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Block Inc. just cut 4,000 jobs. Meanwhile, here's what we pulled from their latest SEC filings:
**The Money:**
- **$8.1 billion** in cash and equivalents
- **$2.9 billion** in net income (12% profit margin)
- **$24.1 billion** in total revenue
- Total debt? Just **$1 billion**. They could pay it off 8x over with cash alone.
**Where the money went instead of keeping employees:**
- **$1.17 billion** on stock buybacks (buying their own stock to pump the price)
- **$1.27 billion** in stock-based compensation (executive pay in stock options)
- That's **$2.4 billion** going to shareholders and executives while 4,000 people got shown the door.
**Congress was trading it too:**
- Rep. Jefferson Shreve bought $50,001-$100,000 worth of $XYZ, then sold 3 times
- Rep. Josh Gottheimer also bought shares
- These trades were filed while the company was planning layoffs
**The math that should make you angry:**
- Block could have paid those 4,000 employees an average salary of $200K/year for a total of $800M
- That's less than what they spent on stock buybacks alone ($1.17B)
- They literally chose buybacks over people
The company had $8B in cash, made $2.9B in profit, and still fired 4,000 people. Not because they needed to. Because Wall Street rewards "efficiency." AI just happens to be excellent excuse.