00:00Emily Mason joins us right now to talk a little bit more about Jack Dorsey's project.
00:04There's been through a lot of fits and starts and now a company that is going to be leaner.
00:07Is that the idea here?
00:09Yeah, I think Jack is kind of an innovator and he really believes that he can run the business more
00:13efficiently
00:14with fewer people by leaning on like AI tools and just making them more efficient.
00:19So they've invested in Goose, which is their internal tool, and they're really planning on leaning on that a lot.
00:24Is there a sense here, though, when we talk about what this company is trying to be?
00:28And I know there's been a lot of speculation about its future, whether there could be a potential buyer,
00:32whether it would be a buyer for something else here.
00:34Is there any way to connect the dots there?
00:36I mean, I think it's hard to speculate on like, you know, PayPal's been the story this week.
00:40I think it's hard to say that they're going to swoop in and buy.
00:43I mean, it's always hard to tell with these things.
00:45I think based on this, it feels less likely, but that's kind of just me talking.
00:50But does it seem like when you talk to management, this is a proactive move?
00:54Because at least if you were, I don't know, thwarting off an activist investor,
00:57you can say, well, we cut our workforce by 40 percent, so that buys us nine months to turn the
01:01company around?
01:02They're really trying to communicate that this is coming from a place of strength.
01:05Like they're trying to highlight that they had a strong 2025.
01:08They've kind of increased their lending initiatives.
01:10They say that they're growing profitably or they're growing their profitability.
01:14And they really want to communicate that this is coming from a place of strength.
01:17And that's kind of what's going on here.
01:19I just want to clarify, too.
01:20I finally pulled up the Q4 shareholder letter.
01:23So they have about 10,000 employees, according to this letter.
01:27So basically, they would drop that to around 6,000.
01:30Which is a big drop.
01:31And again, this is a company that you go back to 2021.
01:34During the pandemic, it was trading 281 bucks a share.
01:37Now it's at 55.
01:38I mean, Romain asked, but like, what is the vision of Block?
01:42Like if you were to talk to a Jack Dorsey, like what does this company look like five years from
01:46now?
01:46I think that's been something that investors have struggled with and why the shares have been so reactive when earnings
01:52drop is because they talk about a lot of different things.
01:54Like they also talk about their Bitcoin initiatives a lot.
01:56And people struggle to understand that and where it fits into the business.
01:59I just want to just read something else in here, Emily, and get your reaction to it.
02:02I mean, he talks about, and I'm quoting him, and he says his core thesis is simple,
02:06that intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company and basically a significantly smaller team
02:12using those tools can do more and do it better.
02:16He also says that he thinks a lot of companies are late to this.
02:18And I think back to some of the attrition that we saw in some of the big names like Meta
02:23and a few others over the last couple of years where they kind of also publicly kind of said the
02:27same thing.
02:28They didn't make as dramatic of a cut.
02:29But this idea that technology had advanced enough and maybe they overhired, too, in the previous cycle, that they didn't
02:35need as many people.
02:36And that's his point, right, is he's trying to say, like, I think we got bloated.
02:40I think we need to become more efficient.
02:42Like they have been kind of restructuring and doing rolling layoffs since at least 2024.
02:47And that's kind of where they're at.
02:48And, you know, I hope that they're happy at this headcount and they don't have to let more people go.
02:53But, yeah, he's making a bold bet.
02:55Well, I think the interesting thing, back to the PayPal point, we see Stripe continuing to grow in the private
03:01markets.
03:01Is this a situation where if block was private, these would be decisions made in a dark room that no
03:07one would really care to talk about?
03:10I mean, I think it's hard to say how they'd act if they were private.
03:12I mean, they probably wouldn't come out and announce that they were laying off nearly 40 percent of their workforce.
03:18I probably wouldn't if I was running a private company.
03:22So, yeah, I think it's hard to say, but they have to report because they're public.
03:25So, yeah, I think it's hard to look.
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