- [Monica] I'm in New York city with
Anjali Sud, CEO of Vimeo.
A role she took on at the age of just 33.
- [Anjali] I've always been, I would say unapologetically
ambitious. (laughs)
- [Monica] Lot of people don't come flat out and say that,
especially a woman.
- [Anjali] I think there's a lot of stigma for women
in acknowledging that you want to do more.
And it's why I like to say it, because I think
more people should hear that.
- [Monica] You've said it's good to create your
own opportunities.
- [Anjali] Where there's disruption, there's opportunity.
- [Monica] I'm Monica Langley, This is
The Inflection Point.
- [Monica] Anjali, welcome to The Inflection Point.
We're so happy to be here with you at Vimeo headquarters.
- [Anjali] Thank you, Monica.
It is wonderful to have you.
- [Monica] What is that moment in your life,
which was so dramatic that it really
changed you as a person?
- [Anjali] I think my first inflection point happened
when I was pretty young.
When I was 14, I was growing up in Flint, Michigan.
Grew up in a really tight knit and conservative
Indian community of immigrant families.
And I left home at 14 to go to boarding school
in Massachusetts, to get a better education
than what I was getting in the Flint Public School.
You know, no one in my community had ever
left home that early.
- [Monica] Now, you had been going to public schools
in Flint.
- [Anjali] Yeah.
- [Monica] How did you even know prep schools existed?
- [Anjali] The story is that my dad and I were at
a Barnes and Nobles, and there was literally a book,
"Top Secondary Schools in America".
And we started flipping through it and I just applied.
I think I applied to 10 schools,
everything from an all girls school in the south,
to military academy in Indiana.
And I happened to apply to this school called
Phillips Andover Academy, and upon getting in
my dad and I realized it was, you know
one of the best schools in the country.
And the reason that being 14 was an inflection point
is because I failed at Andover initially.
- [Monica] But you were a good student before?
- [Anjali] And I was used to being good, you know?
- [Monica] Yeah.
- Because you wouldn't even gotten in, if you weren't.
- [Anjali] Yeah, I used to everything being fairly
easy and you know if you worked hard, you did well.
And suddenly, you know, at that age kind of
realizing the world's much bigger than you realize.
And, you know, sometimes you have to just
have grit and resilience and persevere.
- [Monica] Who was Anjali then, when you started.
And who were you when you finished?
- [Anjali] I mean, I was shy.
I was introverted.
I was intimidated.
I felt like I didn't belong, when I walked in.
And I walked out, feeling like the world was my oyster.
But I was full of ambition, and full of dreams.
and I believed that those dreams were possible.
- [Monica] Let's talk about where you went after that.
- [Anjali] When I was growing up, my parents are both
physicians, but my dad's also an entrepreneur.
He, he runs a plastics recycling plant, in Flint
and it was always his passion.
He really believed that business could be this
incredible way to help support a community
by providing jobs.
He had sort of raised me this American dream
go after, go be, a business leader
and that's how you can positively impact the world.
So that's why I went to Wharton and got an
obviously another incredible education.
- [Monica] And then did you try to get a job after that?
- [Anjali] When I graduated, I tried to get a job
in investment banking, and there was a set of companies that
everyone wanted to get a job at,
and I applied to all of them and was rejected from
all of them, (laughs)
from pretty much every, yeah, it was really-
- [Monica] All the top tiers didn't want you.
- [Anjali] Any brand firm didn't want me.
And to be fair, I just wasn't, as prepared in
the interviews, I wasn't as strong as other candidates.
It wasn't anything else.
And I was really lucky a startup investment bank
that had just literally started, was looking for
their first analyst.
And, it was two weeks before graduation,
everyone else had a job and I was there,
and so I took that job
and what ended up happening, was I had an amazing
experience there.
And I think it's funny how looking back those times that
you think it's a setback actually ends up being
one of the greatest gifts.
- [Monica] What, what did you do after that?
- [Anjali] I went to Harvard to get my MBA and
I joined Amazon.
Came back to New York City and my job was to launch this
toy category for this startup within Amazon.
You know, that was my first real-
- [Monica] But that's kind of a dream come true
for you, right?
I mean, you're at this big great company
but kind of a little startup, buying toys though?
- [Anjali] Yeah.
I didn't really have a passion for toys
but it was an opportunity to jump into an industry
and a function, I had no experience in.
And I had to prove myself, you know, I had
two people who were reporting to me,
who had both have been buyers in the industry for years.
- [Monica] And you were their boss.
- [Anjali] And I'm showing up as their boss with,
I have no business being their boss.
And so it was just a really good first experience
in building trust, earning credibility, doing the work
you know, recognizing what you don't know
and finding a way to add value.
- [Monica] As you go through these experiences
it's clear you're moving every year or two.
Do you just get bored or do you want a new challenge?
- [Anjali] I've always been, I would say unapologetically
ambitious and a little bit impatient about my career.
- [Monica] A lot of people don't come flat out
and say that, especially a woman.
Why do you feel confident in saying that?
- [Anjali] Honestly, I only feel confident in more
recent years now that I've, you know, become a CEO.
I think there's a lot of stigma for women in
acknowledging that you want to do more.
And it's why I like to say it, because I think more
people should hear that.
- [Monica] Especially coming from a young woman.
- [Anjali] Yeah, and not feel like that's something
to be shy about or have any stigma around.
- [Monica] What do you say to the young women
that maybe you mentor now about being ambitious,
being impatient?
- [Anjali] What I would say is
find a way to be yourself
and find a way to be comfortable in
who you are and in your skin and confident
and tie what you're great at, with what's
gonna be good for the business.
I don't wanna be an example of what you should be.
I wanna be an example that you can be anything
and still succeed.
- [Monica] You've said in the past it's good to
create your own opportunities.
And so you do that, I guess when you move
from places or new roles, when you're helping
new businesses.
- [Anjali] Yeah, you know what it takes
time to really learn.
And so you have to be careful.
You can't be too impatient, but for me, it was always
I just felt like to be a great leader,
I had to be a great decision maker.
And to be a great decision maker,
I wanted to find ways to experience a lot of diverse
problems and challenges and to learn to be comfortable,
not having all the answers and not being the expert,
but having to make good decisions.
And I think that was the skill and the comfort
that I honed by moving around so much.
- [Monica] Then you landed here at Vimeo.
Tell us what is Vimeo,
and then why you got excited about it.
- [Anjali] We sort of think of ourselves as
the professional video platform.
And I was excited about the platform, 'cuz I thought,
"Well video is going through a ton of change and disruption
and where there's disruption there's opportunity."
- [Monica] Okay, so you started as a marketing executive
here and you were 31, but you didn't stay the
marketing executive very long.
(both laughing)
- [Anjali] I've never thought of myself as a marketer
or I've never defined marketing in a narrow way.
I've always thought about it as how do you help
reach customers, and make the business successful.
That was literally how I'd thought about my job.
And so, and so when I came to Vimeo, my job was first
and foremost to understand our customers, to have empathy
for them and to help solve their problems through Vimeo.
And it became very clear that there was
an inflection point at Vimeo,
which was we had previously, most of our users
were filmmakers and video professionals and agencies,
but slowly and slowly we were seeing a shift in
the user base and more and more small businesses were
starting to use Vimeo.
And I think that's when I realized like maybe
the future for Vimeo is a different market
than what we've been going after.
And that became, I think the impetus for
me to get a lot of conviction to kind of push
that strategy shift at the company.
- [Monica] But you pushed that strategy shift
to such a degree that that became the new company.
- [Anjali] Yeah.
I mean at the time I never thought that's what would
happen and to be fair, I wasn't the only one that
saw the opportunity I was, I was really fortunate
in that our board and our investors were the types
that said, "Hey what they're saying sounds like
it could make sense.
So let's give, let's give her a team."
And they basically carved out about 50 people outside
of the sort of main goal and strategy of Vimeo,
and they let us run for a year,
we were off on our own almost.
- [Monica] So you did a startup, kind of with them.
- [Anjali] Start up again within a new company.
I have to tell you about it.
It was probably, my favorite work experience
of my career because you know, you're building
you're under the radar.
- [Monica] And so what happened?
- [Anjali] So I bet my career on it and, it started working.
So our investors said,
"You know what, we're gonna make this the strategy."
And there's this 33 year old,
who's never been a CEO before
and you know, she's not a product
engineer or a technology leader but,
she's been doing the work and she's been,
she believes in this and we'll take passion any day.
And they said, so you get to run it, And they just-
- [Monica] So you were the CEO.
- [Anjali] Yeah.
And they just, literally one day it was like,
"Anjali, would you like to be the CEO of Vimeo?"
And I thought it was a joke.
- [Monica] I noticed on your Twitter handle
you're Vimeo CEO, proud Mama.
- [Anjali] Yes.
- [Monica] Okay, so it's clear, you've incorporated
motherhood into your identity as a public CEO.
Tell me about that.
- [Anjali] Well, I don't really know how to do it
any other way because I'm sure, as you know,
having a child is, changes your life.
And, I was fortunate to,
I was pregnant my first year as CEO,
and then had my son,
and then went through the pandemic,
and I now have a second one on the way.
And I will say, I think that being a mother
has made me a better leader.
I think I am stronger.
I am more flexible.
I am more efficient with my very little time.
And so I think it's a real advantage.
- [Monica] Now, the parent company IAC is
a Barry Diller company, but not too long ago,
you actually left the company in an IPO.
You spun off as an IPO.
So tell me about that moment for you,
when Vimeo became a public company
and you became a public CEO.
- [Anjali] On one on hand, I think it was, it was probably,
you know, one of highlights, most memorable experiences
of my life.
I remember being at the NASDAQ and kind of standing up
and doing a speech in the confetti is going, and then
of course you wake up the next day and you realize
that nothing's actually changed.
- [Monica] And the stock went, has gone down.
- [Anjali] And yeah, and the stock has gone down
and you realize that-
- [Monica] What does that do to you?
- [Anjali] I think what it should do is absolutely nothing.
And what matters is, are we building a great company
for the long term?
Are we building a great product?
Are we serving our users?
Are we in a market that we believe is the right market
with the right strategy?
And I really do believe that, I have just as much conviction
as I did when I was betting my career on this, on this move.
I have even more.
- [Monica] In your office, there's a bobblehead of you
and they call you Vimeo Protector in Chief.
(Anjali laughs)
- [Anjali] I don't think anybody thinks that
I'm a protector,
but I hope that they think I'm an enabler.
And this was a transition I went through, as a leader is
I went from being the doer, you know, the person who
rolled up her sleeves and and got in the trenches and
got the work done.
But I realize now that a huge part of my job is
it's to empower other people, to do great work
and to give people the resources and the vision
and the direction, but then just let them succeed.
And, I believe that, great businesses are built
by a lot of different types of people.
There's no one kind of leader, there's no one style.
And so I, that's the thing that I try
and embody every day.
- [Monica] Talking about different types of people.
When you became the CEO of this new publicly traded company
there weren't a lot of CEOs that look like you.
- [Anjali] Yeah.
- [Monica] How did that feel to you?
- [Anjali] I think maybe 10 years ago in my 20's,
that would've been really intimidating.
And I definitely had times in my career
where I was very cognizant of how I looked and
how I was different.
And I felt a lot of pressure to assimilate,
to try and act or talk or dress more like what
I thought traditional leaders looked like.
And, over the last few years I feel like my
what makes me different is a huge advantage.
And I think it's my responsibility to use it.
- [Monica] When you look by at your career at
the rip old age of 38, (both laughing)
how would you characterize what your path has been?
- [Anjali] I think for me, I hope I go back to kind of
why I wanted to be a leader in the first place.
I wanna learn, keep learning,
keep that learning curve steep.
And I wanna build, and I wanna have an impact
and I want it to be as positive as possible.
So I hope that's what I will eventually look back at.
- [Monica] Is the 14 year old from Flint, still willing to
fail though?
because right now you're a public CEO.
It's not just you anymore.
- [Anjali] I Think it's healthy and normal to be scared
of failure.
And I would never pretend that I don't have sleepless nights
or I don't get stressed or feel overwhelmed.
I'm human just like anybody else.
And of course I feel those things, but I do think,
if I channel that 14 year old, it's that
failure doesn't stop you. Right?
It's that, you accept it, you face it,
you hope that you succeed.
And if you don't, then you try again.
For someone who's unapologetically ambitious
there's a lot of ambition left to achieve.
So I'm excited about that.
- [Monica] We look forward to seeing what you do,
what Vimeo does.
So thank you for joining us today, Anjali.
- [Anjali] Thank you, Monica.
I appreciate it.