Block Called Out as ZIRP-Era Discipline Failure
Om Malik torches Block as the prime example of mid-tier tech companies that coasted on easy money and zero interest rates.
Tech veteran Om Malik just dropped a sharp critique of Block — the Jack Dorsey-led company formerly known as Square. His thesis: Block perfectly represents the operational rot plaguing mid-tier public tech companies that gorged themselves during the era of cheap cloud infrastructure, mobile growth, and zero-interest-rate policy (ZIRP).
Dorsey took to X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) as the critique circulated. Malik's argument centers on a pattern familiar across the sector — companies that scaled fast on favorable macro conditions but never built the operational discipline to sustain themselves once the easy money dried up.
Block sits in an awkward middle tier: too big to be scrappy, too unfocused to compete with giants. The ZIRP hangover is real, and Malik thinks Block is exhibit A.