Block CEO and cofounder Jack Dorsey gutted his fintech company<\/a>, restructuring it into smaller, flatter teams built to move fast and embrace what he calls “a new way of working.”<\/p>\n He put it bluntly: “we’re not making this decision because we’re in trouble.”<\/p>\n That’s the part rattling white-collar workers across Corporate America. If Dorsey’s move wasn’t about survival, what was it about? And what does that mean for everyone else<\/a>?<\/p>\n As AI spreads, anxiety is rising. People are questioning what it means for their jobs<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n Every time Steve publishes a story, you’ll get an alert straight to your inbox!\n <\/p>\n \n Stay connected to Steve and get more of their work as it publishes.\n <\/p>\n Tech has been in its hardcore era for a while now. Companies have trimmed around the edges with rolling layoffs but have largely avoided massive sweeping cuts. And they’ve rarely blamed AI outright.<\/p>\n Dorsey did both. He cut nearly half his staff, from over 10,000 to just under 6,000. Then he made the strategy explicit: “we’re going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do.”<\/p>\n A Block data analyst who was just laid off said he could see how AI was automating his work, and how it ultimately cost him his job. “It was definitely a ‘whoa’ moment when I realized just how powerful things had gotten,” he told Business Insider in an interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n Wall Street rewarded Dorsey’s move, with Block shares surging 17% on Friday<\/p>\n Investors and analysts say this could be a turning point<\/a>, opening the floodgates for other companies to take a similar approach.<\/p>\n “This is the first AI cut,” Balaji Srinivasan, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, said in a post on X<\/a>. “And it will send shockwaves.”<\/p>\n Srinivasan said the Block cuts were a “signal to everyone in tech: get good now. Become indispensable. Work nights and weekends. Learn the AI tools and raise your game. Or you might not make the cut, as an employee or as a company.”<\/p>\n Sure, plenty are skeptical about Dorsey’s reasoning. As Dan DeFrancesco wrote on Friday<\/a>, perhaps Dorsey is using AI as a cover. The company overhired during COVID, which Dorsey has acknowledged<\/a>. Its stock price trades significantly below its pandemic highs (even including Friday’s big rally).<\/p>\n But the details matter less than the vibes emanating from the cuts.<\/p>\n Matt Shumer, an AI CEO who wrote the viral “Something Big is Happening” essay<\/a> a few weeks ago, said this is “one of the first major examples of AI driving layoffs, but certainly not the last.”<\/p>\n “If you’re saying ‘this won’t happen to me’, re-evaluate your thoughts. Now,” he wrote<\/a>. “It may be the most important thing you do.”<\/p>\n![\"Steve](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/67c25f2d69253ccddf97ff07.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n