Inside the Intelligence-Native Pivot: How Jack Dorsey’s Block ($XYZ) is Rewriting the Fintech Playbook
By Alex - February 26, 2026
If the market has taught us anything over the last two years, it’s that the era of bloated, growth-at-all-costs tech is dead. But what replaces it? Until tonight, the answer was a generic pivot to “efficiency.”
Then came Jack Dorsey.
Tonight, Block (NYSE: $XYZ) didn’t just report Q4 2025 earnings; it delivered a manifesto. Sending shares soaring 22% in after-hours trading, the fintech giant revealed a structural overhaul so aggressive it fundamentally redefines how a modern financial technology company should operate. Dorsey is no longer building a payments company—he is building an “intelligence-native” financial factory.
Here is a deep dive into the numbers, the ruthless operational pivot, and what Jack Dorsey’s vision means for the broader market.
The Numbers: The “Rule of 40” is Finally Here
Wall Street came into this print deeply skeptical. Block’s stock had been languishing near its 52-week lows (~$51), burdened by fears of slowing Gross Payment Volume (GPV) and margin compression. The consensus expected a sluggish transition. Instead, Block delivered operating leverage that caught everyone off guard.
The Q4 2025 Breakdown:
Adjusted EPS: $0.65 vs. $0.64 expected (Up 38% YoY)
Revenue: $6.25 billion (A slight miss vs. $6.29B expected, but completely overshadowed by profitability)
Gross Profit: $2.87 billion, a massive 24% YoY surge.
Adjusted EBITDA: $930 million.
But the real catalyst wasn’t the rearview mirror; it was the 2026 Outlook. Block raised its full-year 2026 guidance significantly, now targeting $12.20 billion in gross profit (up 18% YoY) and an Adjusted Operating Income of $3.20 billion. That represents a blistering 26% margin, implying a 54% growth in operating income.
For the first time in its history, Block has a clear, unencumbered line of sight to the coveted “Rule of 40” (growth rate + profit margin).
The Market View: Dorsey’s “Intelligence-Native” Machine
The most important part of tonight’s release wasn’t the balance sheet; it was Dorsey’s candid shareholder letter. The market is violently re-rating XYZ tonight because Dorsey is doing what other CEOs are only whispering about: replacing human capital with artificial intelligence at scale.
Dorsey announced a staggering workforce reduction of over 40%, slashing the team from over 10,000 employees down to fewer than 6,000.
While mass layoffs usually signal distress, Dorsey framed this as an offensive evolution into an “intelligence-native” model. He noted that the integration of AI tools across their engineering, customer support, and go-to-market teams wasn’t just a cost-saving measure, but a capability multiplier.
“A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better... I’d rather get there honestly and on our own terms than be forced into it reactively.” – Jack Dorsey
The Insight: The market is eating this up because it proves the ultimate bull thesis for AI software integration. Until now, AI in fintech has been a buzzword used to justify high R&D spend. Block is proving it can be a tangible margin-driver. By taking a $450M to $500M restructuring charge on the chin in Q1 2026, Dorsey is permanently resetting Block’s cost structure. The company is transitioning from a labor-heavy service provider to a high-margin software factory.
Inside the Ecosystem: Cash App and Square
Underneath the AI-driven restructuring, the core engines of Block’s ecosystem are accelerating.
1. Cash App (The Growth Engine): Cash App remains the crown jewel. Gross profit for the segment exploded by 33% YoY to $1.83 billion. This was heavily fueled by a 69% surge in consumer lending originations (reaching $18.5 billion) and a jump in Primary Banking Actives to 9.3 million. Cash App is successfully morphing from a P2P transfer app into a full-suite digital bank.
2. Square (The Resilient Foundation): Despite fears of a macro slowdown affecting small businesses, the Square merchant ecosystem held the line. Gross profit increased to $993 million, with total GPV reaching $65.0 billion. Notably, international GPV grew by 24%, proving that Square’s expansion into the UK, Australia, and Japan is finally bearing fruit.
What This Means for the Market
Tonight’s report is a watershed moment not just for XYZ, but for the entire fintech sector (PYPL, SQ, SOFI, AFRM).
The Death of the “Growth at All Costs” Multiples: The market no longer rewards top-line revenue beats if they come with shrinking margins. Block’s slight revenue miss was entirely ignored because gross profit and operating margins blew past estimates.
AI as a Margin Catalyst: Block is the first major fintech to overtly tie a massive reduction in force to the successful implementation of internal AI tools. If a company of Block’s size can operate more efficiently with 4,000 fewer employees, activist investors are going to start demanding similar “intelligence-native” pivots across the S&P 500.
The Valuation Re-rating: Trading near $51 going into earnings, XYZ was priced for a long, painful turnaround. Squeezing into the mid-$60s after hours, the stock is being re-rated as a mature, cash-generating tech staple. With an ongoing multi-billion dollar share buyback program ($790M executed this quarter alone), a floor has firmly been set under the stock.
The Bottom Line
Jack Dorsey has stopped apologizing for the post-2021 fintech hangover. By ripping the band-aid off and shrinking the company to grow its margins, he has shifted Block from a disjointed collection of crypto and payment experiments into a highly disciplined, AI-leveraged cash machine.
If tonight is any indication, the “Intelligence-Native” era of fintech has officially begun.
I don’t put together these deep-dive write-ups very often, so I really hope you guys appreciated it and caught some valuable information to help you position your portfolios for these emerging themes.
If this is the kind of actionable content you like to see, please hit the Like button, Share it with a fellow investor, and drop a quick Comment below. Your feedback is my compass—if I know you guys are getting value out of this format, I’ll look into making this a weekly series where we break down different subjects across the market.
Best,
Alex
Good piece. So many twists and turns to the AI story