He phrases it as due to redundant overhead for cashapp and square, plus a move to smaller, flatter teams as a result of AI. Not saying he's going to be right just that they're profitable and I believe this isn't a money thing.
I don't know what event planning costs but running an event for ~10k people that includes flights, hotels, food, event space, etc. is expensive I guess.
I've been to all hands where it probably cost that much just in travel: business class LHR to SFO, hotel for a few nights, dinners, drinks, entertainment, venue, guest speakers, and on and on.
It doesn't seem excessive, the networking in these things is often really worth it
It's on the high side, but...honestly not absurd? "Party" implies one night rager, but the source says "in-person company event." That seems more like a multi-day company onsite to me, and the total bill per person there probably includes travel, accommodations, food on top of any overall event costs.
Bringing a remote employee to SF just to work out of an office for a few days can easily cost a few grand.
One could argue a smaller number of employees that are more motivated and feel connected to their coworkersis better than a more employees that are all isolated and "meh".
The $68M number comes from a statement that says their General and Administrative expenses were up year over year and the growth was primarily driven by an in-person company event.
The Tweet extrapolates to assume that the entire difference was due to the event and calls it a "party"
Even if we assume 100% of the increase was due to the event, that's about $6800 per employee, or about a week or two of pay for developers.
This includes flights, lodging, and food for remote employees. That adds up fast.
>"General and administrative expenses were up 14% year over year on a GAAP basis, driven in part by an in-person company event. Excluding this expense, general and administrative expenses remained roughly flat year over year in the third quarter."
I sincerely hope the event branding played on calling it a "Block Party".
But anyway, as others have said, the tweet seems outrageous at first, but at $6800 per employee for a multi-day offsite, with hotels, travel, etc included, it doesn't seem excessive. I'm sure their salary for that month was significantly higher.
Since they bought bitcoin while their stock was worth ~2-4x what it is today, I’d say the “arbitrage paper certificates for digital 1s and 0s” play worked out pretty well overall.
Bought btc for $10k and $51k (about 60/40 respectively) and it’s trading for $65k 5 years later. Dunno what other buying/selling they may have done.
From Wikipedia:
> In October 2020, Square put approximately 1% of their total assets ($50 million) in Bitcoin (4,709 bitcoins), citing Bitcoin's "potential to be a more ubiquitous currency in the future" as their main reasoning.[52] The company purchased approximately 3,318 bitcoins in February 2021 for a cost of around $170 million, bringing Square's total holdings to around 8,027 bitcoins (equivalent to around US$500 million in 2021, around US$481 million as of July 2024).[53]
You have to compare it to what else they could have done with the money, such as investing in their own growth, or even giving it back to shareholders if they had no good ideas what to do with the money.
laying of 50% of your workforce is the obvious solution. next year the party will only be $34 million. repeat that 4 more times and you get down to just over $4 million.
Kinda how it worked for my last full time job. Full on all-hands which flew all the remote workers in, and my lead made 2 guesses: "Either we've been acquired or the IP has been cancelled". I guess the sad part is that an acquisition wouldn't guarantee I wouldn't be laid off anyway.
I think this is missing the forest for the trees. With 4000 fewer employees, they could have a $136M meetup party and still be ahead by hundreds of millions, assuming they can sustain or increase revenue.
That's the big bet software companies are making right now.
I do not know about here, but back home in India, 68 M would be so juicy for someone in the organizing chain to not take a cut. People get fired all the time, but sometimes the gravy train can run for years before getting caught.
No first hand experience ... just anecdotes and some news reports.
it included flights, hotels, food and travel expenses for 9000 for multiple days, as well as the "party".
US-based travel for 1 person for 5 days is easily 4K, on top of that some people were probably international so it would be higher, and on top of that there are the "party" expenses like venue and catering which probably wasn't that significant.
I got curious as well, because the craziest party poor me can imagine would clock in at maybe half that, including travel. All I could find:
> The three-day festival in downtown Oakland featured performances by Jay-Z, Anderson .Paak, T-Pain, and Soulja Boy, and brought 8,000 employees from around the globe.
So that'd make it 8.5k per person. Building stages, paying permits, hiring acts like these, I bet that's where it mostly went.
He said very specifically that the layoffs weren’t for financial reasons, and they are publicly traded company so you can just look at the reports. Anyone who thinks this wasn’t because of AI has a level of optimism I’ll never achieve.
Cynicism can be optimism when the prevailing narrative is doom and gloom.
How is the competing narrative of cutting teams that were working on non-core or experimental projects falsified by any of this? Why wouldn't they put a brave face on that and chalk it up to AI? You can see how the stock market has rewarded it.
One key piece of financial information in those reports is that that their revenue growth fell off a cliff when ZIRP ended (months before ChatGPT came out) and never recovered to even pre-Covid levels. There's no indication that their core business is unhealthy, and I'm not claiming to rule out that AI is related, but it makes sense that a company transitioning to "maintenance mode" might find itself wanting to be a lot smaller.
Was it necessary? Probably not. But I found the in-person time valuable, especially with teammates I’d never met face to face.
Source: I was there
He phrases it as due to redundant overhead for cashapp and square, plus a move to smaller, flatter teams as a result of AI. Not saying he's going to be right just that they're profitable and I believe this isn't a money thing.
What are you even talking about? Why does ANY business get rid of people? For funsies? X_X
Some people are negative value even if their salary was $0.
Calling an all-hands a party without any supporting evidence feels willfully negligent.
A lot? Not a lot? Don’t know anymore.
It doesn't seem excessive, the networking in these things is often really worth it
Bringing a remote employee to SF just to work out of an office for a few days can easily cost a few grand.
Hosting in-person events for 10,000 people is expensive even without having to transport and house anyone.
/s
The Tweet extrapolates to assume that the entire difference was due to the event and calls it a "party"
Even if we assume 100% of the increase was due to the event, that's about $6800 per employee, or about a week or two of pay for developers.
This includes flights, lodging, and food for remote employees. That adds up fast.
This is just Twitter ragebait.
I did the other math assuming it was 100% for the in-person event anyway.
Edit: never mind, the report clarifies that without the party expense G&A would have been flat YoY.
Side note: I have no idea what Block does and why they need 10,000 employees anyway.
But anyway, as others have said, the tweet seems outrageous at first, but at $6800 per employee for a multi-day offsite, with hotels, travel, etc included, it doesn't seem excessive. I'm sure their salary for that month was significantly higher.
Since they bought bitcoin while their stock was worth ~2-4x what it is today, I’d say the “arbitrage paper certificates for digital 1s and 0s” play worked out pretty well overall.
Bought btc for $10k and $51k (about 60/40 respectively) and it’s trading for $65k 5 years later. Dunno what other buying/selling they may have done.
From Wikipedia:
> In October 2020, Square put approximately 1% of their total assets ($50 million) in Bitcoin (4,709 bitcoins), citing Bitcoin's "potential to be a more ubiquitous currency in the future" as their main reasoning.[52] The company purchased approximately 3,318 bitcoins in February 2021 for a cost of around $170 million, bringing Square's total holdings to around 8,027 bitcoins (equivalent to around US$500 million in 2021, around US$481 million as of July 2024).[53]
That's the big bet software companies are making right now.
Data $150
Rent $800
Party $68,000,000
Utility $150
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my company is dying
Just put in my mind by the grift and corruption posts that are currently trending on HN front page right now.
No first hand experience ... just anecdotes and some news reports.
"ok.. but was it a party for all 9,000 people?"
"maybe they had great caterers"
... then I did the math. It's $7.5k per employee.
Clearly I'm just not creative enough to know how to waste money like an SV company.
> The three-day festival in downtown Oakland featured performances by Jay-Z, Anderson .Paak, T-Pain, and Soulja Boy, and brought 8,000 employees from around the globe.
So that'd make it 8.5k per person. Building stages, paying permits, hiring acts like these, I bet that's where it mostly went.
Running events is expensive when you have to fly your remote employees in and house them for multiple days.
How is the competing narrative of cutting teams that were working on non-core or experimental projects falsified by any of this? Why wouldn't they put a brave face on that and chalk it up to AI? You can see how the stock market has rewarded it.