Inside the Rolling Layoffs at Jack Dorsey’s Block

Morale plummets after Block layoffs

Internal culture at Jack Dorsey’s Block is crumbling, according to current employees, following layoffs that began in early February and could impact up to 10 percent of the workforce. Seven current and former employees told WIRED that performance anxiety is rampant and morale is rapidly deteriorating.

“Morale is probably the worst I’ve felt in four years,” read one employee complaint submitted to Dorsey in a recent all-hands meeting. The company, parent to Square and Cash App, had roughly 11,000 employees before the cuts began.

Management calls layoffs performance-based

Employees were shocked by management’s internal messaging that the firings were merit-based, not a cost-saving measure. In an email viewed by WIRED, engineering lead Arnaud Weber stated the company had “parted ways with teammates who weren’t meeting the expectations of their role.”

Sources strongly disagree with this characterization. The layoffs are being enacted slowly over weeks and are expected to continue through the end of the month, leaving remaining staff in limbo.

“We don’t yet know if our livelihoods will be affected,” read another complaint from the all-hands meeting. “This makes it incredibly hard to make major life choices without knowing if we still have a job next week.”

Dorsey mandates AI use and defends cuts

During the meeting, Dorsey doubled down on the performance rationale. He stated there was “a sizable portion of our population that have been phoning it in.” He also stressed that remaining workers must use generative AI tools to maximize productivity or risk falling behind competitors.

Block already employs AI in a unique way: employees are expected to send weekly update emails to Dorsey, who then uses AI to summarize the thousands of messages. Dorsey’s AI summary of recent messages cited top employee concerns as:

• Widespread concerns about layoffs
• Performance anxiety
• Tension between AI adoption and maintaining code quality

Employees push back on AI mandates

The top-down directive to use AI is causing significant friction within the engineering teams. Many see it as a forced solution to a cultural problem.

“Top-down mandates to use large language models are crazy,” one current employee told WIRED. “If the tool were good, we’d all just use it.” This sentiment reflects a broader tension between management’s push for accelerated delivery and engineers’ focus on maintaining rigor.

A Block spokesperson did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment. The ongoing, protracted nature of the layoffs continues to fuel uncertainty and anxiety across the company.