Dorsey is in a huge bind with runway and lack of revenue. Blaming AI for a massive cut needed just to get by lets investors trick themselves into believing that he has a plan that makes the company grow to reach the level of profitability that the stock prices suggests will happen.

And perhaps Dorsey has a long enough of a runway for something to come along to save the company from eventual collapse. Maybe not, since firing 40% of a company tends to put a damper on innovative efforts that would massively grow revenues.

I think the point is that these tech leaders can be saying "AI" to appeal to their board/shareholders, but the truth is more mundane typical reasons for layoffs (bad economy, overhiring, offshoring, bad debt, etc).

Or it’s possible he was lying!

If Block is really so much more efficient, while doing well, they should invest that talent into expanded products and services. But that’s not what we’re seeing.

Some things:

- They acquired AfterPay for $29bn. Their market cap today, after the big AI bump, is $40bn. BNPL did not pay off the way payments companies thought it would.

- They have a weird internal combination of Cash and Square and AfterPay internally. They’re not as unified as they ought to be.

This feels more like Jack coming to terms with a company that’s hugely inefficient organizationally. It’s easier to clear out thousands of people and rebuild.

Sure, a CEO has never lied before about the reasons for layoffs.