Without fanning class war and just to state a fact, Ellen Pao was able to afford top-notch lawyers, which you'd need to go against KPCB given what they'll do to your career. Only "the 1%" can do what she did and keep their careers and finances (after legal bills) intact. That doesn't invalidate her case
at all but it informs the selection because, honestly, hers was one of the weaker ones. (That's not to begrudge her for filing it. I think well of her for doing so.) If more people (who are likely to have stronger cases) had such access, you'd see much stronger cases hitting the Valley elite.
It's similar to the Michael Brown case. On inspection, we found that his was one of the weaker cases when it comes to racial harassment by police. It doesn't invalidate the issue or the grievance.
Pao v. Kleiner was going to be a close call. I wanted to find KP guilty and, looking at the evidence, it seemed that the worst interpretation that I could summon was of negligence. They did fail in allowing her to recover her reputation after Mr. Nazre's attack on her. They did have a performance review system that allowed him to damage her professional reputation out-of-band to the point where she couldn't recover. That was a major moral failure on their part. (On the other hand, they seemed decent in offering a transition plan, and I'm surprised that John Doerr wasn't able to fix her career on an external vector, making all parties happy.) Gender discrimination? A tough call. Probably not, to be honest. Plenty of people have their reputations ruined because of irrelevancies and political chicanery. Management being bad at its job (in this case, performance appraisal) is not the same thing as a Civil Rights Act violation.
Is Silicon Valley corrupt as hell and a bit sexist? Sure. Is it likely that Ellen Pao's "personality conflicts" were, to some degree, gendered? Yes. Did Kleiner Perkins violate the CRA? It's not so clear. But I really don't want anyone to interpret this to mean either (a) that Valley meritocracy is vindicated, or (b) even that this suit was "frivolous", because it clearly wasn't.
It's similar to the Michael Brown case. On inspection, we found that his was one of the weaker cases when it comes to racial harassment by police. It doesn't invalidate the issue or the grievance.
Pao v. Kleiner was going to be a close call. I wanted to find KP guilty and, looking at the evidence, it seemed that the worst interpretation that I could summon was of negligence. They did fail in allowing her to recover her reputation after Mr. Nazre's attack on her. They did have a performance review system that allowed him to damage her professional reputation out-of-band to the point where she couldn't recover. That was a major moral failure on their part. (On the other hand, they seemed decent in offering a transition plan, and I'm surprised that John Doerr wasn't able to fix her career on an external vector, making all parties happy.) Gender discrimination? A tough call. Probably not, to be honest. Plenty of people have their reputations ruined because of irrelevancies and political chicanery. Management being bad at its job (in this case, performance appraisal) is not the same thing as a Civil Rights Act violation.
Is Silicon Valley corrupt as hell and a bit sexist? Sure. Is it likely that Ellen Pao's "personality conflicts" were, to some degree, gendered? Yes. Did Kleiner Perkins violate the CRA? It's not so clear. But I really don't want anyone to interpret this to mean either (a) that Valley meritocracy is vindicated, or (b) even that this suit was "frivolous", because it clearly wasn't.