Ellen Pao Loses Silicon Valley Gender Bias Case Against Kleiner Perkins

vivaoporto writes As reported by the New York Times, USA Today and other publications, a jury of six men and six women rejected current Reddit Inc CEO Ellen Pao's claims against her former employer, the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Ms. Pao's suit, that alleged employment discrimination based on gender, workplace retaliation and failure to take reasonable steps to prevent gender discrimination, asked $16 million in compensatory damages plus punitive damages. The jury decided, after more than two days of deliberation and more than four weeks of testimony, that her formed employer neither discriminated against the former junior partner for her gender, nor fired the complainant because of a high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit against the firm in 2012. She alleged that Kleiner Perkins had promoted male partners over equally qualified women at the firm, including herself, and then retaliated against her for raising concerns about the firm's gender dynamics by failing to promote her and finally firing her after seven years at the firm after she filed her 2012 lawsuit.

Comments

The perfect summary of the case:

[ckatko]

"Ellen Pao gender-bias lawsuit is a setback for women"
http://www.cnbc.com/id/1025377...

Written by a female ex-CEO.

In a nutshell, the case is obviously frivolous, and if it had succeeded it would have been another barrier for women in the industry because companies would see a female applicant and go, "Is she worth the risk?"

Re:One more view.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ellen Pao comes from a culture of lying for victimhood and money. She and her kind actually make it more difficult for women to get hired, due to fear of false claims actually succeeding.

Good job.

Wouldn't Want To Be In The Same Room With Her

[Anonymous Coward]

Man has an affair on the job, expects to get fired, woman has an affair on the job, expects $16M. Nothing coming out of this case makes it look like she had even the tiniest shred of evidence she didn't deserve what she got besides her gender.

Re:One more view.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ars Technica just lost my respect and readership.

For reporting the jury's verdict? The phrasing is very much "legal-ese": The jury held that KP is not liable for her claims. Don't see why that bothers you so much.

The subtitle is a statement of why the case was even remotely interesting: it is an indisputable fact that the tech industry and investment banking are "dominated by" men. Men make up the overwhelming majority of people in both of those industries, and the skew is even more pronounced at the executive levels. And at question during this trial was the behavior of those men towards women: which means... the trial DID highlight the male-dominated tech and investment banking cultures in Silicon Valley. That was the FOCUS of the case.

By describing the tech and investment banking industries as "male dominated," they are, in fact, being as absolutely factual as if they were writing a story about the "female dominated" nursing field. There was nothing in the article about "male domination" being the reason for Ms. Pao's loss; nor was there any presumption that "male domination" somehow influenced the jury. I think you need a refresher course in reading comprehension, friend. Your sense of outrage is clearly cutting off your oxygen.

Damage has been done

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter win or lose, the lawsuit itself has done much damage to the Silicon Valley

In the eyes of the investors the Silicon Valley no longer represents a place where technology means everything, where one can get the best talents to work on and create marvelous new and fancy and profitable ways to boldly forge new pathways towards the next technological frontier

No

The Silicon Valley, thanks to the feminazis like Ms. Pao, has turned into a place where one can get sued just because one bases one's hiring on the best qualified candidates - and not on the basis of creed, gender and/or racial background

The world today that we live in the Silicon Valley is no longer the only place where the investors can find talents - nowadays there are so many options for the investors - They can also go to Europe or India or Korea or Japan or China or Singapore or even Africa / South America

If America does not stop these kind of frivolous lawsuits from happening, it gonna make the Silicon Valley a very unwelcome place for those with money to invest - and investors in general do not like to invest in places where 'political minefield' are abound

Re:Damage has been done

[elrous0]

The partner (?) who did not want to invite the women in the company to a getaway with Al Gore because it would "kill the buzz." The buzz would be killed because the excluded party were women, not because they were unpleasant people.

Maybe that was because the partner recognized that Pao was just the kind of sensitive narcissist who would do things like keep enemies lists and sue people who she perceived as wronging her. Yeah, having someone like that along would in fact be a pretty big "buzzkill" for any fun retreat.

Pao was stupid to sleep with the Indian sleazebag and that probably gave her a reputation in the office. But let us assume she's an utter whore and slut. Do the married men in the company have absolutely no control over themselves?

That argument, of course, cuts both ways. It could as easily be rephrased as "Do the women at KP have absolutely no control of themselves when it comes to married men?"

Re:This whole issue needs to be buried

[Karmashock]

No one is forgetting that. But why is the employer responsible for it either?

You want to take ten years off and then come back and earn the same as the man OR woman that didnt' leave? How is that fair?

The best way to track the effect of children on the earning power of a woman is is to compare the earning power of women that don't have children versus the ones that do.

The women that do not have children earn almost the exact same amount as men.

That was how the gender cap statistic was first debunked. They just removed all the women that have children and the gap vanished.

Now you say we need kids? No disagreement. But that is a different issue from gender discrimination or a wage gap.

All you're asking for now is maternity welfare. Which already exists. Nearly all the public subsidy money for healthcare etc goes to women. Roughly 90 percent goes to women.

So... you're being paid. And the next time you want to talk about how hard it is being a woman, lets look at the gender imbalance in homeless people. Nearly all homeless people are men.

This issue is bullshit. It needs to be cut in to little pieces, dosed with holy water, and then buried on opposing sides of a church on holy ground. Otherwise known as another fun way to deal with vampires.

The issue is bullshit. Nuke it from orbit.

Re:One more view.

[elrous0]

I've been here a while too. Long enough to remember when /. was so reflexively liberal and dogmatic that only one voice on any topic was ever heard. That wasn't such a great place for those of us whose views are more nuanced, who don't just parrot the party line. Here are some harsh truths that never got a voice in those days:

Not every allegation of sexism/racism/rape/etc. is true.

White, heterosexual, American males are not responsible for all evil in the world.

Sometimes conservatives are wrong, but sometimes they're right too.

It's not okay to support censorship when it comes to Islam unless you're also okay with supporting censorship when it comes to Christianity. Judaism, Hinduism, etc. too.

Bill Gates isn't a Borg and sometimes does some good in the world. Conversely, Steve Jobs isn't a flawless god, and did some bad things in his life.

I could go on, but you get the picture.