Jack Dorsey who openly admitted that he is laying off thousands from his $41 billion company Block due to AI; says: I wanted to make sure that if we ...

In a rare moment of candour among tech leaders, Jack Dorsey, CEO of fintech giant Block, openly admitted that artificial intelligence was the driving force behind the company’s decision to lay off 40% of its workforce which account to more than 4,000 employees.

According to a report by Fortune, Dorsey said that the decision crystallised last December when he and other Black executives experimented with some advanced AI models, including Anthropic’s Opus 4.6 and OpenAI’s Codex 5.3. The capabilities of these tools convinced the leadership that the company could operate with far fewer people.“We just did this exercise of, ‘Okay, so what is the minimal number of people that we would need to keep the service up 100%?’” Dorsey explained on Sequoia Capital’s Long Strange Trip podcast.

He added that the team also calculated the minimum staff needed to remain compliant with regulators and to meet growth commitments.

Integrity in timing

Dorsey said he wanted to act decisively rather than delay inevitable cuts. “I wanted to make sure that if we knew that this was what our company was going to be in the future, I didn’t want to have to do it with our backs against a wall. I want to be ahead of it, because then we can do it with a lot more integrity… with a lot more generosity for the people that we’re asking to leave, and even for the people that we’re asking to stay.”

The layoffs, which reduced Block’s headcount from 10,000 to about 6,000, were executed within three weeks of the leadership’s decision.In a note to the board, Dorsey and Sequoia partner Roelof Botha described AI as prompting a fundamental organizational shift away from traditional management hierarchies. Dorsey acknowledged mistakes in the initial calculations but said the company left buffer headcount to adjust.

Jack Dorsey outlines AI future for the company

In a note to the board, Dorsey and Sequoia partner Roelof Botha described AI as prompting a fundamental organisational shift away from traditional management hierarchies. Dorsey acknowledged mistakes in the initial calculations but said the company left buffer headcount to adjust.While many companies have linked job cuts to automation, few CEOs have been as direct as Dorsey. He argued that embracing AI sooner rather than later would make Block stronger: “We’re not just reacting into something mediocre. We’re acting towards excellence.”