The consequences of AI when the ‘father’ of Twitter fired half of the staff at Block

Ivan Ureña-Valdes, a data analyst at financial technology company Block, learned that he was fired while interviewing to recruit new employees for the company. “I am the sole breadwinner of the family,” he said.

Block (renamed from Square) is a fintech company founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, that owns Square, Cash App and Afterpay. Four years working here, Ivan witnessed the power of artificial intelligence (AI) increasing, especially when Anthropic launched Opus 4.5 late last year – the AI ​​model promoted as the smartest.

“Jack really loved AI and constantly urged us to use it,” Ivan said. The main job of a data analyst like Ivan is to search, write code to extract information and create reports. Thanks to artificial intelligence, every step in his workflow is faster and easier.

“I had a hunch that, at some point, the company would fire employees because of AI. I just didn’t think it would happen right now,” Ivan recalled. He was one of 4,000 people fired midweek, ending four years working for America’s leading financial technology company.

After announcing mass layoffs, Jack Dorsey – CEO and co-founder of Block – said AI is rapidly changing jobs at this financial services company. “A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, has the ability to do more and do it better,” he said during the Feb. 26 meeting.

He predicts other companies will make similar workforce reforms as they see improved efficiency thanks to “smart tools.”

Theo CNBC, mass layoffs from a mid-market fintech company could cause lasting shocks. This is a warning signal of a widespread social upheaval, because Block is a large-scale financial technology company worth $33 billion, not a traditional enterprise. Analysts further noted that the number of 4,000 people laid off is equivalent to nearly half of Block’s staff.

“Let’s try to calculate this ratio across industries, across America and around the world,” CNBC state.

Clara Shih, a startup investor and senior advisor at Meta, said the layoffs at Block are just the beginning. “Every CEO today is faced with the same decision as their manufacturing industry colleagues in the 2000s. That is to lay off a series of employees to reduce costs or give advantage to competitors,” she wrote on X.

In the same opinion, Andy Jassy, ​​CEO of Amazon, believes that AI will eliminate many human jobs. “I believe that many of the jobs that we have assigned to humans to undertake in the past 20-30 years, will not need many people to do them anymore,” he said.

While the new jobs are not yet clearly defined, AI is certainly driving higher demand for some engineering positions, and creating a new market for data training.

According to a survey by human resources company ManpowerGroup, AI is creating a new order of skill needs. Accordingly, positions related to AI models and applications are currently the most difficult to recruit. Traditional skills such as sales and marketing, information technology… have less demand for workers. However, analysts say that human values ​​such as communication, teamwork, and adaptability are still difficult to replace.

Ivan, now a former Block analyst, believes he has found a new job, but is also concerned about the fierce competition in the industry. “I’m more pessimistic about this than many others. Because we live in America, where growth is everything,” he said.