Leaked Email Reveals Jack Dorsey's Letter to Laid-Off Block Employees Leaked Email Reveals Jack Dorsey's Letter to Laid-Off Block Employees
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Former Twitter (now X) CEO Jack Dorsey was blamed by the employees for enabling Elon Musk to acquire the company in 2022. Now, it appears that there's another controversy surrounding the entrepreneur.

Dorsey's Block, a fintech behemoth, reportedly terminated 931 workers on Tuesday, March 26, according to a leaked internal email.

The last time Block issued a mass layoff was in January 2024, when it axed 1,000 jobs.

Jack Dorsey Announces Layoffs Due to Strategic Changes

As TechCrunch spotted, Block co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey made the staff aware of the layoffs in an internal email. He said these reductions are due to "organizational changes," including removing jobs and launching a consultation period when necessary under local employment law.

The redundancies impacted staff in three broad categories:

Strategy-Based Layoffs: 391 workers lost their jobs as a consequence of shifting Block's long-term strategic objectives.

Performance-Based Layoffs: The biggest category, 460 staff members, were dismissed for poor performance scores or negative performance trends toward poor performance.

Restructuring of Management: 80 managers were eliminated to flatten the hierarchy of Block. Another 193 managers were relocated to the individual contributor ranks.

Here's the leaked Block email about the layoffs:

hi all.

today we'll be making some org changes, including eliminating roles and beginning the consultation process in countries where required. i want to give you all the straight facts.

as I said at the last Block, there are three areas we'd like to address:

  • strategy: reducing from teams that are off strategy, and fixing our discipline ratios.
  • performance: parting ways with people with a "below" or trending towards "below."
  • hierarchy: driving to flattening our org to a max depth of innercore+4

what that translates to in actual numbers of people:

  • strategy: 391 people
  • performance: 460 people
  • hierarchy: 80 managers (with 193 moving it individual contributor roles)

we're also closing all the 748 roles we had open with the exception of:

  • roles progressed to offer stage.
  • critical operational roles
  • start/accelerate roles
  • key leadership roles

none of the above points are trying to hit a specific financial target, replacing folks with AI, or changing our headcount cap. they are specific to our needs around strategy, raising the bar and acting faster on performance, and flattening our org so we can move faster and with less abstraction.

why do this all at once instead of over time? we're behind in our actions, and that's not fair to the individuals who work here or the company. when we know, we should move, and there hasn't been enough movement. we need to move to help us meet and stay ahead of the transformational moment our industry is in.

this is the toughest part of my job, and I fight hard against any of these considerations. we must have a very high bar of correctness for us to take any action, which takes iteration and time to get right. i always balance this with the fact that everyone here, and those that are departing, has equity in our company. it's my job to increase that value. we believe this will help us focus and execute better to do just that.

we're working to give clarity to everyone as quickly, with as much context and support, as possible. you'll receive an email soon about what this means for you. if there are areas where you think we could do better, please send me a note. direct feedback makes us better, and I always act when it makes sense.

thank you to all those leaving us. i am grateful and appreciative for you and your work, which has built us up to this point. we will continue to honor that by increasing our value to our customers, and therefore to all of our shareholders, including you.

thank you,

Jack

Block Refutes Layoffs Were Motivated by Financial Stress

Dorsey explained that the Block layoffs were not driven by cost considerations or efforts to substitute employees with artificial intelligence. Rather, he noted that the shifts were required to respond to changing strategic requirements and to enhance firm performance.

Originally published on Tech Times