Jack Dorsey’s note announcing that Block will shrink from more than 10,000 employees to under 6,000 landed like a controlled demolition. Precise. Direct. No corporate fog.
More than 4,000 people are leaving or entering "consultation." The severance terms are substantial: 20 weeks of pay plus a week per year of tenure, equity through May 2026, six months of health care, devices kept, and $5,000 in transition support. Communication channels will stay open for goodbyes, and Jack plans to give staff a live video sendoff.
Still, no amount of "clean" logistics softens the weight of that many exits.
Dorsey says the business is strong. Gross profit is growing. Customers are growing. Profitability is improving. This is not a rescue mission, he says. His argument is that the way companies operate is changing. Intelligence tools plus smaller teams can now do work that once required layers of people. He says he chose to make one large cut rather than a slow bleed of layoffs over years to protect the team from a drop in morale and other complications that may arise.
Online, people read that in very different ways.
Some see a simple correction: Block more than tripled its headcount between 2019 and 2022, from 3,900 to 12,500. Pandemic hiring was aggressive across tech. This looks like an overdue unwind. AI, from this perspective, is just convenient framing.
Others think this is the early edge of something bigger. If companies really can generate more profit with far fewer employees, that changes more than org charts. It changes who earns, who spends, who becomes the customer.
The market, for what it’s worth, cheered. Shares jumped by 24% after the announcement.
Dorsey pushed back on criticism, admitting they over hired and built parallel company structures for too long. He also pointed to the complexity they added through lending and banking. Now the target is $2 million in gross profit per employee, about four times pre pandemic levels.
Strip away the finance language and the debate feels simple.
Is this discipline after excess?
Or is this AI reshaping how companies operate?
Share your thoughts in the comments.
