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Dhanji Prasanna

Dhanji Prasanna

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About Dani Prasana

Dani Prasana is the CTO of Block (Square, Cash App, Afterpay, Tidal), overseeing 3,500 people. He pioneered AI-native development at Block with Goose, an open-source AI agent that he has watching his screen all day.

Career Highlights

  • Block (present): CTO, overseeing Square, Cash App, Afterpay, Tidal engineering
  • Goose: Built open-source AI agent (any model, MCP integrations)
  • GM to Functional reorg: Consolidated all engineers under one team for AI transformation
  • Jack Dorsey letter: Wrote manifesto that catalyzed Block's AI shift

Notable Positions

On Measured AI Productivity

Real metrics, not hype:

"8-10 hours saved per week - self-reported, then verified with PR throughput and a complicated formula our data scientists built. Across the whole company, we're trending toward 20-25% manual hours saved."

On Screen-Watching AI

The most aggressive AI adoption pattern:

"One engineer has Goose watching his entire screen. He'll discuss a feature on Slack and hours later Goose has already tried to build it and opened a PR. It pushes him out of meetings that go too long. You have to have the courage to be that tightly coupled to your tools."

On Non-Engineers Building Software

The biggest surprise:

"Enterprise risk management built their own self-service system. Finance, legal - building software tools that compress weeks into hours. No waiting for Q2 planning from internal application teams."

On Conway's Law

Organizational change required:

"Jack Dorsey came back, 40 execs in weekly meetings, but nobody talked about AI. I wrote a letter. Then we reorganized from GM silos to functional organization - all engineers under one team. We're building to our org structure."

Key Quotes

  • "8-10 hours saved per week, verified."
  • "Goose watches my screen all day."
  • "Non-engineering teams have the biggest impact."