"Compare" is the wrong word, which is why I started my post with the notion of "parsing".
Before I write anything, I want any out of context readers to keep in mind that I think KP is a cesspool nobody should work at and entire volumes of books could probably be written on why it represents a classic hostile workplace for people of any gender and I fully understand how women would be very uncomfortable in the environment. I specifically don't want this to be a case of victim shaming, because KP really did appear to be tolerant of fairly reprehensible behavior. At the same time, it's important to keep in mind that both things can be true here. KP can be a feces fire and Pao can also be an incompetent greed-monger.
This is a couple years ago now, but at specific issue IIR:
- During the trial, quite a bit of independent evidence was submitted that she was frankly pretty terrible at the job she was hired for and was incapable of improving performance to meet the demands of the position despite extraordinary attempts by KP to coach her and send her to training classes. This was heavily documented and sourced from multiple independent reviewers who were interviewed under oath. I think it's worth discussing the biases of those reviewers, and maybe she was just sliding off of the glass ceiling. But during the trial, all of her claims of unfair treatment were covered and KP ended up looking pretty reasonable, even promoting one of her female colleagues who had bothered to properly complain about her ex-lover's behavior resulting in his firing.
- While her complaint about getting passed over for promotion was that she was a woman and therefore discriminated against, she was unable to provide any explanation for why many of her male colleagues who performed at equal or better levels than her had not been promoted and the ones in particular she complained about receiving promotions were all shown to have significantly more experience than her. She also couldn't explain how other women were promoted instead of her. Her responses to questions about her job performance tend to be "I don't want to talk about it" and then redirect to various platitudes about women's empowerment.
- KP also demonstrated that they gave her numerous training and career building opportunities, none of which she's denied, and included things like speech and presentation classes (a clear sign that she wasn't presenting well outside of the company and in-line with her fairly consistent performance reviews) and mentoring. In fact, it appears through the evidence presented at the trial, the KP had gone above and beyond in trying to make it work with Pao.
- Pao has never asserted that she was sexually harassed and that wasn't part of her suit. Bringing up examples of terrible shop talk amongst her male co-workers is interesting and worth discussing, but she didn't even bother to sue for it. Her complaint was entirely based on gender discrimination.
- She tried to persuade other women having problems to not pursue action, while simultaneously pursuing her own. Her action started as an eight-figure payout request because she guessed that's what her ex-lover had made (as she writes here).
- There's a consistent theme with her around money and trying to get what she thinks she "deserves" even if its demonstrated that she doesn't deserve it or where she was treated equally or in some cases favorably over others. For example, after she lost her case, she sought a payout to keep her from appealing that significantly was exactly the amount of money her husband owed in a separate legal issue and financial issue that arose when he declared bankruptcy. She's never addressed this coincidence except to claim that her and her husband's finances are managed separately. Her original damages claim was based on what she guessed the severance package was for a senior staff member who was fired (her ex-lover). In another part of the trial, she claimed she was underpaid, KP was able to demonstrate that in fact, she was slightly overpaid for her level and that her severance package was above norm for people in her position. After losing, she also demanded KP pay her legal fees on account of her suing them.
- There doesn't appear to be any specific evidence that she pursued a formal complaints process with KP, while there does appear to be evidence that other women have pursued formal complaints processes and received satisfactory results from the process. Other women in a similar position to her made better choices and received better outcomes. Pao just simply doesn't address this or entertain the idea that she may have just made some bad choices but instead chose to focus on her perceived slights. She's never addressed the possibility that maybe going together as a group of women to complain about gender discrimination and other cultural issues at KP might have been a better approach.
- She knowingly had an affair with a co-worker, broke it off and then put the onus on the company to fix it. You see her take on things in her article. My take is that this represents extremely poor judgment that was part of a larger pattern of poor decisions on her part. When things got weird at the office because of her terrible decision making, she complained. Changes were made and the court record shows she was asked about comfort levels and proximity to her ex-lover, and even was given opportunity to change work functions to an equivalent job, which she then also complained about. Her ex-lover was eventually fired and she was kept on. Her response was to demand a huge payout, which she writes about here.
- When she was let go, she was given an extended transition period and severance package, but publicly posted a missive that she had been summarily dismissed -- which wasn't true at all.
To me, this comes across to me as somebody who's hopelessly incompetent, slightly delusional, and made a series of habitual bad choices. Rather than improve performance or do any sort of internal searching and growth, she decided to blame everybody else for her failures and wrap her complaints in a sexism blanket.