In general, based on personal experience, I am not in favor of this sort of thing for tech companies beyond a certain size (perhaps 50 or so). I think it create

In general, based on personal experience, I am not in favor of this sort of thing for tech companies beyond a certain size (perhaps 50 or so). I think it creates a situation that is ripe for misunderstandings and bad feelings. I used to think otherwise, but as I worked at companies that grew from tiny to moderately large I have definitely witnesses a threshold beyond which things start to break down. We all know that "unlimited" does not really mean unlimited. No one is randomly taking off for 6 months to go walk the appalachian trail or whatever. So what does it mean? About as many days off as you would have had under a typical plan? Maybe with a few extra? But no one is really quite sure. So different people will inevitably have different interpretations which leads to bad feelings when one person takes 10 days off a year while another takes 25. It also puts managers in an impossible situation when people complain. They have no rules or guidelines to point to in order to enforce any sort of standardization. After all, it says "unlimited." What are they supposed to say to the person who takes off for an entire month one summer while everyone else is hard at work pushing that new release out? We have enough guilt conscious style management as it is. There is no need to add more. There's also the issue that if you aren't tracking days then exiting employees don't get paid off for unused days. I consider this a real problem as well. I know it screams "we're a big company" but just suck it up and acknowledge reality. Past ~50 you are a big company. It's high time you act like one. Ultimately paid time off is a form of compensation. Would you accept this sort of loosey-goosey attitude about how much cash or stock you are being paid? Probably not. So what is different about PTO?