Matteo Danieli

Bending Spoons Founders on Buying Airtable, AOL, Vimeo & Miro

Luca Ferrari, Francesco Patarnello, Matteo Danieli, Valentina Jerusalmi, Molly O'Shea

Bending Spoons executes a high-volume acquisition strategy centered on buying small, high-caliber teams for near-total autonomy, evidenced by recent multi-billion dollar deals such as AOL and Airtable. The company differentiates its approach through a "forever ownership" model that avoids private equity exit timelines, supported by decentralized operations in Milan and an internal culture prioritizing rapid learning, extreme ownership, and aggressive meritocracy where leadership roles are periodically contested. This operational philosophy, combined with unconventional financing and an open-desk work structure, has enabled the firm to maintain under 1% employee churn while targeting five to ten strategic acquisitions annually to maximize platform synergies.