> I’m just now learning that Parag fired Kayvon while he was on paternity leave, which is truly awful.
> Parag is on his way out too. Why is he firing his product leaders during his lame-duck period?
> Parag is on his way out too. Why is he firing his product leaders during his lame-duck period?
It's pretty hilarious to see the pearl clutching of techno-bourgeoisie over something like this, pretending other tech-lords are getting mistreated over some supposed breach of decorum. The mere fact that he gets to take parental leave puts him head and shoulders above most workers in the country.
Parental leave, high salary, severance... where do I sign up for some of this "truly awful" treatment?
People can disagree on whether paternity leave is a good, bad, or indifferent thing, but it didn't even exist as a concept for most of humanity's existence in an official capacity. It went from being an idea, to a right, to something roughly comparable to "fired while undergoing chemotherapy" in a generation. It's odd.
I assume it's yet another consequence of social media's effect on culture: being as hysterical as possible has suddenly become heavily rewarded. The downstream effects on broader political culture (and culture in general) are utterly fascinating to me.
HN: "Firing a millionaire on paternity leave—and by "firing" I mean continuing to pay for the rest of their leave, plus probably a bunch of severance—is horrible!"
99% of the rest of the US: "WTF is paternity leave? Is that when your boss generously lets you use some of your annual leave for part of the week in which your kid is born?"
- Welcomed a new child into the family in the past 12 months through birth.
- Paid into State Disability Insurance (noted as "CASDI" on most paystubs) in the past 5 to 18 months.
- Not taken the maximum eight weeks of PFL in the past 12 months
Insinuating that 99% of the US lacks paternity leave is disingenuous.
These are people that get taxed at 55% (top california income + top federal income + additional taxes). Not the ones with multiple orders of magnitude more money that get taxed at 4%.
Their boat is so similar that its embarrassing for you to fall for the division.
Sticks, stones. I'm rubber, you're glue. Et c.
I'm well aware of the problem of false divisions distracting from the very real and much more important class war, but the level of concern on this one's still kinda silly, considering the broader context. Besides, I'm with the faction that'd rather get this news during paternal leave, than on the first week, or even month, back. Provided any pay for the leave—assuming at least some portion of it was paid—continued, anyway, which I expect it will unless they really want to risk a lawsuit for little benefit.
Since income taxes are graduated, there is literally no one that pays 55%. Instead, you just approach that rate as your income rises (and never reach it since your front income is taxed at lower rates).
you can have many dollars at the top tax rate. wouldn’t recommend.
I would say that in the US labor market having no job security is the norm rather than the exception, so it seems peculiar to couch it as "part of the trade you make for gigantic compensation".
Companies are having to hold the line on what we value in this country, as legislation from environmental to health is not keeping up.
Twitter is specifically of note because the CEO recently had a child and rightfully took paid leave himself.
Whatever your personal opinions are on Elon Musk, he is very influential.
The man has six children and a varying track record on how he has communicated his views and personal use of parental leave and the role of the father following the birth of a child.
https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/59806585473604403...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/12/elon-m...
The culture and policy Twitter matters. It doesn’t matter if the individual experience is that a janitor or senior management.
- Part of the deal with being an executive is no job security. It's part of the trade you make for gigantic compensation.
- What would be preferred, firing him the first day he's back?
This is the case in any at will hire.
> It's part of the trade you make for gigantic compensation.
This trade is made by people regardless of the compensation amount.
> - What would be preferred, firing him the first day he's back?
Yes, optics matter and it would send a better message and set a better example.
Does Bottomless offer parental leave?
I thought the comp packages were more in the single digit millions range for these folks, and stock oriented. My guess is they've taken bigger losses on just the general stock market decline than most, though for those who hold twitter I personally think Elon is wildly overpaying (as usual, see solar city) and they will make out like bandits as a result there.
That guy combining with his wife is worth 70-100m range.
His startups with like 10 people was acquired by twitter for 100m.
I don't see any issue firing them during paternity leave.
For all the hype AI/recommendations algorithms get I don't think it works well on a platform where you already choose who to follow.
Otherwise I've always wondered what the thousand Twitter employees do besides keeping the site running and advertising sales/development. Although I've never worked at a giant tech company before.
Yes, there is COBRA and he is probably doing just fine financially, but significant unplanned changes in income/costs are never fun
I assure you, my guy isn't worried about COBRA.
Edi: Kayvon says he was "asked to leave" which is not the same as fired.
ICs follow the lead that executives set. A chilling effect like this will cause folks who most _need_ the leave — single parents, people with family in need of care, or those struggling with their own health issues — to second-guess their choice, while those who can just walk away w/o any real risk can go ahead and try taking time away.
It also puts the lie to the idea that employer-subsidized leave beyond the federally-protected time window is an entitlement rather than an easily-canceled perk. We all know that rationally, but a BigCo obviously exploiting that trust is a good reminder that the company (any company) is not there to help you, they are not your family, and you have to be ready for this kind of “switcharoo” whenever the numbers (or politics) justify it.
It is my experience that people taking time off to be parents also take time off from the machinations that will lead getting promoted (at certain levels), thus hampering their advancement, but they are usually not fired, in tech anyway. Now the treatment of women, who already get a pretty bad deal even if they aren't mothers, is another matter altogether...
A business can't just stop because someone is on leave. I would expect them to be treated fairly, and the same as if they were not on leave when it comes to personnel decisions. What would not be fair, to both the employee and all of their colleagues, is to say that when someone goes on leave that there is a moratorium on any changes to their status for 5 months.
This sends a horrifying message to employees.
> This sends a horrifying message to employees.
Yeah, as someone without kids, your proposal certainly sends a horrifying message to me.
The message should be just as horrifying whether or not you have kids. The message is: “We made a commitment about your terms of employment. We are willing to break that promise openly and publicly with one of our leaders. Do you think we won’t do it to you?”
Anyone at twitter right now should see this as a red flag at a time when everything is in flux.
Management is in chaos in the middle of a politically contentious buyout, and doing things like firing people on parental leave that will necessarily read badly in the press.
If I were at twitter right now I would be getting everything in writing, and lining up a new job that starts the day my RSUs go liquid.
Yes, its true, legally you can not, and should not, be penalized for taking parental leave (a point I made in my original post). At the same time, you should not get some guarantee that because you are on leave you can't be treated the same as if you were working.
If this guy would have been fired had he been working, a parental leave doesn't act like some sort of "get out of jail free" card.
That's strange, I always thought that the point of it was to allow parents to spend much needed time with their newborn child.
The ‘benefit’ part is that you get your job back after a few months.
Don't be fooled - the guy is quite rich.
I think he'll be able to weather the financial impact of a recession and having a kid.
[0] Note that this is Twitter only, and wouldn't include any other form of diversified holdings.
A) spend paternity leave enjoying your newborn, but in the second half gearing up and remotivating to go back to work, getting back to work and being let go with a “we didn’t want to dismiss you while you were gone, thanks for coming back, here’s the door”
vs
B) you’re on paternity leave and the company lets you go, but still your leave is fulfilled (I.e you get the payout and time off). Now, instead of investing energy on the return to work, you can just move on with a “best to quit while your having fun” attitude.
I fully support paternal leave. As a father of four who despairs at a fatherless world around me, anything we can do to strengthen fathers (and equally mothers) is a great thing.
But there is a sad reality to extended leaves as well. We hire people with 6 month probationary periods, but rarely are people filtered by this. But I have been in meetings where a person on extended leave (medical, parental, whatever) and it becomes group apparent that the individual hasn’t been missed for a variety of reasons, and the consensus emerges that this “individual not being here” is actually a net win for the company and its aspirations. Do we know that that’s not what happened in this case?
Remember, “My Job” is an oxymoron.
Psychological effects notwithstanding
I’ve accrued some experience with newborns. It’s a very tired time at times. It’s a time of wonderment. Especially with your first, it’s surreal, after 2 weeks you can barely remember “what was life like before this again?” But despite its otherworldliness, it’s also a lot of downtime. It’s different than normal downtime, because you’re tied to this growing little life, but it’s there. And I did indicate that it is in the latter half where having this project to work on would be ideal. Guess that’s just me and apologies if that seems insensitive. It worked for me.
The sheer amount of equity, cash and packaging going into Kayvon's severance is going to be princely. Additionally, he's a founder of periscopeco, so he's not without direction.
Or at least, that would be a good explanation if we weren't talking about Musk.
In the enterprise, if someone high ranking is going to be replaced, they're never fired unless there was company-hostile bad behavior.
If the organization is trying to move in another direction, they reorganize and reduce the role of that high ranking leader- maybe to a position where they're alone! and give that high ranking person time to make their next move comfortably.
This goes double when the person is on leave.
What? Perhaps in shitty companies that are incapable of making tough decisions, but this is definitely not my experience.
On the contrary, for most cases I don't think there is much "shame" for being fired as a senior exec because a lot of times it's just that there are disagreements among senior leadership about where to take the company, and so it's better to have people leave who aren't on board with the company direction than to have those disagreements fester.
> the enterprise
With that track record, one must assume his head will be one of the first on the chopping block.
Also, he was recently promoted to CEO, which would be strange if the common opinion at Twitter was that he failed as a CTO.
That we can see. Either the entire leadership is stupid and promoted a dud, or maybe there's more going on than meets the eye?
I've seen normal employees take such leave, only return to find others have taken over their work, and by all means they are no longer needed and they have start working their way into the team all over again.
Paternity leave is more or less a kind of paid short term temporary severance already. Sometimes the company does make it permanent.
If you are gone for weeks/months and no one feels any difference, then sometimes its an indication you were never needed at the first place.
Obviously not fire in any way related to parental leave, but if it's to be counted as work then it should be consistent.
You can't, and shouldn't, be fired for taking leave, bit obviously there are a million and 1 reasons for there to be changes in Twitter's exec leadership given what's happened over the past month.
At least now the guy can 'extend' his paternity leave freely.