Ellen Pao Says Kleiner Perkins Has Now Fired Her

https://allthingsd.com/20121002/breaking-ellen-pao-says-kleiner-perkins-has-now-fired-her/

by relation • 14 years ago

47 32 14 years ago

SeoxyS• 14 years ago

I'm surprised it took so long, actually. What did she expect? Suing her employer makes her a massive liability to the firm. The only thing keeping her there was how a firing would reflect on the case and in the press. KPCB must've decided that the bad press was the better alternative (and rightly so, IMHO).

nancyhua2• 14 years ago

Exactly, I don't know why she didn't quit right away- even if it turns out her claims are completely true, can she still work in a place that she's (successfully or unsuccessfully) sued? And why would she want to? And why would you want an employee who's sued you? Is it standard to keep going to work after suing someone?

huhtenberg• 14 years ago

SURPRISE!!

digitalengineer5• 14 years ago

I have no idea who this person is. From what I understand she sued her employer because she claims she "was shut out of promotions" and did (or did not) get fired. Then she used Quora to tell the world she was fired. Her employer replied saying she was not fired, but is "in a successful career transition".

I suppose she was done working anywhere. Who would want to hire someone like that?

Chaotic• 14 years ago

I would hire someone like that. People who are not afraid to stand up and speak loudly when they feel that they have been mistreated are a valuable asset, assuming that you don't mistreat them. For everyone who runs their company on secrets, bullshit and idiocy, they are a terrible liability.

digitalengineer5• 14 years ago

You said it exactly: "They feel that they have been mistreated... It's a feeling and you can never control how someone feels. At her level I would expect her to be professional about it and communicate within the team about her feelings. I don't think suing and posting on Quora helps her or the company involved. That was 100% "feelings" as well. Not professional.

htmltablesrules• 14 years ago

You are saying you would hire the accuser before her case is even sorted out? Why do you assume her version of events are true, and her employer's version false?

Just because you don't get the promotion you feel entitled to, doesn't mean you should sue your employer for discrimination.

nancyhua2• 14 years ago

I think she definitely cut her ties to the VC world by doing this which is why it's such a big deal despite none of us knowing who she is- she's either forfeiting her career to take a stand, or she's forfeiting her career for money/attention. Which possibility sounds more probable? I don't know.

The only thing I know about her is an article from when this lawsuit first came out saying her married boss gave her a book on sex poetry with a handwritten note inside of it. She claimed he would often make suggestive remarks and the others wouldn't invite her to parties with founders bc having a woman would "kill the buzz" (Is this tenable? Do men think women kill the buzz? I always get invited to stuff but I don't know if I'm missing special male tech networking parties). Those claims sound really gross and easily testable- if she has the book then they should fire that guy and if witnesses come forward saying they had all-male VC-founder parties then that's evidence of gender affecting her networking and career.

nvr219• 14 years ago

I like that the entire article is sourced from a Quora question.

michaelochurch5• 14 years ago

I don't think we'll ever know whether she's right or wrong. She could quite possibly be in the wrong, but I increasingly doubt it the more I read.

Here's why: her firm acted like a massive dick.

First, making employees sign a non-disparagement, arbitration-only agreement (except as a term in a severance negotiation) is vile and should be illegal. You're effectively threatening to fire someone (or rescind an offer) if he or she doesn't give up a basic right.

All of these "Here's what rights you would have if we fired you, but you have to give them up to work for us" terms (non-disparagement, non-litigation or arbitration-only, non-solicitation of employees) are unethical and only exist because most people can't afford to be without an income. They are contracts under duress and should be categorically stricken.

Second, rather than arguing that the discrimination claims are untrue by bashing the employee's performance, the appropriate thing to do would have been to establish with actual data (not performance reviews, which can be fudged) that she wasn't experienced enough for the promotion, and that she would have been the least qualified person at that level if she had been promoted. The proper way to handle a bogus harassment claim (if it is that, and I doubt it given the way the firm has behaved) is to show the person's trajectory of promotions, and then show the average for a person of that experience, and to use hard data. "The average partner makes senior partner after 7 years. She was only here for 4." Or: "To make senior partner, we generally expect that a person bring in $20 million in business. She brought in $12 million." That's what you do if you're decent.

Also, the truth is that a company in that position will almost never need to air performance reviews. Unless this was a "lock-step" or expected promotion where it's professionally damaging not to get it, the onus is (or at least should be) on her to prove, using hard data, that she did deserve to get the promotion. If they were decent, they'd sit back and wait for her to make a case that she did deserve the promotion, and then argue against that.

Third, they are asking to have her pay their legal fees. They are a venture capital firm. When you're that rich, trying to scrounge money off of people who are quite possibly not rich is pretty debased: an inverse Robin Hood sort of thing.

Fourth, using performance reviews for anything other than direct feedback is immoral and, itself, constitutes legalized (but ethically illegitimate) harassment. If performance reviews are confidential between manager and employee, then that's how things should be. They should be direct feedback for mutual benefit, and nothing more. If they're aired to the public, that's wrong. That's effectively extortion.

tptacek2• 14 years ago

How are employment contracts for 6-figure jobs "under duress"? KPCB isn't obliged to hire anyone. It seems entirely reasonable that they should be able to choose their own terms, and, similarly, if employee candidates don't like those terms, they don't take the job.

What you've done here is subtly shifted the frame of the discussion. You make it sound like if she didn't sign the contract, she'd be fired. That's not at all what happened, is it?. As a prospective hire at one of the most "prestigious" VC firms in the country, this person no doubt had many options for where to work next. Kleiner extended her an offer and with it an employment contract, right? If she didn't think she could keep the promises in that contract, she should have gone somewhere else.

I'm also not sure what their being a "VC firm" has to do with who pays legal fees. The rules aren't different for "rich" firms and "poor" firms. People make frivolous claims to both kinds of companies, and larger companies shouldn't have to shoulder the legal costs of fending off bogus claims simply because they're larger. Obviously, if KPCB is wrong about what happened, it's they who will be paying the legal fees. What matters is who's right and who's wrong, not which side of the conflict is easier to caricature.

I have no opinion about the sexual harassment charge itself, nor do I think that "non-disparagement" clauses should (or even can) prevent someone from litigating a sexual harassment or discrimination charge, or even from making a case to the public about them. No doubt KPCB's lawyers want that clause to shut down the drama, but there's a public interest issue involved in firms forcing employees out due to sexual discrimination or harassment.

The reality here is probably that you don't know anything about what happened with Ellen Pao and Kleiner Perkins, but that this is a message board and so you feel it's appropriate to litigate the issue with cartoons. I wish you'd not do that. It makes us all dumber.

Late edit: 5 minutes of Google research suggests that non-disparagement clauses are not enforceable in matters of discrimination and, broadly, in public interest cases of all stripes; similarly (you may have already known this), where non-compete agreements are valid, they are still not enforceable when they directly harm the public interest.

rayiner• 14 years ago

The problem is what happens when all employers follow suit with this arbitration garbage and it becomes standard practice, which it is becoming. Employers have all the leverage in these cases.

larrys2• 14 years ago

"How are employment contracts for 6-figure jobs "under duress"? KPCB isn't obliged to hire anyone."

In "entitledville" they are duress.

michaelochurch5• 14 years ago

How are employment contracts for 6-figure jobs "under duress"?

Those non-standard terms (non-disparagement, arbitration only) are almost always presented after the person has gone through the interview process, accepted an offer, and given notice at the previous employer. If the companies put those policies on their websites for the public to find, then it wouldn't be under duress. Companies with onerous employment terms would be known to have them before people spent time on an interview.

jamesaguilar• 14 years ago

How is It "under duress?" there are plenty of firms you can work for that don't have these terms.

paulerdos• 14 years ago

Sad story for all parties really. Taints everyone. Reminds of the Florian Leibert case.

jpdoctor• 14 years ago

I know they say that there's no such thing as bad publicity, but sheesh!

I'm amazed that KP didn't just buy some quietude here. Clearly, much ax-grinding is going on.

Ellen Pao Says Kleiner Perkins Has Now Fired Her

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