Jack Dorsey’s Block slashes 40% of staff in major AI-driven restructuring

Block, a firm that heavily integrates Bitcoin into its products and strategy, said it is cutting more than 4,000 jobs on Thursday despite growing its revenue by some $220 million over the previous financial quarter.

The reason?

Artificial intelligence has fundamentally changed what it means to build and run a company, Jack Dorsey, the firm’s co-founder and CEO, said in a Thursday letter to shareholders reporting the firm’s fourth quarter financial results.

“Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes,” Dorsey said in the letter.

The layoffs reduce the headcount of the company — which owns Square, Cash App, and several Bitcoin-related enterprises — from 10,000 to less than 6,000.

Block’s stock, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, jumped some 24% following the announcement.

The layoffs come as investors grow increasingly fearful that the AI boom, which has helped boost markets for years, will ultimately hurt investors and crush the wider economy.

On Sunday, a widely-circulated report from Citrini Research, an investment research provider, argued that if AI continues to advance, it will trigger widespread white-collar layoffs, weakening consumer spending and slowing growth.

More layoffs

Block is among Bitcoin’s biggest corporate advocates, with the firm integrating Bitcoin payments into Square and Cash App, running Bitkey, a self-custody Bitcoin hardware wallet, and even developing its own Bitcoin mining machines.

Some industry pundits even contend Dorsey is Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto — a claim the Twitter founder has denied on multiple occasions.

Block has undergone several rounds of layoffs in recent years. This is the first time the firm has cited AI as the reason for the redundancies.

“We over-hired during COVID because I incorrectly built two separate company structures (Square and Cash App) rather than one, which we corrected mid 2024,” Dorsey said on X, addressing the latest layoffs.

Block is one of hundreds of firms leaning heavily into AI.

Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström said in a fourth-quarter earnings call in early February that his firm’s top developers “have not written a single line of code” in 2026, instead using AI exclusively to design software.

Most companies ‘late’ to AI

It’s also not the only one laying off employees because of it.

In January, Amazon laid off 16,000 employees, which Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s chief financial officer, attributed to cost reductions as it ramps up AI spending.

In the same month, Pinterest announced layoffs affecting roughly 15% of its workforce as part of a reallocation of resources to AI-focused products.

Salesforce, Klarna, and Accenture have also cut thousands of jobs amid increased use of AI and automation.

Block’s latest layoffs could be a sign that the trend is accelerating.

“I don’t think we’re early to this realisation,” Dorsey said.

“I think most companies are late.”

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at [email protected].