That's almost never the case. It's not some evil cabal in a boardroom deciding to do bad things. It's almost always a combination of tons of societal and cultur

That's almost never the case. It's not some evil cabal in a boardroom deciding to do bad things. It's almost always a combination of tons of societal and cultural factors that compound on each other. You can imagine that their mid-level manager probably didn't fight for them as hard, perhaps due to some bias. Said manager may have evaluated said employee more harshly in yearly reviews as well without realizing it. Their peers may have essentially done the same, lowering their perceived performance. Their peers may have also essentially boxed them out, making it more difficult to succeed. Projects may have been handed to employees that were not underrepresented. This happens often, and is a strong motivator for career growth. The hiring manager(s) originally responsible for bringing on the employee may have used algorithms or generally biased data that showed them the potential hire could be acquired at a low salary. These are only small pieces of the puzzle, and may or may not be part of what happened at Oracle. They're all small/insidious factors that may not even be detectable or measurable at an individual level, but if you pay attention to larger trends, you can start to see them.