Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, said on Thursday that it will cut more than 4,000 jobs at Block, nearly half of its workforce, during the current boom in artificial intelligence (AI). “Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company. We’re already seeing it internally. A significantly smaller team, using the tools, can do more and do it better,” Dorsey said in a statement.
“I don’t think we’re early to this realisation. I think most companies are late,” he added. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Dorsey said he has made “one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company”.
He said the company is not making job cuts because it is struggling financially. “Our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. 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,” he said.
Dorsey explained that the company chose to make one large round of job cuts instead of several smaller ones over time. “Repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. I’d rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome,” he said. He added that employees who lose their jobs will receive 20 weeks of pay, plus one extra week of salary for every year they have worked at the company.
He added that employees who lose their jobs will receive 20 weeks of pay, plus one extra week of pay for each year they worked at the company.
Dorsey co-founded the company in 2009 as Square. It changed its name to Block in 2021 to show its wider focus on blockchain technology.
The company expects restructuring costs of about USD 450 million to USD 500 million. In the three months ending 31 December, Block reported an adjusted profit of 65 cents per share, compared with 47 cents per share a year earlier.
