Pao v. Kleiner Perkins
Overlapping with a number of studies condemning the representation of women in venture capital, the case was followed closely by reporters, advocacy groups and Silicon Valley executives.
[2] Given the tendency for similar cases to reach settlements out of court, coverage of Pao v. Kleiner Perkins described it as a landmark trial once it began in February 2015.
[7] In 2005 Pao joined Kleiner Perkins as technical chief of staff for John Doerr, a senior partner, a job that required degrees in engineering, law, and business, and experience in enterprise software.
[14] On May 10, 2012, Pao filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against her employer[15] alleging workplace retaliation by a married junior partner, Ajit Nazre, with whom she had an affair.
[22] Since its founding in 1972, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has backed entrepreneurs in more than 500 ventures including AOL, Amazon.com, Navigenics, Citrix, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Genomic Health, Geron Corporation,[23] Google, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Nebula,[24] Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, Verisign, WebMD and Zynga.
[25] Although there are fewer women than men in both junior and senior positions employed by Kleiner Perkins, its gender gap is smaller than that of most other venture capital firms and its most prominent female partner, Mary Meeker, has called it "the best place to be for a woman in the business.
[38] The trial was heard before a jury[39] of 6 women and 6 men drawn from diverse employment and ethnic backgrounds[40] and Judge Harold E. Kahn[41] at San Francisco Superior Court.
[47] To characterize the company's response, her case explained that $22,000 was deducted from his paycheck once and that there was no strong desire to reprimand him until an outside investigation was able to link him to multiple instances of harassment.
[55] Issues with her last year at Kleiner Perkins concerned a memorandum she sent on January 4, 2012 and an alleged absence of training and policies to prevent discrimination.
[59] They also pointed to several opportunities that were afforded to Pao including a speech coach, mentorship from John Doerr and a longer career than that of many other junior partners.
[60] To argue that Pao's firing was justified, they presented several negative performance reviews that she received and frequently described her as "entitled" and "not a team player".
[69] Exelrod began by showing pictures of three male witnesses, Amol Deshpande, Chi-Hua Chien and Wen Hsieh, saying that they were promoted ahead of Pao despite joining the firm later and not investing in any companies that went public.
[54] Kleiner Perkins CFO Susan Biglieri testified that Mary Meeker and Beth Seidenberg were the first two women in the firm's history to reach its highest rank of "managing member".
[75] Rejecting claims that she was hired into an operating role, Pao explained that she initially turned down the job offer from Kleiner Perkins but arranged with John Doerr to make it "more senior".
[77] Although Pao spoke positively of Doerr, she commented that he often raised issues of pregnancy and suggested that her three-month maternity leave was the real reason she did not receive a board seat at RPX.
When questioned about this, Pao knew only that one of their first names was Tina, inviting theories that the women had settled with Kleiner Perkins and signed non-disclosure agreements.
[27] On the stand, Pao objected to the way Employment Law Alliance investigator Stephen Hirschfeld responded to the discrimination complaints by Trae Vassallo and herself.
She alleged that the reports used biased language, softened the airplane incident by changing the name of a pornographic show to Entourage and focused on eliminating KPCB's liability rather than addressing the concerns of employees.
[84] Contrasting Pao's statement that she discussed gender bias with Aileen Lee and Trae Vassallo, the defendant named three female witnesses who stated that they never felt discriminated against: Mary Meeker, Beth Seidenberg and Juliet de Baubigny.
[85] Private human resources consultant Rhoma Young defended the attention to detail in KPCB's review process and Harvard Business School professor Paul Gompers spoke favorably of its commitment to diversity.
[86][87] Another professor testifying for Kleiner Perkins, David Lewin of UCLA, alleged that Pao's claim to $16 million was invalid because she could have secured a lucrative salary with a more thorough job search.
[81] Testifying in the final week was an investor witness from outside Kleiner Perkins named Andrew Jody Gessow, a passenger of the private flight that Pao described as offensive.
[91] Senior partner Randy Komisar also testified that week about why he received the board seat at RPX despite his investment in it being a joint effort with Ellen Pao.
Although admitting that he began taking detailed notes about Pao four days after her suit was filed, he maintained that he had wanted to fire her for years and that only resistance from Doerr stood in the way.
"[44] She also thanked an anonymous member of the jury whose question revealed that an evaluation, deemed to be negative based on its long comments from Matt Murphy and Ted Schlein, actually received input from 7 people, 5 of whom reviewed Pao positively.
The jury, which found 8 to 4 in favor of Kleiner Perkins on the fourth claim of retaliation by termination, was directed to continue to deliberate as the finding did not meet the required threshold of 75%.
[98] On June 18, 2015[100] the court awarded $275,966 to Kleiner Perkins, stating that the disparity in economic resources between the parties was too great to justify the original amount.
[104][105] In a Re/code post on the topic, Pao wrote about the importance of discussing gender bias publicly and stated that she was rejecting requests from KPCB to sign a non-disparagement agreement.
[108] A number of publications credited Pao and her case with focusing attention on the issue of gender discrimination and workplace sexism, especially in the venture capital and technology industries, and for inspiring others to act.
[110][111][112][113][114][115][116] Afterwards, Pao v. Kleiner Perkins was again credited with inspiring a discrimination case when security researcher Katie Moussouris filed a suit against Microsoft.
