Dorsey's Post-Layoff Vision: Block Wants AI to Replace Middle Management

Block co-founder Jack Dorsey is outlining an ambitious restructuring strategy weeks after the company eliminated 4,000 jobs—roughly 40% of its workforce—in February. In a Tuesday blog post co-authored with Block's lead independent director Roelof Botha, Dorsey proposes a radically different organizational model where artificial intelligence handles coordination tasks traditionally managed by human supervisors.

The core argument? Traditional hierarchies slow down decision-making. Dorsey and Botha contend that AI can track projects, identify bottlenecks, assign work, and distribute critical information faster than any middle management layer. "We're questioning the underlying assumption: that organizations have to be hierarchically organized with humans as the coordination mechanism," they wrote. "Instead, we intend to replace what the hierarchy does."

The AI-First Company Model

Block's approach differs markedly from how most tech firms are currently deploying AI. Rather than giving every employee a copilot to enhance existing structures, the company is pursuing something more fundamental: building what Dorsey and Botha call "a company organized as an intelligence, or mini-AGI." This represents a structural reimagining rather than a tactical efficiency play.

The vision compartmentalizes roles into three categories. "Individual contributors" build and maintain operating systems. "Directly responsible individuals" tackle specific problems with freedom to access any necessary resources. "Player-coaches" handle mentorship and worker support while continuing to code and build—essentially eliminating pure management positions.

Dorsey and Botha argue that hierarchical information flow—data moving up from workers through managers to executives, then back down—creates unnecessary delays. Real-time visibility into what's being built, what's blocked, and where resources sit matters more than quarterly reports and management reviews.

Humans Still Make the Call

Despite the AI-centric vision, Dorsey and Botha acknowledge humans remain essential for strategic and ethical decisions. Block rehired some February layoff victims in March, suggesting the company recognizes it cut too deep or needed specific expertise back. The message: AI handles operational coordination; humans handle judgment calls that matter.

"Companies move fast or slow based on information flow," they stated. "Hierarchy and middle management impede information flow. The question was never whether you needed layers. The question was whether humans were the only option for what those layers do. They aren't anymore."

The duo believes this pattern—companies organized around machine intelligence rather than human hierarchy—will reshape how organizations across industries operate in coming years. It's a bold claim that assumes AI can reliably handle the coordination complexity that currently demands human judgment.