Ellen Pao Suit Against Kleiner Perkins Heads to Trial | Hacker News Reader

Ellen Pao Suit Against Kleiner Perkins Heads to Trial

nytimes.com

80 pointsgreenburger61 comments

So KPCB is retaliating with a civil lawsuit, claiming:

>“lacked the ability to lead others, build consensus and be a team player, which is crucial to a successful career as a venture capital senior investing partner.”

I won't pretend to know who did or said what, but language such as the above, is so broad as to mean nothing.

It's typical HR verbiage used when they want to pressure someone to quit, or get them outright fired. Whosoever presides over this, I hope they seek and drill for specifics, and demands comparison with other partners' specific performance, because on its surface, you can use this as an excuse to fire anyone. And it's a particularly maddening symptom, which may not have an easy solution. One person's "exceeds expectations", is the other person's, "failed to meet expectations", it's totally arbitrary. With that filter, I can see how one moment she's a star partner, the next she's accused of the above, as retaliation.

The reality is it's very hard to have objective performance. Salespeople somewhat have it, but even then you don't know the performance of the deals until many years later. You can somewhat come up with it for VCs, but it takes many years to sort out talent vs luck vs good or bad markets. Observing the quality of decisions is by it's nature extremely subjective.

That's their claimed reason for (constructively) terminating her, right? It's not the basis of an actual claim against Pao, but a defense of their own actions.

It reads like standard HR speak for an exec termination.

Yes, that's correct, it's their defense. I think my claim is that this claim is so broad as to be meaningless. It can retroactively apply to anyone because it's very unspecific. My subtext is that because the language is so broad, it can be used to excuse any firing, with or without cause. And they may cite specifics, but in reality, they could come up with similar specifics and cause for people who have not been fired.

It's somewhat similar to when there are explicit rules one must live or work by, but then there are implicit rules to follow, which allow skirting of the explicit rules. This then allows the implicit rules to be used against a transgressor of choice, since they broke the explicit rules. And that aspect makes it arbitrary.

Reasons for termination usually are that broad. A broad explanation for a constructive termination isn't a strong signal in any direction. A person could be fired for gross incompetence, or for exploiting a conflict of interest, or for a grave personal indiscretion, and if the company was forced to announce that termination, they'd probably still be similarly broad.

Real companies are extremely cautious about publishing reasons for letting people go.

Remember as well the real goalposts: US companies are not required to document cause for terminating employees. The plaintiff in a discrimination suit bears the burden of proving that they were terminated for a legally prohibited reason. The defendant does not bear a burden of proving cause for termination. Employees are routinely terminated without legal cause, and (controversial but I think true) we're all better off for that.

Yes, but rightly or wrongly, the published reasons are broad so as to minimize exposure to lawsuits. Meaning that if they had to be specific, they would have less ability to fire people arbitrarily. They would have to have detailed records on why someone was not up to par, rather than the nebulous, reasons which are in common use these days and pass muster. Many times people are singled out retroactively, ie., in retaliation, or simply not being of same mind with new management or philosophy, irrespective of performance.

It is explicitly acceptable in the US to fire people for nebulous reasons. We have a "default allow" policy here for firing, which (among other things) makes it much easier to start new companies, by lowering the stakes on hiring people.

We all want the same good thing: the elimination of unfair employment actions. But we should take a long view on how we obtain that good. Considering a more Franco-European policy on employment, it's natural to think employment would be more "fair". But employer policy wouldn't be static given that change; they'd drastically alter both the way they accept new employees and the way they track performance to compensate for it.

All that is just to say once again: you can't read too much out of a vague explanation for why someone was terminated (or, in this case, "managed out").

I understand what's acceptable and normal. I just question why it's not questioned from time to time to see if it merits change.

I'm looking at this from two sides. I've been an employee all my working life, one day I would want to run a business, so I have that in mind too. And I understand that sometimes one might want to fire someone 'just because'. It's just that in principle, 'just because' rubs me wrong.

What I find ironic is that today's HR pretty much says "The reason we fired you is we have no reason" And it's totally acceptable. Do you see how perverse it's become. You can't state a reason for firing someone, because giving a reason exposes you to lawsuits, so, giving no reason, has become a good reason to fire people with.

PS. I've been fired once in my life, while working to put myself thru college. Driver and I were making deliveries, it was late, he decided to skip the last delivery. Upon arrival at the workplace "insubordination". Which was great, got a better part time job after that.

My favorite part is this: """ Ms. Pao says a married colleague pressured her into an affair and then retaliated against her when she broke it off. When she complained, she says she was discriminated against and got poor reviews, resulting ultimately in her dismissal. She accuses Kleiner of treating her “despicably, maliciously, fraudulently and oppressively” from “an improper and evil motive amounting to malice.” """

Sounds like classic blame-shifting to me.

That tripped me up, too. A colleague "pressured her into an affair"? She might have a beef if it was someone with power over her, but a colleague? When women don't want to have affairs with colleagues they say "no".

Reads to me like she compromised her position at the firm and now she wants a big payday. If that's the case, I wouldn't settle with her either.

I was on her side until I read the part about being pressured into an affair. Sexual harassment is a real, horrible thing. But an affair with a married dude??? As an educated executive level woman??! That is some bs and poor judgment. And unfortunately it casts poor light on the rest of her claims.

I founded a KP backed company during those years. I'm not longer involved, so I don't have a stake in this. Likewise, I don't have any specific knowledge of the events.

At the partners' meeting and other interactions, Pao seemed uninterested and out of place. Their culture seemed to be intense, friendly, joking debate. I don't think it's a gender thing, as I remember Meeker and Lee being incredibly helpful.

This whole thing made more sense to me when I read http://nypost.com/2012/06/11/of-love-and-lottsa-lawsuits/ and http://nypost.com/2015/02/18/case-builds-against-former-ny-h....

(To be fair, the alternate hypothesis is that they had already hurt her so badly that she checked out b/c of their actions or that I just saw some off days.)

I've seen VCs sleeping during partner meetings. I don't want to defend that type of behavior, but I don't think it is necessarily indicative of some deeper issues.

If your company isn't in the area of expertise of a particular VC, I would imagine those meetings aren't the most exciting thing in the world and it would be easy to be uninterested.

Wow, I wish the nyt piece mentioned the fletcher angle.

It's quite a fascinating angle. In addition to all the financial fraud he's been accused of, before marrying Ms. Pao in 2007, Fletcher was in a gay relationship for at least 10 years: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/18/nyregion/50-million-gift-a...

To me, that's interesting. We've all heard of the straight married man who comes out of the closet in mid-life and realizes he is gay, but is it at all common for the opposite to happen? Maybe I just don't know enough people.

This is quite ignorant. The most likely explanation is bisexuality.

Maybe. To me a more likely explanation is that a pair of grifters teamed up to shake down a well-heeled target that they thought would go down easily.

I'd hardly call that a "more likely" explanation. Not something to be ruled out. But it's a ridiculous conclusion to call the "more likely" explanation.

And bisexuality is ? How convenient he suddenly becomes bisexual after allegations of ponzi schemes pop up.

I've Ellen Pao her in other contexts and found her incredibly engaged and supportive, so it was probably specific to crap going on at KPCB.

She is one of the best VCs I've ever interacted with; it sounds like she had a negative situation at KPCB (which hopefully the trial will resolve), but it absolutely isn't about her competence and intelligence otherwise.

By all accounts she's also doing very well as an operator at Reddit.

> By all accounts she's also doing very well as an operator at Reddit.

That's completely the opposite of what the linked article claims. It says that a reddit employee sent the defense a letter asking to subpena reddit employees regarding conflicts with Ellen Pao.

Mind you, the article's claim indicates that there is one employee at reddit that disagrees with her.

That's no clear indication of her success/failure at reddit.

Yeah, I guess I meant "by every Reddit employee I've talked to, and by observing how much ass the site has been kicking since she joined, and especially since she took over as CEO". It's certainly not exhaustively researched, and I'd expect a company going through changes as massive as Yishan/Ellen wrought (moving everyone to SF from remote, operating more like a startup vs. a nonprofit, etc.), there'd be some discontent.

I'm really surprised that neither KPCB or Pao has settled this out of court. It's going to be a nasty airing of dirty laundry across the board by the time this thing is over...

From the article it sounds like they tried to enter arbitration to settle the matter but it was described as being "less than productive".

VC firms are to technology businesses as Berkshire Hathaway is to journalism as owner of the The Buffalo News.

This is if anything an indictment of venture capital firms.

I hope she wins, but this issue is a lot bigger than this one case, and what we also need is a new law that holds investors responsible for the conduct of the people they fund. Right now, they can fund frat boys and while the frat boys get sued for sexual harassment or domestic abuse, the investors are scot-free. Indeed, the appeal of Silicon Valley and VC is the disposable company. (As in... don't like what has attached itself to your creation? Shoot it in the head.) But this allows founder quality levels to reach an all-time low, and it's time to reverse course by holding investors responsible for the character of the people they fund.

Did something happen to you? This seems like an absurdly high bar.

What do you mean "Did something happen to you?" The comment by moc is a pretty standard moc comment.

(Just curious to know what you meant)

The better question to ask of Michael Church would be what hasn't happened to him, from his perspective. (Then disregard his answer.)

His view is that in the valley, the VC investor relationship to founders is more like an employer/employee relationship.

I happen to think that is true to some extent. For all the...excess...in MoC's commentary, there are kernels of truths that people who have drunk the SV/VC kool aide are made uncomfortable by.

There's no way to write a law like this that isn't open to horrific abuse. If investors are going to be held responsible for their management's criminal activities, the law isn't just going to be used in Silicon Valley. I don't want to be held liable the next time I buy a few hundred shares of a company whose managers fuck up and (defraud mortgage borrowers|turn NJ into a superfund site|whatever).

I'm generally very supportive of your observations about the feudal nature of Silicon Valley -- but this isn't one of your finest moments.

> "I don't want to be held liable the next time I buy a few hundred shares of a company whose managers fuck up"

how is this fair? we want investors to make intelligent decisions, right? not just play roulette?

No, I actually agree with him insofar as such a law would require a definition of "investor" that doesn't hold small, passive investors responsible.

If you're a VC and you fund a frat boy and he creates a discriminatory culture, you should be held financially liable for any sexual harassment cases that come against him, because you created the startup (and, often, his career) and you were his manager, even if the corporate structure allows you to deny the fact on technicalities. (At least, let me go this far: you should be as liable as his manager would be, meaning that you fall hard if you knew or should have known.) If you're an employee who exercised his options, you shouldn't be liable for management's fuckups.

I'm not talking about applying the law to everyone who owns shares. That would be ridiculous, and would take down a large number of employees.

I should have clarified. I want career-making, lead investors to be liable. The people who created Evan Spiegel should be held responsible if he creates a company with a discriminatory culture. Not everyone who holds a few hundred shares; just people who either played a role, by investing, in creating the thing. In other words, investor-bosses, not all investors.

I wouldn't necessarily apply this to all crimes and, in fact, I'd be willing to have a law that only applies to civil claims, since civil court is where most of these cultural failures end up. I'm not going to say that I know all the details of how it should work; only that something needs to hold investors, as managers because that is what they are, responsible for the cultures of the companies they create.

> The people who created Evan Spiegel should be held responsible if he creates a company with a discriminatory culture.

You know that that's not happening though, right? I mean, the idea is so far-fetched and unrealistic that it's comical. The first step would be to merely hold Spiegel responsible for what he did: aaaand nothing is happening. Nothing will ever happen. But you want to go two steps ahead and hold investors responsible for Spiegel's behavior? That's laughably naive.

Consider, for example, that one of Reddit's big investors is a pimp. No, that's not a fucking joke. He was straight up selling women's bodies to be used sexually. We're not holding people who sell women's bodies for sex accountable... and yet you want to go a few steps further and hold people responsible for other people's conduct?

Is there an assertion that Spiegel has actually created a discriminatory culture at Snapchat?

Or are we leaping to that conclusion based on idiotic emails he wrote in his late teens/early 20s in college and the notion that a leopard doesn't change his spots?

Might we expect that a CEO would act differently in his company than a fraternity social chair?

If he's kept it up and continues to act in that same way as CEO, by all means hold him responsible (he presumably reports to the board). Trying to hold a lead investor/VC responsible is not going to be workable in the small and certainly not in the general case.

Absent a specific, current claim, I'll give him enough credit to evaluate his current actions and not hold him to account for emails that surfaced from years ago and in a completely different context (even though I find the emails appalling).

michaelochurch is part of the "spread the blame as far and as wide as possible" culture. "Others must be punished" if they just happen to know someone.

There's a political agenda behind all of this that I don't need to get into.

But you want to go two steps ahead and hold investors responsible for Spiegel's behavior? That's laughably naive.

Oh, it probably is. Someone has to propose radical ideas or moderate changes never happen. Radicalism is the role I've had to take on these issues, for a variety of reasons not worth getting into.

To be honest, I'm nearly burnt out on the anti-VC radicalism. And my actual views are fairly moderate, not that I can express nuance in a world full of corporate apologists (Valley libertarians) who worship money/success regardless of its origin, and who have to have their idols crushed. See, I have a good job, a good life, and I find that I care less about VC and stupid techie tricks by the year. I prefer to learn about Haskell or new machine learning techniques; that's a lot more intellectually stimulating than "VC-istan". That said, a replacement for me on the anti-VC radicalism front hasn't emerged. I'd love to find one so I can play the moderate.

There's a value in being a screaming maniac, which is that your words echo in your adversaries' minds in their moments of doubt and darkness, which means that you have a chance at planting in them the seeds that take them down for good... but I prefer the moderate stance when possible. We just need a really effective screaming maniac because, even if they aren't much for nuance, they have important morale effects in terms of galvanizing the good and shaking the bad. Right now, I haven't met anyone who can and will do what I do on HN.

Consider, for example, that one of Reddit's big investors is a pimp. No, that's not a fucking joke. He was straight up selling women's bodies to be used sexually. We're not holding people who sell women's bodies for sex accountable...

Whoa. Can you say who? I've never heard of this. That is... disgusting and horrifying.

I think we probably agree that such people should be held accountable.

> Whoa. Can you say who? I've never heard of this. That is... disgusting and horrifying.

https://www.reddit.com/user/Here_Comes_The_King

P.S. I was so tempted to just say jedberg.

Small meta-comment: it's very annoying to see your comments consistently downvoted (even when you're not playing your shtick).

> Oh, it probably is. Someone has to propose radical ideas or moderate changes never happen. Radicalism is the role I've had to take on these issues, for a variety of reasons not worth getting into.

So, I appreciate your line of reasoning here, but I'm not sure if it's the most effective one. In fact, I think your approach is getting you the exact opposite result of what you want. The thing is, playing a radical is extremely hard, hard especially when you aren't even that genuinely radical. Stallman plays a radical superbly, and I think that really is because he genuinely believes everything he says. I fear that when you say radical things, they can be served as arsenal for the other side, who coopts your arguments as reductio ad absurdum devices for opposite goals.

> Whoa. Can you say who? I've never heard of this. That is... disgusting and horrifying.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080621111652/http://www.rolling... Perhaps the greatest pity is we, and the VC's, including Sam Altman, celebrate him.

The investors don't get off scot-free; if the company tanks because of sexual harassment, their investment fails. For that matter, if consumers cared about the character of CEOs, this problem simply wouldn't exist.

I don't think that that would be a good law, but they do say that these sort of problems start from the top, and so it's no surprise that we have these issues in the tech industry - the CEOs are beholden to their investors, and if this is the culture that is present, one has to wonder what message it sends to the companies they fund.

VCs need to police their own, or those funding the VC firms need to take their money elsewhere if we are to see a fix to this.

Which startups are breaking off with Kleiner Perkins over this? I want to know which founders value their principles more than money.

None of them if they have any sense. Would you expect them to act before a verdict is given? That seems profoundly naive and self defeating.

You want to know what founders simply take someone's accusation at face value?

> An anonymous Reddit employee sent a letter to Kleiner’s legal team, asking them to subpoena Reddit employees “for information regarding conflicts with Ellen Pao.”

Wow. I had heard about the case, but didn't know the drama had sprawled over to reddit. All things put aside, including my own biases, if I was reddit's board, I'd get rid of her immediately. It doesn't matter whether if her claims are justified, or even if she's 100% in the right (and Kliener was in the wrong) - she's obviously a toxic presence and brought some of that toxicity with her over to reddit.

Good heavens. You've just levied a harsh accusation against Pao: you called her a toxic presence, and called for her immediate termination.

Your only evidence is one letter sent by anonymous employee (assuming the NYT has accurately described the person in question and they were in fact at Reddit).

It's very possible the employee just had a grudge against Pao and was trying to complicate things (No CEO will ever avoid having enemies). Or they weren't a Reddit employee at all. We know almost nothing. You're calling for a woman's career to end, and for Reddit to upend their management, based on a single anecdote.

We know nothing of Pao's actual performance at Reddit. Presumably the board made her interim CEO for a reason. Claims such as yours demand much stronger evidence.

> Your only evidence is one letter sent by anonymous employee (assuming the NYT has accurately described the person in question and they were in fact at Reddit).

Do you really need more evidence? Your CEO should be a pillar of stability. A rock, a mountain of fortitude. One mistake or "situation" I can understand, but it appears her issues have followed her to reddit. There's clearly and obviously something more going on. Again the point is not one of right or wrong, but who you want heading up your company. And quite frankly, I wouldn't want her anywhere near my properties.

If you have a person who never does anything wrong, but trouble has a way of following them everywhere, would you want that person working for you? Put yourself in the shoes of reddit's board. This isn't about her career, they don't care about her career, her needs or wants, it's about what's best for reddit.

This isn't a fantasy world where ideology wins out, the good guy wins, and pragmatism and compromise are only found it stories... No, this is the real world where you have to weigh the benefits and drawbacks and make extremely hard and difficult decisions.

You can't possibly be serious. I've had one CEO like that over 20 years. Most CEOs are somewhat less than that and they do at least ok if not great.

Such strong language, and such vitriol.

If you really believe this, you need to recognize that sometimes the best people are fleeing a bad situation -- a situation that they were a victim of.

I don't really know the details of what happened at KP, but I am not surprised that discrimination (deliberate or otherwise) exists in venture capital. Did it happen to her? I don't know. Will the real truth ever come out? Probably not. Are there multiple versions of the real truth? Probably.

But you are calling for her termination. For something unrelated to her current job. Her resume and academic achievements place her in the exceptionally accomplished category, so to casually describe her as toxic, without first-hand experiences, seems antagonistic and trollish, at best.

She can't control what an anonymous Reddit employee might or might not do. That's no reason to fire her.

His comment history is filled with him being far more rude than is necessary. He's either a troll or an asshole. Sucks that he's here.

Thanks for stalking me instead of taking my comment at face value (I wonder if that's a new, evolving form of the ad hominem logical fallacy).

It's funny, actually. I've never seen so many downvotes flying on hackernews as I have in this thread. Not my comment, this is actually my first downvoted comment on this website in 2 years (which would contradict your claim of me being "a troll"), but watching this thread proves it's a hot button issue for many people.

I'm a "she" by the way. And no, my comment history isn't littered with rude comments. I may speak frankly and honestly which is often confused with being rude, especially to those who are extremely sensitive to such things, but the hard truth should never be considered "rude", it should be welcomed. Warts and all.

If you want your truths welcomed, don't make them hard.

Is that a hard enough truth for you to swallow?

I had a quick look at her last 50 comments or so, they look fine to me. Can you provide some more specific evidence of your claim?

> But you are calling for her termination. For something unrelated to her current job.

I am calling for her termination for something on-going with her current job and related to her old job. Did you not read the article? A Reddit employee asked the defense to subpena more employees because of conflicts at her new job. I highly doubt the employee was "trolling" the defense with his or her request (more than half of reddit's staff is female). There is obviously something of substance there and I think that combined with her prior experience is telling of the toxicity she is bringing with her wherever she goes.

I don't care if she's in the right or wrong, I only care about reddit since it's a website I use every day and have for years. I would not want a CEO with such problems and baggage following them around heading up any company I'm a part of or I enjoy. It's like that one kid in school who always said they hated "drama" yet always found themselves smack-dab in the middle of it. They may have had no part in the drama, but it followed them around. They were a toxic presence and that's exactly what's begun to happen with Ellen Pao according to this article's bit about reddit.

More than that, it's strange that KP hasn't settled. That's something that, if there was actually evidence, even mildly strong "iffy" evidence, they would want to do immediately. They wouldn't let it move to trial. Unless they had evidence which supports their own side of the story. Again, that's largely irrelevant to me. Even if she's 100% correct, I wouldn't want someone with all that baggage heading up my company. CEOs need to be fortitude personified.

So you're putting "biases aside", but yet you're suggesting that the board should terminate her immediately, without any investigation. And they should do this because there's one source, anonymous, alluding that she may not have treated Reddit employees properly...

Seriously, I wouldn't call this a well-thought and balanced position, which is the minimum you'd expect from your board.

I think the situation with KP should have pretty much disqualified her right off the bat. She shouldn't have been hired in the first place (though I think she got the job by default thanks to Yishan unexpectedly quitting). They shouldn't have hired her at least until her lawsuit/court case was over with. Right now it's clearly a huge distraction and has proven to be as such.

If reddit didn't hire her to begin with, they wouldn't have had one of their employees telling the defense to subpena the rest of them because of all the conflicts. Her actions with that company are now affecting and a distraction for reddit itself.

Put yourself in the shoes of a reddit board member and tell me you'd gladly hire her to run your company. With all her current baggage and the drama, and conflict with your current employees. Tell me you'd genuinely be happy and fine with her overseeing your company. One which happens to be one of the hottest web properties and quickest rising social media sites out there.

Your job, as a board member, should be to minimize any and all risks to your business, no, investment. Ellen Pao is risk personified at the moment.

Uh, no. You cannot assume anything is this case except that it is going to be very surprising.

These people operate a level that normal people simply do not comprehend. They expect that the rules do not apply to them, and they respond very badly when someone breaks that bubble.

This is why we have courts. And this is going to get ugly.

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