Block’s business lead on leveraging a diverse portfolio

In 2021, Square, the digital payments company founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, renamed itself Block. Changing the corporate name to a three-dimensional object was apt, as the company expanded beyond its hero item, the distinctive plastic white cubes that transformed iPads and smartphones into cash registers, to become a financial services powerhouse.

Today, Block’s suite of products includes lucrative peer-to-peer finance and investment platform Cash App, streaming service Tidal, bitcoin wallet Bitkey, bitcoin mining service Proto (launched in August), and of course, Square.

Block’s executive officer and business lead, Owen Jennings, spoke with Revenue Brew about making the most out of the company’s diverse portfolio, opportunities in the financial services space, and where the company is looking to grow in 2026.

Block has a diversified portfolio with components on both the consumer and merchant side. How do you think about leveraging that portfolio internally?

We have a functional org model, and so we’ve dissolved some of the really firm boundaries between different business units. It used to be the case that Cash App, Square, and so on were really distinct business units. We have a more flexible approach now, where we’re able to move resources pretty easily to work on the most critical things.

We’re able to look at development resources across the entirety of Block, versus saying there’s a fixed number of individuals who can only do things for Square [or] only do things for Cash App.

The financial services industry seems to be in flux right now as different technologies are changing consumer behavior. How is Block thinking about this moment?

What we’re seeing is some pretty fundamental behavior shifts, particularly with the next generation…What we’re seeing from the teen population and the younger folks is that they’re preferring debit cards at a much higher rate, and they’re preferring debit cards with buy now, pay later attached.

How would you describe the mission Block builds its strategy around?

Our basic perspective is the US economy, the global economy, and ultimately the entire financial system is broken for the vast majority of individuals, whether that’s on the consumer side or it’s on the seller side.

We want to build out in the open. We want to be transparent with our customers. And ultimately, that’s just about driving economic empowerment at scale across audiences.

How do you use data from consumers to determine what a customer wants and doesn’t want within a financial services platform like Cash App?

We used to have a definition of primary banking on the Cash App side that was really focused on direct deposit. This was too limited in scope. [Customers were saying], “I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a solopreneur, I’m a gig economy worker. I’m this modern earner, and so I’m bringing in my income from a number of different streams.” So we took that into consideration, and we ended up completely reframing our banking offering, and we launched Cash App Green a few weeks ago.

Square and Cash App are sort of two sides of the same coin. How do you utilize the data you get from each of those platforms to cross-pollinate and improve both of them?

We’re one of the only companies in the world who has the power to build this product where we have the 5 million seller base on the Square side, we have 58 million monthly active users on the Cash App side, and with our Neighborhoods product, we’re connecting the two together. What this is giving sellers on the Square side is the ability to market to their customers and essentially have an enterprise-grade application built right into Cash App.

In the past, acquisitions have played a role for Block. How do you think about when it feels right to go get something versus when it’s right to build something in house?

The product development team…we have a really close relationship with our corporate development team…Generally, how it works is we’re building a perspective on our strategy and what we want to build, and then the corp dev team is in lockstep with us, and then they’re out in the market, and they’re looking at any potential companies that could help us accelerate our work and just increase velocity.

When looking into 2026, what part of the business do you think has the biggest growth potential?

Proto, which is our mining business, is something that I’m really, really excited about...We have an extremely strong customer pipeline, and this market is just very ripe for a player like Block. Generally, this market is controlled by a small number of players, and the miners don’t actually like those players. It’s a very low CSAT [customer satisfaction score], low NPS [net promoter score, measure of customer loyalty and satisfaction] place. And so we spent a lot of time with miners, and we’ve built an incredible product that is modular.