That she didn't accept the settlement says a lot for her belief in the case (or, at the very least, her odds of winning).

She sought $16 million -

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_27444497/ellen-pao-se...

She clearly believed monetary compensation was important as part of the case. So then the question becomes, what % of a likelihood of victory would you need to believe in, to go after $16m vs $964k. Or alternatively, perhaps $964k is such a (relatively) modest sum for the context, that it simply wasn't a consideration for her. She can probably earn more than that writing a book about the ordeal.

"Ellen Pao can sue Kleiner Perkins for up to $160 million in damages"

http://www.businessinsider.com/ellen-pao-can-sue-kleiner-per...

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_27760383/judge-ellen-...

Here in non-fantasy land, why would anyone do as Ms. Katz suggests?

Just donate to my rainbow coalition...

I felt it was worth pointing out one of the most patently ridiculous things I've ever heard, and the fact that it was given play really tells you how the NYT leans.

That said, it was a bullshit link-bait headline buy hey, traffic, right?

Fixed that for you. There is no guarantee that they will recover all or part of those costs if they decide to pursue it.

There are millions of people facing real discrimination issues and Pao made a joke of them all by trying to turn their struggle into her profit.

However, the deluge of evidence contradicting discrimination was loud and clear. From a logical (not legal) standpoint you would have to be incredibly stupid to not notice that other women are getting ahead in your company, and Pao isn't stupid.

Smaller companies cannot defend themselves against patent trolls. What's to stop Pao would-bes from taking advantage of that fact too? How would that affect the female position in the job market?

It seems reasonable that you don't drag someone through a $900000 lawsuit on a weak hunch. This "discovery" bullshit is exactly how patent trolls get away with what they do.

In ethical wars there are some battles you don't want to win, and some that should never even take place. Everyone sits on a distinct side of the fence and when they see blood they go for it, it's pathetic and ultimately weakens their position. It's about reaching a compromise and $900000 is not a compromise. Kleiner is being the bigger person here and suggesting that everyone walk away from this, yes it does have PR implication for them, but it is ultimately the right thing to do.

I don't see any deluge of women getting ahead at Kleiner Perkins. In fact, it does seem like an overwhelmingly male environment.

> Smaller companies cannot defend themselves against patent trolls. What's to stop Pao would-bes from taking advantage of that fact too? How would that affect the female position in the job market?

Patent trolls use the threat of costly litigation to pressure smaller companies into settlement. Pao's suit was costly on both sides, but she was not trying to pressure them into settling. First of all, they did offer a $1M settlement, and she pursued the case anyway. This is at least strong evidence that she thought that she would prevail in court. Secondly, there was no risk that Kleiner Perkins would go bankrupt from the costs of litigation. They're a venture capital firm, for crying out loud, they have lots of capital.

I'm not saying that it's okay to sue Kleiner Perkins because they have deep pockets, I'm saying that she's not using the threat of bankruptcy to coerce a settlement out of them.

> It seems reasonable that you don't drag someone through a $900000 lawsuit on a weak hunch. This "discovery" bullshit is exactly how patent trolls get away with what they do.

Patent trolls, again, rely on the fact that expensive discovery proceedings can bankrupt a company before they are able to successfully defend a patent lawsuit. As we've established, that was not an issue here. Discovery serves a useful legal purpose: you need evidence to pursue a case, and without legal force behind a request for evidence, Kleiner Perkins would have no reason to provide it. You can't issue subpoenas without filing the suit first, because you need to show that your suit has merit and that you have standing before you can begin discovery. Now, there have been actual abuses of the discovery process. This just isn't one of them.

Pao lost, so she compensates Kleiner Perkins for their expenses, or she accepts their offer. I don't see why "being wrong in court" would be worthy of punishment.

I thought this hand-to-mouth mentality was something that was exclusive to the 3rd world. Apparently I was wrong. People smell blood and attack. This is not about KPMG. Have "big" corporates like Microsoft, Apple, Samsung and Google ever had problems fending off patent trolls? No.

The "crying wolf" story goes a lot further than the mere once-off act of laying false claim: which is why I specifically use that phrase. You might read the story and find out what happens to the boy who cried "wolf."

Everyone is determined to win every fight, instead of actually reaching a goal. Feminism is going nowhere at this rate.

> I don't see why "being wrong in court" would be worthy of punishment.

We're done here. Was that ever a suggestion of mine?

> I'm not saying that it's okay to sue Kleiner Perkins because they have deep pockets, I'm saying that she's not using the threat of bankruptcy to coerce a settlement out of them.

That paragraph is relevant to defending Pao's virtue: which I have no interest in and was never talking about. I have no opinion of the woman one way or another, an opinion of her is completely irrelevant because neither of us is likely to ever meet her. It is clear that this isn't a debate about something important and, therefore, we're done.

It was my understanding that you were talking about Pao because you made specific claims about her case (that she was "crying wolf", in your terms) and I was interested in seeing how you would support that position, because I hadn't heard arguments that she had sued in bad faith and was interested in listening to those arguments if they existed.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-DGB-41461

Before you downvote, please provide factual evidence and I will gladly update this comment.

1. You said "good for Kleiner". Whether you agree or not, KPCB is massive firm now asking threatening a $1MM suit against an individual who had good faith claims and that just feels really icky to be called "good". I'm fully aware that the burden of proof for damages rests with the plaintiff and she failed that claim, however this is nowhere near the frivolous lawsuit standard. I am going to also reject your plea for factual evidence because I'm not doing your research for you in this instance, but read over some summary judgements in frivolous lawsuit claims that have been ruled in the plaintiffs favor and compare it to the facts of this case.

2. You asked not to be downvoted. Pleas w/r/t voting do not belong on vote based social networks and forums. They are purely manipulative.

Why should KPCB be any different in trying to recover money from a court case they won on every count? Just because they have $X amount of money more than you or I?

Because this was not a criminal trial and therefore the judgement does not determine "guilt" or "innocence?"

Because monied interests always have more power whether they are the plaintiff or the defendant in a case?

You are correct that the proper term for a civil case is "not responsible" but frankly that sounds silly to non-lawyers, as it's too similar to "irresponsible."

That makes it really hard for me to believe she was a victim of anything but her own imagination.

There were a lot of people who decided Kleiner looked bad based purely on the word of Ellen Pao.

Verbal recollections are not, however, evidence.

Edit: The question was sincere, and I can't think of any reason for which a corporation of means should be in some way more responsible for frivolous lawsuits than one of lesser means, or of an individual.

The logical outcome, to me, seems to be that if there were some inequal burden in the eyes of the law for "wealthy companies" that it would invite frivolous lawsuits on the grounds that suing wealthy companies is now a zero risk endeavor.

If I, as an individual, could sue Google with zero fear of retaliation, I can't see why I wouldn't, on the off chance that I might land a pretty large windfall, if I were to win.

Depending on what you mean by "personally sued", this is one of the main reasons limited liability corporations exist: So the shareholders aren't personally responsible for lawsuits the company gets involved in. This is where "corporate personhood" comes from, the idea that, in some limited circumstances, corporations can function as people to make legal proceedings possible.

Suing a company to redress a grievance is feasible. The company has an office, assets, and so on. Trying to track down and sue everyone who has or had a financial stake in the company is not feasible, and if it were, companies would cease to exist because nobody could stomach the risk of all of their personal assets being up for grabs if a lawsuit doesn't go their way.

How do you know this?

What would hard evidence even be for this type of case? Is there going to be an e-mail between partners saying "we should not promote Ellen because she's a woman"?

Did Ellen Pao prove her case conclusively? I think not. Was it clear that there were plenty of issues going on at the time that Kleiner could've handled a lot better? I think so.

There's a reason why so many companies put a lot of emphasis on "culture fit".

People had trouble working with her possibly after she brought up issues of sexual harassment and discrimination, but there's actually something under the law to protect her from this, anti-retaliation laws, which she tried to sue Kleiner over and lost, but that part of the case definitely seemed like there was some merit to although possibly not enough to meet a preponderance of the evidence.

So you can't assume just because someone isn't dismissed quickly that they automatically were a good hire. I've seen plenty of bad hires kept around because people were unable to grok why this person was difficult. They give them lots of second chances and it took time before everyone finally gave up. I'm not saying that's what happened here, what I am saying is you can't jump to a conclusion that because someone wasn't fired that means they were a good fit.

what alternative did they have? A lawsuit "they gave me bad performance/fired me because i'm a woman"? A lawsuit which they would lose with much higher probability and much higher damages. They could only wait until she leaves on her own.

>People had trouble working with her possibly after she brought up issues of sexual harassment and discrimination

People had trouble working with her possibly because she is a total jerk - she complained that the assistant of her colleague was sending brain scans of dying from cancer mother from office.

Wrt. promotion - promotion isn't something employee is entitled to. If you think company doesn't value you enough - get an offer at other place and you will immediately see how much your company really values you. Did Kleiner tried to keep her when she was leaving? Seems like they didn't. Why? Because she is a woman?

Now at Reddit she installed "no negotiation" hiring policy. She seems to be unaware that in case of good employees it isn't the prospective employee who negotiates, it really his current employer who doesn't want the employee to leave. Probably her former employers has always just let her leave easy, without counters :)

Are we really going to start to sue over disillusionment?

And yes, if you do everything your employer asks of you and then some, you should be rewarded. What is this world coming to when doing so is considered "average"?

Selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate's performance in their current role rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and "managers rise to the level of their incompetence."

How about if they were both the same gender?

You probably should, but the reality of a capitalistic system is you probably won't.

I have a lot of friends who did everything they were told would get them good jobs, a stable pay, money to have a house, a vacation... but they have nothing. Not to discredit Pao, but I sometimes just laugh at people lamenting about not getting their millions whilst I'm sitting here, drinking with my suicidal buddy who's lamenting about not being able to land a job, after having submitted his resume to over a hundred places.

Before she initiated the lawsuit, she did not know what would be found in discovery. From her standpoint at the time, a suspicion of gender discrimination was valid. She hoped to find a "smoking gun" in discovery.

There was no smoking gun, and she was far from a sympathetic or innocent plaintiff (the affair with Mr. Nazre really killed her) so she lost.

Every bit of testimony from a Kleiner employee should be thrown out, at least on subjective matters like job performance. A person who is employed by one party or the other cannot possibly be expected to give a valid representation. No one's going to testify against someone who can end his career inside of a couple months (obviously with phony performance reviews, because no employer will admit to firing someone over inconvenient testimony).

Do I think that the jury made the right call? Sadly, I'd say "yes". I think that she did end up on the wrong side of an exclusionary culture (that may have been for reasons other than her gender; you never know if it's ethnicity or gender or health or age, the last of which can cut against young or old depending on the group) and was therefore evaluated inaccurately and unfairly. She failed to prove it, though. It would have been very different if discovery had brought forward a smoking gun that proves gendered discrimination... which didn't happen, but there's no way she could have possibly known that.

This is the thing about discrimination that most HN posters don't get. It's not like the people who are guilty of it (and there are many, along age and gender and ethnic and class lines) make it obvious. They don't. It's a silent crime. Most of the time, the victims have no idea that it is happening. They might have suspicions, but it's hard as hell to prove. Ellen Pao tried to do so and came close, but ultimately failed in proving anything conclusive.

The fact that they did not find any such "smoking gun" after all that legal discovery makes me believe that they are honest, as that means they couldn't find anything at all after a lot of searching.

> Making claims one is unable to substantiate and dragging a case through discovery is normally considered an abuse of the legal system

A judge can decide to kill said "fishing expedition" too. It's not like these fishing expeditions just "happen" and once initiated are unstoppable. If it was ludicrous, then the judge should have denied it.

The fact that this got shut out so quickly simply points to the fact that there was essentially nothing to substantiate Pao's legal claims.

The purpose of discovery in these cases is that you don't know what has been said about you. That's why, if you think you might be a victim of discrimination, you often have to sue in order to get that information.

In her particular case, she found no proof. That said, she couldn't have possibly known before the discovery process that it wouldn't be there.

If she were sifting through the files to find breaches of irrelevant, outdated laws and regulations, that'd be a fishing expedition. In this case, the communications that were discovered were relevant to her (justified, because even though she wasn't able to prove gender discrimination, she did prove that, except for John Doerr, they were unprofessional and horrible toward her) grievance.