Three Companies, Three Playbooks for the AI Era
- Suresh MK
- Apr 1
- 2 min read
A 51% Surge in Tech Job Cuts. But Not Every Leader Read From the Same Script.
In the first quarter of 2026, tech sector job cuts surged 51% compared to the same period last year, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas — one of the most authoritative trackers of US workforce reductions. AI was cited as a factor in roughly one in eight of those cuts, a proportion growing month by month.
Two of those moves happened weeks apart, both in the name of AI. But look closely, and you'll see two very different philosophies at work.
Jack Dorsey cut about 4,000 people from Block — roughly 40% of the workforce — in a single stroke. Block wasn't in trouble. Q4 gross profit was $2.87 billion, up 24% year over year. Dorsey's message to shareholders was blunt: a significantly smaller team, using the tools they're building, can do more and do it better. He predicted most companies would follow within a year.
Weeks later, Mike Cannon-Brookes cut 1,600 from Atlassian — 10% of its workforce. His framing was different. He acknowledged that while Atlassian's approach is not for AI to replace people, it would be "disingenuous to pretend AI doesn't change the mix of skills we need or the number of roles required in certain areas."
Same era. Same technology. Very different bets.
Dorsey's move says: AI replaces people. Restructure now, figure out the human questions later.
Cannon-Brookes' move says: AI reshapes the work. Restructure the roles, but don't abandon the premise that humans matter.
Here's what I find most interesting. Neither of these is the only playbook.
Consider a quieter approach. The Carlyle Group — not a tech company, a $426 billion private equity firm — reported that 90% of its employees now actively use AI tools in their daily work. Their approach, led by Chief Innovation Officer Lucia Soares, was to invest in AI fluency from day one of an employee's tenure. Start with accessible tools. Teach people how AI works, where it breaks, and how to think with it — not just use it. No dramatic restructuring announcement. No sweeping headcount cuts. Just a systematic, deliberate integration that treated people as assets to be upgraded, not costs to be eliminated.
No one wrote breathless articles about Carlyle. No stock price popped overnight. But they may have built the most durable model of the three.
And that's the question every middle and senior manager should be sitting with right now.
When AI reshapes your function — and it will — does your organization have a playbook? Or will it improvise under pressure, swinging between the extremes of "cut everyone" and "change nothing"?
The leaders I respect most aren't asking "How many people can AI replace?" They're asking a harder question:
"What architecture do we need so that AI and humans together produce something neither could alone?"
That question doesn't make headlines. But it's the one that determines whether your organization is still standing — and still worth working at — three years from now.
Speed without architecture is just turbulence.
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Which of these three approaches — Block's reset, Atlassian's reshaping, or Carlyle's reskilling — most closely resembles what you're seeing in your organization? I'd genuinely love to hear.
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