Square/Block stock peaked at $273 in Feb 2021 and is currently at $54. Taking away the Covid bubble the stock has been completely flat since 2018, almost 8 years, while the S&P 500 returned nearly 200% in that same period. So I'm not buying the whole "the company is doing great! The layoff is just because of AI."

If AI makes people twice as productive and you're a mature software company chasing marginal value, if the marginal value people added was worth it before AI, surely more marginal value at the same cost is better. It's also the wrong side of the AI curve to be on. Maybe AI will replace dev jobs, but why not wait to find out? And if it does, prompt-coding is a different skill than traditional coding, and it's not what you interviewed people for, so you don't even have a guess as to if you're keeping the right people.

We know they're not...

> In its fiscal fourth quarter, Block reported revenue of almost $6.3bn, in line with Wall Street expectations. Its earnings tumbled to 19 cents a share, owing to a $234mn hit — or 38 cents a share — on its bitcoin holdings.

AI is the logical, counter proof reason, I feel it serves as a scapegoat so perfectly they pretend it replaces people.

Exactly this. Seriously, look at a 10 year graph of SQ/XYZ. How a board of directors puts up with this is beyond me, seems like a massive governance failure.

Feb 2021 was peak covid tech bubble stemming from ZIRP. There are a number of companies that hit highs during that period that they'll likely never see again (or for quite some time) despite being profitable.