Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has fired nearly half the staff at his financial technology company, Block, as he goes fully in on artificial intelligence.
Block, which owns payment service Cash App, went from more than 10,000 employees to just under 6,000 Thursday in what Dorsey called “one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company.”
“We're already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company,” Dorsey said in a post on X.
Dorsey made clear the job cuts were not because the company was “in trouble,” noting that “gross profit continues to grow.”
In a letter to shareholders announcing the job cuts and fourth quarter earnings Thursday, Dorsey announced a gross profit of $2.87 billion, up 24 percent from the previous year.
Block employees described to The New York Times a company-wide virtual meeting Dorsey held about the job cuts, during which the co-founder was hit with dozens of “thumbs down” emojis.
Dorsey said on X that staffers who lost their jobs will receive 20 weeks of salary plus a week for every year they were at the company, as well as six months of health care and $5,000 “to put toward whatever you need to help you in this transition.”
“To those of you leaving…i’m grateful for you, and i’m sorry to put you through this,” Dorsey said.
Block’s stock was up nearly 5 percent at the closing bell Thursday.
Block isn’t the only company cutting human jobs as it invests more in AI. Amazon announced last October that it was laying off 14,000 workers, and another 16,000 employees were let go in January.
When announcing the first round of layoffs, Amazon executive Beth Galetti explained how CEO Andy Jassy talked in September 2024 about wanting to “operate like the world’s largest startup, the importance of having the right structure to drive that level of speed and ownership, and the need to be set up to invent, collaborate, be connected, and deliver the absolute best for customers.”
