Jack Dorsey's mass layoffs email at Block was written in lowercase. ''i want to give you...'

Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Block, fired 931 workers in a strangely written email on Tuesday. The financial tech giant is responsible for entities like Square, Cash App and Afterpay. Dorsey wrote an all-lowercase email that the company is laying off 80 managers, 391 “off strategy” workers and 460 workers who the company says are underperforming. 

Dorsey wrote the email using lowercase letters everywhere. The first paragraph of Dorsey's email read, "i want to give you all the straight facts." He added there were three layoff categories — “strategy,” “performance”, and “hierarchy”- and 80 managers were being laid off, while 193 were being moved to individual contributor roles.

“none of the above are trying to hit a specific financial target, replacing folks with AI, or changing our headcount cap,” Dorsey's mail read.

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He further wrote that most of the 748 job openings were being closed. Only a few roles for key leadership positions will remain, besides those that have already reached the “offer stage.”

Who all were laid off from Block?

Block had filed a WARN notice with California officials, a mandatory requirement under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act in case of mass layoffs. According to the document, 240 people working remotely across California were laid off. The layoffs affected employees in different roles, including in human resources, product, legal, recruitment, marketing, design and compliance. 

The layoffs came as a shock to the employees as Dorsey announced the firings abruptly without any prior notice. According to a report by Business Insider, this is Dorsey's preferred way of working as he does not believe in drawing out elaborate performance improvement plans. Instead, he favours removing underachieving workers "without delay".

Why the shock layoffs at Block?

Dorsey seemed to clarify the decision of sudden firings in the email: “why do this all at once instead of over time? we’re behind in our actions, and that’s not fair to the individual or to the company.”

He admitted that cutting off people was "the toughest job" but that he was responsible for increasing the valuation of the company.  Dorsey wrote that he believes the cuts will “help us focus and execute better” to push up that valuation.

Dorsey's email about the layoffs was first reported by TechCrunch. According to estimates, the cutoffs comprise eight per cent of the Block's total workforce. In December, the company reportedly had 11,372 employees, while in 2023, it announced that Block had a total of 12,000 employees.