Square/Block stock peaked at $273 in Feb 2021 and is currently at $54. Taking away the Covid bubble the stock has been completely flat since 2018, almost 8 years, while the S&P 500 returned nearly 200% in that same period. So I'm not buying the whole "the company is doing great! The layoff is just because of AI."
Layoffs at Block
101–110 of 1001 posts
Re: Layoffs at Block
#102I don't understand anyone who says layoffs are due to improvements in AI tooling.
"Thanks to LLMs, each worker can do twice the work they could before. Naturally we are firing half the company because ... business is good and ... too much productivity is bad?"
Re: Layoffs at Block
#103This feels similar to March 2020 when COVID was in Seattle. “It’s in the US but maybe it’s just a one-off.” We’ll see, I guess.
Re: Layoffs at Block
#104Re: Layoffs at Block
#105[deleted]
Re: Layoffs at Block
#106I don't understand anyone who says layoffs are due to improvements in AI tooling. "Thanks to LLMs, each worker can do twice the work they could before. Naturally we are firing half the company because ... business is good and ... too much productivity is bad?"
It's simple: it's just a lie. We are seeing the goal of AI in action here, which is reducing payroll costs.
Re: Layoffs at Block
#107It's going to get really ugly, Jason Lemkin called this out as a possibility a few hours ago: https://youtu.be/mBE_9vGJBUM?si=WSyZXYgV48WfrNrv&t=2908
We're about to see a lot of public SAAS companies do the same and rebrand as "AI" first
Re: Layoffs at Block
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nice severance; but in this job market, holy shit. I just talked to a bunch of recruiters (we're hiring) and their main piece of advice was: The market is crazy. Move fast . We're seeing people getting jobs within days of starting to look, bailing on offers after signing because they got a better offer somewhere else, etc. 24 hours is the longest you can leave a candidate waiting. You have been warned edit: I am in…
You're hiring, so of course that's the message you're getting from recruiters. "Market is hot", so take their candidates quick before someone else snaps them up. Don't believe this line without confirmation.
No, that's just the reality of the market right now. Software engineers are an extremely hot field, likely because everybody is trying to add AI to their products.
https://www.citadelsecurities.com/news-and-insights/2026-glo...
Re: Layoffs at Block
#109>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 an…
Even if the AI piece isn't really true - smaller flatter teams will move faster anyway. I always wonder having worked in a lot of startups with 10-50ppl, what on earth a business does with 10000.
Every business metrics needs people to safeguard. That's how you get the number of ppl.
Re: Layoffs at Block
#110I'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 (i…
i feel similarly. suppose ai makes people more productive:
1. companies that are not doing well (slow growth, losing to competition etc) or are in a monopoly and are under pressure to save in the short term are going to use the added productivity to reduce their opex
2. companies that are doing well (growth, in competitive markets) will get even more work done and can't hire enough people
my hunch is block is not doing as well as they seem to be