Polygon Labs still advertises "flexible time off" to job applicants. Its CEO, Marc Boiron, says seeing employees take time off "pains" him because the company could move faster.
- Boiron, chief executive of the company behind the Polygon blockchain, kicked off the debate on Friday with a post on X questioning his own reaction when employees take breaks.
Marc Boiron
The comments stand out against how Polygon presents itself to prospective employees. Current Polygon Labs job listings describe "flexible time off" as part of the company's benefits package.
An earlier version of its careers page said full-time employees received unlimited PTO to "rest, recharge, and explore the world" and encouraged workers to arrange their schedules in ways that kept them balanced in life.
But the current careers page no longer contains that unlimited-PTO language. It does, however, quote Polygon's head of compliance saying there is "a lot of flexibility."
The same page describes working "hard and fast" as one of Polygon's core values and says the company holds employees to a high bar.
"That's how you burn out good people"
Boiron's post quickly drew criticism from founders, engineers and others on X. Kirk Marple, the founder behind Graphlit, said he had worked seven days a week for five years before ultimately winding the company down. He concluded that the extra hours hadn't changed the outcome.
Kirk Marple
He also argued that founders can't expect employees with much less financial upside to make the same sacrifices, adding that "most startup stock is worthless."
Protocol engineer Justin Kalland made a similar point, saying in a separate X post that "if you judge employees by how little time they take off then you are rewarding their willingness to sacrifice their personal lives rather than the quality or impact of their work." Kalland added: "That's how you burn out good people."
- Boiron later pushed back against what he called assumptions about Polygon created by his comments, writing in an X post that "the concentration of high performers and insane work ethic at Polygon is higher than you'll likely find anywhere else."
- He also said he has "the best, hardest-working team you could ask for" and attributed that to years spent building Polygon's culture.
Just like the rest
The debate comes about seven weeks after Polygon Labs carried out its second round of layoffs this year.
On July 16, Boiron said the company had made the "difficult, but necessary" decision to part with "many" employees while integrating crypto payments company Coinme and remaking Polygon Labs from a blockchain-focused organization into a payments business, The Coinformer reported at the time.
- Polygon didn't disclose how many people were affected.
- The July cuts followed a reported reduction of about 60 employees in January.
- Polygon had previously cut about 100 jobs in 2023 and another 60, or roughly 19% of its workforce, in 2024.
That 2024 restructuring also produced another contrast with Boiron's latest comments. Announcing those cuts, he said that when he became CEO he had pledged to make Polygon staff "the happiest employees in the world."
"While that goal will never cease to be my North Star, it pains me that I failed to make that happen for many of our teammates," Boiron wrote at the time.
- There's no evidence that Polygon has penalized or laid off anyone for taking time off. Polygon's public materials also do not explain whether taking flexible time off plays any role in performance reviews, promotions, compensation or staffing decisions.