Jack Dorsey says he wants 6,000 Block employees reporting straight to him

Jack Dorsey said he wanted to reach a maximum of 2-3 management layers at Block with a year. David Becker/Getty Images 2026-04-02T17:00:19.384Z Share Copy link Email Facebook WhatsApp X LinkedIn Bluesky Threads lighning bolt icon An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt.

Impact Link Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. Jack Dorsey said his "ideal case" was personally managing all 6,000 Block employees. Block's AI shake-up will make that flattening "much more manageable," he said on "Long Strange Trip." Block's maximum number of layers between Dorsey and an employee is currently five, he said. AI-generated summary Summaries are generated by an AI model trained on Business Insider's articles. AI may make mistakes or provide inaccurate/incomplete information. We're unable to load that answer right now. Please try again. What is "mini-AGI" in Block's context? What are the pros and cons of flat orgs? What skills are key in flat organizations? How could AI impact management layers? How does Dorsey's vision compare to Musk's? Jack Dorsey is waging a war on middle managers. His goal: a total wipeout. Loading audio narration... After laying off a large chunk of Block's staff, Dorsey outlined a new AI-forward vision for his payments processing company. Large language models will switch up the company's org chart, he wrote in a blog post published Tuesday.On Sequoia Capital's "Long Strange Trip" podcast, Dorsey further laid out his goal to create a "mini-AGI." One way to measure Block's progress, he said, was to measure the distance from Dorsey to any other employee. "In the most ideal case, there is no layer," Dorsey said. "Everyone in the company reports to me. That would be all 6,000."The scale of Dorsey's ambition is extreme, even if much of tech has been trending toward fewer layers of management. He said that it sounds "ridiculous" — but only in the context of the old, hierarchical structure. "When you consider that the majority of our work is going through this intelligence layer, it's a lot more manageable," he said.While Block may have cut a large number of employees — over 4,000, or about 40% of its staff — it still has managers in the mix. The maximum distance between Dorsey and a Block employee, he said, was now five layers. Within the year, Dorsey is aiming to narrow that distance to "two to three" layers, he said.Ironically, Dorsey's desire for flatness most directly mirrors that of his on-again-off-again friend, Elon Musk. It's how employees have described xAI, which now houses X — Twitter's renaming, which Dorsey cofounded. Personally managing 6,000 employees would change Dorsey's job. On the podcast, he said that the flattening — and his change to make Block "an intelligence" — would make one skill more important: judgment."It is judgment against what we intend to build in this world," he said. "I'm the extra checkpoint."