Vimeo just lost most of its staff, including open source contributors

Vimeo this month carried out mass layoffs affecting what sources describe as the vast majority of its workforce, together with your complete video engineering group accountable for core platform infrastructure. The cuts occurred lower than 4 months after Bending Spoons acquired the video platform for $1.38 billion in an all-cash transaction introduced September 10, 2025.

Derek Buitenhuis, a former Vimeo engineer who left after the acquisition announcement, posted on January 21, 2026, that “virtually everybody at Vimeo was laid off yesterday, together with your complete video group.” In keeping with the submit, Buitenhuis had already departed earlier than the January 20 layoffs. A number of affected staff confirmed the dismissals by way of social media channels, with some indicating they have been amongst contributors to FFmpeg, the open supply multimedia framework that powers video processing throughout a lot of the web.

The FFmpeg project, which describes itself as “the main multimedia framework,” responded on to the layoffs. “Many Vimeo workers have been FFmpeg contributors,” the undertaking said in a January 22 submit. The timing creates explicit concern inside the open supply group on condition that FFmpeg individually introduced it faces sustainability challenges from an awesome quantity of low-quality bug experiences allegedly generated by way of synthetic intelligence instruments.

How the acquisition unfolded from announcement to elimination

Bending Spoons, primarily based in Milan, paid $7.85 per share for Vimeo’s excellent inventory. The acquisition value represented a 91% premium over Vimeo’s 60-day volume-weighted common share value as of September 9, 2025. Glenn Schiffman, Vimeo’s board chairman, characterised the transaction as delivering “compelling, sure worth to Vimeo shareholders.”

The definitive settlement included normal language about Vimeo’s “gifted engineers” and dedication to the creator group. In keeping with the September announcement, Bending Spoons CEO Luca Ferrari said the corporate acquires companies “with the expectation of proudly owning and working them indefinitely.” Ferrari particularly promised “bold investments within the US and different precedence markets, and all key areas of the enterprise, spanning each the creator and enterprise choices.”

That dedication lasted 132 days earlier than the reported mass terminations.

Bending Spoons carried out an preliminary discount of 10% of Vimeo’s workforce instantly following the November 2024 completion date. In keeping with Enterprise Insider reporting cited in German publication heise on-line, the January 2026 layoffs symbolize a second, considerably bigger wave of eliminations. The Italian firm confirmed layoffs occurred however declined to specify the variety of affected positions.

Former staff reported the cuts prolonged throughout a number of departments. One engineer famous that departures included specialists in video encoding, streaming infrastructure, content material supply, and platform structure – the technical experience that differentiated Vimeo as a video platform somewhat than a generic internet hosting service.

Why FFmpeg contributions matter past one firm

FFmpeg processes video for YouTube, Netflix, VLC media participant, Chrome browsers, and numerous different purposes requiring multimedia capabilities. The framework helps hundreds of video and audio codecs, container codecs, and streaming protocols. When FFmpeg contributors lose their positions, the affect extends past their rapid employer.

In keeping with FFmpeg’s web site, the undertaking “tries to offer the most effective technically potential answer for builders of purposes and finish customers alike.” The framework contains libavcodec for encoding and decoding, libavformat for multimedia container dealing with, libavfilter for media filtering, and different libraries that purposes combine to course of video and audio. The command-line instruments ffmpeg, ffplay, and ffprobe serve finish customers for transcoding and playback.

Vimeo employed engineers with deep experience in video compression, transcoding pipelines, and adaptive bitrate streaming – exactly the domains the place FFmpeg requires ongoing growth. The corporate processed billions of video views month-to-month, offering real-world testing grounds for codec implementations and streaming optimizations.

Ben Adelman, who labored at Vimeo from 2022 to 2024, offered context in regards to the firm’s situation earlier than personal fairness involvement. “The corporate was in critical decline lengthy earlier than PE stepped in,” based on a January 23 submit. Adelman famous that CEO Anjali Sud took Vimeo public however “development didn’t materialize after COVID and the inventory changed into a penny inventory inside a 12 months.”

The decline Adelman described helps clarify why Bending Spoons acquired Vimeo at what seemed to be a considerable premium. The 91% enhance over the 60-day common got here from a inventory that had crashed from public market enthusiasm to penny inventory standing. What regarded like generosity represented opportunistic buying of distressed know-how property.

The Bending Spoons playbook: purchase, remove, automate

Bending Spoons has executed this sample throughout quite a few acquisitions since 2013. The corporate acquired Evernote in November 2022, then laid off your complete U.S. workforce in July 2023 and relocated operations to Europe. The corporate acquired Meetup in January 2024, adopted by workforce reductions. WeTransfer’s acquisition in July 2024 preceded bulletins that 75% of workers can be eradicated.

In keeping with Wikipedia documentation of Bending Spoons’ historical past, the sample extends throughout FiLMiC Professional (acquired September 2022, authentic group of twenty-two laid off by December 2023), Mosaic Group (acquired January 2024, complete 330-person workforce terminated as they weren’t included within the asset buy), and a number of different transactions.

The corporate raised roughly $700 million in fairness and $3 billion in debt financing to fund these acquisitions. Bending Spoons operates with considerably decrease labor prices by relocating operations to Italy and different European places the place engineering salaries stay far beneath Silicon Valley requirements.

Luca Ferrari, in social media discussions in regards to the firm’s technique, acknowledged the strategy however emphasised that Bending Spoons pays aggressive salaries in Italian context. “Whereas Italy’s salaries aren’t as excessive as different nations, to rent prime expertise we have to be aggressive on the world/European stage so we pay prime salaries,” Ferrari said.

Trade observers characterize the mannequin as basic software program asset optimization: buy underperforming companies with actual consumer bases, remove costly labor, relocate engineering to lower-cost markets, enhance subscription costs, and function with minimal staffing. The technique maximizes short-term profitability no matter long-term product sustainability.

What customers observed when the cuts occurred

Vimeo’s web site started displaying new messaging describing itself as an “AI-powered video platform” across the identical time because the layoffs. Customers observed the terminology change and related it to the workers eliminations. The timing recommended Bending Spoons plans to interchange human engineering experience with automated programs.

Vimeo was based in 2004, making it barely older than YouTube. The corporate positioned itself as a premium various emphasizing video high quality and serving skilled creators. IAC bought Vimeo in 2006 and more and more oriented the platform towards enterprise purposes. Vimeo went public as an impartial firm in 2021.

The enterprise struggled to compete with YouTube’s scale and community results. Regardless of positioning for enterprise prospects {and professional} creators, Vimeo by no means achieved the income development public markets demanded. The inventory declined from its 2021 preliminary public providing value of $10 per share to penny inventory territory earlier than Bending Spoons’ acquisition supply.

Skilled video creators expressed frustration with the shift towards AI positioning. “Place your self as a filmmaker platform for years after which do the one factor that can make each filmmaker go mad, that is excessive stage trolling,” one consumer commented. One other characterised the acquisition consequence as “killed by personal fairness in a know-how firm pores and skin swimsuit.”

The AI messaging raised questions on whether or not Bending Spoons intends to automate video processing, transcoding, and platform operations beforehand dealt with by specialised engineers. Whereas synthetic intelligence can carry out some routine video duties, advanced encoding optimization, codec implementation, and streaming infrastructure usually require human experience.

The place the open supply group stands after these cuts

FFmpeg individually faces challenges stemming from what the undertaking characterised as a flood of low-quality bug experiences. The undertaking posted on January 22 that “FFmpeg suffers from the identical points” going through Daniel Stenberg’s cURL undertaking, which introduced plans to doubtlessly shut down its bug bounty program as a consequence of AI-generated spam submissions.

In keeping with FFmpeg’s submit, the undertaking now receives quite a few submissions that seem generated by giant language fashions somewhat than real safety researchers. These experiences eat maintainer time investigating points that do not exist or duplicate beforehand reported issues. The scenario grew to become extreme sufficient that FFmpeg publicly declared solidarity with Stenberg’s choice.

The mixture of expert contributors dropping employment and spam experiences consuming remaining maintainers’ time creates sustainability considerations for important open supply infrastructure. FFmpeg has no company backing corresponding to Linux Basis help for the Linux kernel or Microsoft’s funding in Git growth.

Vimeo’s former engineering group included specialists in video codec optimization, streaming protocol implementation, and large-scale transcoding infrastructure – experience straight relevant to FFmpeg growth. These engineers contributed enhancements primarily based on challenges encountered processing billions of video views, offering real-world validation of codec implementations and streaming methods.

When corporations remove complete engineering groups, open supply initiatives lose greater than particular person contributors. They lose institutional data, testing infrastructure, and drawback discovery that comes from working at scale. A group processing Vimeo’s video quantity encounters edge instances and optimization alternatives that builders engaged on smaller purposes by no means see.

The layoffs occurred throughout a interval when video know-how faces vital challenges. New codec requirements together with AV1 and VVC require ongoing implementation work. Streaming protocols proceed evolving to deal with larger resolutions and decrease latencies. Content material safety and digital rights administration create technical complexity. All of those areas profit from engineers employed by corporations processing large video volumes.

What comes subsequent for the folks and the platform

Affected staff started trying to find new positions throughout the know-how business. Buitenhuis famous that “there are a number of in the marketplace” for corporations looking for “gifted engineers.” A number of recruitment efforts appeared on social media providing roles at corporations needing video experience.

Matt Taylor, with a media group at an unnamed firm, posted about “no less than one FE engineering function on our media group open” and included an software hyperlink. Others prolonged provides to attach affected staff with alternatives at their organizations.

Vimeo will function with considerably diminished headcount beneath Bending Spoons possession. The corporate serves hundreds of thousands of customers and hundreds of enterprise prospects who rely on video internet hosting infrastructure. Whether or not the platform can keep service high quality and have growth with a skeleton workers stays unsure.

The enterprise mannequin seems to shift towards extracting most income from present prospects somewhat than growing new capabilities. Bending Spoons has demonstrated willingness to lift costs considerably throughout acquired properties whereas lowering function growth funding.

For the video platform market, the elimination of Vimeo’s engineering group removes a major competitor to YouTube and different internet hosting companies. Regardless of by no means attaining YouTube’s scale, Vimeo offered an alternate for creators and companies looking for completely different options, pricing constructions, and platform insurance policies.

The January 2026 layoffs concluded a four-month interval from acquisition announcement to workforce elimination. Bending Spoons acquired a functioning video platform with established know-how infrastructure and eradicated the general public who constructed and maintained that infrastructure. What stays is a group of software program programs and buyer contracts operated by a minimal workers reporting to Milan headquarters.

Timeline

• 2004: Vimeo based in New York Metropolis
• 2006: IAC acquires Vimeo
• 2013: Bending Spoons based in Copenhagen, later relocates to Milan
• 2021: Vimeo goes public as impartial firm
• November 2022: Bending Spoons acquires Evernote, begins sample of post-acquisition workforce reductions
• September 10, 2025: Vimeo publicizes settlement to be acquired by Bending Spoons for $1.38 billion ($7.85 per share)
• November 2025: Acquisition closes, Bending Spoons conducts preliminary 10% workforce discount
• January 20, 2026: Mass layoffs remove substantial portion of Vimeo workforce together with complete video group
• January 21, 2026: Derek Buitenhuis publicly discloses layoffs on social media
• January 22, 2026: FFmpeg undertaking confirms many Vimeo workers have been contributors to open supply multimedia framework
• January 23, 2026: Bending Spoons confirms layoffs occurred however declines to specify variety of positions affected

Abstract

Who: Bending Spoons, an Italian know-how conglomerate primarily based in Milan, carried out mass layoffs at Vimeo affecting the vast majority of the video platform’s workforce. Affected staff included your complete video engineering group and a number of contributors to the FFmpeg open supply undertaking. Derek Buitenhuis, a former Vimeo engineer, publicly disclosed the cuts.

What: Vimeo eradicated what sources describe as most of its workers in a second wave of layoffs following the November 2025 acquisition completion. The cuts affected video engineers, streaming specialists, platform builders, and different technical roles accountable for core infrastructure. The eliminations occurred roughly 132 days after Bending Spoons CEO Luca Ferrari promised “bold investments” within the enterprise.

When: The layoffs occurred on January 20, 2026, lower than 4 months after Bending Spoons introduced the $1.38 billion acquisition on September 10, 2025, and roughly two months after the November 2025 transaction closing. An preliminary 10% workforce discount had occurred instantly following the acquisition’s completion.

The place: Vimeo, based in New York Metropolis in 2004, operated as a video internet hosting platform serving hundreds of thousands of customers and hundreds of enterprise prospects globally. Bending Spoons operates from Milan, Italy, and usually relocates acquired corporations’ operations to European places with decrease labor prices than United States know-how hubs.

Why: The layoffs comply with Bending Spoons’ established acquisition sample throughout Evernote, Meetup, WeTransfer, FiLMiC Professional, and different know-how properties. The corporate’s mannequin entails buying underperforming software program companies, eliminating costly workforces, relocating operations to lower-cost markets, elevating subscription costs, and working with minimal staffing to maximise profitability. The technique displays personal fairness approaches that prioritize short-term monetary optimization over long-term product growth.