⁠[2]

On March 25, 2021, after launching at all eight Ivy League universities and MIT, Librex opened to Stanford students and had more than 400 users by mid-April. Its content policy set out four principles, be legal, anonymous, specific and tasteful, and prohibited harassment, impersonation, doxxing and attacks on identity groups.⁠[7]

On March 30, 2021, as the creator of Librex, he appeared on episode 172 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing building Librex and its spread at Dartmouth, anonymity, refusing to sell user data, moderation, freedom of speech, Yik Yak, AWS and Parler, and chess and poker.⁠[8]

On February 17, 2022, Schiller announced in a post that Librex was shutting down effective immediately because of a lack of time to manage it and commitments to other projects; he said school e-mails and private user data would be deleted in the following weeks and that the team would not sell or keep personal data.⁠[9]

He said the abrupt closure was meant to prevent speculation or hysteria among students, that he believed the platform did more good than harm, and that he was planning a new project aimed not at colleges but at a much larger community.⁠[9]

The Dartmouth’s editorial board published an editorial welcoming Librex’s end, arguing that it had been used to objectify peers, attack Student Assembly candidates and spread racist remarks, and urging its founders not to launch a similar anonymous platform.⁠[10]

In March 2022, Yale students interviewed for a retrospective described Librex as a campus space of entertainment and candid expression that also carried falsehoods and malicious content.⁠[11]

By July 2022 another anonymous app, Fizz, had arrived at Dartmouth and become the best-known replacement for Librex there.⁠[12]

As of October 2026 the Librex website shows only the notice “Librex is no more, we are working on something much bigger,” signed by Ryan and the Librex Team, with copyright held by Librex Holdings, Inc.⁠[13]

Librex: Official website: https://librexapp.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[8]