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Comment by danfitch | Hacker News Reader

Congrats! It's amazing to live in an era of employers allowing friends to take a deep breath, reflect and come back to work with a renewed sense of themselves and their purpose. It is a great chance to reflect on what you have accomplished and what lies ahead.

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> employers allowing friends

Your sentiment is there, but I find this choice of words a bit bizarre. Livingston is a co-founder of Y Combinator.

And I find that when you really dig deep and go for the projects that you are truly passionate about you will participate with people who are your friends. Words are words but the founders of Y combinator are a small group. I would think they are friends. A personal opinion/thought

I think he meant that since she was a cofounder she didn't really need permission

You still need permission of a sort.

Not sure what is really the meaning. I work hard as I am sure we all do. I am reading this thread while chasing around my 4 kiddos. We all need a beak and we are lucky and grateful to be given those opportunities. I follow hacker news daily so I am just happy that someone who made this all happen to get a chance to relax and reflect. It's deserved.

I guess you don't know, jl is pg's wife, they started hn together before they were married. It's not an employer giving a 'friend' a break, it's a co-founder taking a year off from their successful company.

pg already stepped back from the day-to-day, handing the reins over to Sam Altman.

That's why your comment comes across as strange. You've been here nearly 7 years, surprised you didn't know that.

I've taken 1.5 years worth of sabbaticals since I graduated 6 years ago. Can't recommend enough especially if you want to learn, build side projects and take better care of your health!

Where do you work that this is possible? I graduated recently and my employer is pretty generous and flexible with vacation time, but I can't imagine asking for several months off just because I feel like it.

When you feel you need a sabbatical : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0

I heard Intel lets some people take a short sabbatical after 10 years of employment. 1.5 years after 6 years seems unbelievable. I've personally never seen a company that allows sabbaticals in my 15 or so year career.

Are you talking about paid sabbaticals or unpaid.

My company allows unpaid sabbaticals.

Fully-paid. An "unpaid sabbatical" is basically quitting your job with a pinky-promise that you'll have it back when you decide to come back.

It's every 7 years, 2 months paid vacation. Must be taken as a contiguous block. Has a 3 year window of opportunity, then expires.

Is available to all full time employees (unless that's changed in the last 3 years)

Probably just quits and comes back to (a probably new) employer in a few months or is self-employed. I took 9 months off of work, I wouldn't call it a sabbatical but you could phrase it that way I suppose. Funemployment.

Yes, you are absolutely right!

That does sound nice, but a sabbatical usually means you're at least partially paid and you continue your old job when you come back. Also, I don't think I know anyone just out of college who could afford to do that.

Sorry, but why are you (actually looks like a lot of people) congratulating someone going on a sabbatical?

Because there is a sadistic tendency in our industry to celebrate overworking yourself to the bone for no real benefit to either yourself or the project you may be working on. I think more people are realizing this and are celebrating a more measured and effective approach to work.

Does everyone think that the average person has the option to stop working for months (or even a year) at a time? This is merely celebrating the wealthy doing things only the wealthy can afford to do.

You make a good point, but the parent comment was asking a more general question of why we would celebrate someone taking a sabbatical at all.

Although sometimes the importance of an important, successful person who many people look up to setting the tone is understated.

But yes...Jessica is very rich and has luxuries beyond any of our wildest imaginations so it's not really a fair comparison to "normal people" or our industry at large. Your point stands.

Why wouldn't he/she?

You're given a very short amount of time on this earth to live.

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