Ellen Pao was in a relationship with another partner who was married. Then she broke it off. She says he cut her out of business after that.
Pao, who graduated from Princeton with a degree in electrical engineering and Harvard with a JD and an MBA, worked at Microsoft, Tellme Networks, Danger Research, and BEA. She joined Kleiner Perkins in 2005 as John Doerr's chief of staff and a junior partner with the firm.
In 2006, according to her complaint, she had a brief sexual relationship with another partner, Ajit Nazre, who had allegedly repeatedly propositioned her. After she broke it off, Pao alleged that Nazre retaliated against her by cutting her out of meetings and email threads.
Kleiner Perkins alleges that the relationship was 100% consensual, but there was a bad breakup. Its trial document shows texts where Pao realizes Nazre is still married and hasn't left his wife, and gets upset.
Pao is now interim CEO of Reddit.
Pao says she complained to her boss, John Doerr, but he ignored her. He says: "False."
Doerr, Kleiner Perkins' most famed investor, backed Netscape, Amazon.com, and Google. But his push into cleantech hasn't gone nearly as well.
Doerr, according to Pao's lawsuit, mishandled her complaints. Pao, who started at Kleiner as Doerr's chief of staff, said she told Doerr about male partners' behavior on several occasions between 2007 and 2011. Kleiner Perkins insists Doerr was a supportive mentor of Pao's.
After Pao's lawsuit became public, Doerr issued a strongly worded statement, saying the firm had conducted an internal investigation and found her charges "false."
Pao's husband has filed several lawsuits.
Alphonse "Buddy" Fletcher Jr. is a controversial hedge-fund manager whose own legal history has fascinated watchers of the case. Lawyers we've spoken to say Kleiner's counsel would have a tough time bringing Fletcher's past up in court. Nevertheless, it's being talked about.
Fletcher sued his employer, brokerage Kidder Peabody, for discrimination and won $1.3 million in 1991. He's embroiled in a dispute with the famous Dakota co-op apartment, where he owns four units (he wanted to buy a fifth, and the co-op's board denied him).
Two men working for Fletcher as contractors sued Fletcher for sexual harassment. Both reached confidential settlements.
Before marrying Pao, Fletcher lived with a man. He received an award from the Harvard Gay & Lesbian Caucus in 2005 for his efforts in philanthropy and civil rights.
Fletcher and Pao are both members of the Aspen Institute's 2007 class of Crown Fellows, a prestigious business leadership award. According to a source, that's where he met Pao. Crown Fellows spend 24 days together in seminars which stretch over two years. Pao and Fletcher married in 2007.
In April, a judge ordered one of Fletcher's hedge funds liquidated, saying it was insolvent.
The former boyfriend of Pao's husband has commented on the case.
Hobart Fowlkes Jr., the man who lived with Fletcher before he married Pao, is the godfather of the couple's daughter, Matilda.
He's a writer and photographer who's active on Instagram and Tumblr — two hot social companies which, it's worth noting, Kleiner Perkins missed out on.
His comment on Pao and Fletcher to the New York Times is worth reading:
“I must admit that I do not know Ellen as intimately as I obviously know Buddy,” Mr. Fowlkes wrote in an e-mail. “However, my interactions with Ellen have never been anything but positive.”
He added that he was “extremely touched” that they asked him to be the godfather of their daughter, “given the circumstances.”
This is the Kleiner Partner whom Pao said she slept with. He's accused of retaliating after the affair ended.
Ajit Nazre, a former SAP executive, joined Kleiner Perkins in 2003 as part of the firm's push into cleantech investing.
Pao alleged that Nazre pressured her to have sex with him beginning with a business trip they took together to Germany in February 2006. Later that year, she had a brief sexual relationship with him, then broke things off.
She alleged that Nazre subsequently retaliated by cutting her out of meetings and email discussions.
In April 2012, VentureWire and other outlets reported Nazre's departure from Kleiner Perkins. That came after Kleiner had launched an internal investigation of Pao's complaints.
Ray Lane allegedly told Pao to solve her problem by marrying Nazre.
Lane, the former COO of Oracle, joined Kleiner in 2000 as one of the architects of its push into green technology investing. That hasn't gone well—notable investments include Fisker, which has proven to be an also-ran to Tesla Motors in the electric-car race.
Pao said that she took her complaints about Nazre to Lane and said that Lane didn't act on them because he was Nazre's "mentor." Lane allegedly suggested to Pao that she resolve the issue by marrying Nazre.
Lane is a Partner Emeritas at Kleiner and is involved with Elance and Aquion Energy, where he's chairman.
By the way, Lane married Stephanie Herle, then one of his administrative assistants at Oracle, in 1995, after divorcing his first wife.
Pao says this Kleiner partner gave her a book of "playful and provocative" drawings.
Randy Komisar, a cofounder of Claris and former lawyer for Apple, joined Kleiner Perkins in 2005, the same year as Pao. On Valentine's Day in 2007, Pao alleged that Komisar gave her a copy of "The Book of Longing" and asked her out to dinner. According to the book's front-flap description, it features "playful and provocative" drawings. Pao's complaint says they're sexually explicit.
Here's Komisar talking about the lack of women in venture capital from a 2010 interview posted on YouTube:
There are not enough women in venture capital today. Venture capital tends to be clubby in the sense that you tend to have confidence and trust and perhaps better communication with people that you feel more like than people you feel less like. And that applies across gender as well.
Komisar went on to note that a younger generation of venture capitalists seemed more comfortable with diversity — including gender diversity.
In 2011, Pao alleged that Komisar told her that women weren't successful at Kleiner Perkins because they were "quiet."
Pao alleges this partner holds men-only parties because "women kill the buzz."
Chi-Hua Chien, who's backed companies like Path and Klout for Kleiner, allegedly held parties at a Kleiner Perkins partner's home in San Francisco to which women weren't invited. Pao's complaint recounts a meeting where Doerr asked Chien why that happened. "Women kill the buzz," Chien allegedly said.
We've spoken to people who know Chien well. They say that he's got a dry sense of humor that may not come across out of context.
Pao says her boss didn't bring her out to meetings on business trips.
Ted Schlein runs Kleiner's digital investing efforts. Pao started reporting to Schlein in December 2009 after repeatedly asking to be transferred out of Kleiner's cleantech group where she worked with Nazre, according to her complaint.
In October 2011, according to Pao, Schlein and another male partner flew with Pao in Schlein's private jet to an event for CIOs in New York. On two nights, Pao said, Schlein and the other partner attended evening business events and didn't include Pao.
At a Kleiner Perkins party in Palo Alto, Calif. last month, according to Reuters reporter Sarah McBride, Schlein and other partners avoided Pao:
There, Pao held court on one side of the room, greeted with hugs and hearty handshakes by a number of start-up entrepreneurs she has worked with. Meanwhile, other Kleiner partners at the bash– including Matt Murphy and Ted Schlein– clutched their drinks and steered clear of their suddenly famous colleague.
Beth Seidenberg is a woman doing very well at Kleiner.
Seidenberg is one of more than a dozen female partners at Kleiner Perkins, which has an unusually high number of women partners for the venture-capital industry.
When asked about Pao's complaint, in a statement to The New York Times, Seidenberg said:
I was drawn to the firm because of its diversity and have excelled here as have other women. Everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.
According to the complaint, Kleiner formed an investment committee for its previous $525 million fund. Only one woman was named to that 10-person committee: Seidenberg.
Pao cited her exclusion from the committee as one of the firm's discriminatory acts.
Pao says she was robbed of a huge win when she was blocked from joining a hot startup's board
John Amster is the CEO of RPX, a San Francisco-based company which helps its customers manage the risk of patent lawsuits.
It's one of two portfolio companies listed on Pao's Kleiner Perkins biography as examples of successful exits.
Pao's complaint does not name RPX, but it mentions a San Francisco-based company which went public in the middle of 2011. That could only be RPX, whose IPO was in May 2011.
According to Pao's complaint, she was primarily responsible for getting Kleiner to invest in the company. But both Nazre and Komisar allegedly stepped in between Pao and RPX.
At one point, Pao said she was courting a CEO to join the board of a company she was backing. (VentureBeat reported that the company in question was RPX.) Nazre allegedly convinced the CEO to join the board of one of his companies instead.
According to Pao's chronology of events, when Kleiner invested in RPX, the firm's partners awarded a seat on the board to Komisar. The complaint says Doerr told Pao that she deserved the seat but Komisar "needed a win."
According to Pao's complaint, several RPX board members wanted Komisar kicked off the board, but Kleiner partners ordered Pao to cut off contact with RPX so Komisar could build a better relationship with the company.
Three administrative assistants and a junior partner also alleged harassment, according to Pao's complaint.
Pao's complaint mentions three administrative assistants who allegedly complained of sexual harassment by Kleiner partners in May 2007.
In December 2011, according to the complaint, another junior partner overseen by Nazre told higher-ups that he sexually harassed her.
Kleiner launched an investigation. Nazre subsequently left the firm.