Jennings: Incremental layoffs at non-founder companies devastate company culture
Owen Jennings · How to Reorg After AI Changes Everything | Block's Owen Jennings on the a16z Show · Apr 1, 2026 · at 9:21
Owen Jennings is executive officer and Business Lead at Block. He is discussing how founder leadership impacts company restructuring strategy and employee morale during major layoffs.
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“If you're not founder-led and you don't have the ability to be bold, then you're gonna probably take a more incremental approach, and so the way that that's gonna feel is, like, you do a 15% riff, and it's like, oh, it's fine, and then you do another 15% riff, and then culturally that's just, like, devastating for your team, because there's always this, like, pending riff looming, looming over your shoulder.”
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