Several high-level tech executives took to the Twittersphere Thursday to respond to Joe Lonsdale after the multimillionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur tweeted out that “any man in an important position who takes 6 months of leave for a newborn is a loser.” Lonsdale was responding to a tweet about Joe Rogan’s response to Pete Buttigieg’s choice to take paternity leave to look after his twins. “In the old days men had babies and worked harder to provide for their future—that’s the correct masculine response,” Lonsdale, a co-founder of Palantir and PayPal, wrote.
Less than 30 minutes later, Lonsdale cheerfully reported that “over ten CEOs so far today trolling me.” Among those bashing him were Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of Reddit, who said, “The correct masculine response is to do whatever it takes for your family and newborn. No one should have to choose between the ICU/NICU and keeping their job.” Another venture capitalist, Garry Tan of Initialized Capital, said he “took all 4 months [of leave offered] to make sure everyone at Initialized felt like they could do it.” Although Lonsdale did later acknowledge that he “should avoid terms like ‘loser,’” he spent much of Thursday afternoon doubling down in replies to other users.
