Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by Beretta_Vexee » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:40 PM UTC

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…

For example, they bought the German hiking and cycling app Komoot. It's a mature app in terms of functionality, with a stable user base. There's little chance of hypergrowth with this type of app. It's also complicated to switch apps because transferring routes, collections, photos, etc. to another service is difficult.

They laid off 90% of the teams. They migrated the app to their infrastructure to pool costs. Since then, there has been no further development of the service.

They are cost killers of the internet.

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

#52

Post by pc86 » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #47

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…

It is called bait and switch. And the company name referring to bending spoons (Uri Geller) gives away the way they see themselves.

Bait and switch is something completely different.

If you started buying Evernote 10 or 15 years ago, and use it a lot, then Evernote gets acquired and the terms change, that's shitty but is not remotely a "bait and switch."

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

#53

Post by bachmeier » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

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…

One of the advantages of their business model is that it's low risk. Find a business you can get cheap enough, shut off all investment related to growth or product improvement, and use the product's moat to get as much cash as possible from current customers. Business doesn't have to be about expanding into new markets or growing revenue. If I had to guess, there's not much of a market for the companies they're acquiring because everyone else is looking for growth.

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

#54

Post by BizarroLand » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

VladVladikoff wrote: post #39

xnx wrote: post #32

What is Vimeo for as compared to YouTube or self-hosting video files?

Our business uses Vimeo because we get a discounted rate on acami CDN via their bulk purchasing power. YouTube is free but that comes with a lot of headaches. For example not being able to hide the recommended videos at the end of a video, which annoyed our clients in the past when we did use YouTube. YouTube also needs to be public to be embeddable, which also created issues for us. However this announcement has me…

If it's a small number of videos, specifically ones that are unlikely to go viral, then a self-hosted or externally paid hosted peertube site might be a good option.

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

#55

Post by moralestapia » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

What I've always found unusual (but not necessarily bad) about BS is ... how come a company that came out of nowhere starts buying tech companies here and there? Billion dollar deals? In cash?

It can't be just a few "enthusiastic" random guys (as they portray), you need a lot of capital to pull that off.

IMO they're someone's family office with an obfuscated name.

Edit: and my comment suddenly goes to the bottom despite having several upvotes ... definitely not sus.

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

#56

Post by reactordev » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

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…

The growth comes from increasing subscription value, not from adding users. They bet that the platform is sticky enough for the users that they’ll slowly boil the frog until there’s no more equity left.

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

#57

Post by ratelimitsteve » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

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…

you're absolutely right, they're not positioned for expansion or growth. you're very close to seeing the private capital dark pattern that's become a huge part of our economics lately. let me illustrate for you how they make money by decoupling the company's success from the investors' success

1) borrow a bunch of money to buy the company - this is called a leveraged buyout

2) once you're in control, have the company assume the debt you took on in order to buy it. you as the buyer are now free and clear, and the company is now responsible for paying back the money you borrowed to buy it. the end result of this transaction is that the company now owns stock that is less desirable because the company is more leveraged

3) make huge cuts everywhere and use the money "saved" by divesting from your own future to pay yourself as a consultant

The company is now in the extremely fragile position of not being able to spend to respond to the market because all of their income is going to servicing debt and paying the members of the private capital group. the "investors" aren't actually invested at all because even if the stock they hold becomes worthless they didn't pay anything for it in the first place, the company did. the thing limps along for as long as it can keep bringing in some small amount of income for the "investors" to skim off the top of, then it inevitably dies like anything riddled with parasites will, the company declares bankruptcy and they sell the copper out of the walls in order to pay back the loan used to take the company private in the first place

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

#58

Post by tonyedgecombe » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #29

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…

Elon Musk acquired Twitter and fired %80 of the employees and it was just fine. I bet there's so many more people that can be let go from all tech industry. It's mature and product discovery is mostly locked behind advertisement so what's left is exploitation. If you think about it, as long as you don't mingle much with the product that works it keeps working indefinitely. It's no different than running Excel or What…

If it wasn’t for all the political histrionics we would all be celebrating Elon’s amazing abilities.

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

#59

Post by Beretta_Vexee » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

Recursing wrote: post #44

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…

My best guess is that a part of it is replacing US (or in this case Israeli) devs with much cheaper Italian/European ones, earning ~a quarter of their US counterparts and working longer hours, as Bending Spoons has an extremely competitive hiring process, and is probably the highest paying tech company in Italy

They are also very good at pooling their infrastructure and software stack. This accounts for a significant portion of the costs.

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

#60

Post by solarkraft » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

TheChaplain wrote: post #18

I have no hope for Vimeo. BS took over Evernote and I cancelled the subscription after a year. Their idea of value for the customer vs the price is not realistic.

Bending Spoons: Wow, they gave us money for a year!