What This Week Revealed About Power

"Most companies using AI today are giving everyone a copilot, which makes the existing structure work slightly better without changing it," Jack Dorsey said this week. "We're off to something different. A company built as an intelligence with no need for a permanent middle management layer." That quote, from the Block CEO after his company cut 40% of its workforce in February, captures the throughline of this episode: the trade-offs nobody wants to admit are reshaping work, geopolitics, and cognitive life all at once.

AI's Double-Edged Efficiency

The week's first major thread was about how Silicon Valley is restructuring around AI—and what that means for workers and managers alike. Coinbase cut 14% of staff, citing both market volatility and AI's reshaping of the business. PayPal plans to reduce its workforce by 20% over two to three years because of AI. Block cut 4,000 employees. The pattern is not just automation of tasks but elimination of entire management layers. As Ed Elson explained on Prof G Markets, companies are asking not whether AI will replace workers, but whether companies need fewer managers too.