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The first Block falls
The AI-driven job apocalypse is no longer a hypothetical.
Block CEO and cofounder Jack Dorsey gutted his fintech company, restructuring it into smaller, flatter teams built to move fast and embrace what he calls "a new way of working."
He put it bluntly: "we're not making this decision because we're in trouble."
That's the part rattling white-collar workers across Corporate America. If Dorsey's move wasn't about survival, what was it about? And what does that mean for everyone else?
As AI spreads, anxiety is rising. People are questioning what it means for their jobs.
Tech has been in its hardcore era for a while now. Companies have trimmed around the edges with rolling layoffs but have largely avoided massive sweeping cuts. And they've rarely blamed AI outright.
Dorsey did both. He cut nearly half his staff, from over 10,000 to just under 6,000. Then he made the strategy explicit: "we're going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do."
A Block data analyst who was just laid off said he could see how AI was automating his work, and how it ultimately cost him his job. "It was definitely a 'whoa' moment when I realized just how powerful things had gotten," he told Business Insider in an interview.
Wall Street rewarded Dorsey's move, with Block shares surging 17% on Friday
Investors and analysts say this could be a turning point, opening the floodgates for other companies to take a similar approach.
"This is the first AI cut," Balaji Srinivasan, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, said in a post on X. "And it will send shockwaves."
Srinivasan said the Block cuts were a "signal to everyone in tech: get good now. Become indispensable. Work nights and weekends. Learn the AI tools and raise your game. Or you might not make the cut, as an employee or as a company."
Sure, plenty are skeptical about Dorsey's reasoning. As Dan DeFrancesco wrote on Friday, perhaps Dorsey is using AI as a cover. The company overhired during COVID, which Dorsey has acknowledged. Its stock price trades significantly below its pandemic highs (even including Friday's big rally).
But the details matter less than the vibes emanating from the cuts.
Matt Shumer, an AI CEO who wrote the viral "Something Big is Happening" essay a few weeks ago, said this is "one of the first major examples of AI driving layoffs, but certainly not the last."
"If you're saying 'this won't happen to me', re-evaluate your thoughts. Now," he wrote. "It may be the most important thing you do."
Do you think this is the beginning of an AI jobs apocalypse? Send me your thoughts at srussolillo@businessinsider.com.