News of the day
1. Block is cutting nearly half its workforce, over 4,000 jobs, to fully embrace AI tools, signaling a major shift in employment. Shares surged on the news. → Read more
2. Figma and OpenAI integrate Codex, directly linking design and code. This streamlines workflows, enabling designers to translate visual elements into functional code more efficiently. → Read more
3. Claude Code now remembers your coding habits, project specifics, and past fixes automatically, enhancing efficiency and personalization without manual input. → Read more
4. Google & OpenAI employees back Anthropic's Pentagon refusal on AI use for surveillance & autonomous weapons, urging leaders to unite ethically. → Read more
Our take
Hi Dotikers!
Last night, Jack Dorsey announced the layoff of over 4,000 people at Block. That's 40% of the workforce. Not in multiple rounds. All at once.
For those unfamiliar: Block (formerly Square) is an American fintech company valued at tens of billions of dollars. Their flagship product for merchants is Square, the small white payment terminal you see everywhere. For consumers, it's Cash App, a payment super-app used by tens of millions of Americans. And Jack Dorsey is the man who co-founded Twitter before dedicating himself fully to Block.
The reason behind these layoffs? AI. Dorsey spells it out: smaller teams, equipped with the right AI tools, can do more and do it better. Period.
But what makes this event historic in our eyes isn't the layoffs themselves. It's what happened right after.
Block's stock surged over 20% following the announcement.
Read that again. A company announces it's letting go of half its workforce because of AI, and the market cheers. Wall Street doesn't punish, Wall Street rewards. To my knowledge, this is the first time we've seen such a clear signal: financial markets now view AI not as a promise, but as an immediate operational lever that justifies cutting a company in half.
And make no mistake, Block isn't struggling. Gross profit is up 24% year over year. The business is healthy. Dorsey isn't cutting out of necessity, he's cutting out of conviction. His thesis: AI is fundamentally changing what it means to build and run a company. And those who don't adapt now will be forced to do so later, under worse conditions.
Whether you agree with his approach or not, the signal sent by the markets is impossible to ignore. It's worth taking a closer look, and especially reading Dorsey's full message posted on X. It's one of the most clear-eyed and direct texts a CEO has ever written on the subject. No bullshit, no "we're a family", just a cold honesty about what's coming.
Alex.
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