Ellen Pao on the workplace reckoning brewing in tech.
 | By Nayeema Raza Senior Editor, Opinion |
There's a workplace reckoning taking place in Silicon Valley. In the last year, Pinterest settled a gender discrimination suit for $22.5 million, a group of Apple employees rallied to force the tech giant's hand in dismissing a staffer for sexist passages in a 2016 book, and allegations of questionable conduct surfaced against one of Big Tech's biggest names, Bill Gates. |
But the conversation about sexism in Silicon Valley started almost a decade ago. And for many people it started with Ellen Pao, our guest this week on Opinion's podcast "Sway." |
In 2012, Pao filed a gender discrimination suit against her former employer, the venture capital goliath Kleiner Perkins. I was moving to the Valley around the time, about to enter my first year of the M.B.A. program at Stanford. When the trial started, nearly three years later, I'd graduated and was working at a San Francisco-based media start-up backed by other big venture capital firms. The case became the talk of the town. And like many other young women at the time, I closely followed the testimony that unfolded over 24 days. |
It was only six years ago, but it was a different era — before President Trump and #MeToo. Back then, Pao's cause didn't seem to get as much support as it might have today. Many men and women tried to discredit her as a woman scorned because she'd had an affair with a colleague at Kleiner. Others dismissed her as an ambitious woman. (They meant that as an insult.) |
Pao ultimately lost the suit, but her case and many more that have come after it have changed the balance of power between women and men — and between employees and bosses — in Silicon Valley. |
This week, Pao discusses that shift with Kara Swisher. They contemplate how C.E.O.s with "thin skins" and "giant egos" will try to seize back control, and they delve into the backlash that Basecamp, the tech company that had been a darling of workplace culture, faced when its leaders tried this year to restrict any political or societal conversations at work. They chat about what the lawsuit cost Pao and what — short of "VCs doing a short perp walk" — could drive cultural change and accountability in tech. And, of course, they discuss what went down with Bill Gates. You can listen here. |
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