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Comment by mikeevans | Hacker News Reader

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

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And was the in person time more valuable than not having those people you met in your team moving forward?

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.

> 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.

Sure. Hard to imagine 40% of your company is that.

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.

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.

Like any good company off-site. Strippers and steaks

Ok, we've taken the party out of the title above. Thanks for the first-hand information.

What does the wording matter?

The crucial point is, was it an unnecessary expense?

Were you laid off?

I’m going to take a wild guess that the answer is no

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