Jack Dorsey's technology and financial services firm Block, Inc. (XYZ) announced plans to cut over 4,000 jobs after reporting sharply lower profit in its fourth quarter, despite revenue growth. The company also issued first-quarter outlook, expecting growth, and raised fiscal 2026 forecast.
Following the news, the shares were gaining around 18.1 percent in the pre-market activity, trading at $64.50, after closing Thursday's regular trading 5 percent higher.
In a letter to shareholders, Block head Dorsey said the company is reducing Block by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. Over 4,000 people are being asked to leave or entering into consultation.
According to him, Block will be significantly more valuable as a smaller, faster, intelligence-native company.
The company said it recorded strong financial performance, and is beginning to reflect the product development velocity improvements, and expects to achieve the financial targets laid out at recent Investor Day.
However, intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company, and a significantly smaller team, using the tools they are building, can do more and do it better.
Dorsey noted that going forward, intelligence will be at the core of how the entire company works, and that the company is moving toward a model where customers can build their own features directly on top of the firm's capabilities.
In the fourth quarter, Block's bottom line came in at $116.00 million or $0.19 per share, sharply lower than last year's $1.946 billion or $3.05 per share.
Adjusted earnings were $402 million or $0.65 per share for the period.
The company's revenue for the period rose 3.6 percent to $6.252 billion from $6.033 billion last year.
Looking ahead for the first quarter, the company expects adjusted Operating Income of $600 million and adjusted earnings per share of $0.67, reflecting year over year growth of 29 percent and 20 percent, respectively.
Further, for fiscal 2026, the company raised adjusted earnings per share outlook to $3.66, reflecting year over year growth of 54 percent.
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June 19, 2026 16:46 ET Major central banks continued to dominate the economic news flow this week too, led by the Federal Reserve, as they announced their latest policy decisions. The Federal Reserve policy session was in focus as it was the first to be led by the new chief Kevin Warsh. In Europe, central banks of the U.K. and Switzerland announced their rate decisions. In Asia, the Bank of Japan drew attention for its policy moves, while data out of China threw some light on the state of the economy.