"Today we shared a difficult decision with our team," Jack Dorsey, Block's co-founder and CEO, wrote in a letter to shareholders. "We're reducing Block by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000, which means that over 4,000 people are being asked to leave or entering into consultation."

Block beat views on growth in its consumer lending unit as writeoffs soared. With 40% of workers out, can AI replace them? If others follow, it could be AIpocalypse now.

Block’s stock surges 20% as Wall Street rewards massive job cuts at the parent company of Square and the Cash App.

Laid-off Block employees say they were embracing AI tools in what one called an almost "celebratory" way. Then it replaced them.

Block stock soared almost 24% in after-hours trading Thursday after the company’s CEO Jack Dorsey announced the fintech company was laying off nearly half its staff. The

While Jack Dorsey cites AI-enabled productivity gains as the reason for Block's cuts, the deeper shift is in payments plumbing: stablecoin settlement threatens to compress the fee stack that fintech acquirers have relied on for years.

Investors cheered Block's big layoffs, but the move also flicks at the tension between markets and the economy Citrini highligthed in its viral AI note.