Block co-founder Jack Dorsey laid off 4,000workers – nearly half of his work force. The former Twitter CEO explained his decision in a memo on X (formerly Twitter).
He said it was “one of the hardest decisions in the history of” the digital payments company based in San Francisco, California.
Block is the parent company of Square, Cash App, Afterpay and Tidal with over 10,000 employees around the world.
Dorsey went on to say he was laying off “nearly half,” of Block’s work force “from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. [T]hat means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation.”
Dorsey said the layoffs at Block are not due to the economy.
“We’re not making this decision because we’re in trouble,” Dorsey wrote on X. “Our business is strong. Gross profit continues to grow… and profitability is improving. But something has changed.”
Then he explained that “something” is artificial intelligence.
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“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. And that’s accelerating rapidly,” Dorsey wrote.
Dorsey offered his laid off workers “20 weeks of salary plus one week for every year of tenure” in severance pay.
Workers will also have “equity vested through the end of May, six months of healthcare, be given their corporate devices, and an additional $5,000” in cash.
Dorsey said laid off workers won’t “just disappear” from Slack and their email access won’t be cut off immediately. They will be given several hours to say goodbye to each other.
For years, big tech has warned that AI is coming for jobs. But not everyone buys the fear mongering.
A Manosphere board member wrote:
“Yet another tech company using ‘AI’ as the reason for cuts. In reality, they over-hired during Covid and have been cutting people ever since. Many have had to rehired people due to jumping the gun. AI is just the excuse they use with shareholders to make it seem as if everything is good.”
