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Describing it as a “party” feels misleading. It was a company-wide offsite for an essentially fully remote organization.
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
By darth_avocado 2026-02-2719:231 reply And was the in person time more valuable than not having those people you met in your team moving forward?
By guywithahat 2026-02-2719:471 reply I will say, to his credit, he has tried to make it clear the cuts weren't about money but do to tech and organizational shifts. https://x.com/jack/status/2027129697092731343?s=20
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.
By darth_avocado 2026-02-2720:131 reply > 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
> Why does ANY business get rid of people?
Some people are negative value even if their salary was $0.
By darth_avocado 2026-02-2722:441 reply Sure. Hard to imagine 40% of your company is that.
By kermatt 2026-02-281:13 If 40% of your company has ever been negative value than the problem starts at the top.
How did they manage to spend 68M on it? Genuinely asking or is the number not accurate as it is clumped together with other stuff?
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.
By mizzao 2026-02-2721:07 At $6.8k/head, that's inefficient (a startup wouldn't spend like that) but not egregious if it was for e.g. a weeklong event or something.
By thesurlydev 2026-02-2722:32 Like any good company off-site. Strippers and steaks
By dang 2026-02-2720:26 Ok, we've taken the party out of the title above. Thanks for the first-hand information.
By croes 2026-02-289:38 What does the wording matter?
The crucial point is, was it an unnecessary expense?
By darth_avocado 2026-02-2720:19 I’m going to take a wild guess that the answer is no
By happyopossum 2026-02-2718:544 reply You can call it a 'party' if you want, but a company-wide in-person event is a) valuable, and b) expensive.
Calling an all-hands a party without any supporting evidence feels willfully negligent.
$68M/10000 employees = $6800/1 employee
A lot? Not a lot? Don’t know anymore.
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.
$6,800 per person is absolutely absurd. If the event lasted an entire month, that's still $225 per person per day.
By x0x0 2026-02-287:17 airfare: $500, 5 nights (sun -> thur) in a hotel, fully costed: $250, per-diem of $100 6 days (fri is a travel day) is already $2350. If you rent a place that thousands can show up you'll be in for at least $5k.
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
In what business is everyone in the company going business class?
By mpeg 2026-02-281:06 Not everyone, but often there are travel policies where any travel more than X hours long you can book business class without manager authorisation via concur and the like.
It's really worth it when you get off a 12 hour flight and have to go straight into hours of meetings without being a zombie
By frutiger 2026-02-2719:48 Bloomberg Engineering
By layer8 2026-02-2719:07 At the cited $340000 salary, it amounts to around the same as one extra week of vacation for everyone.
Seems plausible. Travel (some international), hotels, taxis, venues, food, and entertainment. It adds up. Probably not a single day event.
By Scoundreller 2026-02-2719:13 If you account the employee wages into it, then it really adds up.
By Aurornis 2026-02-2719:17 For an event where many employees have to be flown in and stay at hotels in an expensive city? That's normal.
Hosting in-person events for 10,000 people is expensive even without having to transport and house anyone.
By nerdsniper 2026-02-2719:36 That actually sounds pretty reasonable.
By darth_avocado 2026-02-2719:201 reply Maybe it’s just me, but I think being able to retain more employees is more valuable than flying the entire company for an in person event.
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".
By surgical_fire 2026-02-2719:251 reply Nothing inspires people to feel motivated and connected more than layoffs.
By darth_avocado 2026-02-2719:30 You have fewer people you worked with, a constant threat of unemployment and more work? Sign me up for that boss
/s
By dang 2026-02-2720:27 Yes - more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47185110
By layer8 2026-02-2719:15 Maybe it served to find out which of them weren’t valuable. ;)
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.
This is just Twitter ragebait.
>"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."
By Aurornis 2026-02-2719:16 > roughly
I did the other math assuming it was 100% for the in-person event anyway.
