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# Foursquare died at the hands of private equity. What happens next?
- URL: https://werd.io/foursquare-died-at-the-hands-of-private-equity-what-happens-next/
- Published: 2026-10-20T16:45:59.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-20T16:45:59.000Z
- Description: Foursquare has come to an end at the hands of private equity. It was a fun service that led to really great real-world experiences - but what happens to those check-ins now?
- Author: Ben Werdmuller
- Tags: Technology, Notable links

Link: [*Some final words on Foursquare, by Dennis Crowley*](https://teendrama.substack.com/p/some-final-words-on-foursquare?utm%5Fid=97760%5Fv0%5Fs00%5Fe0%5Ftv4&just%5Fsubscribed=true)

I freaking loved Foursquare. It was a wonderful way to explore cities with the help of my friends: in the same way that Upcoming was my best way of figuring out which events I should be going to, Foursquare let me know which restaurants, bars, parks, etc, were worth checking out. If Chris ranked a cocktail bar, you know it was amazing. Aaron always found the best coffee spots. And so on: my friends were better recommenders than any other source I had.

My own map lists every state and country I’ve been to over the last few decades. If I’m back in Amsterdam, I can figure out which Indonesian food place I really loved, because there it is on my map. (It’s [Paon Bali](https://paonbali.nl/), by the way. You’re welcome.)

So this was sad to see as an outcome. I think there are a bunch of important lessons here – not least the dangers of raising too much too soon without tethering the business to revenue. But at the same time, Foursquare launched during a startup explosion, and this kind of fundraising was the norm; I don’t fault Dennis for his decisions. The bigger problem seems to have been the private equity leadership more recently. I can’t think of a time when private equity *hasn’t* led to toxic leadership and a strip-mined company with an inequitable deal for employees.

Which leads me to an obvious problem. That check-in data is intimate stuff. It probably shouldn’t be something private equity can just inherit and do *whatever* with. Journalists and activists should hopefully not have been using Foursquare to check in; if they did, that data can almost certainly have been bought for analysis. And then a future-facing question: how might we have these kinds of social effects *without* sacrificing privacy?

Regardless, I’m pouring one out for Foursquare. I loved it. Thanks to everyone involved for building something that I found genuinely meaningful.