WASHINGTON — The first thing you see when walking into the headquarters of LivingSocial is row upon row of mostly empty desks, broken up by small street signs that employees once needed to find one another when the office teemed with people.

One row, “BYFAD Lane,” was named after a start-up, BuyYourFriendADrink, which LivingSocial acquired to get into the daily deals business. Other signs, such as “Sky Diving Street,” were named for some of the hottest discount coupons that the company once provided. On a recent visit, some desks were piled high with boxes of employee belongings, the detritus left behind after a round of layoffs that eliminated one-fifth of the work force. In one refrigerator, the milk was six months old.

The street signs are “anecdotes from our past,” said Mike Santore, who was director of content strategy at LivingSocial, referring to a time when it was nearly impossible to find a quiet desk to work. Now, he said, the signs “don’t mean anything, really.” Mr. Santore left the company this month.

The technology industry’s boom over the last few years has been defined by the rise of “unicorns,” the private companies that investors have valued at $1 billion or more. Before the term came into vogue, LivingSocial was among the biggest unicorns of its day. It now offers a glimpse of what some of today’s unicorns might look like several years down the road if things go awry.