Fintech block fired 931 people on Tuesday, according to a leaked message from the company seen by TechCrunch.
The news was announced to staff via email from Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and CEO of Bullock. Dorsey told staff on Tuesday that the block will “have some organizational changes, including eliminating roles and starting a consultation process in the state if necessary.”
These are the latest changes to Hitblock, the Dorsey financial services giant that owns cash app and square. The company offers mobile payment services for consumers, as well as point-of-sale hardware and corporate software for point-of-sale.
In an email, Dorsey explained that the block is cutting roles across three wide buckets. His first listing is that 391 people will be cut due to “strategy” reasons.
The second and biggest bucket, 460 people, is the reason for “performance,” and Dorsey explains that Block is firing or is trending towards employees who get a “less than” rating on the company’s internal performance tracking metric.
The third bucket is the manager, of which 80 are cut to flatten the block hierarchy to “Innercore+4”. Dorsey also said 193 managers have been moved to the role of individual contributors.
Dorsey’s email denies layoffs being economical reasons or replacing workers with AI. Rather, he said the block is cutting roles to “upload the bar and act faster in performance” while changing its strategic needs.
Dorsey also said the block is closing 748 open rolls at the company, except for those that have progressed to the offer stage, key operational roles and key leadership roles.
Block was last received a major layoff in January 2024 when it cut around 1,000 roles. As of December 2024, the costume had around 11,300 staff members around the world. The company’s latest 10K filing.
Block did not respond to requests for comment immediately.
Below is the entire email Dorsey sent on Tuesday to block employees. The grammar and format of this text has been slightly changed to protect the sources that we share with TechCrunch. The email is as follows:
Hello everyone.
Today we will make several organizational changes, including removing roles and starting a national consultation process where necessary. I want to give you all the straight facts.
As I said in the last block, there are three areas we want to deal with.
- Strategy: Reduce from unsubject teams and modify discipline ratios.
- Performance: How to say goodbye to people who are trending towards “down” or “down”.
- Hierarchy: +4 driving to flatten tissue to maximum depth inside
What it translates into actual numbers of people:
- Tier: 80 managers (193 people driving the role of individual contributors)
We also conclude all of the 748 roles that were open, except for:
- The role proceeded to provide the stage.
- Important operational roles
None of the above points are trying to achieve certain financial goals, replace people with AI, or change staff caps. They are specific to our needs regarding strategy, allowing us to move by raising our bars, acting faster in performance, flattening our organization and abstracting faster.
Why do this at once over time? We are behind our actions, but that is not fair to individuals working here or in the company. When we knew, we should have moved, and there was not enough movement. We need to move to help our industry stay ahead of the transformative moments in which it exists.
This is the most difficult part of my job and I fight hard against one of these considerations. We need to have very high accuracy for us to take action. I’ve always been balanced with the fact that everyone here is leaving has fairness to our company. It’s my job to increase that value. I think this will help you concentrate and do exactly that.
We are committed to giving everyone clarity as quickly as possible, with as much context and support as possible. You will receive an email immediately about what this means to you. If there is an area we think we can do better, send me a note. Direct feedback makes us better and I always act when it makes sense.
Thank you to everyone who leaves us. I am grateful and grateful for you and your work. We will continue to respect that by increasing our value to our customers and therefore all shareholders, including you.
thank you,
Jack
The story was updated Tuesday at 4:28pm and includes a full email announcing the layoffs.
