2022 was a rough year for Vimeo, and the video platform is starting 2023 on its heels. Its CEO, Anjali Sud, has announced a round of layoffs that will affect 11% of employees.
Vimeo, which will celebrate its 19th birthday this year, has had a long career as an alternative online video platform aimed at businesses and indie creators. However, like many digital media companies, Vimeo has struggled to keep up with volatile economic conditions over the past two years. In a note sent to her employees, Sud cited “prolonged geopolitical conflict, rising interest rates, and global recession fears” as factors in “a further deterioration in economic conditions.”
“This was a very hard decision that impacts each of us deeply,” Sud wrote. “It is also the right thing to do to enable Vimeo to be a more focused and successful company, operating with the necessary discipline in an uncertain economic environment. It positions us to both invest in our growth priorities and be sustainably profitable while continuing to innovate to bring the power of video to every business in the world.”
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For most of its existence, Vimeo was owned by InterActiveCorp (IAC), the NYC-based holding company chaired by Barry Diller. In 2021, IAC turned Vimeo into a standalone company, and the video platform went public that year. Vimeo’s time on the Nasdaq exchange has been nothing short of disastrous. It had a market capitalization of about $8.5 billion shortly after its IPO. At the time of this post, that figure is down to about $585 million.
Vimeo’s financial woes have led to several rounds of layoffs. In July 2022, 6% of its team was let go. Six months later, more downsizing has come. In December 2021, the company reported a workforce of 1,219 full-time employees.
Sud, who took over as Vimeo CEO in 2017, will now have to plot a way forward for her beleaguered company. In her note to employees, she identified two specific priorities for the coming year. Vimeo will reinforce its self-serve platform while also investing in Vimeo Enterprise, one of its business-facing products.
Though the upcoming will be tough sledding for Sud, she’s not the only CEO reckoning with job cuts. Other companies that delivered pink slips at the start of 2023 include Amazon and Salesforce.
