Block Fires Half Its Workforce and Blames AI — Wall Street Loves It, Up 23%

Corporate office building crumbling into AI circuit patterns as employees walk away carrying boxes

Jack Dorsey just cut 4,000+ employees from Block — nearly half the company's entire workforce — and the stock market responded by sending shares up over 23%. If you ever needed proof that Wall Street treats human beings as line items on a balance sheet, here it is.

The Numbers That Matter (To Wall Street)

Block is going from over 10,000 employees to just under 6,000. That's not a trim. That's an amputation. The company expects to take a $450-500 million charge for severance and related costs, but apparently that's a small price to pay for the stock bump.

Fourth-quarter results were solid: adjusted EPS of 65 cents on $6.25 billion in revenue, with gross profit up 24% year-over-year. Full-year EPS guidance of $3.66 crushed analyst estimates of $3.22. In other words, the business was already performing well — these layoffs aren't about survival.

The AI Excuse

Block CFO Amrita Ahuja framed the cuts as a strategic pivot: "We are choosing to shift how we operate at a time when our business is accelerating and we see an opportunity to move faster with smaller, highly talented teams using AI to automate more work."

Dorsey went further, predicting that "within the next year, the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes." He said he'd rather act now than be "forced into it reactively" with repeated rounds of cuts that destroy morale.

The logic is convenient: blame AI for what is essentially a cost-cutting move that makes shareholders happy. The business was already accelerating. Revenue was growing. But apparently, 10,000 people were too many to share in that success.

A Growing Trend

Block isn't alone. Pinterest, CrowdStrike, and Chegg have all recently announced layoffs directly attributed to AI reshaping their workforces. The pattern is becoming disturbingly familiar: company performs well, executives discover AI can "automate" work, thousands lose their jobs, stock price jumps.

The uncomfortable truth is that these companies aren't replacing workers with AI because AI is better — they're doing it because Wall Street rewards companies that cut headcount while maintaining revenue growth. The AI narrative provides convenient cover for what would otherwise look like old-fashioned cost-cutting.

The Real Question

Dorsey's letter to shareholders positions this as an honest, forward-thinking decision. But there's a difference between a company genuinely transforming its operations with AI and a company using AI as justification for layoffs that boost short-term stock performance.

When your business is "accelerating" and your revenue is growing 24% year-over-year, firing half your workforce isn't adaptation — it's a choice about who gets to benefit from that growth. And right now, the answer is clearly shareholders, not employees.

The Bottom Line

Block's stock is up 23%. Over 4,000 people are looking for new jobs. Jack Dorsey is calling it leadership. Wall Street is calling it efficiency. The rest of us should probably call it what it is: the beginning of a corporate playbook where "AI" becomes the universal excuse for prioritizing share price over people.