Don't Check-in at Foursquare as an Employee - Anonymous employee Foursquare Employee Review

1.0
3 July 2020
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-Tech is interesting and useful. -Benefits are decent.

Cons

Basically, there are too many leaders with blinders on and arrogance. They are busy micromanaging instead of appropriately macromanaging and retaining people at the company. -Very political. -Profitability > everything. CEO does not care about you. You were a variable plugged into a profitability calculator. -Layoffs masked in a merger/acquisition and then even more layoffs. Leadership believed they were smarter than the rest of the tech industry because the only "official" COVID layoff Foursquare had was smaller than other companies. There were two layoffs no matter what they said happened. They're lying to themselves. They told employees there will be no more "planned" layoffs. Neither of those layoffs were planned either. If they were, they've been exploiting people for three to four months until they gave them the axe. -Apparently, layoffs are being branded as an opportunity to expand your role. No additional compensation provided. -Leadership has been making very poor short-term decisions due to COVID. Complete inability to think long-term. They couldn't even commit to an office vs remote situation beyond a few weeks. CEO believed we have to get back into the office ASAP... at a tech company. -Leadership is out of touch, refuses to admit mistakes, and does not answer questions with straightforward answers. -Extreme micromanagement from an untrusting exec and leadership team. -Diversity is an issue. Many people of color and women exited or laid off. Acted like having a town hall on diversity fixed our issues. One meeting and one diversity hire at the leadership level (which still hasn't happened) aren't going to fix this. -Bloated leadership team. One example: Foursquare has the original founder, Placed CEO (now Foursquare CEO), and Factual CEO. All 3 are different individuals with their own styles and obvious conflicting values and goals. -Absolute no career progression. Foursquare is a stepping stone to a better company with no promotion processes in place to grow. HR has been atrocious since the churn in that department. CEO would prefer you leave/get laid off instead of paying you more. -Work didn't stop - messages, emails, etc. outside of normal working hours. If you didn't answer, micromanagement ramped up.

Explore other reviews about Foursquare

5.0
9 Jan 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

They were previously switching strategy which caused turnover. Smart company that knows what they're doing. Was great to be a part of.

Cons

Like any company, lots of pivots. Causes uncertainty with job security which in reality doesn't exist in this industry.

1
1.0
17 June 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You always get to surprise people when you tell them where you work and get the “oh, I didn’t know that company was still around”

Cons

Company culture is severely lacking, and it feels like Foursquare never found their footing after the pandemic. This, in turn, has led to the instability of constant layoffs and change at all levels, including C-suite management. From sales to tech, there’s probably a reason why the most senior level people are no longer there—because they read between the lines and left before the ship sank. Attempted to replace engineering talent with cheap Eastern Europe labor, which made a mess of the company. Now they’ve just become a shell of a company and a data broker with questionable data. Work here at your own risk, just maybe consider continuing that job search while you’re still there.

1
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