I've reported on company results a long time, but this is a first for me. Afterpay-owner Block reported its results this week, which were positive but not where analysts wanted them to be. One reason profits were down? A massive expense for a three-day party for employees.

Spotted on Sherwood, the results were reportedly thrown off by one event in particular that cost them a real chunk of change. As the shareholder letter puts it (emphasis mine):

"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."

A bit of digging from Joe Aston's Sherwood shows that around $68 million was spent on this particular "in person event". Yep, you read that right: sixty-eight million for an "in-person company event".

Joe Aston's Rampart reports that the event was reportedly called "Block by Block" (catchy). I did some digging on social and found a slick video put together by a Block team member who describes the event as a coming together of all employees under the Block banner in the US. This includes Cash App, Afterpay, Jay-Z's music streaming service Tidal, Bitkey and Proto. About 8000 in total.

The event was held to celebrate a "square" year. As the company, Block, was initially called Square, after the payment service CEO and founder Jack Dorsey founded after he left Twitter. This was year nine, and as a result, it was party time.

 

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I really encourage you to watch the video because it's insane to think of it all as an event for one umbrella tech company. It looks more like the Coachella music festival than a company get-together.

And it was absolutely littered with celebrities, with A-listers like musician Anderson Paak, billionaire and rapper Jay Z, and rappers T.I., T Pain and more. They obviously don't come cheap.

It's easy to turn around and say that it's Block's money and the company's event planner can spend it how they like, but somehow I don't think shareholders would agree with this one.

Again, it bears repeating that Block made a profit at its last results announcement, just not the kind of earnings beat that analysts were hoping for at the end of the day. Maybe a pizza party next time might be better for the company's accounts?