In her high-profile lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers---her former employer and one of Silicon Valley's most influential venture capital firms---Ellen Pao recalls an all-male dinner at Al Gore's residence organized by one of her fellow Kleiner partners. During an office meeting, Pao says, the partner told others that having women at the dinner would "kill the buzz."
But on Wednesday, in a San Francisco court, that partner, Chi-Hua Chien, denied saying such a thing. He acknowledged this and other Kleiner events were only attended by men, but he also said that, in some cases, women were invited to attend. Over four hours of testimony, Chien painted the picture of a firm that, like many companies, struggles to deal with certain gender issues.
Chien's testimony kicked off the second day of the closely watched Silicon Valley gender discrimination trial. On Tuesday, the court heard opening arguments from both sides, as well as testimony from Trae Vassallo, a former Kleiner general partner, and as with Chien, Vassallo's testimony was as complex and contradictory as it as enlightening.
Pao is suing KPCB for gender discrimination. The trial, expected to last four to six weeks, offers a rare view of gender politics in the tech world, and could go a long way towards deciding how the industry as a whole views gender.
On Tuesday, Vassallo took the stand to describe her experiences with Ajit Nazre, the Kleiner Perkins partner Pao once had an affair with. In her lawsuit, Pao alleges that Nazre retaliated against her after she broke off an affair with him in 2006.
Vassallo testified that Nazre invited her to out to drinks in 2009 under the pretense of discussing Kleiner’s green tech strategy. During the meeting, she says he began touching her with his leg under the table. Upset, Vassallo abruptly ended the meeting and left, but decided not to raise the issue with anyone else inside the company.
Then, on a business trip to New York, Vassallo testified, she agreed to attend a dinner Nazre said he had arranged with an important tech executive. But, she said, Nazre had only made reservations for two, and the executive never showed up.
Later in the evening, after Vassallo had retreated to her hotel room, Nazre came to her door dressed only in a bathrobe and slippers, according to Vassallo's testimony. Vassallo says she refused to let him in---twice---and had to push him out the doorway. When she subsequently recounted the episode to a senior partner at Kleiner, Vassallo says she was told: “You should be flattered.”
At another point during her testimony, Vassallo described how she had been put in the back row of a meeting discussing green tech strategy, her forte, and was asked to take notes. She felt insulted, and refused. Then, Vassallo testified, Pao was asked to take notes---and she too refused. Vassallo also testified that she started as a junior partner, like Pao, before eventually becoming general partner at Kleiner Perkins. But three of her male coworkers became senior partners---Chien, and two others, Wen Hsieh and Amol Deshpande---even though none of them saw their companies acquired or go public.
But Vassallo also had positive things to say about working at Kleiner Perkins, even calling it “an awesome place to work.” She testified that men in high-level positions often supported women at the company. When she reported the harassment by Nazre, writing a letter to Kleiner partners John Doerr, Ted Schlein, and Brook Byers, the firm investigated the matter swiftly and found her claims to be true. Nazre left the firm shortly after the investigation.
During their testimonies, both Vassallo and Chien described a precarious working relationship with Pao. Vassallo testified that Pao had called her “untrustworthy” to her face, and several email chains presented as evidence showed a deteriorating relationship between Pao and Chien. Chien described his work relationship with Pao from 2008 to 2009 as “quite positive,” and the messages shown in court bear this out. But by 2010, things had taken a turn. During his testimony, Chien alleged Pao was sabotaging the company by badmouthing it to recruiters and potential candidates. "This constant Ellen bullshit," Chien wrote to a colleague, "really pisses me off!"
Update 21:13 PM EST 02/25/2015: This story has been updated to clarify that, according to a Kleiner Perkins representative, while Vassallo was never promoted to senior partner at KPCB, she was promoted from junior partner to general partner at one point.
