Can AI do 40% of your job? Block’s Jack Dorsey thinks so

Analysis Can AI do 40% of your job? Block’s Jack Dorsey thinks so Blake Montgomery Jack Dorsey to cut 4,000 workers at Block amid AI advances – but specters such as weak crypto market haunt company Jack Dorsey cited AI as the driving force behind cutting 40% of his company’s employees, but other factors such as a weak crypto market, overstaffing and a declining stock price may also have motivated the move. Last week, the financial technology company Block announced that it would lay off 4,000 of its 10,000 workers. Dorsey, Block’s CEO, said in a letter to shareholders that advances in AI “have changed what it means to build and run a company”. “We’re already seeing it internally. A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better. And intelligence tool capabilities are compounding faster every week,” he wrote. He also said that Block’s business remained strong and that these cuts weren’t an austerity measure. Can AI operate 40% of a business? Perhaps, but other specters haunt Dorsey’s company. The CEO, and by extension Block, has gone all-in on crypto for the better part of a decade, rebranding in 2021 from Square to Block to evoke “blockchain”. At the time, Dorsey redirected the business towards blockchain and Bitcoin as well as the successful Cash App. The company announced in 2024 that it would invest 10% of its gross profit from bitcoin products into bitcoin itself. A company that has focused its business on cryptocurrency may have other reasons than the miracle of AI to trim its staff. Estimates based on Block’s public financial filings peg its bitcoin holdings around 8,500 BTC. Bitcoin has lost nearly a quarter of its value since the beginning of the year, and the broader cryptocurrency market has shown similar lackluster performance. Before Dorsey’s announcement, Block’s stock had declined by some 35% since a peak in October. The combination of a crypto winter and a weak stock price provides a less futuristic, more tang...