The Vimeo CEO Succeeded by Saying No to Spending Billions

Four years ago, video-sharing website Vimeo found itself competing with YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, and HBO in a race to develop original content. Even at that time, getting in front of that rich field was unlikely. Then production budgets in the industry went bananas, going from mere millions of dollars to billions.

Into this battle for Vimeo’s future entered Anjali Sud. She joined the company in 2014 to run marketing, and while talking to the site’s core users at trade shows, she kept hearing how hard it was for aspiring moviemakers to affordably host, monetize, and get attention for their work. She began offering more tools to these creators, from immersive capabilities such as 360-degree video to less flashy features like click-rate tracking technology. Her department’s revenue and satisfaction scores surged just as it was becoming clear that Vimeo would never be able to secure top producers such as Shonda Rhimes, who in 2017 signed a 15-year deal with Netflix Inc. that included an annual base salary of $10 million.