Trial paints 2 perceptions of woman suing firm
Closing arguments likely to begin today in lawsuit
SAN FRANCISCO The final scene of the almost Shakespearean drama of the Ellen Pao trial begins today, when lawyers on both sides of what could be a landmark sex- discrimination lawsuit are likely to begin their closing arguments.
Pao is suing her former employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, for $ 16 million in lost wages and as much as $ 144 million in damages. The damages figure is new. Judge Harold Kahn ruled on Saturday that Pao has sufficient grounds to sue for punitive damages.
Over the past four weeks, the two sides have called witnesses who’ve described scenes that at times clash wildly in their depiction of reality.
Beginning today, Pao and Kleiner lawyers will have the chance to weave all the bits and pieces of the stories told on the stand into two opposing narratives they hope will convince the jury that their side is right.
The pictures they attempt to paint with their words will be very different. Which one prevails will set a tone for hiring in the tech world for years to come.
Some of the reverberations are already being felt. Last Monday, a former Facebook program manager sued the social networking site for harassment and discrimination based on her gender and her race. And on Thursday, a lawsuit was filed against Twitter, accusing the site of having a “secretive” system of promotions that favors men.
In Pao’s telling, Kleiner Perkins is a boys’ club where men were valued and promoted to senior partners while women were ignored and left to linger in less powerful and much less remunerative junior partner positions. It is a firm where a colleague could pressure Pao into a relationship that she ended immediately after she found out he was not separated from his wife, as he had told her he was. A firm that then did nothing when he spent years retaliating against her by cutting her out of vital e- mails and meetings.
It is a firm where men made subtle and not- so- subtle come- ons to women junior to them, where raunchy, lockerroom talk was accepted and all- male dinners and social events occurred without anyone batting an eye.
All told, it was a firm where a smart, highly accomplished and hard- working woman like Pao stood no chance of actually making it to senior partner. A place where she was hired and mentored by legendary investor John Doerr but finally betrayed by him and was pushed out as soon as she complained, by men who refused to let her succeed.
None of which jibes with the version of events described by witnesses when questioned by Kleiner’s lawyers. They told of a firm operating in a field that is predominantly male, but led by Doerr, a visionary who has worked tirelessly for years to bring more women into venture capital and technology as a whole.
It was a firm of high standards, where vulgar sexual comments are unacceptable and where partners discussed economics, technology and more esoteric topics such as Buddhism. It was a place that hired many women who in turn held their own women’s networking dinners and get- togethers, one where men and women worked well in partnership with each other.
In their view, Pao was a talented, welleducated worker whose interpersonal skills were lacking.
Beginning today, all eyes in Silicon Valley will be on whose arguments seem most persuasive.