So KPCB is retaliating with a civil lawsuit, claiming:<p>>“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.”<p>I won't pretend to know who did or said what, but language such as the above, is so broad as to mean nothing.<p>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.
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.”
"""<p>Sounds like classic blame-shifting to me.
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.<p>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.<p>This whole thing made more sense to me when I read <a href="http://nypost.com/2012/06/11/of-love-and-lottsa-lawsuits/" rel="nofollow">http://nypost.com/2012/06/11/of-love-and-lottsa-lawsuits/</a> and <a href="http://nypost.com/2015/02/18/case-builds-against-former-ny-hedgie-buddy-fletcher/" rel="nofollow">http://nypost.com/2015/02/18/case-builds-against-former-ny-h...</a>.<p>(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'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...
VC firms are to technology businesses as Berkshire Hathaway is to journalism as owner of the The Buffalo News.<p>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.
> <i>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.”</i><p>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.