"I figured that a company able to Thanos-snap away half of their employees doesn't need two-week's notice from me, just another IC that could easily have been in that 40%. On my immediate team, the only people left were me and a new hire who had started 3 days ago. I felt immense dread and survivor's guilt."
"Basically, I saw my company discard half of my peers and double my pay. That's not an honor. It feels shameful and dehumanizing. I'd rather see my peers keep their jobs than personally profit from their trauma."
"What I'm asking of you is to build with me. We're going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do. How we work, how we create, how we serve our customers."
Block CEO Jack Dorsey announced a 40% workforce reduction affecting over 4,000 employees, justifying the cuts through AI efficiency gains despite increasing profitability. Dorsey's memo to remaining staff emphasized building the company with intelligence at its core. Data scientist Naoko Takeda, who survived the layoffs, resigned one day later via a viral LinkedIn post. Takeda described discovering that 70% of her immediate and sister teams were eliminated, leaving only herself and a three-day-old hire. Despite receiving a 90% compensation increase as a retention offer, Takeda rejected the package, expressing that accepting it felt shameful and dehumanizing given her peers' job losses.
Read at Fast Company
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