Jack Dorsey on the layoffs
Apr. 18th, 2026 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitouthttps://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/twitter-cofounder-jack-dorsey-breaks-154132647.html
Fortune byline, so make of that what you will — for sure do not expect “real journalism” whatever the hell that might mean to you or anyone else. I went through a brief (maybe 12-15 years) period where I believed there could be “good” vs “bad” journalism. I’ve gone back to the cynicism that predated that period.
“At the end of 2025, Dorsey and fellow Block leaders headed home for the holidays …”
On the holiday break, C-suite retreat — man, and if THAT isn’t the worst way to have to spend your holidays — engaged in a strategy exercise. They are taking great pains to tell you it involved AI. But what did they actually say?
““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 said recently on Sequoia Capital’s Long Strange Trip podcast.“
““Next, ‘What is the minimal number of people that we would need to be to fully be in compliance with our regulators?’” he continued. “Then third, ‘What is the minimal set of folks that we need in order to grow to fulfill our commitments we’ve made to the Street””
I have removed distracting additional phrases at the ends of these statements that refer to AI. If you remove the “AND I HAVE TO SAY IT WAS BECAUSE AI” parts of this explanation, the explanation if legible, simple and oh so very familiar.
Dorsey and the C-suite at Block, formerly known as Square, are being wildly outcompeted in payments on almost every conceivable front. They have an ongoing, growing stream, but they can see what is happening around them, and while they are growing, related companies in their industry are growing a lot faster. And those companies have very different labor cost structures. That is to say: their competitors are growing way faster, with a lot fewer people (relative and absolute and per anything you care to index it by).
And so they did what every company that doesn’t just straight up careen off the cliff does in this moment: what’s the minimum. Add some padding.
“ Dorsey said they even left some headcount buffer in case they made “mistakes” in their calculations. “Which we did,” Dorsey admitted.”
And then execute quickly and do as much as possible immediately, because once people find out what’s going on, they fight back. If you get them gone before anyone notices, resistance is much harder to organize.
People have been saying right since they first heard about this set of layoffs that it wasn’t about AI, it was about tech company bloat. They weren’t wrong, but they weren’t right either. Some day, we’re going to actually have a conversation about payments. OK, no, we’re not. Not ever. Payments are the most boring conversation ever. The only time anyone wants to talk payments is when their form of payment isn’t accepted when the time comes to pay. That’s the only time.
I know this, because I find payments endlessly fascinating, and even I cannot find anyone who wants to talk about payments.
Oh, hey! Look, it’s another incompatible values driven positions situation!
ETA: I was innocently reading BORU today, and there was a fantastic one about Block!
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1sjqglp/my_company_says_its_best_practice_to_do_layoffs/
This is _sooooo_ hilarious!
OK, look, I don’t genuinely know it’s about Block. Honestly, the dates don’t quite line up? But it feels so very similar.
Fortune byline, so make of that what you will — for sure do not expect “real journalism” whatever the hell that might mean to you or anyone else. I went through a brief (maybe 12-15 years) period where I believed there could be “good” vs “bad” journalism. I’ve gone back to the cynicism that predated that period.
“At the end of 2025, Dorsey and fellow Block leaders headed home for the holidays …”
On the holiday break, C-suite retreat — man, and if THAT isn’t the worst way to have to spend your holidays — engaged in a strategy exercise. They are taking great pains to tell you it involved AI. But what did they actually say?
““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 said recently on Sequoia Capital’s Long Strange Trip podcast.“
““Next, ‘What is the minimal number of people that we would need to be to fully be in compliance with our regulators?’” he continued. “Then third, ‘What is the minimal set of folks that we need in order to grow to fulfill our commitments we’ve made to the Street””
I have removed distracting additional phrases at the ends of these statements that refer to AI. If you remove the “AND I HAVE TO SAY IT WAS BECAUSE AI” parts of this explanation, the explanation if legible, simple and oh so very familiar.
Dorsey and the C-suite at Block, formerly known as Square, are being wildly outcompeted in payments on almost every conceivable front. They have an ongoing, growing stream, but they can see what is happening around them, and while they are growing, related companies in their industry are growing a lot faster. And those companies have very different labor cost structures. That is to say: their competitors are growing way faster, with a lot fewer people (relative and absolute and per anything you care to index it by).
And so they did what every company that doesn’t just straight up careen off the cliff does in this moment: what’s the minimum. Add some padding.
“ Dorsey said they even left some headcount buffer in case they made “mistakes” in their calculations. “Which we did,” Dorsey admitted.”
And then execute quickly and do as much as possible immediately, because once people find out what’s going on, they fight back. If you get them gone before anyone notices, resistance is much harder to organize.
People have been saying right since they first heard about this set of layoffs that it wasn’t about AI, it was about tech company bloat. They weren’t wrong, but they weren’t right either. Some day, we’re going to actually have a conversation about payments. OK, no, we’re not. Not ever. Payments are the most boring conversation ever. The only time anyone wants to talk payments is when their form of payment isn’t accepted when the time comes to pay. That’s the only time.
I know this, because I find payments endlessly fascinating, and even I cannot find anyone who wants to talk about payments.
Oh, hey! Look, it’s another incompatible values driven positions situation!
ETA: I was innocently reading BORU today, and there was a fantastic one about Block!
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1sjqglp/my_company_says_its_best_practice_to_do_layoffs/
This is _sooooo_ hilarious!
OK, look, I don’t genuinely know it’s about Block. Honestly, the dates don’t quite line up? But it feels so very similar.