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Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday

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Re: Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday

#231

Post by csallen »

growt wrote: post #190
hi_hi wrote: post #172

From the previous press about the aquisition: BendingSpoon CEO: "At Bending Spoons, we acquire companies with the expectation of owning and operating them indefinitely, and we look forward to realizing Vimeo’s full potential as we reach new heights together" Vimeo CEO: "We are excited about this partnership, which we believe will unlock even greater focus for our team and customers as we continue to strive towards ou…

After reading through the other comments about bending spoons and reading yours again: the bending spoons CEO is technically telling the truth! They intend to run the acquired companies forever. After cutting most of the staff, but he didn’t say that part of course.

I wouldn't even say it's "technically" the truth. It's just the truth. Nothing in the statement even comes close to implying that there wouldn't be layoffs. Hell, one of the quotes even mentions "focus", which if anything is a euphemism or hint for downsizing in these kinds of statements, not the opposite.

Re: Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday

#232

Post by _DeadFred_ »

bradleybuda wrote: post #61
nness wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this model. Such significant layoffs would indicate that there is no real appetite for expansion or growth. Their goal might be be to acquire, dramatically cut costs, and then run the product for as long as they can at a profit before breaking it down and selling it off (or hope for a buyout by a bigger player.) But that wouldn't make sense — customers of a depreciating SaaS product surely churn af…

HN: VC is a cancer, businesses don't need to grow forever at all costs, products can be finished, what we need is sustainable small companies Also HN: No, not like that

There are now more private equity funds in the USA than McDonalds. The maximum wealth extraction of every single thing in people's lives is not viable for a continuing healthy society.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/05/private-equity-consolidation...

Re: Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday

#233

Post by johnnyanmac »

joelthelion wrote: post #205
epolanski wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called butt cigar investing or corporate raiding. They acquire startups and companies without a huge growth potential but modest cash flow and little profits. They cut the operating expenses to the minimum and jack up the prices to sky rocket profits till their mathematical models will tell them they will profit on the investment. Rinse and repeat.

Have there been any serious legal efforts to make this less profitable? It's very clearly detrimental to society.

Not much you can do. The alternative is bankruptcy that does a similar thing to workers. But it at least doesn't let the company make blatant lies of a PR statement.

The main thing to do is make it so you can't just lay off people as easily as you can in the US for pretty much no reason. But it seems workers are still too divided to really come together and achieve such 9initiatives. Be it unions, pressuring their governments to make new laws, or simply chastising and boycotting companies who engage on such actions.

Re: Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday

#234

Post by alephnerd »

k1rd wrote: post #161

Yes bending spoon will stop growing these companies and stop add features. These role will be just replaced by engineers and employee in Italy, where bending spoon is form, and where people cost many times less than in the US. Italy is like a higher quality India in a sense.

> Italy is like a higher quality India in a sense.

It's attitudes like this that rub decisionmakers who aren't of European heritage the wrong way.

Italian tech salaries [0] aren't significantly different from Indian tech salaries [1], especially in major hubs like Bangalore [2].

If companies like Google [5], Broadcom [6], and Nvidia [7] can afford to pay EU level salaries in India and decided to heavily invest in hiring in India, it shows that Indian talent can't be underestimated.

Also, a European dismissing Indian engineering quality doesn't bode well as your governments that are signing an FTA [3] and a security and defense partnership [4] with India in a couple days, and with the Italian government soliciting Indian capital for infrastructure investment [8] and the French government soliciting Indian capital for defense [9] and infrastructure [10] investment.

[0] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/italy

[1] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/india

[2] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater...

[3] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/eu-nears-historic-trade-...

[4] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/eu-proceed-security-defe...

[5] - https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...

[6] - https://www.levels.fyi/companies/broadcom/salaries/software-...

[7] - https://www.levels.fyi/companies/nvidia/salaries/software-en...

[8] - https://www.lagazzettamarittima.it/2025/10/30/rixi-in-india-...

[9] - https://www.frstrategie.org/publications/defense-et-industri...

[10] - https://fr.euronews.com/business/2025/07/03/limec-deviendra-...

Re: Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday

#235

Post by huhtenberg »

nness wrote: post #4
ayhanfuat wrote: post #3

From "Vimeo to be acquired by Bending Spoons in $1.38B all-cash deal" ( https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/10/vimeo-to-be-acquired-by-be... ): > Bending Spoons has a pattern of acquiring companies, then laying off staff and cutting features. For example, Bending Spoons acquired note-taking and task management app Evernote in 2022, after which the company laid off most of its U.S. and Chile staff and moved operations to E…

I don't understand this model. Such significant layoffs would indicate that there is no real appetite for expansion or growth. Their goal might be be to acquire, dramatically cut costs, and then run the product for as long as they can at a profit before breaking it down and selling it off (or hope for a buyout by a bigger player.) But that wouldn't make sense — customers of a depreciating SaaS product surely churn af…

> appetite for expansion or growth

This requires reinvesting profits into the company. It sounds like they choose not to do that, but instead switched to cashing in.

If the profits are stable and supported by a fraction of the workforce, then why keep the rest around? Clearly a shitty thing to do, but business-wise it makes sense.

Re: Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday

#236

Post by red-iron-pine »

bilekas wrote: post #20
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #2

4 months: Bending Spoons acquires Vimeo for $1.38B https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45197302

This comment from e98cuenc seems extremely prescient. > Everybody loves to hate BendingSpoon, but there is a lesson here. They consistently rewrite the code of their acquisitions with a tiny team, fire everybody and are able to maintain and improve the product. They basically skip everything but engineers, and they are kept at a minimum. Feedback from users is the products they take over 1) become more expensive, 2)…

Enshitification As A Service (EaaS)

Re: Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday

#237

Post by johnnyanmac »

epolanski wrote: post #230
joelthelion wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have there been any serious legal efforts to make this less profitable? It's very clearly detrimental to society.

This is just how capitalism works in a competitive environment: it allocates capital as efficiently as possible. I despise their business model, but it is what it is.

It really doesn't have to "be what it is". We can strive for actual change. But everyone's still too cushy for that, it seems.

Re: Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday

#238

Post by csallen »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #201
WJW wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was like that with WeTransfer too. Fine company that had been profitable for years, but with little hope of getting ever 10x bigger again. I used to work there and had already left by the time of the acquisition, but all the old colleagues I've spoken to said the same. The main business was throwing off gobs of money and there were SO MANY failed projects to try and find new revenue streams. Everyone who was not b…

For a hosting space like Vimeo, I'd be surprised if this gave them 5 years. And remember, they acquired Vimeo for over a billion dollars. This isn't like some B2C 5-10 dollar a month service. Video hosting is notoriously expensive and paying clients will quickly see other alternatives if they see smoke. These are already people with specialized needs that the main market leader (Youtube) cannot fulfill. They are "act…

> These are already people with specialized needs that the main market leader (Youtube) cannot fulfill.

Isn't this just a bigger reason why these people won't leave? Assuming the acquirer isn't dumb enough to remove the core benefit that comes from their highest paying customers, they will keep providing those, and those customers won't churn. And I think this is a safe assumption, considering it's the primary goal and focus of the people at the acquirer.

Re: Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday

#239

Post by _DeadFred_ »

bicepjai wrote: post #100
dotBen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your comment is referring to the bending spoons business model, it's worth pointing out they are not VC, they are private equity. If your comment is referring to the software company's exiting to provide a return to shareholders, that happens all the time whether it's venture-backed or privately owned. The owners of privately held bootstrapped companies still want an exit one day too. As an open source software en…

Not in the startup world beyond what I pick up on HN, but this distinction was helpful. My mental model going forward: - If a company is still validating the business model and optimizing for rapid growth, it’s typically a Venture Capitalist (VC) fit. - If a company is already established and the play is to improve operations, scale, or restructure (often involving a change of control), it’s typically a Private Equit…

Reminder that restructure often means a company working just fine, but whose assets outstrip what PE can buy it for, so they strip it to the bones. Or they leverage it with debt against assets then pay that money to themselves for consulting, account/hr services that they force the company to outsource to other PE companies. Nothing is 'created' through this process, no value created/added, nor it is healthy capitalism as the company could have continued fine without this added leveraged debt that was purely used to profit PE.

Re: Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday

#240

Post by johnnyanmac »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #214
joelthelion wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have there been any serious legal efforts to make this less profitable? It's very clearly detrimental to society.

Private equity (what's being described here) has more political influence than "society" because money.

Society has more money and way more votes than PE. I'm going to quote A Bugs Life (1998) of all things here:

> Hopper: You let one ant stand up to us, then they all might stand up! Those puny little ants outnumber us a hundred to one and if they ever figure that out there goes our way of life! It's not about food, it's about keeping those ants in line.

In our case, it's more like a million to one

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