Ellen Pao.
Lauren Simkin Berke
A private equity investor rode on a private jet with some venture capitalists and their guests. There was no raunchy talk on the way to New York, he said. Contradicting the claims of a female VC partner on the trip, he said he heard no mention of Eastern European women, strip clubs, or porn stars.
“I recall several discussions on the plane,” investor Andrew Jody Gessow testified Wednesday in San Francisco Superior Court about the October 2011 flight. “A lot of what we talked about was family-related and kid-related.”
Just another day at Ellen Pao versus Kleiner Perkins. The storied venture capital firm might be best known for its wise early investments in companies such as Google and Amazon. But these days it’s getting more attention for who said what on a private plane—attention it’s hoping it can quell once and for all by undermining Pao’s gender bias claims.
Pao was the female partner on that jet. She is suing her former employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, for $16 million in damages, claiming she was discriminated against because of her gender, and held back professionally while men at the firm were promoted. Among her evidence is alleged conversations like the one on the plane, which Pao’s attorneys have tried to use to show a pervasive sexist atmosphere at the firm.
And it’s those claims that on Wednesday defense attorneys for Kleiner tried to break down.
According to Gessow’s testimony, four people sat at the front of the plane during the trip to New York—Kleiner Perkins managing partner Ted Schlein, textbook rental company Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig, Pao, and Gessow. In her testimony, Pao said she heard talk of porn stars on television shows, older men dating younger women, the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, “hot” female executives, and the Playboy mansion.
But in Gessow’s version of events, the conversation was hardly racy. He testified that the Playboy mansion had indeed come up, but only in the context of his job as an investor. “[It was] interesting how low the value of the company had come,” he said. “And one passenger said he had visited the mansion.”
The Victoria’s Secret fashion show wasn’t mentioned at all, according to Gessow’s testimony. Rosensweig had, however, talked about going to fashion week and bringing his daughter, he said.
A Kleiner lawyer asked about each of the other topics, ticking them off one by one. Was there any discussion about the type of women Ted Schlein liked? Older men dating younger women? Marissa Mayer as a “hot” executive? Strip clubs? Gessow said no to all, and under questioning, added that he would have remembered if the conversation had been inappropriate.
In a rather uneasy cross-exam, Pao’s lawyer, Therese Lawless, sought to establish that because of a ski accident earlier in 2011, Gessow had to be under heavy narcotic pain medication and may not have remembered the entire conversation. Gessow agreed that one symptom was an impact on his memory, but protested, “I have plenty of cognitive capacity.”
The Kleiner Review Process, Reviewed
Kleiner also called human resources expert witness Rhoma Young to the stand. She said it was unusual for a small firm like Kleiner to include federal Equal Employment Opportunity language in a hiring letter as they did with Pao’s, intimating the firm had gone beyond the norm to highlight its commitment to equality in the workplace. Pao’s team has hammered on Kleiner’s inability to find a copy of an official anti-discrimination policy for an outside investigator brought in to probe claims of bias at the firm.
Young also testified that Kleiner had one of the most complete, thorough and well-documented performance evaluation policies she’d ever seen. She said it would have been difficult for bias to creep in because so many people contributed to the reviews. Pao’s performance reviews have been a central point of contention as each side tries to use them to show Pao was or wasn’t qualified for the job. According to Young, Pao was treated well by Kleiner all the way up to the end.
In her cross-examination, Pao attorney Therese Lawless tried to undermine Young’s credentials, at one point asking Young to confirm whether she had ever been served with a cease-and-desist order in relation to her work conducting workplace investigations. Young confirmed the incident, but said it only had to do with her not being an attorney-at-law.
A Male Partner Says Personality Is Important For Success
In the afternoon, Kleiner’s defense team called Matt Murphy, who was a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins during Ellen Pao’s time at the firm, 2005 to 2012. According to Murphy, it took him five-and-a-half years to get a board seat of his own. “[The venture capital industry] humbles you every day,” he said. Murphy also testified that it takes a venture capitalist a while to “develop pattern-matching—or to recognize what a good team looks like.”
Continuing the tack Kleiner has employed thus far, much of Murphy’s testimony focused on Pao’s personality. He characterized her as hard to get to know and “not the warmest person,” adding that she spent a lot of her time acting more senior than her other colleagues at Kleiner. She was entitled, he testified, didn’t know her place at the firm. Even early on in her career, Pao was “a bit too opinionated.”
He recounted an incident in which Pao fell asleep at a board meeting to which he had taken her, an incident he said “was really embarrassing.” When he brought it up to Pao, he testified, she became defensive and told him, “It was boring.” He said that another time, Pao “just didn’t show up” to an important summit.
Under questioning by Kleiner defense attorney Lynne Hermle, Murphy explained why he agreed personality should be reviewed in performance reviews. “Interpersonal skills are significant part of many performance reviews,” he said. “The more you get people to want to work with you, the more they open up and share things. And it represents the firm well.”
According to Murphy’s testimony, what was really needed to be successful at Kleiner Perkins was to be a good investor, good board member, and a good partner—with the last being the most important. “To be a good partner, you need to work well with others, be supportive, be collaborative, and be sought out,” he testified. “You need to think about the firm overall, not just yourself.”
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