
Ellen Pao Says Kleiner Perkins Has Now Fired Her - relation
https://allthingsd.com/20121002/breaking-ellen-pao-says-kleiner-perkins-has-now-fired-her/
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SeoxyS
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).

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nancyhua
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?

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digitalengineer
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?

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Chaotic
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.

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digitalengineer
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.

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michaelochurch
[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.

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digitalengineer
You are referring to people being slavish and excessively subservient to
authority figures? I wasn't looking at it that way. I was merely thinking she
would like to work somewhere else again. The way she publicly played this
makes _her_ look unprofessional. If you have a _feeling_ you're being fucked
over, make a case, collect the evidence and by all means, break the news. But
don't go all emotional and start posting on Quora and then keep quit about the
whole case. The way she handled this does not make her case stronger, only
weaker.

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michaelochurch
Having seen whistle-blowing cases play out, there's never a socially
"acceptable" to raise this sort of issue. No matter when you do it, people
will say that you were "emotional", blew the whistle "too soon" (oblivious to
the failed negotiations they _didn't_ see) and "bit the hand".

In Hollywood movies, people like whistleblowers.

Unfortunately, in real life, whistleblowers almost always get a negative
reception, even from people who are supposed to be neutral because they have
no obvious interest. (People just don't like bad news, full stop.) And the
discussion usually gets to a smear against _how they are saying it_ (status
reduction) rather than _what they are saying_. The goal is to create the
appearance that: (a) this person didn't go through proper channels, and (b)
therefore isn't worth listening to, and (c) deserves various unrelated adverse
consequences (such as being blacklisted from future employment) that will make
it harder to concentrate from the case at hand.

You're right that her employment opportunities in the future are damaged by
this. That's the reality of the world we live in. It shouldn't be that way,
but powerful people tend to protect their own.

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digitalengineer
You are absolutely correct. Ive seen local whistle blowers get seriously
mangled for decades... The info user "michaelochurch" (top) just provided
makes me think the company she used to work for is a huge bag of dicks. Her
claims might well be relevant. At the end of the day her reputation (and
future) could well be seriously damaged. You could ask yourself if that was
worth it...

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michaelochurch
The danger of he-said/she-said contests is that peoples' perceptions (myself
included) end up being biased heavily by their own attitudes toward power.
This can be described as an emotional left/right that may or may not correlate
with economics. (Many libertarians are emotionally leftist-- they despise
centralized power-- but economically toward the right. They just happen to see
governments as more of an enemy than corporations... and I disagree with them,
but that's another story.) This whole mess is probably the result of a failed
negotiation and we have no way of knowing who failed, miscommunicated, or did
wrong.

If there isn't much hard evidence (and in this case, there's not) then people
will tend to side with power if they're emotionally rightist and against power
if they're emotional leftists. (I'm an emotional leftist, as you can probably
tell.)

What you discover when you become a whistleblower is that about 70 percent of
people are on the emotional right. They think they're in the center because
they don't reject the whistleblower out of hand (instead, they complain that
"she may be right, but she didn't use proper channels and _I_ certainly want
nothing to do with this matter.") That's not always a bad thing; the powerful
entity is known, and the whistleblower is a total unknown, and people tend to
be afraid of unknowns. It does, however, make it very difficult to be an
effective whistleblower. Worse yet, an even larger percentage of people in
positions of power (such as future employers) are on the emotional right.

White-collar employment culture is emotionally rightist in the extreme; if
your ex-company says you weren't a leader and you say you were, they're often
taken to be right and you're wrong. It's extremely unfortunate and wrong that
it's this way, but I don't see how it could be any different (surprise: high-
ranking people in powerful institutions tend to side with power) but it is
something one needs to be aware of.

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ryanmolden
>if your ex-company says you weren't a leader and you say you were, they're
often taken to be right and you're wrong

This is true, the best solution is normally to go elsewhere and succeed.
Whether that means at another company or on your own. People tend to have a
lens through which they understand the world, once they have slotted you it is
over (see: bozo bit, various cognitive biases, etc...)

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nvr219
I like that the entire article is sourced from a Quora question.

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

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jpdoctor
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.

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michaelochurch
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.

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tptacek
How are employment contracts for 6-figure jobs "under duress"? KPCB isn't
obliged to hire anyone. It seems entirely reasonable that they should be able
to choose their own terms, and, similarly, if employee candidates don't like
those terms, they don't take the job.

What you've done here is subtly shifted the frame of the discussion. You make
it sound like if she didn't sign the contract, she'd be _fired_. That's not at
all what happened, is it?. As a prospective hire at one of the most
"prestigious" VC firms in the country, this person no doubt had many options
for where to work next. Kleiner extended her an offer and with it an
employment contract, right? If she didn't think she could keep the promises in
that contract, she should have gone somewhere else.

I'm also not sure what their being a "VC firm" has to do with who pays legal
fees. The rules aren't different for "rich" firms and "poor" firms. People
make frivolous claims to both kinds of companies, and larger companies
shouldn't have to shoulder the legal costs of fending off bogus claims simply
because they're larger. Obviously, if KPCB is wrong about what happened, it's
they who will be paying the legal fees. What matters is who's right and who's
wrong, not which side of the conflict is easier to caricature.

I have no opinion about the sexual harassment charge itself, nor do I think
that "non-disparagement" clauses should (or even can) prevent someone from
litigating a sexual harassment or discrimination charge, or even from making a
case to the public about them. No doubt KPCB's lawyers want that clause to
shut down the drama, but there's a public interest issue involved in firms
forcing employees out due to sexual discrimination or harassment.

The reality here is probably that you don't know anything about what happened
with Ellen Pao and Kleiner Perkins, but that this is a message board and so
you feel it's appropriate to litigate the issue with cartoons. I wish you'd
not do that. It makes us all dumber.

 _Late edit: 5 minutes of Google research suggests that non-disparagement
clauses are not enforceable in matters of discrimination and, broadly, in
public interest cases of all stripes; similarly (you may have already known
this), where non-compete agreements are valid, they are still not enforceable
when they directly harm the public interest._

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rayiner
The problem is what happens when all employers follow suit with this
arbitration garbage and it becomes standard practice, which it is becoming.
Employers have all the leverage in these cases.

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jcampbell1
What is the problem with arbitration? If I were Ms Pao, I wouldn't want a jury
trial. Jurors hate people who they think are looking for a handout.

Here is how it is going to play out: "KPCB is an investment fund, meaning we
take money from groups such as a teacher's union retirement fund, and invest
it in companies. The returns from those investments are paid back to the
investor, ultimately helping secure the retirements of teachers. We pay our
employees exceptionally well, because the stakes are so high. Small investment
decisions can impact the bottom line of the fund by many millions of dollars".

Juror thinks: "I am not going to take from school teachers to pay Ms Pao
because her feelings were hurt. I am sorry some guy harassed her, but that
doesn't mean she wins the lottery. Hell, I'd let my boss kick me in groin
every day if it meant I got her salary.".

Jury trials are a bad idea when the jury can't relate to the victim. Getting a
fair jury is almost impossible in a sexual harassment case.

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rprasad
_> What is the problem with arbitration? _

The problem is that the company pays for the arbitor, who is usually an
independent contractor hired on a per-arbitration basis. The arbitor is
ecnomically pressured to side with the company, because siding against the
company is likely not to result in repeat business. This effect is well-
established and has been documented (I'll come back and post a reply with
sources if I have the time).

 _Jury trials are a bad idea when the jury can't relate to the victim. Getting
a fair jury is almost impossible in a sexual harassment case._

Getting a fair jury is not only possible, it's almost impossible _not_ to get
a fair jury for a civil trial. Sexual mores and attitudes have changed
significantly over the past several decades, to the point where sexual
harassment is no longer perceived as acceptable in the general workplace by
either gender.

Note that in male-centric fields (sports, programming, etc.) attitudes toward
sexual harassment have not changed as much as they have in more gender-
balanced fields. This skewed perspective on sexual harassment has made more
than a few plaintiff's lawyers quite wealthy.

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larrys
"The arbitor is ecnomically pressured to side with the company, because siding
against the company is likely not to result in repeat business."

Arbitrators are typically agreed upon by attorney's of both sides or specified
by a neutral higher authority (judge etc.)

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ta12121
Perhaps, but that does not disprove the quoted claim.

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huhtenberg
SURPRISE!!

