Inside the Rolling Layoffs at Jack Dorsey’s Block: jack dorsey and generative AI mandates
After hundreds of workers were laid off in early February, employees say jack dorsey’s Block has seen internal culture devolve: performance anxiety is running rampant, using generative AI is required, and overall morale is rapidly deteriorating. The company is the parent behind Square and the payment app Cash App, and Dorsey cofounded the company in 2009 after previously cofounding Twitter.
Layoff scope and timing
The layoffs began in early February and involved hundreds of workers. Before the headcount reductions started, Block had around 11, 000 people on staff. Management enacted the firings slowly over the course of weeks and told employees the process will continue through the end of this month. The reductions could eventually impact up to 10 percent of the company's workforce.
Employee complaints and morale
Seven current and former Block employees, who requested anonymity to speak freely, described rapidly deteriorating morale inside the company. One employee complaint submitted to Dorsey in a recent all-hands meeting read: “Morale is probably the worst I’ve felt in four years. ” The same complaint added: “The overarching culture at Block is crumbling. ” Another employee complaint from the same meeting said: “We don't yet know if our livelihoods will be affected, and this makes it incredibly hard to make major life choices without knowing if we still have a job next week. ”
Arnaud Weber’s internal message
Multiple people said they were appalled when Arnaud Weber, Block’s engineering lead, sent an email after the initial wave of layoffs characterizing the departures as performance-related rather than a cost-saving measure. In that message Weber wrote: “As part of our 2025 performance cycle, we have parted ways with teammates who weren't meeting the expectations of their role. ” He added: “These departures were based on clear performance gaps, role expectations, and alignment coming out of calibrations on the bar for each level. ” Several employees said they disagree with management’s internal messaging that the firings were merit-based.
Jack Dorsey’s message to staff
The all-hands meeting took place after hundreds of staff had already been fired. During the meeting Dorsey reiterated that the layoffs were made for performance reasons and said there was “a sizable portion of our population that have been phoning it in. ” He said frequent topics cited by workers in their latest messages included “widespread concerns about layoffs, ” “performance anxiety, ” and “the tension between accelerating delivery through AI adoption versus maintaining code quality and engineering rigor. ” Dorsey also stressed that remaining workers should be using generative AI tools to maximize productivity, warning that Block would risk being outpaced by its competitors if it did not accelerate AI adoption.
AI mandates and internal practice
Employees are currently expected to send an update email to Dorsey every week; he then uses generative AI to summarize the thousands of messages. That mandate to adopt generative AI has been a flashpoint. One current Block employee said: “Top-down mandates to use large language models are crazy. ” The same employee added: “If the tool were good, we’d all just use it. ”
Responses and unanswered requests
People inside the firings were not a single event but a rolling process stretching over weeks, and many described performance anxiety and fear about livelihood. A Block spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment. The sequence of events—hundreds let go in early February, slow firings over weeks, ongoing updates to Dorsey, mandatory generative AI use, and continued guidance that the process will run through the end of this month—forms the outline of the current upheaval inside the company.
Block remains the parent company of Square and Cash App, and Dorsey, who co-founded Block in 2009 after previously cofounding Twitter, has framed the workforce changes around performance expectations and faster AI-driven delivery.
