The pivot parade

It was a busy week for earnings, but the real action isn't last quarter's results—it's where companies are headed next. From language lessons to data centers to digital payments, three companies are rewriting their playbooks.

Block: Doubling down on AI

The payments company met fourth-quarter expectations, with gross profit rising 24% year over year. But the bigger headline was a sweeping workforce reduction: Block plans to eliminate roughly 40% of its staff as it leans more heavily into AI to drive efficiency and scale. The restructuring is expected to result in $450 million to $500 million in charges, primarily related to severance, employee benefits, and stock-based compensation.

“Within the next year, I believe the majority of the companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes,” CEO Jack Dorsey said on the earnings call. “I don’t think we’re early to this realization. I think most companies are late.”

Dorsey admitted to overhiring during the pandemic era and creating more complexity at the company than was needed. Investors welcomed the cost-focused and AI-driven strategy, pushing shares up 16.75% on the news.

Duolingo: Resetting the growth engine

The education platform topped fourth-quarter revenue and earnings expectations, with sales rising 35% year over year. However, it fell short on forward revenue guidance as management signaled a strategic reset, shifting away from aggressive monetization to refocus on accelerating user growth. The company is aiming for 100 million daily active users by 2028 after surpassing 50 million last year, though growth slowed in 2025.

“Management believes that a portion of the deceleration in user growth over the course of 2025 could be attributed to the push to monetize, which in turn led to disgruntled users and a meaningful negative impact to ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing,” D.A. Davidson analyst Wyatt Swanson wrote in a note.

For now, investors are skeptical. Shares fell 14.01% following the update.

MARA Holdings: From bitcoin to big data

The bitcoin miner reported a wider-than-expected fourth-quarter loss as crypto prices weighed on results, with revenue declining 6% year over year. But the headline numbers weren’t the main story—instead, investors focused on the company’s push into AI infrastructure.

MARA announced a joint venture with Starwood Digital Ventures to develop over one gigawatt of high-performance data center capacity, with a longer-term path toward 2.5 gigawatts. The company can invest up to 50% in the joint projects and has also taken a majority stake in data center operator Exaion, deepening its push beyond bitcoin mining.

Even so, analysts are urging caution, noting that visibility remains limited around customer agreements and construction timelines. Still, the strategic pivot has been well received in the short term, sending shares up 5.8% today.

With these companies’ pivots now underway, the next few quarters will reveal whether the strategy shifts translate into lasting results, and whether each business can stick the landing.—SY