Topic
25 facts from 2 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
2019-2024
Owen Jennings says Block's gross profit per full-time employee from 2019 through 2024 was in the middle of the pack among competitors.
“If you look at where we were from a gross profit per full-time employee basis from, like, 2019 through 2024, we're basically, like, right in the middle of the pack with all of the competitors.”
2021
Owen Jennings recalls that Block's stock price was around $260 in 2021 and says he considered that level somewhat irrational.
“I remember, uh, in 2021, when our stock price was, like, I don't know, 260 bucks, and I was like, that was a little bit irrational.”
2024
Owen Jennings says Block launched its Goose agent harness in early 2024 and believes it was the first such harness.
“We actually launched Goose, which was the first agent harness, at least that I know of, in early 2024.”
2024
Angie Jones says that at Block she was tasked with teaching the entire company how to use AI agents.
“One of my tasks was to, uh, basically teach the entire company, twelve zero people, how to use AI agents.”
2024
Block created an internal AI agent called Goose, which developers used to automate engineering tasks and help with coding.
“our company block created like this internal AI agent, uh, named Goose”
2025
About eighteen months before this conversation, Block moved from separate business units to a functional structure with engineering, design and product each reporting to a single head.
“about eighteen months ago, we functionalized the company, just meaning that all of engineering rolls up to our head of engineering, all of design to our head of design, all of product to me.”
2025
OpenAI, Anthropic and Block wanted to form a foundation for agentic AI and recognized they should not be sole owners of the standards.
“As Openai, um, Anthropic and Block wanted to form a a foundation for agentic AI, they understood that.”
2026
In early 2026, Block restructured more than 40% of its company and reorganized around small squads of one to six people working with AI agents.
“In early 2026, they restructured more than 40% of the company and rebuilt around small squads of one to six people, working alongside AI agents.”
2026
Owen Jennings says Block's cuts in outbound sales and account management were minimal compared with the cuts on the development side.
“If you think of something as outbound sales or account management, the cuts were fairly de minimis, and so that was really what we were reacting to.”
2026
Owen Jennings says Block did not cut its compliance team or its compliance technology team in the restructuring, to avoid regulatory risk.
“we basically did not touch our compliance team and our compliance technology team, even if the tools are there, it's let's not take any risks.”
2026
Owen Jennings says Block gave generous severance packages and did not cut departing employees' technology access immediately.
“We were in a position where we were able to be generous in terms of the severance packages that we gave. We didn't cut people's technology access instantly, which can suck.”
2026
Owen Jennings says Block reduced its number of meetings by roughly 70 to 80% after the restructuring.
“we massively reduced the number of meetings we have, probably like seventy or 80%.”
2026
Owen Jennings estimates that Block cut its management layers on the development side by about 50 to 60%.
“So on the development side, I think we probably cut our layers by, I don't know, fifty or 60%.”
2026
Owen Jennings estimates that Cash App now accounts for roughly 60% of Block's overall gross profit.
“now I think Cash App's probably like, s, I don't know, s sixty-ish percent of, like, overall gross profit at the at the company.”
2026
Owen Jennings says building a feature at Block has gone from taking a couple of months to roughly a week or two with agent tools.
“it used to take a couple months to build a feature. Um, now it takes maybe a week or two, and there's still humans involved.”
Undated
Block has an internal-only agentic operating system called G2 that lets employees automate any deterministic workflow.
“We have a agentic operating system internal only called G2, where anyone can automate any deterministic workflow.”
Undated
Owen Jennings says Builder Bot usually builds features to about 85 to 90% completion, and a human with context finishes the rest.
“More often than not, it's building them to, like, eighty-five or 90%. And then a human who who has a lot of context and understands, does, like, the final, the final ten.”
Undated
Owen Jennings says Block's Goose harness can run on roughly 120 different models, including Anthropic, OpenAI and open-source models.
“There's probably like 120 models that we have, and depending on what I'm trying to do, I'll kind of swap out the swap out the models.”
Undated
Owen Jennings says the look and feel of apps that Manager Bot generates for a merchant is not part of the source code Block ships to the app store.
“the way that that app looks and feels is not in the source code of the actual application that we push to the to the app store.”
Undated
Owen Jennings says generated interfaces create a quality-assurance challenge because their non-deterministic outputs reach tens of millions of customers.
“we need to figure out how you're gonna QA all of these, like, non-deterministic outputs for for tens of millions of customers.”
Undated
Owen Jennings says Block's chatbots and AI phone support automate a majority of its customer support inquiries.
“our chatbots and and AI phone support and and whatnot are automating a a majority of inquiries that we get.”
Undated
Owen Jennings argues that a peer-to-peer payments app is easy to build, but the tens of millions of monthly active users that Block's products have cannot be vibe coded.
“any of us can can create a peer-to-peer app in probably a week. Uh, no one's gonna vibe code, you know, fifty or 60 million monthly actives who are actually using that.”
Undated
The Goose agent originated at Block, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) originated at Anthropic.
“Goose came from Block and MCP came from Anthropic.”
Undated
Block is the financial technology company that houses Square and Cash App.
“the finance tech company that, uh, houses square and cash app, right?”
Undated
Jones assembled a group of about 50 engineers from across Block to test AI techniques and embed them in their repositories.
“And so they were there with me, we drank it, it was 50 of them, um, drank it from the fire hose.”
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