Ellen Pao, former CEO of Reddit and veteran of what she has called “one of the largest trolling attacks in history,” has dropped her appeal against the venture-capital firm she accused of gender discrimination and retaliation.
Pao filed her suit against Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers in May 2012, alleging that men with similar credentials had been granted promotions she had been denied and that a married partner, Ajit Nazre, with whom she had an affair, was retaliating against her. By October 2012, Pao’s position at the firm had been terminated. In March of this year, a jury in San Francisco determined that gender was not the primary reason Pao did not get a promotion, nor was it the main reason for her dismissal. She must pay KPCB almost $276,000.
In an essay on Re/code published on Thursday, Pao explained her decision to end her lawsuit. In it, she cites her experience as proof that “the court system today is not well-designed” to address issues of workplace discrimination and harassment. In addition to the substantial burden of proof, she wrote, “from the first day of trial, I saw how hard it was going to be to win when every potential juror who expressed a belief that sexism exists in tech — a belief that is widely recognized and documented — was not allowed to serve on the jury.”
Her “primary reason” for dropping the suit, though, was sheer cost: “The disparity in legal, PR and financial resources is also tremendous.” She detailed the ways in which KPCB can and did expend significant funds to aid their case. Pao can no longer afford to fight, nor can she risk the cost she’d be made to bear if she lost on appeal. “I already must pay Kleiner for its legal costs, as awarded by the court, plus 10 percent annual interest. Forcing plaintiffs in civil rights actions to pay for defendants’ costs is just wrong.”
In 2013, Pao joined Reddit; she started serving as interim CEO in November 2014. But she stepped down from her role just eight months later after facing widespread backlash from Reddit users for the way she and site leadership handled the sudden firing of talent director Victoria Taylor.
As relations between community members and the site brass worsened, Pao issued a public apology, but users were dissatisfied with what they perceived to be boilerplate “I’m sorry language.” They reacted with vitriol and a Change.org petition calling for Pao’s resignation. Bethanye Blount, a female staff member who quit Reddit shortly after Pao left — and only two months after taking on her role as chief engineer, said she thought Pao was set up on a glass cliff when she was selected for the interim CEO position in the first place.