"Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. The private equity model has struck again-this time, even more quickly and mercilessly than usual. Vimeo, the pioneering American online-video platform beloved by visual storytellers of all stripes, has laid off large swaths of its global staff just four months after its $1.38 billion acquisition by Italian tech developer Bending Spoons."
"At the time of the purchase, Vimeo CEO Philip Moyer had claimed that "Bending Spoons has tremendous respect" for his employees and was "committed to expanding our product across all segments." The Milan-based company appeared to back this up at first, with its CEO describing his business as "acquiring companies with the expectation of owning and operating them indefinitely.""
Bending Spoons acquired Vimeo for $1.38 billion and laid off more than 1,000 employees worldwide four months after the purchase. Promises of respecting staff and expanding products gave way to sweeping cuts that included the entire video team, according to ex-employees and a former 13-year engineer. The mass layoffs raise doubts about Vimeo's operational continuity, the preservation of a two-decade archive of influential videos and films, and the many services that depend on Vimeo's software. The rapid gutting intensifies precarity for filmmakers and creators already contending with industry shifts and pressures from AI-driven changes.
Read at Slate Magazine
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