Live data from Hacker News

Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

thecut.com

391–400 of 577 posts

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#391
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the distinction matter? Are you saying this sort of behavior does not reach the level of concern inside of the world of tech, regardless of how that is defined?

I don't think it matters in the sense that people with that kind of money can never be reined in--they just spend more money to route around anyone who wants to regulate their behavior.

> I don't think it matters in the sense that people with that kind of money can never be reined in

They can be reined-in using the same money the value so much. If retirement funds stop putting money into their funds (because of bad PR or any other leverage), then they'll start to behave.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#392
post #344

"I didn’t have time to go through all my emails to figure out which ones to give Kleiner, so during the discovery process we gave them practically everything, some 700,000 emails — most of which we could have legally withheld. ... During depositions, they brought up everything from my nanny’s contract to an exercise I’d done in therapy where I listed resentments. Emails to friends, emails to my husband, emails to oth…

Yea, that's a surprising move. The "we have nothing to hide, we'll give you everything" approach to discovery can end up with exactly what happened, if the other side likes to use war of attrition and pressure tactics: deposition questions, and related lines of inquiry, that have no relevance to the issues. They're engaged in solely to wear out and dishearten the producing party. You'd think her counsel would have known this.

How hard would it have been to run a few keyword searches and get some paralegals or junior associates to filter out the irrelevant material? There are discovery firms that do this as their entire business. Or file a motion or two?

And I say that with no strong opinions about either side of the case. It just looks like a bad litigation move.

Edit: It also creates the impression that her counsel either didn't take the time to sort through her evidence thoroughly enough, and/or that offloading a massive dump of unfiltered emails would inconvenience the other side's counsel enough to give her leverage. Neither seem like a winning move. The first makes her side look unprepared, and the second makes her side look like it was playing games of its own.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#393
post #272
post #183

Articles like this really make me aware that men and women like Ellen Pao and her former partners live in a separate parallel world: three degrees, $10 million golden parachutes, private jet flights to ski resorts, affairs with a creepy married co-worker in Germany, machismo-driven muscling for VC connections, bisexual finance wizards who kickstart an Ivy-League LGBT program, dominance games over which chair an exec…

Yeah, that really struck me as well. I've been in tech for close to 20 years now. I get paid pretty well compared to the national average pay, and globally speaking it's off the charts. But the figures and activities mentioned there are completely alien to me. This is the (a?) world of high finance and I can't relate to it. I've seen a lot of casual and systemic sexism in the tech industry, in the trenches and at the…

I think the reason it matters isn't because it's the same industry. It's because VC firms often play a huge part in how the workplace culture develops in the firms that they invest in. They have board seats, and CEOs often look to them for guidance.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Protectionism that prevents lowering of wages too much This is a really weird complaint from somebody who is (presumably) a developer. [If parent commenter is an owner or executive, then it makes more sense] Are there other industries where workers actively disdain proposals to secure better treatment at the hands of owners?

Is it so weird that somebody would oppose what they (apparently) consider unethical practice, even if it would benefit them?

If you were ethically opposed to all forms of wage manipulation, this would be an extremely minor factor to get hung up on in the grand scheme of things. So to that point yes, he’s correct, it would be weird.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#395
post #344

"I didn’t have time to go through all my emails to figure out which ones to give Kleiner, so during the discovery process we gave them practically everything, some 700,000 emails — most of which we could have legally withheld. ... During depositions, they brought up everything from my nanny’s contract to an exercise I’d done in therapy where I listed resentments. Emails to friends, emails to my husband, emails to oth…

Yeah thats straight negligence by her legal team.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#396
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sexism in tech is a thing, and that it shouldn't be. To play devils advocate, sexism is a thing everywhere . In some cases, there are good biological reasons why men and women are treated differently, e.g. child care (mostly women) versus hard physical labor (mostly men) Where those biological differences aren't effective (e.g. typing on a keyboard), then yes, men and women should be treated the same. But even with…

>>But even with that, there may be biological reasons why men and women are interested in different things. Which may mean more women in job A, or more men in job B. You say biological reasons, I say social programming. The whole nature vs. nurture debate has been going on for ages. Basically, we have no way of knowing what portion of women's tendencies to gravitate towards certain jobs and careers can be attributed…

I agree with you, and I feel like the downvotes are completely unwarranted. People downvoting: why don't you bring an argument against what's being expressed, instead of just downvoting?

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#397
post #257
post #106

It's easy to get hung up on the particulars of Pao's story and get sidetracked into defending or judging her, but I feel that is besides the point. I am more interested in the wider notion of why she wrote this article: to point out that sexism in tech is a thing, and that it shouldn't be. I'm wondering though: is this just about sexism, or is it about professionalism and maturity? Getting hit on by someone higher up…

> sexism in tech is a thing, and that it shouldn't be. To play devils advocate, sexism is a thing everywhere . In some cases, there are good biological reasons why men and women are treated differently, e.g. child care (mostly women) versus hard physical labor (mostly men) Where those biological differences aren't effective (e.g. typing on a keyboard), then yes, men and women should be treated the same. But even with…

Counter devils advocate - let me remap what you're saying to race:

>> racism in tech is a thing, and that it shouldn't be.

>To play devils advocate, racism is a thing everywhere. In some cases, there are good biological reasons why blacks and whites are treated differently, e.g. basketball (mostly blacks) versus swimming (mostly whites)

If the above doesn't sound insane to you, I don't know what to tell you.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what people are saying is that they don't believe you when you say that hiring in IT is only utilitarian. You think you are being utilitarian, but instead you are leaning on your biases. In the same way the person in the article said that they hired women because there are some jobs they only feel comfortable giving to women. This is a utilitarian perspective -- women are better at X, I want X to be done well…

The problem I have with the allegation of "leaning on biases" is that it is impossible to disprove. You can never get out from under that allegation no matter how hard you try! NO ONE is without bias, no one is completely objective because we make decisions based on past experience and there's no way to create past experiences that are identical for everyone. I know from past traumas in my own life that I have heavy…

I think the key is not to try to avoid biases (which sounds like strange advice, I admit). Discrimination is how to separate bad from good. Everyone also has preferences which help us select good (for us) results. We have experience which guides us to choices that have been successful in the past. All of that is bias -- it influences our choices and not all of it is bad.

It isn't bias, per se, that is problematic. What creates difficulty are the consequences for poor choices. What we colloquially call "discrimination" is really someone being blind (or uncaring) to the results of their own poor judgement. All poor judgement is harmful, but there are some classes that we single out for special treatment in society.

There are many examples in society where we make "allowances" based on discrimination. We might accept smaller women fire fighters than we do men. We might accept people from certain religions to wear slightly different uniforms. We might allow people with a physical impairment to have an aide for taking a test. By and large, these are choices that are meant to create good consequences, but they are discriminatory nonetheless. Indeed, it is societal bias which determines which allowances are considered to have good consequences and which are not (I expect that some people would question or reject one or two of my points, for example).

Of course, not everyone is good at making judgements. Additionally we sometimes have cultural biases which encourage us to make certain poor judgements. It's important to realise that all poor judgement is harmful. Honestly, it doesn't matter if you make my life a misery because of my skin colour or because you don't like the way I talk. It doesn't even matter if you do it simply because you are unskillful and don't realise (or care) that you are doing it.

But you can't make it illegal to be a jerk. Everybody would be in jail at one time in their life. Because there are some classes of problems that are pervasive in society, we can address the problem there. We can address specific problems with large classes of sufferers. The other potential benefit is that hopefully people will start to realise that their behaviour is undesirable. So if they think, "I can't use sexual innuendo as a way to politically lock out a female rival", they might start realising that politically locking out any rival is not really a beneficial strategy.

I say might. I'm not really expecting that much, but one can live in hope ;-)

Sorry for the book. I feel frustrated in the same way that I imagine you do. I just think that we need to help people steer away from the "thought crime" of bias and start getting them to focus on the "real crime" of harassment. If we complain too much about "bias" (or the allegation of bias), I think we risk people getting stuck on that point and never getting around to discussing how we learn to act better to each other.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#399
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RE your analogy, I don't think this is true in general. There are many jobs/people where the downtime is needed to perform better. That's certainly the case for me and in my field. To your main point: You are absolutely right. Germany, for example, tries to symmetries the problem by allowing fathers to take part of the maternity leave. But of course, especially in high paying jobs where companies have to invest a con…

As a (happy) dad, I'm very surprised by this : >>> Do we, as a society, treat the privilege to raise a child as adequate replacement of the lost salary/promotions etc? I'm very surprised of the opposition you make here. I'd prefer : Do we, as a society, treat the choice to raise a child as one that doesn't imply the loss of salary/promotions etc? (but in my case, my employer has never spent tons of money on me; "cons…

My point is this: There is a business cost associated with people who choose to be parents: They may be absent for an extended period of time (which in some fields is a big problem), they are often less flexible with hours/week, which hours on a given day, when they want holidays. They choose a more healthy work-life balance, which for the employer means "more life, less work". It's also opportunity cost for you: While you care for your kid, you can not go for an extended trip to a different country, or jump head first into a technology to learn at night because your kid will wake you up at 6, and on weekends, you are out and play with him. Clearly this will reduces your chance for a promotion compared to the workaholic who knows all the new buzzword technologies. One could say, yes, ok, I took that trade-off, but now I got to be a dad, and that's worth more to me.

Or, as a society, we can say: You should not need to make that trade-off. Or at least: You should not lose that much. It's hard to correct the disadvantage in terms of promotion, but other things are possible. Some examples, some are horrible: - Force the companies to maintain open positions for (m/p)aternity leaves. Either pay for that with taxes, or make the companies eat the cost. - Give people with kids tax breaks / money. - Force people to take a sabbatical every n years if they don't take maternity leave. (But of course some people will use that time to work on their skills anyway...) - Provide good child care so that people can more easily work and have kids. - Shun people who don't have kids...

What society can not do is make this difference magically go away.

I think you might underestimate the amount your employer has invested in you. Maybe a better benchmark is: How much would it cost him to replace you if you quit your job in three month.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#400
post #272
post #183

Articles like this really make me aware that men and women like Ellen Pao and her former partners live in a separate parallel world: three degrees, $10 million golden parachutes, private jet flights to ski resorts, affairs with a creepy married co-worker in Germany, machismo-driven muscling for VC connections, bisexual finance wizards who kickstart an Ivy-League LGBT program, dominance games over which chair an exec…

Yeah, that really struck me as well. I've been in tech for close to 20 years now. I get paid pretty well compared to the national average pay, and globally speaking it's off the charts. But the figures and activities mentioned there are completely alien to me. This is the (a?) world of high finance and I can't relate to it. I've seen a lot of casual and systemic sexism in the tech industry, in the trenches and at the…

You can't relate to them and they've probably lost the ability to relate to you. I grew up in a small Eastern European country where everyone knows someone who managed to profit hugely during the times of upheaval in the 90's and one of my school buddies from back then likes to go watch F1 races in Monaco from the deck of his speed-boat. When he's not spending his summers kite-surfing on the shores of Turkey.

I mean, I'm also in tech, in the US, which means my salary is higher than 99% of salaries in the world, but I can't begin to dream of living the same lifestyle my buddy can enjoy, and he's most likely small potatoes compared to the "wolf-of-wallstreet" types mentioned here.

It's unbelievable.

Post reply on HN