Jack Dorsey wants to put AI in the bones of Block.
Block laid off more than 4,000 people, or about 40% of its workforce, in February. Dorsey cited advances in AI as one of the reasons for the layoffs. “Small teams using the tools we’re building can do more and do better,” he said on the company’s earnings call.
In a blog post published Tuesday, Dorsey and Sequoia partner Roelof Botha outlined the future of Block’s AI. While most companies give AI a “co-pilot” to their employees, Block aims to become intelligence, or “mini-AGI.”
“For the first time, a system can maintain a continuously updated model of the entire business and use it to coordinate work in ways that previously required humans to relay information through multiple layers of management,” Dorsey and Botha wrote.
The company’s reorganization would also upend Mr. Block’s organizational chart, with every employee assigned to one of three roles, they wrote.
First, there are individual contributors. These employees are “deep experts” who receive context from models rather than managers, and are able to make decisions “without waiting to be told what to do.”
Next is the person directly responsible. These employees own “specific cross-cutting issues” and have full authority to retrieve resources from the model.
Finally, there are the players and coaches. These employees are responsible for “manufacturing and people” on behalf of managers. Brock’s player-coaches contribute as individuals and develop talent.
“There is no need for a permanent middle management layer,” Dorsey and Botha write. “Everything else that the old hierarchy was doing, the system will adjust.”
Former Brock employees had mentioned the player-coach before today’s announcement. Business Insider viewed messages sent by Brock’s current and former employees in the Slack group during the company’s first all-hands meeting following the layoffs in February.
“There’s no such thing as a manager anymore. We’re ‘coaches’ now,” one former employee wrote, while another responded: “Are you still a ‘player-coach’ like you were called a few weeks ago, or are you just a coach?”
One Brock employee said someone on a conference call said, “Brock is intelligence.”
Transitioning the block’s corporate hierarchy will take time. Dorsey and Botha wrote that the company is “in the early stages of this transition.” The changes will be difficult and “will likely break some parts before they can work,” they wrote.
The goal, Dorsey and Botha wrote, is to make AI more than a “cost optimization story” in which leaders simply reduce headcount and improve profit margins.
“AI does not augment the company,” they write. “It reveals what your company really is.”