After 4,000 layoffs at Block, Jack Dorsey says all companies should replace middle managers with AI
After cutting around 4,000 jobs, Block founder Jack Dorsey says that in the future, companies may no longer need middle managers. He believes AI can take over coordination work, helping organisations run faster and more efficiently with fewer layers.
Weeks after cutting around 4,000 jobs, Block co-founder Jack Dorsey is pitching a future where companies may no longer need middle managers. In a recent blog post, he argues that as AI becomes a core part of the workforce, organisations will not need a permanent middle management layer. He suggests that AI can handle coordination better, allowing businesses to run faster with fewer human supervising layers.
Dorsey suggests that in the coming years, the role of the middle manager could become obsolete. He argues that companies have long relied on layers of managers to pass information up and down the chain. But with AI, he believes that system may no longer be necessary. He adds that organisations will need to rethink the idea that humans must act as the core coordination layer.
According to Jack Dorsey, artificial intelligence can not only do what middle managers typically handle, including tracking progress, understanding workflows, and coordinating across teams, but do it faster and at scale.
For the first time, a system can maintain a continuously updated model of an entire business and use it to coordinate work in ways that previously required humans relaying information through layers of management.
The Twitter co-founder describes AI as a system that maintains a real-time "world model" of a company. He calls it “a system that can maintain a continuously updated model of an entire business and use it to coordinate work in ways that previously required humans relaying information through layers of management.”
Notably, Dorsey is not just proposing the idea, he is already applying it within his own company. Earlier this year, his company, Block, announced the layoff of around 4,000 employees, nearly 40 per cent of its workforce, as part of a move to restructure resources around advancements in artificial intelligence (AI).
Dorsey says companies can improve productivity by removing permanent middle management roles. Instead, he suggests that instead of middle managers, companies would work with three types of contributors: individual contributors who build systems, directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own specific problems, and “player-coaches” who both contribute and mentor others.
Meanwhile, he says AI would take over the coordination layer that managers traditionally handled, providing real-time context to everyone in the organisation.
To support his view, Dorsey points to Block Inc.’s unique position in building such systems. With products like Cash App and Square, he reveals that his company processes millions of transactions daily, giving it access to what he calls an “economic graph”, a real-time view of consumer and merchant behaviour. This data feeds into AI models that better understand both the business and its customers, making coordination more efficient.
Essentially, Dorsey argues that AI can coordinate work across an entire organisation without relying on human intermediaries. As a result, companies may no longer need a permanent middle management layer, since the system itself can handle alignment, prioritisation and information flow.