Many of the issues raised by Ellen seem to be bad traits of VC's when dealing with people in general. I didn't have any "good" experiences with VC's for many of the same reasons. They look down at you; they are casually dismissive; they are manipulative; they lie as necessary, etc. They seem to be only as friendly as needed in case they suddenly decide they want to invest.
I'm curious how similar or different my experience would have been pitching Ellen Pao.
Any type of job with even the least amount of authority - however insignificant it ultimately is as long as they can assert it without recourse - attracts the worst type of people. I call it the 'nightclub bouncer syndrome'.
Then again VC is a 'retail' style job and any job where you are continually put into forced social situations can make you cynical and impatient with people. So there's also that side of the equation.
Thirdly, it's also a type of job where you're surrounded by 'yes men' trying to suck up to you. You never get the type of negative feedback loops about your behaviour that you normally would/should. American bigco CEOs and celebrities are notorious for having this problem.
I'm curious how similar or different my experience would have been pitching Ellen Pao.