Jack Dorsey wants to fire your boss. And your boss’s boss. And probably the person who manages the conference room calendar, too.
The Block Inc. CEO co-authored an essay titled “From Hierarchy to Intelligence” with Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha, laying out a vision where AI replaces the traditional middle-management layer that has defined corporate America for decades. Block has already cut approximately 4,000 jobs, reducing its workforce by about 40%, from over 10,000 employees to roughly 6,000.
The manifesto and the math
The essay, published on March 31/April 1, 2026, traces the origins of corporate hierarchy back to Roman military structures, through 1840s US railroad management frameworks, past post-WWII American corporate pyramids, and into today’s matrix organizations. Their conclusion: all of it is outdated infrastructure built for a world that no longer exists.
The new organizational model at Block replaces traditional managers with three types of roles: individual contributors, Directly Responsible Individuals (DRIs), and player-coaches. DRIs own outcomes on specific projects. Player-coaches are senior people who still do hands-on work while mentoring others. Neither role involves the classic middle-manager function of aggregating information from below and translating it for people above.
