Sean Perry

Sean Perry (Danville)

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I am one of the 750 CFOs who took the Duke survey.

I told the truth on the anonymous form. That is the only place I have told the truth this quarter.

The survey was conducted by Duke University in partnership with the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Richmond. It asked whether we planned AI-related job cuts in 2026 and how many. The results published this week in Fortune used the word "privately." CFOs admit privately. That word is doing all the work. Privately means on a form that does not have our name on it. Privately means in a room where the board cannot hear.

I checked a box. The box said yes.

My company is planning to eliminate 340 positions this year. The internal justification is "AI-driven operational efficiency." That phrase appears in the board deck I presented in January. It appears in the restructuring memo I signed in February. It will appear in the separation letters 340 people receive in April.

The phrase is not accurate.

We deployed AI tools across 4 departments last year. I have the productivity data. The data shows that AI reduced task completion time in 2 of the 4 departments. In the other 2, task completion time increased. Across all 4, net productivity change is approximately zero. Not approximately zero in a way that rounds to something. Zero. The gains offset the losses.

I presented this to our CEO in December. He said "it's early." He said "the trajectory is what matters."

Then he asked me to model headcount reductions as though the productivity gains were 15%.

I modeled them. The model says 340 positions.

15% is not the real number. Zero is the real number. But zero does not go in a board deck. Zero does not get presented to investors. Zero does not justify the $14 million in annual AI licensing costs that I also approved. 15% justifies all of these things. So 15% is the number we use.

This is not unusual. I speak to other CFOs. Not in surveys. At dinners, at conferences, at the thing after the conference where we say what we actually think. The number of CFOs who have told me their AI productivity gains are real, verified, showing up in revenue: I can count them on one hand. The number who have told me they are presenting AI-related headcount reductions to their boards anyway: I stopped counting.

The Duke survey found that 502,000 jobs will be cut this year because of AI. That is 9 times last year's number. Goldman Sachs published a note this month saying they cannot find a meaningful relationship between AI adoption and productivity at the economy-wide level. These 2 facts exist in the same economy at the same time. 500,000 people will lose their jobs because of a technology whose economic benefit Goldman Sachs cannot detect.

Nobody has asked me to reconcile this. Not the board. Not the investors. Not the analysts.

I'll tell you what they ask. They ask: "What's your AI strategy?" They ask: "How are you leveraging AI to optimize headcount?" They ask the question in a way that contains the answer. The answer is: fewer people. The justification is: AI. The evidence is: optional.

My CEO uses AI tools roughly 2 hours per week. I know this because I see the license utilization dashboard. He is in the bottom quartile of the company. The people he is eliminating use the tools more than he does. They were told to adopt. They adopted. They are being eliminated for adopting the thing they were told to adopt.

I could present this to the board. I could show them the utilization data, the productivity data, the Goldman note, the Duke survey. I could say: the math does not support the headcount reduction. I could say: we are firing 340 people based on a number I was asked to fabricate.

I could do this. It would be my last board meeting.

So I do what every CFO does. I present the 15%. I model the savings. I sign the memo. And when Duke sends an anonymous survey, I check the box that says yes.

The survey asked if we plan AI-related job cuts. It did not ask if AI is the reason.

AI is never the reason. AI is the word you put in the memo so the reason doesn't need one.

[Sean Perry @mseanperry]

AI just shifted from assistants to autonomous coworkers—running in parallel, powered by massive infrastructure, and raising new leadership decisions around governance and deployment.
https://t.co/mnUfs0DnR9

[Daractenus @Daractenus]

Since most of my fellow Europeans haven’t had the time or stomach to fully acquaint themselves with who’s who in Trump’s up and coming American Reich, I’ve taken it upon myself to create a short guide to the main cartoon villains and abominations of this administration.🧵

[Sean Perry @mseanperry]

Check out my latest article: Weekly Update — Jan 30, 2025
https://t.co/miIwDk9URA via @LinkedIn

[Sean Perry @mseanperry]

@piyascode9 Agent

[Sean Perry @mseanperry]

Check out my latest article: Weekly Update -- Jan 17, 2026 https://t.co/r9oU09k8wY via @LinkedIn

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

Okay MAGA folks, here we go:

1. If you want to defend the first shot he fired, how do you defend the second and third shots into the driver side window?
2. If you want to defend all three shots, how do you defend them blocking medics from getting to her as she bled out?
3. If you want to defend all 3 shots and blocking medical care, how do you defend him getting in the car and driving away from the scene of a crime, after calling her a ‘fucking bitch’?

My replies are open. You have to answer all three numbered questions.

[Sean Perry @mseanperry]

@oliverwhudson Funnel

[Olly Hudson @oliverwhudson]

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[John Rich🇺🇸 @johnrich]

Show this video to your kids…Wow😳

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

Last quarter I rolled out Microsoft Copilot to 4,000 employees.

$30 per seat per month.

$1.4 million annually.

I called it "digital transformation."

The board loved that phrase.

They approved it in eleven minutes.

No one asked what it would actually do.

Including me.

I told everyone it would "10x productivity."

That's not a real number.

But it sounds like one.

HR asked how we'd measure the 10x.

I said we'd "leverage analytics dashboards."

They stopped asking.

Three months later I checked the usage reports.

47 people had opened it.

12 had used it more than once.

One of them was me.

I used it to summarize an email I could have read in 30 seconds.

It took 45 seconds.

Plus the time it took to fix the hallucinations.

But I called it a "pilot success."

Success means the pilot didn't visibly fail.

The CFO asked about ROI.

I showed him a graph.

The graph went up and to the right.

It measured "AI enablement."

I made that metric up.

He nodded approvingly.

We're "AI-enabled" now.

I don't know what that means.

But it's in our investor deck.

A senior developer asked why we didn't use Claude or ChatGPT.

I said we needed "enterprise-grade security."

He asked what that meant.

I said "compliance."

He asked which compliance.

I said "all of them."

He looked skeptical.

I scheduled him for a "career development conversation."

He stopped asking questions.

Microsoft sent a case study team.

They wanted to feature us as a success story.

I told them we "saved 40,000 hours."

I calculated that number by multiplying employees by a number I made up.

They didn't verify it.

They never do.

Now we're on Microsoft's website.

"Global enterprise achieves 40,000 hours of productivity gains with Copilot."

The CEO shared it on LinkedIn.

He got 3,000 likes.

He's never used Copilot.

None of the executives have.

We have an exemption.

"Strategic focus requires minimal digital distraction."

I wrote that policy.

The licenses renew next month.

I'm requesting an expansion.

5,000 more seats.

We haven't used the first 4,000.

But this time we'll "drive adoption."

Adoption means mandatory training.

Training means a 45-minute webinar no one watches.

But completion will be tracked.

Completion is a metric.

Metrics go in dashboards.

Dashboards go in board presentations.

Board presentations get me promoted.

I'll be SVP by Q3.

I still don't know what Copilot does.

But I know what it's for.

It's for showing we're "investing in AI."

Investment means spending.

Spending means commitment.

Commitment means we're serious about the future.

The future is whatever I say it is.

As long as the graph goes up and to the right.

[Sean Perry @mseanperry]

@carlvellotti Antigravity

[Sean Perry @mseanperry]

@robert_jones0 Send

[Sean Perry @mseanperry]

@piyascode9 Agent

[Sean Perry @mseanperry]

I just published Google Gemini 3 Flash: The Distribution Play https://t.co/17aQdpNkln

[Sean Perry @mseanperry]

@XpatEducator Love a copy!

[Dave Kline @dklineii]

Every manager wants their team to use AI.

But only 25% are using AI to manage their teams.

Here are 10 free, on-demand workshops to help you start leading with AI:

[Sean Perry @mseanperry]

@dashboardlim Stack

[Sean Perry @mseanperry]

https://t.co/RIqXTdhGgP

[Sean Perry @mseanperry]

@George_Kurtz Could you define “actively working with”? As in “Hey, we stopped pushing the broken update. Good luck teaching your users about the command line so they can safe boot and delete our borked file.” Because that is the help I’m getting.