Live data from Hacker News

Block spent $68M on a company offsite in September 2025

twitter.com

31–40 of 79 posts

Re: Block spent $68M on a company offsite in September 2025

#31

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 develop…

>"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."

Re: Block spent $68M on a company offsite in September 2025

#32
post #24

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.

Can it be that valuable when 40% of the participants aren't?

Maybe it served to find out which of them weren’t valuable. ;)

Re: Block spent $68M on a company offsite in September 2025

#34
post #31

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 develop…

> "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."

> roughly

I did the other math assuming it was 100% for the in-person event anyway.

Re: Block spent $68M on a company offsite in September 2025

#36
post #18

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.

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.

Re: Block spent $68M on a company offsite in September 2025

#37
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.

Re: Block spent $68M on a company offsite in September 2025

#38

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.

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.

Re: Block spent $68M on a company offsite in September 2025

#39
post #18

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.

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

Re: Block spent $68M on a company offsite in September 2025

#40

Food $200 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

Well, the layoff post explicitly said that the company’s financial health was good.

Oh, well if they said so, there's no problem.
Post reply on HN