Jury Backs Kleiner Perkins In Sex-Bias Case--Update

By Jeff Elder 

A San Francisco jury Friday found that venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers did not discriminate against former partner Ellen Pao on nearly all counts, in a closely watched case that raised questions about the treatment of women in Silicon Valley.

The six-man, six-woman jury deliberated for three days, after a four-week trial. Jurors had to work through 14 pages of instructions and a seven-page verdict form with 30 questions to formulate its verdict on two charges of gender discrimination and two charges of retaliation.

At least nine members of the jury had to agree on each of the four counts. The jury found for Kleiner Perkins on three of the four counts but were ordered to resume deliberations by the judge because it only had eight members on the count related to if the firm retaliated by firing her.

Ms. Pao, who worked at Kleiner Perkins from 2005 to 2012, claimed the firm assigned her menial tasks, denied her promotions, and then retaliated, including firing her, after she complained about her treatment. Kleiner Perkins said Ms. Pao didn't advance because of her own shortcomings and misrepresented key incidents at the firm.

The trial drew international attention because of the claim that one of oldest and best-known firms in Silicon Valley, an early backer of companies including Amazon.com Inc. and Google Inc., had stymied the career of a promising woman. It followed other recent allegations of unfair treatment at other tech firms, and reports showing few women in management or high-prestige tech jobs at companies like Google, Yahoo Inc., Apple Inc. and others.

Dating app Tinder in September settled a sexual-harassment suit by a former executive who claimed the company's co-founders subjected her to "horrendously sexist, racist and otherwise inappropriate comments." Women in the videogame industry have been threatened and attacked online, in a continuing affair known as Gamergate.

At Google, women fill 48% of non-tech jobs, such as marketing and human resources, but just 17% of the software engineering, database analysis and other tech jobs.

Nationally, women's representation in those high-paying tech jobs has declined in the past 25 years, according to the U.S. Census. Just over a quarter of computer professionals are women, down from 34% in 1990.

In venture capital, the numbers are even lower. The share of women partners in venture-capital firms declined to 6% in 2014, from 10% in 1999, according to a study from Babson College.

The trial offered titillating details of real and attempted romantic trysts in parking lots and hotel hallways. Ms. Pao was involved in a consensual affair with a married Kleiner Perkins partner for a time, and claimed that he retaliated against her after she ended the affair.

Other testimony about behavior at the firm seemed to describe another era, before antidiscrimination laws and workplace sensitivity training. Ms. Pao says a Kleiner Perkins partner discussed porn stars and the Playboy mansion on a partner's private jet. A married partner gave Ms. Pao a book of erotic poetry on Valentine's Day. Another male partner asked her to take notes at a meeting. When an investigator hired by Kleiner Perkins asked for the firm's antidiscrimination policy, executives couldn't produce it.

Write to Jeff Elder at [e-mail]

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