I hope the environment is such that people feel they can use it without penalty. Anyone have experience?

I took a little over three months off when my first child was born, and am in the process of taking the full four months for my second child.

I know a half dozen people who have had children while working at Facebook and all of them have taken all (or almost all) of that time.

I never felt pressure not to take leave. The hardest part was convincing myself that things would keep running without me.

Do you have to be married? Is it for anyone whose partner has had a child or only for your own child?

Like, could you, in theory, have a baby making rotation of 3 "girlfriends" with 4 months of paternal leave each per year for an eternal vacation?

I'm not sure of the specifics but I believe you only get one set of leave a year. I wouldn't recommend having multiple girlfriends and babies (and, to be honest, if you did this going back to work would seem like a much better option).

Looking after an under-one year old baby is not a vacation.

But also it's not hard work...

Have you ever looked after a baby?

wow that makes me want to apply at facebook

Which large tech companies don't have paid paternity leave? It's kind of a common thing... https://www.fatherly.com/50-best-places-to-work-for-new-dads...

Ahh, unfortunately most startups can't afford that kind of policy.

I think that's wrong. A few months leave is far more affordable and desirable over replacing a valuable employee or having a very unhappy and burned out employee forced to return to work. Not to mention the positive benefits that policies like this have on recruiting.

It's also just the right thing to do.

Facebook has had the most, and pressured others to copy.

Yes, it is odd for someone to not take full paternity leave. See this article where Boz talks about it: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-parental-leave-polic...

I think this is exacty why it's great he is doing this. He is showing his employees it is ok to prioritize family over work.

If he really wanted to show that, wouldn't he have taken 4 months off? :)

Yes this is normal. I work at Twitter and new fathers taking multi-month paternity is very common. Lots of friends at Google and believe it's the same there.

Here in Sweden 6 months off for dads is the standard. Work survives without us, imagine that.

What I find amazing is that the US still doesn't have Federal paid maternity leave.

I thankfully live in Canada, a civilized country that allows a full year.