18 months of severance? Like, their monthly wage x 18, to let them go? What startup could possibly afford that?
At the end of the day you have to think of this as an employee benefit to convince people to jump ship from their current employers.
I personally think 3 months + 1 month for every year they’ve worked for you is attractive enough.
You can make exceptions if you’re trying to poach some high level exec.
I think something like 2 weeks is "fair", and unemployment would kick in past that.
In any case, firing stinks and is super hard. Agree it's important to get it done sooner rather than later though. Interviews are imperfect.
Remember that they may have turned down another offer to take yours -- and then the other position may have been filled too. I've seen this kind of thing happen once, though I wasn't directly involved and don't recall the details. Okay, maybe three months is more than necessary, but I don't think I'd make it less than six weeks.
If so, did you pay 6 weeks of runway for a brand new hire that didn't work out?
This is not to say that if you have not been in the shoes you have no valid thought.. but as someone in those shoes right now I cannot imagine operating that way. Happy to be up front when I hire someone, if this isn't working then it is best we part ways quickly...
Obvious US vs Euro expectations are very different in regards to job security.
But trying to convince someone who has a cushy day job at a more developed company is going to be way harder without great severence packages.
I guess that technically means you could retire 4 years early if you had been working there all your life.