Vimeo Is Being Gutted: Bending Spoons Begins Post-Acquisition Purge
Just months after Bending Spoons cut a $1.38 billion check for Vimeo, the "Spoons" treatment has arrived. On January 22, 2026, the Italian conglomerate began a drastic downsizing of the video-hosting pioneer’s workforce. While leadership describes the move as a "workforce optimization" designed to streamline operations, the reality on the ground is a swift and brutal reduction of the team that built the platform’s identity.
Bending Spoons has stayed quiet on the exact number of job losses, but internal reports and high-level departures suggest a bloodbath. The scale of the gutting became public as former executives, including the VP of Global Brand and Creative, took to LinkedIn to announce they were part of a "large portion" of the staff being shown the door.
The "AI Innovation" Smoke Screen
This restructuring follows a year where Vimeo desperately tried to find its footing. Throughout 2025, the platform leaned into specialized creator tools, culminating in an October launch of AI-powered workflows for automated editing and script-writing.
The Bending Spoons Playbook: From Evernote to Vimeo
This aggressive dismantling is the standard operating procedure for the Milan-based conglomerate. Bending Spoons has built its empire by acquiring established but stagnating tech icons and cutting them to the bone to extract profit.
The parallels to their previous acquisitions are unmistakable:
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Evernote: After the 2023 takeover, Bending Spoons laid off nearly the entire original U.S. and Chilean staff, moving operations to Europe and hiking subscription prices.
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Meetup: The platform saw a similar "restructuring" that prioritized lean operations over the community-heavy focus that users had spent a decade building.
In this latest round, non-engineering departments like marketing and brand are the primary targets. While engineering and AI development are reportedly "protected," the loss of institutional knowledge is immense. This isn't about building a better Vimeo; it’s about applying a cold, mathematical formula to a creative asset.
The End of the "Staff Pick" Era?
For two decades, Vimeo was the prestigious alternative to YouTube—a "filmmaker’s platform" defined by its human touch. The "Staff Picks" badge was the highest honor in the indie film world, a curation process handled by real people with real taste.
With a significant segment of the brand and creative teams now gone, the future of that culture is in jeopardy. Bending Spoons notes that services remain stable, but stability is a low bar for a company that was once the soul of the independent internet. As the platform shifts toward being a streamlined, AI-first utility, it risks alienating the loyal base that valued the "human" element of the brand.
If the "Staff Picks" and community support are replaced by algorithms and automated support bots, Vimeo may survive as a profitable utility, but it will cease to exist as a community. The tension is clear: Bending Spoons is building a high-efficiency machine, but they may be killing the brand to save the business.