SAN FRANCISCO -- Speak up -- but don't talk too much. Light up the room -- but don't overshadow others. Be confident and critical -- but not cocky or negative.
Ellen Pao got a lot of advice about how to succeed in the clubby, hypercompetitive, overwhelmingly male world of venture capital. Her annual evaluations were filled with suggestions about how she could improve and perhaps even advance to the inner circle of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the blue-chip firm where she was a junior partner. She would be paid millions and be at the red-hot center of the crucible of the tech economy.
Pao did not make it. Exactly why is the subject of a lawsuit she filed against Kleiner and which is being heard in civil court. Pao contends she was harassed and then discriminated against. Kleiner says she failed to improve despite all that coaching and was terminated.
At risk is the millions Pao might have earned at Kleiner, plus millions more in punitive damages. But that is pocket change in Silicon Valley. What is really under examination in this trial is the question of why there are so few women in leadership positions in the valley. At stake is any hope that Silicon Valley can claim to be a progressive place.
In essence, John Doerr, perhaps the most famous and successful venture capitalist in the world and Pao's former boss, said it was not his fault. Venture capital firms draw from successful companies, and few entrepreneurs are women. It is a very slow process to change, although Doerr agreed that the percentage of women venture capitalists was "pathetic."
Doerr, who backed Amazon and Google and whose net worth is estimated by Forbes at $3.5 billion, came across as an ambivalent figure during his hours of testimony.
Pao, 45, interim chief of the social media site Reddit, was somewhere between Doerr's protegee and surrogate daughter. He promoted her, encouraged her and defended her after his other colleagues soured on her. And his interest in having more women in technology seemed genuine.
On the other hand, he told the outside investigator hired by Kleiner that Pao had "a female chip on her shoulder" and that she was someone who, in a lawyer's paraphrase during the trial, "seems to always blame the other person for the fact that their relationship ended."
He also said he never read the report of the outside investigator, saying it was summarized for him.
Documents and testimony in the trial show a firm hustling to develop technologies being dreamed up in garages across the valley, but whose attitudes derived from an earlier era. When the outside investigator asked for a copy of Kleiner's manual on discrimination, it could not be found.
Kleiner offers employment statistics to say it is more receptive to women than most venture firms, but clearly the women do not have an easy time of it there.
Kleiner has had about 24 junior partners in its history, Doerr testified. Most of them were male. Most of them did not make it to the inner circle.
"What's unusual, what is truly unusual, is for a partner to be promoted," he said. "It's happened only five times in the 30-year history of the firm." The others, he said, were asked "to move on."
SundayMonday Business on 03/09/2015