There was an interesting Twitter exchange between Jeff Bussgang and Dan Primack last week. The topic: do most VCs take all of August off? Jeff said no and Dan said yes.

I think people are free to take whatever vacation they want, frankly.  But, I thought I’d share how we think about it at Kepha.

At our firm, there is a lot of freedom.  You should take time away to enjoy family, chill out and rest the brain.   But, we agree that each of us has to get the partnership’s okay ahead of time. We think it is important to be explicit about it and make sure everyone is comfortable.

Also, there are no special privileges for me as the firm’s founder.

So, for example, this summer, Eric and I each took two weeks off. We got each other’s okay before planning our trips and also got Ed’s consent.

Early in our firm’s life, we also said that it was  not okay to take the entire summer off. We also said it was not okay to engage with too many activities outside of our firm. More on that here: “A VC’s View of Charitable Giving.”

I suppose vacations shouldn’t be such a big deal, but we think it really helps set culture.

Once one person starts to take a lot of vacation, the others will be tempted to do the same. And suddenly, you may end up in a situation where a lot of partners are on a lot of vacations.