Block

Still has decent collaboration between employees, though that is declining.

Negative turn for the company culture.

It's easy to "do the right thing" and be magnanimous when things are going well. The true test of character (for both people and companies) is when things get difficult.

Block talks a big game about economic empowerment and valuing its people. But their 2023 layoffs demonstrate that their rhetoric has become threadbare. When they are done with you, they don’t hesitate to discard you with little to show for it.

Layoffs are a fact of life. But decent companies treat their people decently, even when those people are on the way out.

Yes, the odds of you getting laid off are slim. But Block’s recent stingy exit packages are not consistent with their past. It is indicative of a cultural shift away from valuing people.

Here is a table of the relative size of exit packages compared to the company’s size (a measure of the depth of their finances). The data are normalized so Block = 100%:

• Block, Market cap = 100%, Exit package = 100%
• Stripe, Market cap = 125%, Exit package = 375%
• DoorDash, Market cap = 63%, Exit package = 288%
• Plaid, Market cap = 34%, Exit package = 325%
• Lyft, Market cap = 10%, Exit package = 325%
• Coursera, Market cap = 5%, Exit package = 341%

“Exit package” includes the notification period (period where you are no longer working but still on the payroll), any stock vested or bonus paid after notification of layoff, and severance.

Naturally, Block’s package also pales in comparison to those of larger companies. Salesforce's severance was 6x Block's, Alphabet's was more than 4x, and Meta's was 3.5x Block's exit package.