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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bending_Spoons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bending_Spoons Interesting comment from last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item

by neom 1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bending_Spoons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bending_Spoons Interesting comment from last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38968476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38968476

JohnClark1337 1y ago
So companies go there to die
- jimnotgym 1y ago
  Another way to look at it: When a companies bubble bursts, when people realise that it is just a note taking app (or whatever), and that its never going to grow 10x again, VC investors want shot of it. Without a constant stream of new investment, the company simply can't afford to be loaded up with SV staff producing features that nobody will pay for. Bending Spoons change the business model to 'normal business'. They move to much cheaper European staff, stop work on nonsense 'features', concentrate instead on servicing their existing customers with a stable platform and well thought out incremental advances. So they take businesses that are dying because nobody will give them free money any more, and make them into real sustainable businesses that can stand on their own two feet?
  - xandrius 1y ago
    Nono, this is a pro-scammer point of view. They absolutely go for a minimal upkeep, maximum dark patterns strategy. It's not about sustainable business, they are literally enshittifiers. I know quite a few employees, they literally debate whether a UX change to make a X to close a payment modal almost invisible is "too evil or not" and they go with it anyway. So, we're not kind to companies who ruin their product for a short-term revenue increase then why all this positive spin for a company whose business model is to do exactly and only that?
kbar13 1y ago
holy smokes this is worse for consumers and employees than being bought by PE
pavel_lishin 1y ago
> In November 2022, Bending Spoons agreed to acquire Evernote.[19] The acquisition was concluded in January 2023.[20] In July 2023, Evernote laid off all of its existing staff and announced it would relocate to Europe to be closer to Bending Spoons' headquarters.[21] Damn.
- marstall 1y ago
  How does that possibly work? How do they continue with zero of the staff?
  - everfrustrated 1y ago
    They replaced them with staff in Italy. Bending Spoons is an Italian (Milan) company. They wanted the product not the developers.
  - amiga386 1y ago
    Simple. They get new staff whose job is to shove intrusive surveillance and advertising into the product and push out an update, they don't have to support or develop the product. The company bought the product to bilk money out of its existing users. They throw the product in the bin once all the users have gone. Sadly, some ants get infected with corydceps. Tragic for the ant, but the other ants get it the fuck away from their colony, because they don't want to be next.
    - mtgentry 1y ago
      As an Evernote user, Bending Spoons has been iterating fast over the past couple years to improve the product. It’s much better than it used to be.
      - sentientslug 1y ago
        What the value prop of continuing to use Evernote versus other newer solutions like Notion? Interested to hear from someone still using the product
qingcharles 1y ago
I'm still waiting to see how they complete destroy Vimeo they just bought.
dancc 1y ago
Someone wrote about Bending Spoons' history and playbook: https://www.colinkeeley.com/blog/bending-spoons-operating-manual https://www.colinkeeley.com/blog/bending-spoons-operating-ma... I enjoyed this part: No On-Call Rotations: Bending Spoons aims to build systems so reliable that they eliminate the need for on-call rotations. This is unusual in the tech industry, where on-call duties are standard to promptly address system issues. For most of their products, they have no on-call schemes at all. Engineers are encouraged to think through all corner cases to ensure robustness, knowing there is no fallback like an on-call team.
- everfrustrated 1y ago
  I wonder if that's got lost in translation somewhere. I can understand not having on-call operations teams (an anti-pattern) but not having anyone on call at any time seems unlikely. Unless they mean to say its part of all devs job expectations and not a paid extra.
  - veidr 1y ago
    I don't want to imply Bending Spoons is this awesome, as I know nothing much about them (except that they named their company after a weird scam, lol), but there's a pretty reasonable principle that might apply here: If our service goes down for any reason, uh... wait until Monday afternoon, then try again. (Sorry!) Like, who would die if AOL was down for 36 hours?
    - mikeyouse 1y ago
      I think they’re actually named after the scene in the matrix where the little kid (and then Neo) can bend the spoon with their mind.
      - veidr 1y ago
        Oh! LOL that's admittedly cooler than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller
croisillon 1y ago
oh wow and they got Vimeo and WeTransfer too!?
- dotcoma 1y ago
  And Komoot and Meetup, and of course Evernote.
  - kryptoncalm 1y ago
    Relevant coverage of some acquisitions doesn’t bode well for AOL staff: 1. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bending-spoons-lay-off-75-185112831.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bending-spoons-lay-off-75-185... 2. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/route-planning-app-komoot-sold-after-it-expands-paywall-job-losses-could-follow/ar-AA1BojLK https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/route-planning-app-kom...
A_Duck 1y ago
And clearly they're hard at work whitewashing that page... check the Talk Page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bending_Spoons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bending_Spoons
- internetter 1y ago
  Bending Spoons is correctly following the [[Wikipedia:Conflict of interest]] process. They are pointing out information which could be improved and are requesting an independent party confirm they are correct. They disclosed their conflict. All companies are allowed and encouraged to do this. Not many do. Source: I'm a wikipedia editor unaffiliated with bending spoons. Edit: I see another complaint about IP editing. I am looking into this.

by neom 1y ago

JohnClark1337 1y ago

So companies go there to die

jimnotgym 1y ago
Another way to look at it: When a companies bubble bursts, when people realise that it is just a note taking app (or whatever), and that its never going to grow 10x again, VC investors want shot of it. Without a constant stream of new investment, the company simply can't afford to be loaded up with SV staff producing features that nobody will pay for. Bending Spoons change the business model to 'normal business'. They move to much cheaper European staff, stop work on nonsense 'features', concentrate instead on servicing their existing customers with a stable platform and well thought out incremental advances. So they take businesses that are dying because nobody will give them free money any more, and make them into real sustainable businesses that can stand on their own two feet?
- xandrius 1y ago
  Nono, this is a pro-scammer point of view. They absolutely go for a minimal upkeep, maximum dark patterns strategy. It's not about sustainable business, they are literally enshittifiers. I know quite a few employees, they literally debate whether a UX change to make a X to close a payment modal almost invisible is "too evil or not" and they go with it anyway. So, we're not kind to companies who ruin their product for a short-term revenue increase then why all this positive spin for a company whose business model is to do exactly and only that?

kbar13 1y ago

holy smokes this is worse for consumers and employees than being bought by PE

pavel_lishin 1y ago

> In November 2022, Bending Spoons agreed to acquire Evernote.[19] The acquisition was concluded in January 2023.[20] In July 2023, Evernote laid off all of its existing staff and announced it would relocate to Europe to be closer to Bending Spoons' headquarters.[21] Damn.

marstall 1y ago
How does that possibly work? How do they continue with zero of the staff?
- everfrustrated 1y ago
  They replaced them with staff in Italy. Bending Spoons is an Italian (Milan) company. They wanted the product not the developers.
- amiga386 1y ago
  Simple. They get new staff whose job is to shove intrusive surveillance and advertising into the product and push out an update, they don't have to support or develop the product. The company bought the product to bilk money out of its existing users. They throw the product in the bin once all the users have gone. Sadly, some ants get infected with corydceps. Tragic for the ant, but the other ants get it the fuck away from their colony, because they don't want to be next.
  - mtgentry 1y ago
    As an Evernote user, Bending Spoons has been iterating fast over the past couple years to improve the product. It’s much better than it used to be.
    - sentientslug 1y ago
      What the value prop of continuing to use Evernote versus other newer solutions like Notion? Interested to hear from someone still using the product

qingcharles 1y ago

I'm still waiting to see how they complete destroy Vimeo they just bought.

dancc 1y ago

Someone wrote about Bending Spoons' history and playbook: https://www.colinkeeley.com/blog/bending-spoons-operating-manual https://www.colinkeeley.com/blog/bending-spoons-operating-ma... I enjoyed this part: No On-Call Rotations: Bending Spoons aims to build systems so reliable that they eliminate the need for on-call rotations. This is unusual in the tech industry, where on-call duties are standard to promptly address system issues. For most of their products, they have no on-call schemes at all. Engineers are encouraged to think through all corner cases to ensure robustness, knowing there is no fallback like an on-call team.

everfrustrated 1y ago
I wonder if that's got lost in translation somewhere. I can understand not having on-call operations teams (an anti-pattern) but not having anyone on call at any time seems unlikely. Unless they mean to say its part of all devs job expectations and not a paid extra.
- veidr 1y ago
  I don't want to imply Bending Spoons is this awesome, as I know nothing much about them (except that they named their company after a weird scam, lol), but there's a pretty reasonable principle that might apply here: If our service goes down for any reason, uh... wait until Monday afternoon, then try again. (Sorry!) Like, who would die if AOL was down for 36 hours?
  - mikeyouse 1y ago
    I think they’re actually named after the scene in the matrix where the little kid (and then Neo) can bend the spoon with their mind.
    - veidr 1y ago
      Oh! LOL that's admittedly cooler than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller

croisillon 1y ago

oh wow and they got Vimeo and WeTransfer too!?

dotcoma 1y ago
And Komoot and Meetup, and of course Evernote.
- kryptoncalm 1y ago
  Relevant coverage of some acquisitions doesn’t bode well for AOL staff: 1. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bending-spoons-lay-off-75-185112831.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bending-spoons-lay-off-75-185... 2. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/route-planning-app-komoot-sold-after-it-expands-paywall-job-losses-could-follow/ar-AA1BojLK https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/route-planning-app-kom...

A_Duck 1y ago

And clearly they're hard at work whitewashing that page... check the Talk Page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bending_Spoons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bending_Spoons

internetter 1y ago
Bending Spoons is correctly following the [[Wikipedia:Conflict of interest]] process. They are pointing out information which could be improved and are requesting an independent party confirm they are correct. They disclosed their conflict. All companies are allowed and encouraged to do this. Not many do. Source: I'm a wikipedia editor unaffiliated with bending spoons. Edit: I see another complaint about IP editing. I am looking into this.