7 ms·

Ellen Pao Says Kleiner Perkins Has Now Fired Her

47 points by relation 14y ago

SeoxyS 14y ago
I'm surprised it took so long, actually. What did she expect? Suing her employer makes her a massive liability to the firm. The only thing keeping her there was how a firing would reflect on the case and in the press. KPCB must've decided that the bad press was the better alternative (and rightly so, IMHO).
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- nancyhua 14y ago
  Exactly, I don't know why she didn't quit right away- even if it turns out her claims are completely true, can she still work in a place that she's (successfully or unsuccessfully) sued? And why would she want to? And why would you want an employee who's sued you? Is it standard to keep going to work after suing someone?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
huhtenberg 14y ago
SURPRISE!!
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- JoachimSchipper 14y ago
  "If EA were some kind of exploitative entity, wouldn't we have heard about it sooner? Wouldn't we have heard about it from multiple people? Instead, it's coming from someone whose husband clearly had trouble climbing the career ladder at the firm." [Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Hoffman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Hoffman] Given the problems that suing your employer is likely to give you, few people do so even if their employer is really bad. (I have no opinion on this case, and there are people who sue their employer for no good reason. But the fact that it's just one lady is not a strong argument.)
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - farofeiro 14y ago
    Agreed, moreover even if KPCB is not an "exploitative entity" as whole, it is possible this was a single case of harassment and retaliation by this guy - so there may not be multiple victims to speak up. When this kind of thing happens many companies don't know how to deal with it appropriately and maybe they didn't.
- andyjohnson0 14y ago
  "If KPCB was some kind of discriminative entity, wouldn't we have heard about it sooner?" This is a misleading argument. If discrimination occurs in a organisation and is reported, then someone has to report it first. Claiming that the first person to report it is not credible because they are first, and there have not been prior reports, is fallacious. (To be clear, I'm not taking a side wrt Pao or KPCB. I've never heard of this case before, and know nothing about it. The other reasons you cite may be correct for all I know.)
- chinmoy 14y ago
  "If KPCB was some kind of discriminative entity, wouldn't we have heard about it sooner?" Answer: NO "Wouldn't we have heard about it from MULTIPLE people?" Answer: NO
jpdoctor 14y ago
I know they say that there's no such thing as bad publicity, but sheesh! I'm amazed that KP didn't just buy some quietude here. Clearly, much ax-grinding is going on.
digitalengineer 14y ago
I have no idea who this person is. From what I understand she sued her employer because she claims she "was shut out of promotions" and did (or did not) get fired. Then she used Quora to tell the world she was fired. Her employer replied saying she was not fired, but is "in a successful career transition". I suppose she was done working anywhere. Who would want to hire someone like that?
- Chaotic 14y ago
  I would hire someone like that. People who are not afraid to stand up and speak loudly when they feel that they have been mistreated are a valuable asset, assuming that you don't mistreat them. For everyone who runs their company on secrets, bullshit and idiocy, they are a terrible liability.
  - digitalengineer 14y ago
    You said it exactly: "They feel that they have been mistreated... It's a feeling and you can never control how someone feels. At her level I would expect her to be professional about it and communicate within the team about her feelings. I don't think suing and posting on Quora helps her or the company involved. That was 100% "feelings" as well. Not professional.
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
      [redacted snark] You are right that it's often tactically the wrong decision to post about an ongoing dispute. I will give you that. I'd be surprised if any attorney would recommend for her to post on Quora about the termination while the suit was ongoing. However, this one-sided "professionalism" whereby people are expected to keep the secrets of employers who fuck them over is disgusting. That expectation exists because there's a power relationship, and because society really hasn't advanced much out of the Dark Ages, and not for any good moral reason.
      - digitalengineer 14y ago
nvr219 14y ago
I like that the entire article is sourced from a Quora question.
michaelochurch 14y ago
I don't think we'll ever know whether she's right or wrong. She could quite possibly be in the wrong, but I increasingly doubt it the more I read. Here's why: her firm acted like a massive dick. First, making employees sign a non-disparagement, arbitration-only agreement (except as a term in a severance negotiation) is vile and should be illegal. You're effectively threatening to fire someone (or rescind an offer) if he or she doesn't give up a basic right. All of these "Here's what rights you would have if we fired you, but you have to give them up to work for us" terms (non-disparagement, non-litigation or arbitration-only, non-solicitation of employees) are unethical and only exist because most people can't afford to be without an income. They are contracts under duress and should be categorically stricken. Second, rather than arguing that the discrimination claims are untrue by bashing the employee's performance, the appropriate thing to do would have been to establish with actual data (not performance reviews, which can be fudged) that she wasn't experienced enough for the promotion, and that she would have been the least qualified person at that level if she had been promoted. The proper way to handle a bogus harassment claim (if it is that, and I doubt it given the way the firm has behaved) is to show the person's trajectory of promotions, and then show the average for a person of that experience, and to use hard data. "The average partner makes senior partner after 7 years. She was only here for 4." Or: "To make senior partner, we generally expect that a person bring in $20 million in business. She brought in $12 million." That's what you do if you're decent. Also, the truth is that a company in that position will almost never need to air performance reviews. Unless this was a "lock-step" or expected promotion where it's professionally damaging not to get it, the onus is (or at least should be) on her to prove, using hard data, that she did deserve to get the promotion. If they were decent, they'd sit back and wait for her to make a case that she did deserve the promotion, and then argue against that. Third, they are asking to have her pay their legal fees. They are a venture capital firm. When you're that rich, trying to scrounge money off of people who are quite possibly not rich is pretty debased: an inverse Robin Hood sort of thing. Fourth, using performance reviews for anything other than direct feedback is immoral and, itself, constitutes legalized (but ethically illegitimate) harassment. If performance reviews are confidential between manager and employee, then that's how things should be. They should be direct feedback for mutual benefit, and nothing more. If they're aired to the public, that's wrong. That's effectively extortion.
- 14y ago
paulerdos 14y ago
Sad story for all parties really. Taints everyone. Reminds of the Florian Leibert case.

47 points by relation 14y ago

I'm surprised it took so long, actually. What did she expect? Suing her employer makes her a massive liability to the firm. The only thing keeping her there was how a firing would reflect on the case and in the press. KPCB must've decided that the bad press was the better alternative (and rightly so, IMHO).

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
nancyhua 14y ago
Exactly, I don't know why she didn't quit right away- even if it turns out her claims are completely true, can she still work in a place that she's (successfully or unsuccessfully) sued? And why would she want to? And why would you want an employee who's sued you? Is it standard to keep going to work after suing someone?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

huhtenberg 14y ago

SURPRISE!!

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

JoachimSchipper 14y ago
"If EA were some kind of exploitative entity, wouldn't we have heard about it sooner? Wouldn't we have heard about it from multiple people? Instead, it's coming from someone whose husband clearly had trouble climbing the career ladder at the firm." [Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Hoffman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Hoffman] Given the problems that suing your employer is likely to give you, few people do so even if their employer is really bad. (I have no opinion on this case, and there are people who sue their employer for no good reason. But the fact that it's just one lady is not a strong argument.)
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- farofeiro 14y ago
  Agreed, moreover even if KPCB is not an "exploitative entity" as whole, it is possible this was a single case of harassment and retaliation by this guy - so there may not be multiple victims to speak up. When this kind of thing happens many companies don't know how to deal with it appropriately and maybe they didn't.
andyjohnson0 14y ago
"If KPCB was some kind of discriminative entity, wouldn't we have heard about it sooner?" This is a misleading argument. If discrimination occurs in a organisation and is reported, then someone has to report it first. Claiming that the first person to report it is not credible because they are first, and there have not been prior reports, is fallacious. (To be clear, I'm not taking a side wrt Pao or KPCB. I've never heard of this case before, and know nothing about it. The other reasons you cite may be correct for all I know.)
chinmoy 14y ago
"If KPCB was some kind of discriminative entity, wouldn't we have heard about it sooner?" Answer: NO "Wouldn't we have heard about it from MULTIPLE people?" Answer: NO

jpdoctor 14y ago

I know they say that there's no such thing as bad publicity, but sheesh! I'm amazed that KP didn't just buy some quietude here. Clearly, much ax-grinding is going on.

digitalengineer 14y ago

I have no idea who this person is. From what I understand she sued her employer because she claims she "was shut out of promotions" and did (or did not) get fired. Then she used Quora to tell the world she was fired. Her employer replied saying she was not fired, but is "in a successful career transition". I suppose she was done working anywhere. Who would want to hire someone like that?

Chaotic 14y ago
I would hire someone like that. People who are not afraid to stand up and speak loudly when they feel that they have been mistreated are a valuable asset, assuming that you don't mistreat them. For everyone who runs their company on secrets, bullshit and idiocy, they are a terrible liability.
- digitalengineer 14y ago
  You said it exactly: "They feel that they have been mistreated... It's a feeling and you can never control how someone feels. At her level I would expect her to be professional about it and communicate within the team about her feelings. I don't think suing and posting on Quora helps her or the company involved. That was 100% "feelings" as well. Not professional.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    [redacted snark] You are right that it's often tactically the wrong decision to post about an ongoing dispute. I will give you that. I'd be surprised if any attorney would recommend for her to post on Quora about the termination while the suit was ongoing. However, this one-sided "professionalism" whereby people are expected to keep the secrets of employers who fuck them over is disgusting. That expectation exists because there's a power relationship, and because society really hasn't advanced much out of the Dark Ages, and not for any good moral reason.
    - digitalengineer 14y ago

nvr219 14y ago

I like that the entire article is sourced from a Quora question.

michaelochurch 14y ago

I don't think we'll ever know whether she's right or wrong. She could quite possibly be in the wrong, but I increasingly doubt it the more I read. Here's why: her firm acted like a massive dick. First, making employees sign a non-disparagement, arbitration-only agreement (except as a term in a severance negotiation) is vile and should be illegal. You're effectively threatening to fire someone (or rescind an offer) if he or she doesn't give up a basic right. All of these "Here's what rights you would have if we fired you, but you have to give them up to work for us" terms (non-disparagement, non-litigation or arbitration-only, non-solicitation of employees) are unethical and only exist because most people can't afford to be without an income. They are contracts under duress and should be categorically stricken. Second, rather than arguing that the discrimination claims are untrue by bashing the employee's performance, the appropriate thing to do would have been to establish with actual data (not performance reviews, which can be fudged) that she wasn't experienced enough for the promotion, and that she would have been the least qualified person at that level if she had been promoted. The proper way to handle a bogus harassment claim (if it is that, and I doubt it given the way the firm has behaved) is to show the person's trajectory of promotions, and then show the average for a person of that experience, and to use hard data. "The average partner makes senior partner after 7 years. She was only here for 4." Or: "To make senior partner, we generally expect that a person bring in $20 million in business. She brought in $12 million." That's what you do if you're decent. Also, the truth is that a company in that position will almost never need to air performance reviews. Unless this was a "lock-step" or expected promotion where it's professionally damaging not to get it, the onus is (or at least should be) on her to prove, using hard data, that she did deserve to get the promotion. If they were decent, they'd sit back and wait for her to make a case that she did deserve the promotion, and then argue against that. Third, they are asking to have her pay their legal fees. They are a venture capital firm. When you're that rich, trying to scrounge money off of people who are quite possibly not rich is pretty debased: an inverse Robin Hood sort of thing. Fourth, using performance reviews for anything other than direct feedback is immoral and, itself, constitutes legalized (but ethically illegitimate) harassment. If performance reviews are confidential between manager and employee, then that's how things should be. They should be direct feedback for mutual benefit, and nothing more. If they're aired to the public, that's wrong. That's effectively extortion.

14y ago

paulerdos 14y ago

Sad story for all parties really. Taints everyone. Reminds of the Florian Leibert case.