Jack Dorsey is in reassembly mode at Block, the fintech company that owns the popular payment services Cash App and Square, as well as music streaming service Tidal.
In a note to employees this week, Dorsey—Block’s CEO and cofounder—said the company’s internal reporting structure is getting an overhaul that will blow up the boundaries between various business lines, grouping employees together instead based on roles like engineering, design, and sales.
“We’re going to reorganize our entire company by function and disband our business unit reporting structure,” Dorsey said in the note which was viewed by Coins2Day, adding that the move would take Block back “to how we started as a company.” The subject line of the note was “fn block.”
The planned restructuring is the latest effort at transformation within Block amid nearly a year of changes including laying off about 10% of staff, ending performance reviews, and naming a new CTO. The announcement of the plan comes one week before Block reports its latest quarterly earnings results, on Aug. 1. Shares of Block, formerly known as Square, are currently trading roughly 30% below their 52-week high of $87.52.
Dorsey said that the restructuring is intended to address what he’s identified as “three problems” at Block, those being “collaboration, craft and flexibility.”
With the reorganization, “we’re going to remove the business unit silos and organize all of Block by engineering, design, product, sales, etc.” Each of the new segments will have a new leader appointed, Dorsey added. A spokesperson for Block did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Dorsey, who also cofounded Twitter, said the reorganization may feel “big and disruptive or uncomfortable” to employees. However, a person familiar with the company and the reorganization said Dorsey did not allude to anything about additional layoffs. Since the job cuts earlier this year, when roughly 1,000 Block employees were let go across the company, there has been a strict hiring cap at the company allowing no more than 12,000 employees.
Currently, Block is organized by “Square, Cash App, Tidal, TBD, proto, and our foundational team,” Dorsey explained in the note. “Within each business unit, we’re roughly organized by engineering, product, design, sales, marketing etc.” When the new structure is complete he said, Block will move from being organized by “business unit reporting lines” to one organized by type of work being done.
