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.
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.