Block CEO Says Middle Management Will Disappear
Jack Dorsey, CEO of payments company Block, predicts the end of middle management as AI takes over the work managers traditionally do. In an essay published Tuesday, Dorsey and Sequoia advisor Roelof Botha argued that companies should replace hierarchical structures with AI systems that handle information flow and decision-making.
Block laid off 4,000 employees-40% of its workforce-in February. Dorsey said the cuts reflected a shift toward smaller teams paired with intelligence tools that change how companies operate.
The Problem With Current Structures
Dorsey and Botha traced the issue back 2,000 years to Roman military organization. Middle managers, they wrote, exist to "route information, precompute decisions, and maintain alignment across a complex organization." This slows information flow.
"Most companies using AI today are giving everyone a copilot, which makes the existing structure work slightly better without changing it," they wrote. "We're after something different: a company built as an intelligence."
Block is not alone. Amazon cut 14,000 corporate employees to "reduce bureaucracy" and remove layers. Meta's AI team operates at a 50-to-one employee-to-manager ratio.
How Block Plans to Replace Managers
Dorsey and Botha proposed two core elements: a "world model" and customer signals. The world model records all decisions, discussions, plans, problems, and progress. This replaces the information-relay function of managers.
Customer signals provide the feedback loop. "Money is the most honest signal in the world," they wrote. Block can track this data in real time through Cash App and Square, letting AI process customer behavior faster than humans can.
"The traditional road map, where product managers hypothesize about what to build next, is any company's ultimate limiting factor," they wrote. "In this model, customer reality generates the backlog directly."
What Happens to Remaining Staff
Block's remaining 6,000 employees would work at "the edge"-where the system meets reality. They would handle what AI cannot: cultural context, trust, intuition, and judgment calls that require human presence.
The company reported $2.87 billion in gross profit for Q4, up 24% year over year. Block's stock rose about 3% when the essay was published on March 31, though it has fallen slightly since.
"Block is in the early stages of this transition," Dorsey and Botha wrote. "It will be a difficult one, and parts of it will likely break before they work."
For managers, the shift raises a practical question: understanding how AI changes organizational strategy is becoming essential. Those managing teams should also understand how AI agents and automation reshape workflows and decision-making processes.
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