Peekashoe

I had the same reaction to that paragraph, but the very next paragraph is more compelling:

In another experiment, the authors primed CEOs’ narcissistic self-image by asking them to reflect on the role that a bold, assertive ego played in the successes of Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison. Afterward, leaders who’d been primed were more likely to oppose working from home, compared with those who weren’t primed. This, the researchers concluded, suggests a causal link between activating ego and opposing remote work.

This is an incredibly undeservedly positive profile for this company. So many paragraphs here look like they were written by Bending Spoons or are uncritically repeating direct claims by the company.

The company’s playbook has become clear: acquire underperforming but popular tech brands, then transform them to serve millions of users more efficiently through controversial changes to beloved products and substantial workforce reductions. It followed this pattern with Evernote and WeTransfer, and is now repeating it with Vimeo.

...

Despite often being described as a private equity firm, Bending Spoons describes itself more specifically as a company that acquires and transforms digital businesses. Having grown to a headcount of 400 to 500 employees (whom the company calls “Spooners”), its main focus is on making improvements to products and services that others have created.

"Transform them to serve millions of users more efficiently"? "Its main focus is on making improvements to products and services..."?

Awfully strange ways to say their business model is "find companies with entrenched or locked-in userbases and then turn goodwill and inertia into profit by laying off all but a skeleton crew, increasing prices and lowering services and quality." Good thing that is totally different from what a private equity buyout does.