Technology

Silicon Valley Gender Bias Suit Puts Spotlight on Industry

Published

9 years ago

March 6, 2015

Ellen Pao leaves the Civic Center Courthouse during a lunch break in her trial Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015, in San Francisco. Pau, the current interim chief of the news and social media site Reddit, is seeking $16 milion in her suit against prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers, alleging she was sexually harassed by male officials. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

SUDHIN THANAWALA, Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A sex discrimination trial against one of Silicon Valley’s most prestigious venture capital firms is providing a rare peek into the elite investment companies vying to fund the next Google and Amazon.

Their partnership rosters are stacked with some of the nation’s most accomplished graduates— multiple-degree holders from schools such as Harvard and Stanford universities who are competing aggressively to back the next big technology company. But they are also places where women are grossly underrepresented.

Ellen Pao’s lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers goes further, describing the firm as an old-boys club where women allegedly were excluded from parties at former Vice President Al Gore’s house, asked to take notes at a meeting like secretaries and subjected to harassment and boorish behavior by their male colleagues such as a conversation about porn stars and a trip to the Playboy Mansion aboard a private jet.

The case has put a spotlight on the gender inequities in the technology sector at a time when it is booming and minting new millionaires, but generating resentment from people who feel left out and victimized by its success, which they blame for higher rents and gentrification. The trial has also brought some of the nation’s most accomplished venture capitalists into the courtroom, where they have faced tough questions about sexual harassment and the behavior of men in the workplace.

Pao, who has an MBA and law degree from Harvard, has mostly sat quietly and declined media questions during breaks in the proceedings. She could begin testifying on Friday.

But the jury has heard hours of testimony from her former colleagues, including one of her mentors at the firm, billionaire investor John Doerr, who was placed in the awkward position of defending his company while acknowledging that the dearth of females in the venture capital industry is “pathetic.”

A study released last year by Babson College in Massachusetts found that women filled just 6 percent of the partner-level positions at 139 venture capital firms in 2013, down from 10 percent in 1999.

Doerr said 20 percent of partners at Kleiner Perkins are women, and he has worked hard to recruit more women. He has disputed Pao’s contention that she was passed over for promotions because she was a woman and then fired in 2012 after she complained.

Like the Kleiner Perkins legal team, he says Pao, 45, didn’t get along with her colleagues — a requirement for the junior partner position she moved into in 2010 after serving as his chief of staff.

In a sign of the competitiveness of the industry, Doerr said of the 24 junior partners the firm has taken on during his tenure, only five were promoted. The rest, like Pao, were asked to move on.

Doerr testified he was a loyal supporter of Pao’s and tried to help her succeed at Kleiner Perkins. As a member of the Kleiner Perkins management team, he said he fought for Pao to stay with the company and objected when other partners wanted to let her go in 2011.

In a job review presented in court, Doerr said Pao needed to improve her interpersonal skills and not be dismissive of peers who don’t meet her expectations, though he otherwise praised her performance in her first year as his chief of staff.

“You can’t dismiss people who you want to exchange ideas with,” Doerr testified. “It just causes the partnership to fail.”

Alan Exelrod, Pao’s attorney, has argued that at least some of Pao’s male colleagues faced the same criticism — they were deemed “aggressive and opinionated,” ”territorial,” and needed to improve their delivery — but were promoted while she was not.

“Was there a level playing field for Ellen Pao at Kleiner Perkins?” he said during his opening statement. “We will prove to you in this case that there was not.”

Pao is seeking $16 million in damages. The firm is seeking to limit any possible damages by arguing that Pao is well-compensated in her current position as interim CEO of the popular social media company Reddit.

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Attorney General Rob Bonta, Oakland Lawmakers, Introduce Legislation to Protect Youth Online

At a press conference in downtown Oakland on Jan. 29, Attorney General Rob Bonta joined Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) to announce two pieces of legislation designed to protect children online. The bills are Senate Bill (SB) 976, the Protecting Youth from Social Media Addiction Act and Assembly Bill (AB) 1949, the California Children’s Data Privacy Act.

Published

3 days ago

April 16, 2024

Oakland Post

From left to right: Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), Attorney General Rob Bonta and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) at a press conference introducing legislation to protect young people online.

By Magaly Muñoz

The bills are Senate Bill (SB) 976, the Protecting Youth from Social Media Addiction Act and Assembly Bill (AB) 1949, the California Children’s Data Privacy Act.

Skinner authored SB 976, which addresses online addiction affecting teenage users, while Wicks’s bill, AB 1949, takes on big tech by proposing data privacy and children rights protections.

“Social media companies unfortunately show us time and time again that they are all too willing to ignore the detriment to our children, the pain to our children, the mental health and physical challenges they face, in order to pursue profits,” Bonta said.

SB 976 would allow parents to control the nature and frequency of the content their under-18-year-old children see on social media. Notifications from social media platforms would also be paused from midnight to 6 am and controls would allow parents to set time limits on their children’s usage based on their discretion.

Skinner stated that the longer that kids are on their phones during the day, the higher the risk for depression, anxiety and other related issues.

The bill would also push to get rid of addictive media that is harmful for young women and girls, specifically image filters that mimic cosmetic plastic surgery.

Bonta and 33 other attorney generals had previously filed a lawsuit against Meta, owner of the popular social media applications Instagram and Facebook. The filing claims that the company purposefully uses algorithmized content that harms younger audiences.

“Social media companies have the ability to protect our kids, they could act, but they do not,” Skinner said.

The Child Data Privacy Act would strengthen existing protections for data privacy under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The lawmakers argue that the law does not have effective protection for those under 18 years old.

Wicks stated that the bill would forbid businesses from collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data of anyone underage unless they receive informed consent, or it becomes necessary for the purpose of the business.

Wicks added that the acts would make it so that a search on the internet like “How do I lose weight?” would not result in dieting pill advertisements targeting youth, which, some experts report, could be harmful to their mental and physical health.

“In a digital age where the vulnerabilities of young users are continually exploited, we cannot afford to let our laws lag behind, our children deserve complete assurance that their online experience will be safeguarded from invasive practices,” Wicks said.

Supporters of the two acts say they have gained bipartisan support issue, but the authors and Bonta expect them to be met with pushback from the affected companies.

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Unleashing the Power_ Discover the The Thrills…F-TYPE Convertible

Published

4 months ago

December 18, 2023

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Performance & Handling
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Join us for a virtual car’s best-detailed walkaround of the sleek and stylish 2024 Jaguar F-TYPE AWD convertible. Get an up-close look at the exterior design, interior features, and performance capabilities of this luxury sports car. From its powerful engine to its advanced technology, this video will give you a comprehensive overview of what makes […]
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4 months ago

December 18, 2023

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Join us for a virtual car’s best-detailed walkaround of the sleek and stylish 2024 Jaguar F-TYPE AWD convertible. Get an up-close look at the exterior design, interior features, and performance capabilities of this luxury sports car. From its powerful engine to its advanced technology, this video will give you a comprehensive overview of what makes the F-TYPE AWD convertible stand out on the road. Unique to AutoNetwork.com.