The Ellen Pao Trial and Silicon Valley • Hacker News Board

Re: The Ellen Pao Trial and Silicon Valley

#21

Post by rimunroe » Tue, Mar 17, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #4

fweespeech wrote: post #2

> That said, a Kleiner victory is well within the realm of the possible. Many women in the tech industry are concerned that Pao’s case is weak and that her accusations might exacerbate bias in the workplace. "I worry that it will make a lot more men feel that—being nice to and mentoring and trying to be a good person toward women colleagues—they, too, will be hauled before a jury," says Melinda Riechert, managing par…

well she did have an affair with a married coworker, so how are other men supposed to judge her? You make that kind of serious mistake in a professional environment and people are right to judge your competence. They did try/fire the guy involved over her objection. As for handing out valentine gifts, hell my entire work place would be in trouble for gifts, cards, and the like. We celebrate a lot different events, th…

Having an affair with one married coworker doesn't give other coworkers license to hit on you.

The argument you're using is basically, "She slept with someone else, so why should other people not expect to be able to get to have privileged relationships with her too?"

And even if you ignore that, you obviously shouldn't be hitting on people at work.

Re: The Ellen Pao Trial and Silicon Valley

#22

Post by Anechoic » Tue, Mar 17, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #3

I don't think this trial has much to do with larger women in tech issues. There's a lot of politics at play for ALL employees of VC firms and this doesn't sound any different. If you've been following all of the coverage of this case, Pao isn't coming off well. She states that it was discriminatory that she didn't get her review on time. Unprofessional to have a delayed review? Yes. Gender harassment? No. Instead of…

Pao and Nazre were dating and both married at the time.

Implied in the Ars article, and stated directly in other articles [0,1,2], the affair happened in 2006, but according to Wiki [3] Pao wasn't married until 2007.

[0] http://www.siliconbeat.com/2015/02/17/ellen-pao-vs-kleiner-p...

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/3/8141053/ellen-pao-kleiner-p...

[2] http://www.wired.com/2015/02/ellen-pao-trial-day-two/

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Pao#Personal_life

Re: The Ellen Pao Trial and Silicon Valley

#23

Post by bane » Tue, Mar 17, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #12

malvosenior wrote: post #3

I don't think this trial has much to do with larger women in tech issues. There's a lot of politics at play for ALL employees of VC firms and this doesn't sound any different. If you've been following all of the coverage of this case, Pao isn't coming off well. She states that it was discriminatory that she didn't get her review on time. Unprofessional to have a delayed review? Yes. Gender harassment? No. Instead of…

I downvoted you, because you purported to summarize the case for readers who haven't been following it, and then provided a very misleading summary. Pao's case does not revolve around delayed reviews, or who took notes in meetings. One needn't have an opinion about the merits of Pao's case to have a negative opinion about the merits of this summary.

What is the case about then? To me at least the summary seemed aligned well with the media coverage I've been following. But I'll admit I haven't had the time to read the source documents.

Re: The Ellen Pao Trial and Silicon Valley

#24

Post by ditonal » Tue, Mar 17, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #18

ditonal wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how you could possibly not see how it has larger implications. For years we've been told that the reason there's no women in tech is because of all us sexist brogrammers, despite the typical programmer being the opposite of a 'bro', while the VCs very much resemble them, and somehow VCs being 96% male with most top firms having NO women as partners slips by unnoticed. VCs intentionally create frat house c…

Yes, this case is exposing the sordid 1950's style inner workings at a modern VC, as it should. The issue is that Pao is a lousy person to get behind on many of the issues she's the complainant on. She appeared to have routinely crossed good social boundaries that she's now complaining about, and was well rewarded for her work, receiving sizable bonuses for missing a performance eval. I wish on my wildest dreams my r…

There's no doubt she was playing the same games. Doesn't change the fact that she was discriminated against for being a woman, and in retaliation she's looking for the millions she wasn't paid and letting all of us lowly engineers know what games the VCs are playing.

Re: The Ellen Pao Trial and Silicon Valley

#25

Post by rhino369 » Tue, Mar 17, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

fweespeech wrote: post #15

rhino369 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitting on a woman isn't even illegal unless there is a threat of coercion or it is so frequent/severe that it creates a hostile work environment. I'm sure Pao's attorneys are arguing it is a part of a larger hostile work environment. But itself isn't sexual harassment.

It was in reference to the quote and the implication that the two were equivalent and equal. Mentoring and being nice to a woman is very, very different than flirting with her. Implying they are the same is gross.

Ah, I should have seen that. I agree.

Re: The Ellen Pao Trial and Silicon Valley

#26

Post by malvosenior » Tue, Mar 17, 2015, 5:18 PM UTC

Anechoic wrote: post #22

malvosenior wrote: post #3

I don't think this trial has much to do with larger women in tech issues. There's a lot of politics at play for ALL employees of VC firms and this doesn't sound any different. If you've been following all of the coverage of this case, Pao isn't coming off well. She states that it was discriminatory that she didn't get her review on time. Unprofessional to have a delayed review? Yes. Gender harassment? No. Instead of…

Pao and Nazre were dating and both married at the time. Implied in the Ars article, and stated directly in other articles [0,1,2], the affair happened in 2006, but according to Wiki [3] Pao wasn't married until 2007. [0] http://www.siliconbeat.com/2015/02/17/ellen-pao-vs-kleiner-p... [1] http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/3/8141053/ellen-pao-kleiner-p... [2] http://www.wired.com/2015/02/ellen-pao-trial-day-two/ [3] http:…

Thank you for this. I'll add it to my comment.

Re: The Ellen Pao Trial and Silicon Valley

#27

Post by StopWhining » Tue, Mar 17, 2015, 5:19 PM UTC

Leave it to programmers to assume human nature must exist within a binary modality of "apathetic amoral workhorse" and "messy emotional beast of terror"

Naturally, this assumption causes any violation to throw a LegalException, which is caught by the GovernmentSingleton anti-pattern whose separation of concern juggles between instantiating policies that rigidly define how genders must interact based entirely upon the rotation of the earth... and managing nuclear weapons launches.

> [EDIT] Please don't just downvote me. If you disagree, leave a reply.

Just look at that plea for reason. And this community implicitly claims a monopoly on rationality while deriding others as emotionally savage worthy of mob vengeance and professional stoning.

Can we get rid of the facade of reason on HN and just spam "IF YOU'RE NOT WITH US, YOU'RE AGAINST US" until #hilary2016 is over?

Re: The Ellen Pao Trial and Silicon Valley

#28

Post by lawnchair_larry » Tue, Mar 17, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #3

I don't think this trial has much to do with larger women in tech issues. There's a lot of politics at play for ALL employees of VC firms and this doesn't sound any different. If you've been following all of the coverage of this case, Pao isn't coming off well. She states that it was discriminatory that she didn't get her review on time. Unprofessional to have a delayed review? Yes. Gender harassment? No. Instead of…

This is a women in VC story, nothing to do with women in tech.

Re: The Ellen Pao Trial and Silicon Valley

#29

Post by fweespeech » Tue, Mar 17, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

anaximander wrote: post #20

fweespeech wrote: post #2

> That said, a Kleiner victory is well within the realm of the possible. Many women in the tech industry are concerned that Pao’s case is weak and that her accusations might exacerbate bias in the workplace. "I worry that it will make a lot more men feel that—being nice to and mentoring and trying to be a good person toward women colleagues—they, too, will be hauled before a jury," says Melinda Riechert, managing par…

I think the author of this article made it (perhaps deliberately) ambiguous as to when these events took place. he gave Pao a volume of Leonard Cohen’s poems and drawings (entitled Book of Longing) on Valentine’s Day and asked her out to dinner on a night when his wife was out of town These could very well be two completely separate occasions. I suspect the author created this juxtaposition to elicit your precise rea…

Why do you think that?

There are plenty of articles that agree the gift was given on Valentine's Day?

Re: The Ellen Pao Trial and Silicon Valley

#30

Post by bane » Tue, Mar 17, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

ditonal wrote: post #24

bane wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this case is exposing the sordid 1950's style inner workings at a modern VC, as it should. The issue is that Pao is a lousy person to get behind on many of the issues she's the complainant on. She appeared to have routinely crossed good social boundaries that she's now complaining about, and was well rewarded for her work, receiving sizable bonuses for missing a performance eval. I wish on my wildest dreams my r…

There's no doubt she was playing the same games. Doesn't change the fact that she was discriminated against for being a woman, and in retaliation she's looking for the millions she wasn't paid and letting all of us lowly engineers know what games the VCs are playing.

And how underpaid we are?

I'd trade what I'm getting paid right now to take on what sounds like a far easier job that pays quite a bit more in a bad year than what I make in a great year.

But qualifications don't get you into these kinds of clubs, connections and pedigree do.