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On November 19, Block Inc. held its first Investor Day in three years. Jack Dorsey, the company’s cofounder, chief executive, and “Block Head,” took to the stage and summarily posed what many investors and others in the industry were likely thinking. Our business is complicated, he said. We want to make it much easier to understand going forward. Dorseynotably clean-shavenproceeded to summarize the past few years at Block. The company is indeed much more complex now than when it was founded in 2009 as Square, named for the point-of-sale system that was the companys first product. Four years ago, it changed its name to Block, a much more fitting moniker given its increasingly multidimensional portfolio, which now includes not only Square but also Cash App, Afterpay, Tidal, Bitkey, and Proto. For Oakland, California-based Block, the growing pains were real as it has evolved from a single-product company to one that now facilitates payments (and buy-now-pay-later features) for both customers and merchants, has its hands in the crypto space, and even offers a streaming platform for musicians and creators. The numbers bear it out: After going public in 2015, Block saw its stock price peak in 2021 at more than $270. Like many other tech companies, Block has seen its shares fall from their pandemic-era highs. The stock is down roughly 26% in 2025 and the company fell short of Wall Street’s projections for its third-quarter earnings in November. But Block has been making some behind-the-scenes moves over the past few years to right the ship. A major philosophical change, key acquisitions, and a renewed focus on simplicity have Blocks leadership excited about the companys future. window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}); A lesson in shape-shifting Changing from a Square to a Block required fundamental organizational and philosophical shifts, which have been the most important aspect of Blocks evolution. We decided to functionalize the company, says Owen Jennings, Blocks business lead. That meant making big internal shuffles and reorganizing how information moved between engineers, designers, sales staff, and executives. It also meant putting functional leads into positions where they could be most impactful, whether they were working on product development or sales strategies. We dissolved the business units and brought functional leaders to the top who reported directly to Jack, he says. He adds that the companys multiple business units were siloed and had different goals and models, which were leading to the wrong outcomes. What became evident was that Block needed to find ways to serve both merchants and customersusing its products to either transact (via Cash App) or process payments (via Square). The most obvious [thing] we could bring to the world was connecting the two worlds: consumers and sellers, Jennings says. But it wasnt happening based on the structure we had. Since the reorganization, “it feels like were one massive company,” Jennings adds, but those changes took time to implement. Functionalization happened within 18 months, says Nick Molnar, Blocks sales and marketing lead and the cofounder of Afterpay, who decided to stay with Block when it acquired Afterpay in early 2022. Molnar says that while he is a relative Block newbie (Jennings, by contrast, has been at the firm for more than a decade), he’s seen a notable shift at the company. Meanwhile, most people arent even seeing the full results yet. The back half of this year, youre seeing the work of the previous 18 months,” he says. Blocks leaders have also married the functional model to the Rule of 40, a metric common in the SaaS sector, which says that a companys growth rate and profit margin should sum up to 40%. Amrita Ahuja, Blocks foundational lead, says that prior to instituting the Rule of 40 framework, the company had expected that wed advance margins every yearwe wanted to share the trade-offs behind long-term growth and profitable long-term growth. So we reoriented the company from the inside out,” she added. “That was really a language we built for the company. It helped us move faster and become more efficient, and ensure investments were going to drive growth. The Rule of 40, paired with the new functional model, also allowed Block to reorient its larger focus on simplicitysomething it had gotten away from over the years as its business and structure have grown more complicated and convoluted. window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}); Basic building blocks Ahuja first came to the company as Squares CFO in 2019. The thing that was striking to me, working at my first tech company, was the level of trust and transparency, she says. There was so much information, and everybody had access to it. But, naturally, things get more complicated as a company grows, as Square did when it contended with the pandemic and then morphed into Block. Square started with payments, then we built more than 30 products around it, Ahuja says. It was a similar situation with Cash App. The kernel was around social money, peer-to-peer transactions,” she adds. “Now we have built a dozen products around that. Over the years, its become increasingly important to get back to basics and “focus on the things that mean the most to our customers, Ahuja says, adding, “Weve already built a lot of depth and complexitynow its about making sure the right product gets surfaced at the right time for customers. That is exactly what Block is doing now. In recent months, Block has announced several new products, including new tools and features under its Square AI suite, Square Bitcoin, and Neighborhoods, a new feature for Cash App, which connects customers with local businesses. With crypto finding wider adoption and a friendly regulatory framework, and AI being basically everywhere and anywhere, developing and releasing these types of products clearly makes sense for Block. But Jennings says that Dorsey is not merely jumping on trends for the sake of doing so. Hes willing to be patient for a long period of time to the extent that he has conviction, and hes been proven right many times, Jennings says of Dorsey, who is also a cofounder of Twitter and, more recently, the competing social media platform Bluesky, although he’s no longer involved in either. “The power of Jack is that when he comes to the all-hands or presents the company strategy, its incredibly simple,” he adds, “and gets to the essence of what were trying to do.” The big question: Will it all pay off? A chip off the new Block Blocks leaders say that the pieces are in place for a sort of corporate renaissance. I believe that Block has the ingredients it needs to accelerate its growth, that flows through a really strong, profitable business thats growing in line with some of the best companies in the world, says Molnar. So even as it may seem like the companys been underachievingperhaps in terms of sagging stock and recent earnings missesthose on the inside say they are brimming with confidence. Were leading, and will continue to lead, says Jennings, who is particularly confident about Square Bitcoin, which offers no-fee Bitcoin payments for sellers around the world through its existing point-of-sale systems. He thinks Block is well-positioned to take advantage of the growing ubiquity of Bitcoin payments in the years ahead. As for Blocks broader goals? During its Investor Day 2025 presentations, the companys 2026 guidance showed expectations of nearly $12 billion in gross profit, an increase of 17% year-over-year. It also released, for the first time, a three-year financial outlook that lays out what Blocks leadership is expecting, a sign that Block is fully grown up out of its startup stage, and that it’s here for the long haul. By 2028, Block’s outlook shows, the company anticipates gross profit growth will be in the mid-teens, and that adjusted earnings per share growth will be somewhere around 30%, and on track for further revenue growth. That would mark quite a turnaround, but Block executives believe they have the team, product mix, and leadership to persevereeven if it takes some time. Jack is very good at knowing when to be patient and impatient, says Ahuja. From the first day I joined the company, there was a conversation about what his title should be: CEO or editor? Hes the editorhe’s the person who guides us in how we focus our efforts.” During his comments at Investor Day, Dorsey echoed Ahujas sentiment. Ive never felt more confident that we have all the tools, the structure, the team, and the people to prove this out,” he said.
Category:
E-Commerce
Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare on Friday said it was investigating an outage that took place in the morning that brought down several global websites including LinkedIn, Zoom and others, the second such crash to affect the company in less than three weeks.Cloudflare said the issue had been resolved, and that it was was “investigating issues with Cloudflare Dashboard and related APIs,” or application programming interface that allow software systems to communicate with each other.The company said the outage was not due to an attack. A change to how its firewall handles requests “caused Cloudflare’s network to be unavailable for several minutes this morning,” the company said.Users on social media platform X also reported problems accessing the website.Edinburgh airport had to shut down briefly on Friday morning. But the airport later said the outage was a localized issue that was not related to Cloudflare.In November, a Cloudflare outage affected users of everything from ChatGPT and the online game, “League of Legends,” to the New Jersey Transit system.Last month Microsoft had to deploy a fix to address an outage of their Azure cloud portal that left users unable to access Office 365, Minecraft and other services. The tech company wrote on its Azure status page that a configuration change to its Azure infrastructure caused the outage.Amazon also experienced a massive outage of its cloud computing service in October. This version has been updated to reflect that Edinburgh airport says its temporary shutdown was not related to the Cloudflare outage. Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
Netflix has announced that it intends to buy legendary Hollywood studio Warner Bros. in a deal valued at approximately $82.7 billion. The deal, which must be approved by regulators, will further consolidate the entertainment industry and give Netflix ownership of some of the most iconic films and television franchises ever, not to mention HBO. Heres what you need to know: Whats happened? Today, Netflix and Warner Bros announced a deal in which Netflix will purchase the legendary Hollywood studio, along with its HBO Max and HBO divisions, for a total enterprise value of approximately $82.7 billion (which Netflix says has an equity value of $72.0 billion). The deal isnt exactly a surprise, as Warner Bros had previously put itself up for sale publicly and Netflix was expected to be one of the primary bidders for the companys assets. However, the deal marks a major milestone for the streaming giant, which is not known for large-scale acquisitions. The news comes after Warner Bros. Discovery, the company’s owner, announced this summer that it would split the current company into two, with the new ones owning its Streaming & Studios assets and Global Networks divisions, respectively. With todays announcement, Netflix is essentially buying the Streaming & Studios company that will spin off from Warner Bros. Discovery next year. When the deal closes, Netflix says each WBD shareholder will receive $23.25 in cash as well as $4.50 in shares of Netflix common stock for every share of WBD common stock they own. Announcing the deal, Greg Peters, co-CEO of Netflix, said, With our global reach and proven business model, we can introduce a broader audience to the worlds [Warner Bros. creates]giving our members more options, attracting more fans to our best-in-class streaming service, strengthening the entire entertainment industry and creating more value for shareholders. What IP will Netflix acquire under the deal? Netflixs purchase deal for Warner Bros, HBO Max, and HBO will give the streaming giant ownership over one of the most lucrative intellectual property portfolios out there. If the deal closes, Netflix will own: DC Universe Batman Superman Wonder Woman Friends Game of Thrones The Big Bang Theory The Harry Potter film franchise Touching on the IP aspect of the deal, Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, said, Our mission has always been to entertain the world. By combining Warner Bros. incredible library of shows and moviesfrom timeless classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane to modern favorites like Harry Potter and Friendswith our culture-defining titles like Stranger Things, KPop Demon Hunters and Squid Game, we’ll be able to do that even better. What has Warner Bros said about the deal? In a statement, David Zaslav, president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, said, Todays announcement combines two of the greatest storytelling companies in the world to bring to even more people the entertainment they love to watch the most.” When does the Netflix-Warner Bros deal close? Netflix says that it expects the transaction to close in the next 12-18 months, putting a likely closing date sometime in 2027. However, Netflix and Warner Bros can likely expect extreme regulatory scrutiny of their deal. While Netflixs and WBDs boards of directors unanimously approved the deal, it will not be finalized until regulators give the go-ahead. How have the companies’ stock prices reacted? Shares in Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) fell in premarket trading on Friday. As of this writing, Netflix stock is down just over 4%. Shares in Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBD) were essentially flat in premarket trading as of this writing.
Category:
E-Commerce
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