The writing was on the wall, and it was written by artificial intelligence. Jack Dorsey, co-founder of payments giant Block, announced this week that the company has decided to do away with more than 4,000 jobs, pulling its headcount down from over 10,000 to just under 6,000 as AI keeps reordering the way companies do business.
Dorsey laid it out plainly in a letter posted on X, saying that smarter tools and leaner teams are pushing companies toward a working model that looks nothing like what existed even five years ago. “I had two options: cut gradually over months or years, or be honest about where we are and act on it now,” he wrote. “I chose the latter.”
Severance and Immediate Impact
Employees losing their jobs will receive 20 weeks of salary, one additional week for each year they put in, six months of health coverage, their corporate devices, and a $5,000 personal allowance. There was no long wait either—staff learned their fate the same day Dorsey went public with the decision.
Those numbers sting a little more when you look back at how quickly Block grew. The company’s workforce shot up 237% in just four years, going from around 3,835 people in 2019 to nearly 13,000 at its 2023 high point.
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Strong Earnings, Surging Stock
The financials, at least, gave investors something to cheer about. Block closed Q4 2025 with a gross profit of $2.87 billion, up by 24% from the year before, while Cash App revenue rose 33% to $1.83 billion. The stock jumped more than 20% after the news dropped.
Dorsey did not frame the issue as a Block-specific decision. “I don’t think we’re early to this realization. I think most companies are late,” he said, suggesting the broader industry is only beginning to wrestle with the same question. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg made a similar point, saying he expects AI to dramatically change how work gets done across the sector through 2026. Block has set aside up to $500 million to cover restructuring costs as it moves toward a leaner, AI-driven setup.
