Posted on 02/27/2026 6:52:29 PM PST by Lazamataz
Shares in the financial technology company Block soared more than 20% in premarket trading Friday after its CEO announced it was laying off more than 4,000 of its 10,000 plus employees, reconfiguring to capitalize on its use of artificial intelligence.
“The core thesis is simple. Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” Jack Dorsey said in a letter to shareholders in Block, the parent company to online payment platforms such as Square and Cash App. “A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better,” he said.
Dorsey’s comments explicitly naming AI as a key driver behind the move were also posted on X, or Twitter, a company he co-founded. The assertion that the job cuts will add to Block’s profitability and efficiency led investors to jump in and buy, analysts said.
(Excerpt) Read more at fortune.com ...
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And I just bought a house.
Buh-bye, nice place.
Hello, living out of a car.
The majority of companies are not benefitting from AI.
Until AI figures out it doesn’t need money starts giving it away ,LOL
Hey, La, don’t get depressed. There will always be a place in this world for a man with satyriasis!
I work with AI, and I am able to get good code out of it.
I *might* be in that 60% still working, but it's a coin toss.
Once upon a time, automation was going to devastate the low-skill workers at McDonald’s. Who needs to hire a burger flipper when a machine can do the work?
But here we are. People with college degrees are in trouble. Finance, Banking, Law firms, Medical offices, Coders, Insurance — the list goes on.
This is going to change things.
weird ... article indicates the layoffs occurred BEFORE the “replacement” tools were built ...
Mean Laz, no La.
I am sorry you are caught up in this.
For those who don’t know ... This folks, is the same Jack Dorsey who used to be the President of Twitter before Elon Musk bought the company.
Banks and Insurance are next.
I have never used AI for coding, but I tested it out on other things, and it made a lot of errors.
“
“The core thesis is simple. Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” Jack Dorsey said in a letter “
.
I wonder when that AI builds the company on it’s own and does not need good `ol Jack?
Hummm...
.
Oh, I'm not laid off.
Yet.
There is a counter-argument I’m seeing on the Reddit r/artificialintelligence forum.
Dorsey has a habit of overhiring.
“Elon bought Dorsey’s Twitter and fired 70% of the workforce and the last time i check this bird app is still working fine, that shows how much Dorsey overhires.”
and
“Saying “we’re laying people off due to advancements in AI” will get a whole lot more positive attention (if you want to call the price increase in stock that) rather than telling the other side of the story, which is “we mismanaged the company or misjudged growth and we don’t need as many people as we thought”.
In 2020 Block had ~5500 employees, they made massive bets on crypto and blockchain technology (including changing the name) including doubling headcount, and those bets have not panned out at the scale needed to sustain/justify the investment.”
We flew over 5 million Indians to the USA and fired basically most American IT workers to get here. I hope it was worth it.
I’m in development. I’ve used AI, and I’ve used it successfully for CodeGen.
That said, it’s not quite the panacea that Jack Dorsey seems to think it is.
Still, this big flashy move may cause many other companies to follow suit, even to their eventual detriment.
In the meantime, there’s a good chance I’ll be homeless.
He probably just fired all the female HR workers lol
Anthropic (Claude) tech staff is 80% Indian/Pakistani (here in the USA). AI is really a South East Asian technology. My beef is why weren’t we given a heads up that our cutting edge careers were going to be destroyed, by our own government, 10 years ago. This was particularly evil.
Knew that was familiar but was having trouble placing. Also knew without any trouble he is someone I am wary of.
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