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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

#381

Post by supoxblade »

Nextgrid wrote: post #358
makeitrain wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a company that makes a flat $20 mil per year, how long will it take to make back the $1.4 billion they paid for it?

Presumably Bending Spoons believes they can optimize a lot of that 400M expenses while keeping revenue flat or even growing it. At least they believe enough to make a 1.4B bet on it.

Maybe?

This sounds more like a reverse mortgage line of business, to me. Bending Spoons is betting they can eek enough revenue out of Vimeo to pay the interest on the $1.4B loan by cutting the $400M expense run rate.

The actual loan principal will be paid out (if it ever does) of the money they expect to bring in when they inevitably go to an IPO.

And at that point you have speculators carrying risk, bankers getting rich off interest, leadership raking in millions, and a once reasonably healthy business is jeopardized (subject to the performance of other Bending Spoons properties, risky management, etc). All in the name of growth that may or may not be achievable.

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

#382

Post by johnnyanmac »

Invictus0 wrote: post #219
cowsandmilk wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing the bending spoons ceo said isn’t true. They are still operating Vimeo.

There's a large contingent on hacker news that still thinks it's some kind of moral failure to fire people

It's a moral failure to fire people without any notice for reasons unrelated to your company failining and not being able to afford you, yes. Let's not mince words here.

There are proper ways to let go of people, but that's not how it's done in the US.

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

#383

Post by johnnyanmac »

fsckboy wrote: post #350
mindslight wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as long as people engaged in a market make their own choices, then money is a direct measure of happiness on the margin That is a big if which is straightforwardly false. This idea of market participants' choices being entirely free rests on the efficient market fallacy [0]. Whereas the reality is that even the structure of a market itself creates friction. One of the main points of business schools is learning how…

> This idea of market participants' choices being entirely free rests on the efficient market fallacy in an inefficient market, you can still choose to transact or not, and you will only do so if you feel you will benefit. in an efficient market, the net benefit across society will be higher, but nothing in what I said requires an efficient market. so you are simply wrong.

>in an inefficient market, you can still choose to transact or not

And if everybody chooses to not transact, you have a market crash. So... waves at 2026/2027

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

#384

Post by johnnyanmac »

Invictus0 wrote: post #313
Quarrelsome wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

some people look at business as making money for the sake of making money. However other people look at making money as a means to better society. This goes back over a century to the Quaker run businesses, like Lloyds, Rowntree, Cadburys, etc. You can imagine if your ultimate aim was to improve society, then acquiring a firm but having to sack a bunch of employees as somewhat of a failure.

Option A: the business goes bankrupt, investors lose money, customers lose the product, all employees get fired. Option B: the business stays afloat, investors make money, customers keep the product, some employees get fired with a severance. You think option A is superior?

Your options are too coarse. There's good and bad ways to get fired (and there's nothing here saying they got a severance to begin with). How about a 3 month warning? How about guaranteeing a 6 or more month severance after those 3 monhts? How about even before this sell goes through you make sure employees benefit from the 1.4b with more than "well my company stock got a tiny bump"?

What I see here is "Business stays afloat, investes make money for now, customers get a continually worse service and eventually leave, and a lot of good talent is out on the streets over corporate greed". This is only a win if you're an investor, and only in the short term. So I'm not convinced this is better than option A in the long term.

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

#385

Post by johnnyanmac »

x0x0 wrote: post #284
serf wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not immoral to fire people. it's immoral to lie to people. very few people can do the mental gymnastics required to equate " we look forward to realizing Vimeo’s full potential as we reach new heights together " to "you're all getting fired." at some point in the now far-distant past CEOs used to make heartfelt speeches and memos to a soon-to-be-downsized staff about how hard decisions had to be made and blah-bl…

Bending Spoon's business model has been -- at least for a decade -- buying companies that didn't operate profitably; stopping or slowing ongoing eng investments; and operating them profitably. Often that involves raising prices, but everyone is adults here. Nobody lied. Vimeo will continue to operate, and probably will even have targeted ongoing development.

We just demontrated why it was a lie. Gaslighting the workers with "well you should have known he was a liar" does not absolve the liar of lying.

>and probably will even have targeted ongoing development.

well, 15 of them or so.

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

#386

Post by johnnyanmac »

csallen wrote: post #292
Remnant44 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you may be correct in the sense that, in a public acquisition statement, people should be inferring enormous context and not taking anything said at face value. It's simultaneously true that this is the farthest thing from effective, honest, and clear communication. Reading between the lines here is required precisely because we all know that any acquisition statements made are, at best heavily coded, if not co…

Yeah I agree, I don't think anyone is a fan of this fluff

You'd be surprised, even by navigating in this comment section. I guess they continue to do it because it works. Or because they no longer care about public sentiment.

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

#387

Post by CadmiumYellow »

maint wrote: post #269
cowsandmilk wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing the bending spoons ceo said isn’t true. They are still operating Vimeo.

I worked at one of the companies that were acquired by Bending Spoons and really the only positive things I can say about them is: They are honest and stick to their word. It's a shitty business model, run by people who do not, in any way shape or form, care about people at all. But they are honest. So if you work at a company and BS comes knocking: relax, accept the severance money and start looking for something ne…

Same and I can cosign all of the above

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

#388

Post by johnnyanmac »

Invictus0 wrote: post #311
bagels wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously sometimes a business is unsustainable, and it's unavoidable, but it's pretty sociopathic to not consider that people are harmed by being laid off.

They are literally not harmed. The end of an at-will employment agreement is not a harm.

>The end of an at-will employment agreement is not a harm.

So if you got fired tomorrow for no reason in particular, you would not feel "harmed"? No family to support, bills to pay, or career to progress cut short? No trips nor big purchases that need to be re-planed or cancelled? No obligations you need to cancel because last week you were fine and this week it's all about scambling for a new job? This is the most asinine thing I've heard here yet.

I didn't have a choice in my society on what contract to take. And the power dynamic is unequal. I don't consider being suddenly laid off as "harmless" with that in mind.

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

#389

Post by johnnyanmac »

csallen wrote: post #264
onemoresoop wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"excited about this partnership, which we believe will unlock even greater focus for our team and customers as we continue to strive towards our global mission to be the most innovative and trusted video platform in the world for businesses" There's no hint of laying off all the staff here though. Now it sounds like they "were" excited to lay off people to maximize profits. Maybe "unlock even greater focus for our te…

> There's no hint of laying off all the staff here though. Now it sounds like they "were" excited to lay off people to maximize profits. What? Just because a statement says "we're excited to do X" doesn't mean they're not also planning to do A, B, C, Y and Z. I'm not defending the layoff. It just seems weird to interpret the statement itself as somehow being misleading about a subject that it literally didn't mention…

There's letter and spirit of the word. You're arguing against the spirit of the word because the letter of the word is technically impossible to prove as a lie right now.

We call this lawful evil logic for a reason. It's how you empower stuff like Jim Crow laws (or the current US administration in general. "Well he isn't going to actually invade a NATO ally, he's just saying he wants Greenland. I want a Ferrari!")

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

#390

Post by aetherson »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #378
aetherson wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the owners were paid by the sale . The argument by other people was that the sale shouldn't happen, or vice versa that the sale should happen only to people who were committed to continuing to spend the company's money on supporting employees who are stipulated to not be adding much value (and, thus, are not willing to pay much for the company). Guys, I totally get it. Nobody likes to be laid off. I was laid off…

> the owners were paid by the sale. the owners didn't have shares in their company? they weren't paid for their labor? They only get money when they sell off and are working for free out of a labor of love until then? >The argument by other people was that the sale shouldn't happen... I guess it wasn't in this chain, but my argument was focused on the human element. I don't care if the owners got a trillion dollars a…

The founders are probably not the owners of a large majority of the business. Most of the owners are not drawing any salary.

Look, lying is bad sure. It would be better if they had been honest in November. But nobody here is actually arguing that the layoffs are fine, they're only mad about the comms.

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