When Ellen Pao sued one of the country’s most powerful VCs for gender discrimination, she broke open the silence surrounding sexism in tech—and her fight is far from over.
In 2015, Silicon Valley was riveted by the trial of Ellen Pao versus her former employer, esteemed venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). The saga had begun three years earlier, when Pao filed a gender-discrimination lawsuit against the firm after partners were unresponsive to her claims that a colleague (with whom she had previously had a sexual relationship) used his seniority to stymie her career, hurting her chances for a promotion. Pao became the very public David battling tech’s Goliath-size bias issues and endured a monthlong trial that saw her name dragged through the press—the stress of it all, she says, caused her to have a miscarriage. Though Pao lost the case, her bravery in filing the lawsuit made her a hero to many women and helped change the conversation around sexism in tech. Now, Pao is back in the spotlight this month with a new book, Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change (Spiegel & Grau), which takes readers behind the scenes of the roller coaster she’s been on—including her stint as CEO of Reddit (where she started the trend of tech companies banning “revenge porn”). Here, she talks about becoming an activist, what it will take to make tech’s toxic culture disappear, and Project Include, her nonprofit that helps companies develop more-diverse workforces.
MARIE CLAIRE: IN 2012, YOU SENT AN E-MAIL HIGHLIGHTING THE HARASSMENT YOU HAD EXPERIENCED. WHAT WENT THROUGH YOUR HEAD BEFORE YOU PRESSED “SEND”?
This story is from the September 2017 edition of Marie Claire - US.
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This story is from the September 2017 edition of Marie Claire - US.
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