Block CEO Envisions AI Unseating Middle Managers

In the wake of sweeping layoffs, Block‘s Jack Dorsey sees AI replacing corporate middle managers.

Dorsey, the financial services/tech company’s co-founder and CEO, put forth this idea Tuesday (March 31) in a blog post co-written by Sequoia Capital partner Roelof Botha, arguing that artificial intelligence (AI) could replace the “traditional hierarchy” of management.

“At Block, we’re questioning the underlying assumption: that organizations have to be hierarchically organized with humans as the coordination mechanism. Instead, we intend to replace what the hierarchy does,” Dorsey and Botha wrote.

“Most companies using AI today are giving everyone a copilot, which makes the existing structure work slightly better without changing it. We’re after something different: a company built as an intelligence (or mini-AGI).”

While a manager in a traditional company is charged with knowing what their team is doing and relaying that information along the chain, things are different at a “remote-first” environment such as Block, the post argued.

“In a remote-first company where work is already machine-readable, AI can build and maintain that picture continuously,” the blog post continued.

Block announced in February that it was cutting its staffing levels from more than 10,000 workers to just under 6,000, a much sharper reduction than what had been initially reported.

“The core thesis is simple. Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” Dorsey said on an earnings call soon after the cuts.

“I don’t think we’re early to this realization. I think that most companies are late.” He added that “a significantly smaller team using the tools we’re building can do more and do it better. And intelligence tool capabilities are compounding faster every single week.”

As PYMNTS wrote following the layoffs, Block’s move is in line with a larger transition happening at technology and financial services companies. As AI increasingly drafts code, automates internal documentation, analyzes risk signals and handles customer support, the amount of human labor needed for certain workflows shifts. Companies are reconsidering team size relative to output.

The report also pointed to a column from PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster arguing that 2026 marks the year AI adoption moves from “experimentation to operational reality,” with AI being embedded into payments flows, customer engagement systems and enterprise software stacks.

“Block operates squarely in that environment,” PYMNTS added. “Payments processing, merchant services and peer-to-peer finance are data-heavy domains where AI can meaningfully reduce friction and manual effort.”