From MarketWatch, February 26:
Block’s stock surges 20% as Wall Street rewards massive job cuts at the parent company of Square and the Cash App
Block, the parent company of Square and the Cash App, is conducting a major reorganization in the age of artificial intelligence, and investors are rewarding the move.
The payment-technology company plans to cut almost half of its workforce, it announced Thursday. The restructuring will bring Block’s employee count below 6,000 versus more than 10,000 today.
Shares of Block are up 22% in after-hours action on Thursday.
The layoffs at Block come just days after Citrini Research rattled markets with the publication of a blog post detailing a fictional scenario in which AI productivity tools were so powerful that they forced widespread shifts in the U.S. labor market. These particularly impacted knowledge workers.
‘Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” CEO Jack Dorsey said in a shareholder letter. “We’re already seeing it internally. A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better.”
By “intelligence tools,” the company is referring to AI and automation. CFO Amrita Ahuja said that Block has seen sizable productivity gains recently, not just among programmers but also within the broader company.
Within a year, Dorsey expects other companies to follow suit with “similar structural changes.”....
....MUCH MORE
After hours the stock is up $12.78 (+23.44%).
Cofounding Twitter and Square as well as founding Bluesky, Mr. Dorsey does have some street cred.
Be all that as it may be though, I'm still puzzled by this from 2020:
The Criminal as Entrepreneur (or how did Jack Dorsey end up in a painting from 1883?)
The guy second from right, Dorsey right?
From American Affairs, Fall 2018, Volume II number 3:
About the Author
Cedric Muhammad is an entrepreneur and author of The Entrepreneurial
Secret. He is the former general manager of Wu-Tang Management and is a
member of the African Union’s Congress of Economists. Follow him on Twitter.
—Pope Gregory the Great
—Jay-Z, “Drug Dealers Anonymous”
