Block Employees Voice Concerns Over Workplace Culture and Mandatory AI Use
Employees at Block, the parent company of Square and Cash App founded by Twitter co-creator Jack Dorsey, are reportedly experiencing heightened anxiety and declining morale following a recent wave of workforce reductions. According to a detailed report from Wired, current and former staff members have described a deteriorating internal environment characterized by increased performance pressure and growing uncertainty about job security.
Layoffs and Their Impact on Employee Morale
The company initiated workforce reductions earlier this month, with the latest cuts potentially affecting up to 10% of its employees, approximately 11,000 individuals. Sources indicate these layoffs are being implemented gradually over several weeks rather than through a single announcement, with employees being informed that the process may continue through the end of the month.
During a recent all-hands meeting, employee feedback shared directly with Jack Dorsey revealed deep concerns about the workplace atmosphere. One employee complaint submitted to Dorsey stated, "Morale is probably the worst I've felt in four years. The overarching culture at Block is crumbling." Another employee expressed anxiety about future stability, noting, "We don't yet know if our livelihoods will be affected, and this makes it incredibly hard to make major life choices without knowing if we still have a job next week."
Performance-Based Justification Sparks Controversy
The report cites multiple sources who expressed concern after Block's engineering lead, Arnaud Weber, sent an email following the initial layoffs. In the communication, Weber described the job cuts as performance-related rather than a cost-cutting measure, stating that departures were based on "clear performance gaps, role expectations, and alignment coming out of calibrations on the bar for each level."
Several employees reportedly disagreed with management's internal framing of the layoffs as merit-based decisions, creating additional tension within the organization.
Mandatory AI Adoption and Weekly Reporting Requirements
Block employees are currently required to send weekly update emails to Jack Dorsey, which are then summarized using generative AI tools. During the same all-hands meeting held after hundreds of employees had been laid off, Dorsey acknowledged that commonly raised themes in these updates included "widespread concerns about layoffs," "performance anxiety," and "the tension between accelerating delivery through AI adoption versus maintaining code quality and engineering rigor."
Dorsey reiterated that the layoffs were linked to performance, suggesting there was "a sizable portion of our population that have been phoning it in." He also encouraged remaining employees to adopt generative AI tools to improve productivity, warning that Block could fall behind competitors otherwise.
However, this top-down mandate has received mixed reactions from staff. One current Block employee commented, "Top-down mandates to use large language models are crazy. If the tool were good, we'd all just use it." The report indicates that following the layoffs, the use of generative AI tools has become mandatory in certain workflows, adding to employee concerns about changing work expectations.
Anonymous Employee Testimonies Reveal Broader Concerns
Wired's report is based on conversations with seven current and former Block employees who requested anonymity to discuss internal operations. These sources described rising performance anxiety within teams and noted that the company's internal culture has been significantly affected by the recent workforce reductions.
The combination of ongoing layoffs, mandatory AI adoption, and performance-based justifications for job cuts has created what employees describe as a perfect storm of workplace anxiety at Block, raising questions about the company's direction under Jack Dorsey's leadership.
