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Comment by lesstenseflow | Hacker News Reader

Why would firing someone who's on paternity leave be an issue at all? We're talking multi-millionaires who will get multi-million dollar severance.

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?

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Seriously.

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?"

Many states in the US have family leave (including paternity leave). California is more than 10% of the US population and the rules for paternity leave are extremely broad:

- 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.

Nice, didn't know about that. Expanded-qualification FMLA-like unpaid leave and more limited provisions for paid leave, for some workers, is pretty good compared to most of the country.

This is good information, but the original point is still valid. Kayvon is not struggling in the least bit.

I think the issue is more that firing someone during paternity leave discourages others at your company from taking paternity leave, not that this person is in some way financially devastated from the firing.

It's only through birth? I didn't know that and would have expected CA to do better. E.g. adopting a young child or baby. And does surrogacy count as birth?

Maybe it's trying to rule out "gaining" a child through marriage (i.e. a step child)?

Looks like adoption is under different category and you get 12 weeks. https://www.yeremianlaw.com/uncategorized/can-i-take-leave-f...

Lack of empathy between wage workers, pitted against other wage workers, perpetuates this.

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.

> 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.

Dude has 19 million dollars worth of twitter stock alone. His interests are more similar to Bezos' than a struggling wage worker's.

> These are people that get taxed at 55% (top california income + top federal income + additional taxes).

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).

accurate that they are graduated and that it approaches the top tax rates.

you can have many dollars at the top tax rate. wouldn’t recommend.

Part of the deal with being an executive is no job security. It's part of the trade you make for gigantic compensation. I never really feel bad for executives who are fired, even for unfair reasons -- it's just part of what they sign up for.

>Part of the deal with being an executive is no job security.

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".

Multi-millionaire doesn't paint the right picture.

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.

I don't see the issue either. In a fancy job like this it seems much better to get fired now so he can calmly plan his next move, instead of them waiting for him to return and then firing him, which would just waste everyone's time.

That there is high compensation attached to this job is unrelated to the principal of firing an employee on family leave.

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.

From elsewhere in this thread:

- 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?

> - Part of the deal with being an executive is no job security.

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.

Why would that be? Surely the badness in being fired is tied to the sudden loss of income, which is less bad if you’re super wealthy.

You mean, “the badness of being fired” while on parental leave?

Does Bottomless offer parental leave?

I thought they paid him something in the 10's of millions range to bring him on through periscope?

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.

Assuming that being fired while on paternity leave is even notable as a tragedy is a very 2022 thing.

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.

There's a very weird strain of culty utopian-maximalism in our culture right now. It'd bother me less if the entire last century wasn't filled with horror stories about what can happen if this sort of childishness festers too much.

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.

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