Mike Clowers @MikeClowers - Twitter Profile

Yesterday, Jack Dorsey drew a line in the sand. Block would cut 4,000 positions — nearly half its workforce. AI made it possible, he said. Most companies will follow within the year. He’s right. And people are afraid. Not the abstract, philosophical kind of afraid. The kind that wakes you up at 3:00 a.m. wondering if your job will exist in eighteen months. The kind that makes a thirty-year employee stare at a screen and wonder if everything they’ve built still means anything. That fear is real, it’s spreading, and the leaders who pretend otherwise are already behind. Something has shifted. You can feel it in boardrooms. In break rooms. In the silence after an HR meeting that changes everything. Here’s what the efficiency models don’t account for: work isn’t merely economic. It never has been. Long before balance sheets and quarterly projections, there was a conviction — ancient, stubborn, and still alive — that human work carries inherent dignity. That a person is more than their output. That something sacred fractures when that truth is forgotten. The leader who understands this carries a different kind of weight. Not just the pressure of productivity targets and investor expectations — but the weight of stewardship. The people inside your organization are not overhead. They are image-bearers. And the decisions you make in the next eighteen months will say something lasting about how you see them. This is the moment everything clarifies. The companies that will be remembered — not just profitable, but trusted — won’t be the ones who automated fastest. They’ll be the ones who led with clarity, honesty, and genuine regard for the people in their care. That’s not sentiment. That’s strategy. And ultimately, it’s faithfulness. The tools will keep changing. The people won’t. This is still, and always has been, a human story. Lead it like one.

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