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Key Takeaways Block CEO Jack Dorsey says that employees now bring AI-created prototypes to meetings instead of slide decks.
He argues that prototypes offer deeper realism and can be changed in real time.
This shift comes as Block has used AI-driven efficiency to justify laying off over 4,000 employees, about 40% of its workforce.
A few months ago, meetings at fintech company Block consisted of a group of employees going through a slide deck or a document together.
Now, Block CEO Jack Dorsey says AI has changed the game. Instead of slide decks, employees are showing up to meetings with AI-created prototypes of concepts they previously would have illustrated on slides, signaling a shift towards real-world applications. Prototypes include sketches, diagrams and fully working tools.
“Now everyone is bringing a prototype that they built, which is pretty amazing,” Dorsey said on a recent episode of Sequoia’s Long Strange Trip podcast.
Dorsey, who co-founded Block in 2009, said the prototypes, which employees develop using either simulated or real data, offer “far greater depth and realism” than any traditional slide deck. He added that they can be updated in real time.
Block recently underwent layoffs
Last month, Block laid off 40% of its workforce, or about 4,000 employees. Dorsey explicitly framed the layoffs as a consequence of AI-powered “intelligence tools” changing how the company operates, not as a response to financial trouble. He said these tools, combined with “smaller and flatter teams,” are enabling a new way of working that “fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company.”
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