Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Block, has outlined an extreme vision for his payments company's future: a completely flat organisational structure where all 6,000 employees report directly to him. This ambition is part of a broader strategy to integrate large language models as a core "intelligence layer" within the company's operations, a plan detailed in a recent blog post and discussed on the Sequoia Capital podcast "Long Strange Trip".
Dorsey described this scenario, with no managerial layers, as the "most ideal case". He acknowledged it sounds "ridiculous" within the context of traditional corporate hierarchies but argued it becomes "a lot more manageable" when considering most work will be processed through an artificial intelligence system.
Flattening the Structure Post-Layoffs
This push for radical flatness follows significant layoffs at Block, formerly known as Square. The company has cut over 4,000 employees, representing approximately 40% of its workforce. Despite these cuts, management layers still exist. Dorsey stated the current maximum distance between himself and any employee is five layers, but his goal within the year is to reduce this to just "two to three" layers.
The scale of Dorsey's ambition mirrors that of his associate, Elon Musk, whose company xAI (which now houses the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, co-founded by Dorsey) is also described by employees as having an exceptionally flat structure.
Judgement as the Key CEO Skill
Personally overseeing thousands of employees would fundamentally change Dorsey's role. On the podcast, he emphasised that this organisational shift, coupled with transforming Block into "an intelligence", would elevate one critical skill above all others: judgement.
"It is judgement against what we intend to build in this world," Dorsey said, positioning himself as "the extra checkpoint" for the company's direction and output under the new AI-driven model.