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Explore the latest developments concerning Block shares soar.

Block shares soar 24% as company slashes workforce by nearly half

Block said Thursday it's laying off more than 4,000 employees, or about half of its headcount. The stock skyrocketed more than 24% in extended trading.

"Today we shared a difficult decision with our team," Jack Dorsey, Block's co-founder and CEO, wrote in a letter to shareholders. "We're reducing Block by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000, which means that over 4,000 people are being asked to leave or entering into consultation."

Block CFO Amrita Ahuja said the job cuts will position the company "for our next phase of long term growth."

"We are choosing to shift how we operate at a time when our business is accelerating and we see an opportunity to move faster with smaller, highly talented teams using AI to automate more work," Ahuja wrote.

Inside the Rolling Layoffs at Jack Dorsey’s Block

After hundreds of workers were laid off in early February from Jack Dorsey’s Block, some of the people remaining at the company say the internal culture has devolved to a point where performance anxiety is running rampant, using generative AI is required, and overall morale is rapidly deteriorating. Block is the parent company behind the merchant payment processor Square and the payment app Cash App. Dorsey cofounded the company in 2009 after previously cofounding Twitter.

“Morale is probably the worst I’ve felt in four years,” reads an employee complaint submitted to Dorsey in a recent all-hands meeting, a transcript of which was seen by WIRED. “The overarching culture at Block is crumbling.” WIRED spoke with seven current and former Block employees, who requested anonymity to speak freely about internal operations at the company. A Block spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

Earnings live: Block stock surges over 20% after Jack Dorsey cuts nearly half of staff, Dell stock jumps

Earnings from Nvidia (NVDA) marked the final company among the "Magnificent Seven" tech stocks to report quarterly results.

This report offered a crucial update on how demand for its high-tech AI chips — a big part of the hundreds of billions of dollars its Big Tech peers are spending on AI investments — continues to shape up. But concerns about increased competition and the drivers underpinning Nvidia's strong forecast overshadowed the company's beat and raise, sending shares 5% lower on Thursday.

Other key results this week include reports from Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) and Paramount Skydance (PSKY), with the latter currently locked in a duel with Netflix to acquire the former.

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