alt Hacker NewsLayoffs at Block
Comments
Seems like if AI is such an accelerator, leveraging 4,000 more people using AI will generate that much more shareholder value.
Any layoff that blames AI and doesn't address the fact that the company is saying it would prefer to make less, they are lying.
Rational actors should be pushing to grow when others are fearful. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
Translation: we’re hemorrhaging money and need to cut costs. AI is just a smokescreen
you can tell he is a cracked out based tech ceo because he doesn't use capital letters
A few thoughts about Block as I've worked there before:
- the company thrives on long term projects that seem to fizzle out as engineers get frustrated and leave
- there are way too many MBAs and finance people now compared to the early years where building was prioritized.
- jack is only doing part time at Block, early days he was around to chat and work with varying levels of hands on
- they've overhired and over-committed to losing projects, worst of all they've de-prioritized projects that were pretty innovative because traction wasn't there quick enough for them to justify them, e.g. terminal, POS specifically for restaurants, localization for EU
- they operate on docs and in the time of AI, the workforce is inundated with slop
- also, I hate that jack can't be bothered to capitalize anything like it's cool. come on man, you're firing 4000 people, not tweeting memes
Nearly half of their employees. And yet economists tell us, AI isn't going to affect jobs.
"l00k at all my AI!"
Or how about your revenue lines are in retail and peer-to-peer finances, primarily for small-to-medium sized businesses and low-to-mid income individuals, primarily in the US market, all of which are struggling from tariffs and economic slowdown in their brackets.
Nah...definitely the AI.
AI is a transformative technology that will reshape how companies are run. More layoffs may be coming unfortunately. But on the other end, more companies and more products will be created. More competition overall, including for Block.
The overarching risk, imo, is America turning against tech and its leaders / billionaires. I think this is slowly happening. And why not, if the People decide that tech is not bringing good things to our modern society anymore, that should be respected.
I wonder what folks on 2009 Hacker News would have said if a company announced layoffs.
Would the top comments have been questioning it, telling the CEO what he should have done instead, worrying about how hard it would be for those people in today's economy?
Chopping block
I'm still not sure I quite agree with this AI replacement premise.
Assuming the premise of profitability and a sound business then this sounds like a failure of product if anything. It just doesn't follow for me that when you see more productive teams the immediate answer is that you need less people. Especially for silicon valley types this seems antithetical to scaling.
Thinking of it in two ways
- Yes you could (in theory but I still argue not 100%) cut workforce and have a smaller # of people do the work that everyone else was doing
Or
- You could keep your people, who are ostensibly more productive with AI, and get even more work done
Why would you ever choose the first?
Right now is exactly the time when we need to pause issuing new or transferring existing H1B/L1/other work visas for least a year until we know full impact of AI on economy and employment.
He cant write in proper case to lay off $4k people?
Block owns Tidal? who knew
Stock goes up in expectation of ... CEOs doing share buybacks to increase their bonus checks.
It is hard to tell what this company does, but it seems to be involved in bitcoin. Coincidentally we have had a huge drop in bitcoin in the last months.
I don't buy anything this weirdo says.
If only David Graeber were alive to see that Boards have finally started to appreciate his 2018 Book, Bullshit Jobs.
this is brutal. :(
my mentor was on the chopping block too.
block btw now makes most of its money on bitcoin transactions not software
well, I'd like to join smaller flatter teams...
> but something has changed. we're already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using
For some reason he deliberately avoids using the word 'artificial' here.
I like how it's posted to a twitter URL.
Lack of caps really grinds on you by the end.
Anyway not unexpected.
i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead.
Come on now, it's not going to be the only round.
What is it with tech execs and not using capital letters? It's bizarre. Especially in a letter about layoffs.
If it's true that AI is creating productivity gains (and I think it is), then a company has two options. If every employee is X more productive, then you can either cut people and increase profitability, but sacrifice growth. Or you can be creative and see this as an opportunity to develop new features, new lines of business and new products. The choice depends on the creativity of the business leaders. Judging from Jack's post here, he chose option one. Which suggests to me he is deeply an un-creative business leader taking the easy path.
why doesn't HN rewrite this to the canonical x.com hostname?
he is worse than musk ever been. hiding behind ai
Imagine being laid off by somebody who doesn't understand capital letters.
Some choice Jack Dorsey quotes:
From New Yorker profile: “His goal… is… by making information freer, he hopes to make the world fairer, kinder, and nicer.”
Where he also writes, “I definitely feel the most fundamental issue is economic equality.”
But hey, the stock is up 25%!
Imagine not being laid off in this situation.. I'd demand to be.
EDIT: I guess if it comes with 300% raise I'd pause for a bit to think about it, but otherwise absolutely not.
The headline numbers:
They're cutting 40% (edit: the post actually says "nearly half") of the workforce (4k out of 10k). That's huge.
The severance is 20 weeks of pay + 1 week per year of tenure, stock vesting through May, 6 months of healthcare, their corporate devices, and $5k cash.
Will Randian tech bros start calling for socialism soon? Inshallah.
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> we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we're already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that's accelerating rapidly.
Once again, this is "AGI" in it's most direct and absolute version with zero fluff.
I unfortunately predicted more layoffs will occur back in 2025 [0] and I see only but acceleration on this.
"we're reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation."
holy moly