Final decision of Ellen Pao v. Kleiner Perkins

If this woman was secretly murdering people and eating their flesh but was making huge profits for the company, she'd be a partner today. They wouldn't care if she was a Venusian flesh eating alien - all that counts to venture capitalist companies are profits. Obviously I don't think much of venture capitalist company ethics but I don't believe for a second they care about her sex, sexual orientation, religion, color or ethnic origin (or anything else).

This is not true of all types of companies. I have worked for manufacturing companies that would fire you, demote you or transfer you at short notice, for playing around within the company - and it was the manager that got fired not the secretary. (I'm talking about married people) - it seems quaint now but it's not that long ago and I bet it happens more now that companies worry about sexual harassment lawsuits.

I don't believe this woman thought she was discriminated against - she thought it would be an embarrassment and they'd settle. But I sure as heck wouldn't hire her - anymore than I'd hire a guy who sued his last company.

Litigiousness is a chronic disease - people get a taste for it. So why take a chance?

Unfortunately, the big, bad, deep-pocketed employers are too often presumed guilty in discrimination cases. I am so glad that playing the discrimination card did not work this time... this is like a breath of fresh air. Kudos to Kleiner Perkins for sticking it out until the end. Hopefully, more will follow their lead and help curtail frivolous litigation.

I am a retired Chief Engineer and a senior manager of ITT in the UK. In that capacity I was involved with certain promotions and the key to making correct decisions was helped by the Company conditions that prevailed:
Any person recommended for promotion who subsequently failed in that duty - the person recommending was allowed two weeks to address the failure and to provide further training to the promoted person. However, if there was a second failure then one further week of training was authorised. If a third failure occurred - both recommender and recommended people were sacked. (The recommender having failed to show good judgement.)
This debate cannot be decided based upon the limited amount of information given: there being no means of comparing the qualities of competing applicants. This is an argument about picking the best person for a job - only if it can be shown that there was a bias introduced can it be established fairly whether a motive was present. Having a gender bias is, of course, a possible motive and I would be the first to condemn such a motive, particularly as I have had first hand experience of a woman (who was a senior telecommunications officer responsible for large complex switching systems for a banking group) and who demonstrated to me a more in-depth understanding of that role than two graduate engineers who had written a technical book about computer systems who worked for a famous company in London. In essence, my choice would always be for the most capable applicant but I can discover scant data that will assist me to make a choice between competing applicants is the case presented, therefore, I have no option but to consider the court ruling as likely to be the right decision - given the scrutiny that such cases receive from the media and, more importantly, from professional bodies who are trained in such matters.

Gender bias, racial bias, age bias ...we need to stop always placing blame elsewhere,
We are the master of our own fate.
If we cant change something perhaps we need to change.

Silicon Valley and that region in general is like ground zero for politically correct behavior. There are plenty of women as well as men who have become rich in tech related upstarts and IPOs. I find it hard to believe that Pao would have been singled out based on her race and gender.

I have questions:
1. Was Pao's annual reviews consistently showed poor performance? If not, since when did it become consistently poor and how many times?
2. "Gender Discrimination" is a statistical truth. Has anybody dissected it further by races? How does white woman stack against Black/Asian male? How does Black/Asian woman stack against white men and black/Asian men? I thing this Gender discrimination concept must be further stratified and one needs to go deeper if we seriously want to correct the Gender discrimination.