we're making @blocks smaller today. here's my note to the company.
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today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we're reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation. i'll be straight about what's happening, why, and what it means for everyone.
first off, if you're one of the people affected, you'll receive your salary for 20 weeks + 1 week per year of tenure, equity vested through the end of may, 6 months of health care, your corporate devices, and $5,000 to put toward whatever you need to help you in this transition (if you’re outside the U.S. you’ll receive similar support but exact details are going to vary based on local requirements). i want you to know that before anything else. everyone will be notified today, whether you're being asked to leave, entering consultation, or asked to stay.
we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we're already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that's accelerating rapidly.
i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. i'd rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome. a smaller company also gives us the space to grow our business the right way, on our own terms, instead of constantly reacting to market pressures.
a decision at this scale carries risk. but so does standing still. we've done a full review to determine the roles and people we require to reliably grow the business from here, and we've pressure-tested those decisions from multiple angles. i accept that we may have gotten some of them wrong, and we've built in flexibility to account for that, and do the right thing for our customers.
we're not going to just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here. communication channels will stay open through thursday evening (pacific) so everyone can say goodbye properly, and share whatever you wish. i'll also be hosting a live video session to thank everyone at 3:35pm pacific. i know doing it this way might feel awkward. i'd rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold.
to those of you leaving…i’m grateful for you, and i’m sorry to put you through this. you built what this company is today. that's a fact that i'll honor forever. this decision is not a reflection of what you contributed. you will be a great contributor to any organization going forward.
to those staying…i made this decision, and i'll own it. what i'm asking of you is to build with me. we're going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do. how we work, how we create, how we serve our customers. our customers will feel this shift too, and we're going to help them navigate it: towards a future where they can build their own features directly, composed of our capabilities and served through our interfaces. that's what i'm focused on now. expect a note from me tomorrow.
jack
so just to recap this week (so far)
- musk industries is real (spacex, tesla, xai merger)
- clawdbot explosion leading to a bankrun on mac minis but then anthropic released their own version
- tesla dropped the bomb they’re halting production on model s and x to scale 1M optimus humanoid robots this year instead
- china dropped the mother of all open source models kimi k2.5 that turn video into production-ready apps but then google dropped a gemini update ON THE SAME DAY that does the same thing gg
- google said fuck it and also launched the worlds greatest world model genie and switched on gemini for 3.8B chrome browser users AND released alpha genome model that one-shots 1M dna base pairs for 3000 researchers across 160 countries AND teased new veo model
- microsoft crushed earnings, launched a new ai chip but stock still tanked 10% because they *only* grew rev 39%
- anthropic round 2X oversubbed raised to 20B 🏌️
- openai raising another $100B, 750B val 🏌️
- intel leaked they’re gonna help produce nvidias next gen feynman gpus - hello americas tsmc
- a robot (built by figure) washed the dishes with zero human interaction
- apple acquired stealth startup for $2B that can lip read - integrating their tech for new ai consumer airpods with cameras and mics
- demis confirms google glass 2.0 coming this summer
fckin hell