2026-02-27T01:31:03.365Z
- Jack Dorsey’s fintech company Block on Thursday cut 40% of its workforce.
- Dorsey said the company completed weeks’ worth of engineering work in a fraction of the time.
- He said on the earnings call that the company still plans to hire senior AI engineering talent.
Jack Dorsey says his fintech company Block is still hiring after laying off 40% of its workforce.
The co-founder said during Thursday’s earnings call that he looks forward to adding more senior AI engineering talent to the team. The company’s stock was up nearly 23% in after-hours trading as of 7 p.m. ET.
Dorsey said in a memo to employees Thursday that Block’s workforce will be reduced from 10,000 to “just under 6,000.” That’s because AI is unlocking “new ways of working” in “smaller, flatter teams,” he said.
“We are not making this decision because we are in trouble. Our business is strong. Our gross margins continue to grow, we continue to serve more customers, and our profitability is improving,” Dorsey said in the memo. “But something has changed.”
Dorsey said on Thursday’s earnings call that the AI tools have increased productivity at the company, which has increased the amount of product code shipped per engineer by 40% since September.
“We have seen engineering work that would take weeks to complete by a small team be completed in a fraction of the time using agent coding tools,” he said.
Despite the layoffs, Dorsey said on the call that Bullock plans to invest in jobs.
“We see meaningful opportunities to invest in our people, invest in hiring, and invest in maintaining a world-class team to serve our customers. Ultimately, we plan to hire more senior AI engineering talent who will continue to level up our engineering and product capabilities,” he said.
Spokespeople for Mr. Dorsey and Mr. Bullock did not respond to requests for comment.
The impact of AI is being felt across industries and roles as companies look for ways to automate their operations. A study by researchers at Stanford University found that early career jobs in fields such as software engineering and customer service are declining.
Some workers say AI has increased their responsibilities. One software engineer told Business Insider that the simultaneous increase in productivity and workload is causing “AI fatigue.”
