AI "fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company" - Dorsey

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey's technology firm Block (formerly known as Square) is cutting almost half of its workforce in the wake of AI (reducing its headcount by almost 4,000).

Stock price surged by 20%-24% in wake of the announcement, reflecting confidence in the restructuring.

Sidebar - Square is now part of Block's portfolio of products, which include Cash App, Clear Pay and Tidal - the latter which portrays as a premium music streaming service competing with Spotify.

Dorsey predicts more change to companies is on the way - and added "I think most companies are late" (to to the realisation of AI's impact).

Block's investor relations website can be found here.  Its stock price history can be found here.

Ellison backed Paramount in Pole Position for $111bn Takeover for Warner Bros

Warner Bros was put up for sale last year. 

In light of Paramount's new bid, Netflix has dropped out of the bidding race citing the transaction was a "nice to have" not a "must have" at all costs. 

Rob Bonta, California Attorney General (the State's "top legal boss"), warned the transaction was "not a done deal".

HSBC targeting cost savings of £1.5bn in 2026 and increasing bonuses by 10%

The cost saving drive is being led by CEO Georges Elhedery who stepped into the job in 2024. These savings may be achieved 6 months ahead of schedule.  

£2.9bn of bonuses were paid to staff in 2025, with the CEO taking home £11.4m in total compensation.  

HSBC's pay committee said it intends to give the CEO the maximum long-term incentive award at 600% of salary for 2026-2028. 

However profits were down 7% year-on-year for 2025, suggesting a focus on costs rather than revenues.

Anthropic's Series G Raises $30bn led by GIC and Coatue

The raise values Anthropic at $380bn post money (accounting for the fresh capital). Co-leaders of the round were DE Shaw Ventures, Dragoneer, Founders Fund, ICONIQ and MGX. But many other funds put up money too. Money will go into frontier research, product development and infrastructure expansion.

Qualcomm Investing in Indian Startups

Technology pioneer Qualcomm has announced it will invest up to $150m though Qualcomm Ventures to support India based startups focused on AI in areas like robotics, automotive, IoT and mobile.

Schroders agrees to Takeover by TIAA's asset manager Nuveen for £9.9bn

Nuveen LLC, an American asset manager (led by CEO William Huffman, a former CEO of Northern Trust Global Investments for 17 years), which manages assets on behalf of TIAA, the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (led by Thasunda Brown Duckett), which has a century long focus on retirement security, has agreed to buy Schroders (led by Group Chief Executive Richard Oldfield) for almost ten billion GBP (1GBP=1.37USD, around the same level it was five years ago).

Wealth and Etrading Stocks Now Hit by AI Fears

AI advice and AI advice driven execution is a wake-up call to wealth managers charging high fees. 

In the US, Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) fell by 8% as news of AI platform Altruist's new product, that unleashes AI-powered tax planning within its Hazel platform caused a stir amongst investors. 

In the UK, IG Index dropped 3%, CMC Markets dropped 3.5% and AJ Bell dropped 6.27%.