Block’s layoff news today is pretty fascinating.
Jack Dorsey just cut nearly half the company — over 4,000 employees. Headcount goes from 10k+ to under 6k.
Stock? Up 25% in a day.
And here’s the interesting part:
They’re not losing money. Q4 earnings beat expectations.
The reason given:
“AI and intelligent tools are fundamentally changing how companies are built and how work gets done.”
That feels like a real regime shift.
For the last decade, growth meant hiring.
Now growth might mean replacing org charts with AI leverage.
What makes it ironic is that Dorsey, as Twitter’s co-founder, left behind a famously bloated structure.
When Elon Musk took over, he cut roughly 80% of staff — about 6,000 people — and the platform kept running.
History has a sense of humor.
If fintech is cutting this aggressively in the name of AI efficiency, does that mean traditional big banks will accelerate layoffs too?
Feels like we’re entering the era of “AI + ruthless efficiency.”
Curious how durable this model really is.