About 11-12 years ago a number of startups and progressive/young tech companies stated offering "unlimited vacation" (UV) to its employees as a perk and largely, a recruiting tool.

Since then, unlimited vacation has transcended the tech sector and is showing up in other industries but has largely become tablestakes at nearly any startup or tech company.

The odd twist of offering employees unlimited vacation is that they end up taking even *less* vacation than if employers provided them an allocation of days off or accrued time off.

In fact, employees at companies offering UV took 13 days off a year vs the average of 15 days off at companies with traditional PTO policies. https://library.namely.com/hr-mythbusters-2017

About 5-6 years ago, startups needed a way to battle the monstrous comp packages, including UV, being offered by the Google's and Facebook's of the world and discovered they could offer "remote work" as an differentiator.

Remote work unlocked savings previously unavailable to startups:

- "Cheaper" comp packages to qualified candidates outside of the Bay Area or New York.

- No office(s) overhead, financially or otherwise.

- 24-hour coverage by hiring across the Pacific & the Atlantic.

Work visas vanished.

Hire a UX developer in Bogotá or Bucharest and "employ" them as Independent Contractors.

Pay them in USD.

Why?

The US Dollar has gained in value against virtually every other currency on the planet over the past few years.

The employee receives a "raise" as the USD is worth more locally, but the pay increase has no impact to the startup's cash.

Of course their local currency could strengthen, but this is a risk many remote employees are willing to take.

Which raises the question, "why isn't there an FX forward contract simple enough for cross-border workers to understand and buy?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_contract

Stablecoins and DeFi in general will eventually solve for this, but I digress...

To date, there are loads of Remote First startups that have been quite successful. @github and @automattic are the canonical examples.

It can be done.

Yet now, remote work itself is becoming tablestakes, seemingly overnight.

And more and more companies are experiencing productivity gains with their employees no longer having to commute...

...but in the process, employees have had their work/life balance largely destroyed.

Which brings me back to vacation.

Let's not let "work from home" go the way of "unlimited vacation".

Precedents are being set now.

Choose wisely.

And as always, never take advice from anyone on Twitter.