Today I sent the following email to all Vimeo employees.

Dear Vimeans,

Today I have hard news to share: after careful consideration, we have made the decision to reduce our workforce by 6%. We are making this decision in order to ensure we come out of this economic downturn a stronger company.

Our people are what makes Vimeo great, and losing any of them is a personal failure that I feel deeply. But after assessing the challenging market conditions and uncertainty ahead, I believe this is the responsible action to take. It is the right thing to do, but still a painful outcome that impacts the jobs and lives of people we care about and have worked with side-by-side.

How did we get here? In recent months you have asked about layoffs, and I have said that we would do everything we could to avoid this situation. I have also said that we have cash in the bank and a supportive board that trusts us to operate smartly and with agility. All this remains true. Our leadership team has spent a lot of time looking at scenarios for how to best position Vimeo with the appropriate amount of financial flexibility during this period. We slowed hiring, both at the start of the year and more recently, and have been actively evaluating and shifting our investments and expenses. And we committed to reassessing our financial position at the end of the quarter based on what we see. The reality is that the challenging economic conditions around us have impacted our business. We must assume that these conditions will remain challenged for the foreseeable future, and that we aren’t immune. So while we’ve intentionally taken action across other expense areas first, it’s become clear that we also have to look at our largest area of investment, our team.

We have tried to be as thoughtful as possible in determining how much, where and who would be impacted today. It is worth saying that these decisions were not based on blanket cuts across the board, but rather on a small number of structural areas of the business where we have decided to adjust our focus. I know all of this doesn’t make it any easier, especially for those we are losing. But our vision is only as strong as our ability to execute effectively and sustainably, and these were the strategic choices we had to make.

We have spoken with each Vimean affected by this decision, and our People team and managers will be working with them 1:1 to ensure they are supported and cared for through this transition. Each departing Vimean will be receiving:

  • A minimum of 12 weeks of pay plus additional time depending on tenure;
  • An extended timeframe to exercise their equity;
  • Cobra health coverage for medical, dental, and vision in the U.S.;
  • Mental wellbeing support; and
  • Job transition support including professional outplacement services and support through #Alumneo, a new alumni community we’re standing up

We won’t be openly sharing the names of impacted employees and will leave that to each individual and their manager to determine how they want to share. But we have incredible people leaving Vimeo who we want to make sure are set up for success in finding their next job opportunity. Our leadership team and I will use our networks and relationships to help do that, and we encourage anyone who wants to help to leverage their business contacts and make introductions as they can. We’ll be sharing some ways to do this in our #announcements Slack channel.

We will gather as a company tomorrow to answer your immediate questions and walk you through where we are adjusting our priorities with these changes. Department leads will also be holding impromptu town halls over the coming days. Finally, we will be publishing this email on our blog and I will be posting it on LinkedIn for transparency.

To those who are leaving us — I want to express my sincere gratitude to you, for everything you’ve built to get Vimeo to where it is today. You have helped us grow, innovate and bring the power of video to millions. Thank you.

To our team that is staying — I know this is a difficult day for you too. We are parting ways with respected coworkers and friends, and I am sure you will feel uncertainty and some fear about what comes next. I want you to know that I believe in Vimeo and our future. These changes are happening in order to make us stronger, and the best thing we can do is honor our colleagues’ contributions by continuing to build Vimeo and help our customers unlock the power of video. Our leadership team is wholly committed to our strategy, our ability to win in an enormous and early market, and our desire to build a team and company that we can be immensely proud of. We won’t stop giving it our all until we realize Vimeo’s full potential.

Sincerely,
Anjali