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I thought we had got past this phase.

One stock recently impacted by a whirlwind of volatility is Block—the fintech powerhouse behind Square, Cash App, Tidal Music, and more. The company’s COO and CFO, Amrita Ahuja, shares how her team is using new AI tools to find opportunity amid disruption and reach customers left behind by traditional financial systems. Ahuja also shares lessons from the video game industry and discusses Gen Z’s surprising approach to money management.   This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. As a leader, when you’re looking at all of this volatility—the tariffs, consumer sentiment’s been unclear, the stock market’s been all over the place. You guys had a huge one-day drop in early May, and it quickly bounced back. How do you make sense of all these external factors? Yeah, our focus is on what we can control. And ultimately, the thing that we are laser-focused on for our business is product velocity. How quickly can we start small with something, launch something for our customers, and then test and iterate and learn so that ultimately, that something that we’ve launched scales into an important product? I’ll give you an example. Cash App Borrow, which is a product where our customers can get access to a line of credit, often $100, $200, that bridges them from paycheck to paycheck. We know so many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That’s a product that we launched about three years ago and have now scaled to serve 9 million actives with $15 billion in credit supply to our customers in a span of a couple short years. The more we can be out testing and launching product at a pace, the more we know we are ultimately delivering value to our customers, and the right things will happen from a stock perspective. Block is a financial services provider. You have Square, the point-of-sale system; the digital wallet Cash App, which you mentioned, which competes with Venmo and Robinhood; and a bunch of others. Then you’ve got the buy-now, pay-later leader Afterpay. You chair Square Financial Services, which is Block’s chartered bank. But you’ve said that in the fintech world, Block is only a little bit fin—that comparatively, it’s more tech. Can you explain what you mean by that? What we think is unique about us is our ability as a technology company to completely change innovation in the space, such that we can help solve systemic issues across credit, payments, commerce, and banking. What that means ultimately is we use technologies like AI and machine learning and data science, and we use these technologies in a unique way, in a way that’s different from a traditional bank. We are able to underwrite those who are often frankly forgotten by the traditional financial ecosystems. Our Square Loans product has almost triple the rate of women-owned businesses that we underwrite. Fifty-eight percent of our loans go to women-owned businesses versus 20% for the industry average. For that Cash App Borrow product I was talking about, 70% of those actives, the 9 million actives that we underwrote, fell below 580 as a FICO score. That’s considered a poor FICO score, and yet 97% of repayments are made on time. And this is because we have unique access to data and these technology and tools which can help us uniquely underwrite this often forgotten customer base. Yeah. I mean, credit—sometimes it’s been blamed for financial excesses. But access to credit is also, as you say, an advantage that’s not available to everyone. Do you have a philosophy between those poles—between risk and opportunity? Or is what you’re saying is that the tech you have allows you to avoid that risk? That’s right. Let’s start with how do the current systems work? It works using inferior data, frankly. It’s more limited data. It’s outdated. Sometimes it’s inaccurate. And it ignores things like someone’s cash flows, the stability of your income, your savings rate, how money moves through your accounts, or how you use alternative forms of credit—like buy now, pay later, which we have in our ecosystem through Afterpay. We have a lot of these signals for our 57 million monthly actives on the Cash App side and for the 4 million small businesses on the Square side, and those, frankly, billions of transaction data points that we have on any given day paired with new technologies. And we intend to continue to be on the forefront of AI, machine learning, and data science to be able to empower more people into the economy. The combination of the superior data and the technologies is what we believe ultimately helps expand access. You have a financial background, but not in the financial services industry. Before Block, you were a video game developer at Activision. Are financial businesses and video games similar? Are there things that are similar about them? There are. There actually are some things that are similar, I will say. There are many things that are unique to each industry. Each industry is incredibly complex. You find that when big technology companies try to do gaming. They’ve taken over the world in many different ways, but they can’t always crack the nut on putting out a great game. Similarly, some of the largest technology companies have dabbled in fintech but haven’t been able to go as deep, so they’re both very nuanced and complex industries. I would say another similarity is that design really matters. Industrial design, the design of products, the interface of products, is absolutely mission-critical to a great game, and it’s absolutely mission-critical to the simplicity and accessibility of our products, be it on Square or Cash App. And then maybe the third thing that I would say is that when I was in gaming, at least the business models were rapidly changing from an intermediary distribution mechanism, like releasing a game once and then selling it through a retailer, to an always-on, direct-to-consumer connection. And similarly with banking, people don’t want to bank from 9 to 5, six days a week. They want 24/7 access to their money and the ability to, again, grow their financial livelihood, move their money around seamlessly. So, some similarities are there in that shift to an intermediary model or a slower model to an always-on, direct-to-consumer connection. Part of your target audience or your target customer base at Block are Gen Z folks. Did you learn things at Activision about Gen Z that has been useful? Are there things that businesses misunderstand about younger generations still? What we’ve learned is that Gen Z, millennial customers, aren’t going to do things the way their parents did. Some of our stats show that 63% of Gen Z customers have moved away from traditional credit cards, and over 80% are skeptical of them. Which means they’re not using a credit card to manage expenses; they’re using a debit card, but then layering on on a transaction-by-transaction basis. Or again, using tools like buy now, pay later, or Cash App Borrow, the means in which they’re managing their consistent cash flows. So that’s an example of how things are changing, and you’ve got to get up to speed with how the next generation of customers expects to manage their money.

432 Park Avenue | © Halkin Mason Photography, Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects Located in Midtown Manhattan, 432 Park Avenue is a prominent figure in the evolution of supertall residential towers. Completed in 2015, this 1,396-foot-high building by Rafael Viñoly Architects asserts a commanding presence over the city’s skyline. Its minimalist form and rigorous geometry have sparked considerable debate within the architectural community, marking it as a significant and controversial addition to New York City’s built environment. 432 Park Avenue Technical Information Architects1-8: Rafael Viñoly Architects Location: Midtown Manhattan, New York City, USA Gross Area: 38,344 m2 | 412,637 Sq. Ft. Project Years: 2011 – 2015 Photographs: © Halkin Mason Photography, Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects It’s a building designed for the enjoyment of its occupants, not for the delight of its creator. – Rafael Viñoly 432 Park Avenue Photographs © Halkin Mason Photography, Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects Design Intent and Conceptual Framework At the heart of 432 Park Avenue’s design lies a commitment to pure geometry. The square, an elemental form, defines every aspect of the building, from its floor plate to its overall silhouette. This strict adherence to geometry speaks to Viñoly’s rationalist sensibilities and interest in stripping architecture to its fundamental components. The tower’s proportions, with its height-to-width ratio of roughly 1:15, transform this simple geometry into a monumental presence. This conceptual rigor positions the building as an object of formal clarity and a deliberate statement within the city’s varied skyline. The design’s minimalism extends beyond the building’s shape, reflecting Viñoly’s pursuit of a refined and disciplined expression. Eschewing decorative flourishes, the tower’s form directly responds to programmatic needs and structural imperatives. This disciplined approach underpins the project’s ambition to redefine the experience of vertical living, asserting that luxury in residential design can emerge from formal simplicity and a mastery of proportion. Spatial Organization and Interior Volumes The interior organization of 432 Park Avenue reveals an equally uncompromising commitment to clarity and openness. Each residential floor is free of interior columns, a testament to the structural ingenuity of the concrete exoskeleton. This column-free arrangement grants unobstructed floor plans and expansive panoramic views of the city, the rivers, and beyond. Floor-to-ceiling windows, measuring nearly 10 feet in height, accentuate the sense of openness and lightness within each residence. The tower’s slender core houses the vertical circulation and mechanical systems, ensuring the perimeter remains uninterrupted. This core placement allows for generous living spaces that maximize privacy and connection to the urban landscape. The interplay between structural precision and panoramic transparency shapes the experience of inhabiting these spaces. The result is a sequence of interiors that privilege intimacy and vastness, anchoring domestic life within an architectural expression of purity. Materiality, Structural Clarity, and Detailing Material choices in 432 Park Avenue reinforce the project’s disciplined approach. The building’s exposed concrete frame, treated as structure and façade, lends the tower a stark yet refined character. The grid of square windows, systematically repeated across the height of the building, becomes a defining feature of its visual identity. This modular repetition establishes a rhythmic order and speaks to the building’s underlying structural logic. High-strength concrete enables the tower’s slender profile and exceptional height while imparting a tactile materiality that resists the glassy anonymity typical of many contemporary towers. The restrained palette and attention to detail emphasize the tectonic clarity of the building’s assembly. By treating the structure itself as an architectural finish, Viñoly’s design elevates the material expression of concrete into a fundamental element of the building’s identity. Urban and Cultural Significance As one of the tallest residential buildings in the Western Hemisphere, 432 Park Avenue has significantly altered the Manhattan skyline. Its unwavering verticality and minimal ornamentation create a dialogue with the city’s diverse architectural heritage, juxtaposing a severe abstraction against a backdrop of historic and contemporary towers. 432 Park Avenue occupies a distinctive place in the ongoing narrative of New York City’s architectural evolution. Its reductive form, structural clarity, and spatial generosity offer a compelling study of the power of minimalism at an urban scale. 432 Park Avenue Plans Floor Plans | © Rafael Viñoly Architects Floor Plans | © Rafael Viñoly Architects Floor Plans | © Rafael Viñoly Architects Floor Plans | © Rafael Viñoly Architects 432 Park Avenue Image Gallery © Rafael Viñoly Architects About Rafael Viñoly Architects Rafael Viñoly, a Uruguayan-born architect (1944–2023), founded Rafael Viñoly Architects in New York City in 1983. After studies in Buenos Aires and early practice in Argentina, he relocated to the U.S.. He established a global firm with offices in cities including London, Palo Alto, and Abu Dhabi. Renowned for large-scale, function-driven projects such as the Tokyo International Forum, Cleveland Museum of Art expansions, and 432 Park Avenue, the firm is praised for combining structural clarity, context-sensitive design, and institutional rigor across six continents. Credits and Additional Notes Client: Macklowe Properties and CIM Group Design Team: Rafael Viñoly (Architect), Deborah Berke Partners (Interior Design of residential units), Bentel & Bentel (Amenity Spaces Design) Structural Engineer: WSP Cantor Seinuk Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing Engineers: Jaros, Baum & Bolles (JB&B) Construction Manager: Lendlease Height: 1,396 feet (425.5 meters) Number of Floors: 96 stories Construction Years: 2011–2015