Jack Dorsey laid off more than 4,000 people at Block yesterday — roughly 40% of the company — announced with Q4 earnings, sparking a 24% stock jump. The layoffs were framed as an “intelligence-native” transformation where smaller teams using AI tools would accomplish more.
The hiring binge and the crypto bet
Between late 2019 and 2022, Block tripled headcount from 3,900 to 12,500 during an era of cheap money and crypto enthusiasm. The stock peaked above $250 in mid-2021 but now trades around $67 — a 75% decline. Bitcoin ecosystem revenue fell nearly 20% year-on-year in Q4 2025, undermining one of Block’s three revenue pillars despite Dorsey’s vocal bitcoin maximalism.
The pattern
There’s a troubling cycle here: aggressive hiring during good times, doubling down on crypto, watching the strategy fail, cutting half the workforce while calling it an “AI transformation,” and collecting stock price gains. This is day trading with human capital — buying high, selling low, while treating employees as disposable assets rather than people with mortgages and families.
Missing foresight
Crypto’s boom-bust cycles weren’t new; neither was pandemic hiring unsustainability. Yet leadership failed to stress-test decisions against alternative scenarios or question whether trends would persist. Genuine foresight requires intellectual humility — willingness to admit potential error and seek contradictory evidence.
What good looks like
Successful companies navigating AI transition won’t make theatrical cuts for Wall Street approval. Instead, they’ll:
- Conduct careful analysis of how AI changes their operations
- Provide retraining opportunities for existing staff
- Build evidence-based workforce decisions
- Implement gradual changes rather than dramatic swings
Block lacked neither resources nor data, only the willingness to question its narrative while course-correction remained possible.
This post also appears on my Substack.