--- title: Ellen Pao Has Some Sage Advice for Dealing With Sexism description: Following her discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins, Ellen Pao chronicles her experiences in Silicon Valley in her new book Reset. canonical: https://time.com/4960804/ellen-pao-sexism-harassment/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-28T16:11:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-08T09:54:12.714Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Ellen Pao Has Some Sage Advice for Dealing With Sexism og:description: The Silicon Valley executive shares her experiences and offers guidance for others in 'Reset' og:url: https://time.com/4960804/ellen-pao-sexism-harassment/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5e73fd9a88fe98d9/6988dfc90a4a2246dc9d01bc/ellen-pao-ten-questions1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: Ellen Pao, whose failed gender discrimination suit against the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers captivated Silicon Valley, in San Francisco. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ellen Pao Has Some Sage Advice for Dealing With Sexism twitter:description: The Silicon Valley executive shares her experiences and offers guidance for others in 'Reset' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5e73fd9a88fe98d9/6988dfc90a4a2246dc9d01bc/ellen-pao-ten-questions1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Ellen Pao Has Some Sage Advice for Dealing With Sexism > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=3feaa65c-9f3b-4204-9b0a-55c3dc4ae20a&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Gretchen Carlson and Ellen Pao on Sexual Harassment in the Workplace [Watch (HLS stream): Gretchen Carlson and Ellen Pao on Sexual Harassment in the Workplace](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/7UJdZKkE.m3u8) (7:22)  _Published 2017-09-21. Gretchen Carlson and Ellen Pao share their stories about their fight for inclusion and respect in the workplace._  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Sep 28, 2017 4:11 PM UTC  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Sep 28, 2017 4:11 PM UTC Ellen Pao made history when she sued her employer, the powerful Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, for discrimination in 2015\. She accused the firm of blocking women and people of color from meetings, email discussions and networking events, and of cultivating a boys-club culture in the office, filled with racist and sexist language. She lost the case but broke open a conversation about the pernicious problems of sexism and racism in the tech industry. Pao went on to become the CEO of Reddit, where she banned revenge porn and harassment. Since leaving Reddit, Pao has gone on to found Project Include with seven other women, a non-profit that aims to increase diversity in tech fields. She chronicles her experiences with sexism in Silicon Valley in her new book, [_Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change._](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XJZ2BM3/?tag=timecom-20) Pao spoke to TIME about what women who experience [sexism or harassment](http://time.com/collection-post/4951470/ellen-pao-and-gretchen-carlson-2/) in the workplace should do, her reaction to that [Google engineer’s memo](http://time.com/4897909/google-diversity-memo-james-damore-wsj-op-ed/) and how Susan Fowler’s [blog post](https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber) about [sexism at Uber](http://motto.time.com/4678613/uber-sexual-harassment-women-representation/) is forcing change. **TIME: You write in your new book,** **_Reset,_** **about how Kleiner Perkins tried to get you into arbitration, which would have kept your case private. Why did you say no?** **Ellen Pao:** Arbitration is generally part of most employee contracts at large companies in most industries. I think it hinders the free flow of information. It’s supposed to be designed to allow for faster, cheaper resolution. But it often ends up covering bad behavior. I think we’ve seen with the revelations at Fox News that persistent harassment was hidden. **Is there anything in the case you wish you had done differently?** Everyone who thought there was bias in tech got booted off the jury pool \[for being sympathetic to the plaintiff\]. If you look today, bias in tech is an acknowledged fact. So the people who were grounded in fact were pushed out, and you wound up with a jury of people who had the wrong impression of the industry. That made a huge impact. **Do you worry that encouraging women or minorities to speak up discourages companies from hiring them?** That’s just a terrible way to run your company. Almost nobody litigates. It’s draining financially, psychologically, emotionally and professionally. Betting your company on that 0.01% risk that someone will sue makes no sense. **What would you advise women who experience sexism or harassment in the workplace to do?** Get out. These are people who are just not going to accept you. You’re not going to get promoted. You don’t have to prove yourself because there’s no way to do that. If you don’t have other opportunities, try to find someone else to work with within the company. **Some people argue that the reason few women make it to the executive level is that they opt out to have kids. Do you think that’s true?** That has not been my experience. The Kapor Center recently conducted a national study looking at why people leave their tech jobs. The biggest reason was workplace culture. When people hear sexist comments, when they feel they are unfairly critiqued, when they see people being promoted for opportunities they should have been promoted for, they leave. It’s not that they suddenly want to be stay-at-home moms. They’re just tired of the sexism. **What do you make of a situation like that of Megyn Kelly, where someone endures harassment but moves up the ladder in spite of it?** There are times when your best bet is to stay, even if there are problems. Racism and sexism are systemic issues in tech, so there aren’t many places you can go where you’re not going to encounter some form of them. **What tech companies are succeeding at inclusion?** There are no companies that you can call successful—where 50% of the executives are female, where racial diversity reflects the population. **What was your reaction to the Google engineer’s memo earlier this year?** I was relieved to see the CEO fire him, because when you have somebody in your organization who believes that women are biologically inferior engineers, I don’t know how you build an inclusive culture around that. That there are people who continue to believe that women lower the bar is incredibly disappointing but unfortunately not a surprise. **How has society’s perception of sexism in tech changed since your case?** When I litigated, people didn’t believe me. They didn’t understand how the culture in tech and venture capital worked. And if you look at the reception of Susan Fowler’s blog \[on sexism at Uber\], there was a belief that this had happened. I think it’s because there have been many women and men who have shared their own experiences. Calling out these problems over the past five years has made a difference. If people continue to share their stories, it helps others to understand the scope and nature of the problem. **Part of what seemed to make a difference at Uber is people started deleting the app in protest. Do users have a moral obligation to vote with their dollars?** It depends. There are some people who might have constraints that require them to get the cheapest services available, and they’re limited in their ability to switch. But I do think people should be voicing with their dollars. It also makes a difference when people speak up on their Twitter account. We’ve seen people on Twitter pressure companies who were advertising on alt-right sites to take their ads off. If you can, it’s important that you make a statement and that your spending aligns with your values. **As CEO of Reddit, you shut down some abusive sub-reddits. Where should social media sites draw the line between free speech and abuse?** The line is clear: when there’s behavior that is intended to cause people to be pushed off a platform, your platform is no longer encouraging free speech. The whole concept of free speech is oriented around different voices being able to share and discuss ideas. If you’re not vigilant you end up with what Reddit had in 2014, which was a site that was just unauthorized nude pictures. All of the good conversations got pushed off because it was the only site that was allowing that content. Is that what you really want your site to be? **What do you want people to take away from reading** **_Reset_** **?** We haven’t really started our journey for real inclusion. We’re beginning to see and understand the problem and believe it is a problem. But that’s just the first step. Now we need to make inroads into solving it. ## Transcript [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Hello. Hey. Let me give you a hug. Great to see you. Good to see you too. You're so busy. I think you and I sort of jumped off. Off the cliff. You are on this coast and me on this coast. [ LAUGH ] And I think a lot of people felt empowered. But I also think that unless more of us decide to jump off the cliff, we're not gonna make the kind of change that we need to see. I'm not doing this for myself. I'm doing this because I'm seeing it happen to everybody around me and somebody has to do something about it. Because this can't continue. [ MUSIC ] It's a case that involves one of the most prominent venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. The legendary VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers But in the end, former venture capitalist Ellen Pao lost her gender discrimination lawsuit. So you made a choice to really Put it all out there in your book and tell a lot of personal stories and was that decision difficult? It was hard. I'm a super private person so getting all that information out there, a lot of it came out in the trial but it was very one- sided and choppy and I wanted to share the full story and make sure that people understood like Yeah, there is a narrative around it, and it is consistent. And it's not what has been portrayed. And in the hopes of getting more people to connect through the personal story. It's like unless you've been in a personal experience like you and I have, you don't understand the fear of coming forward. The retaliation you know that you'll probably experience, the losing your 25 years of working so hard for something. It's not just in the media, it's not just in tech, I heard from people in advertizing in finance, in law, and from all over the world too so Stories are all kind of sad but this connection that you form with these people it's incredibly strong and powerful through something so terrible. So I advocate in my book that women really need to try and get evidence, and to tell other people, did you ever Tell anyone else. So for a long time I didn't and I had meeting with the another venture capitalist where we were in the process of recruiting a CEO from one of our companies. And other [ UNKNOWN ] said to me He was a CEO and he only had two cases of claims for sexual harassment this whole time that he was CEO. And one person he believed and one person he didn't. Because this second person had not told anybody in the company. So obviously she was lying. And I was like, Holy Moly I hadn't told anybody so then I went and I told two people, and then it turned out one of the people had also been sexually harassed. And that was what kind of pushed things forward for me. And if you don't tell other people you don't know, and there could be an often it is a case that when somebody is harassing one person It doesn't stop there. Right. There's all sorts of other behavior, and all sorts of other people. They don't just pick one person. Yeah. I mean that's the other myth out there, is that only weak women are sexually harassed, which is totally not true. I mean I actually feel like strong, really successful, driven women end up In a tougher situation because we keep pushing forward. Because we always have. Right. And we've always achieved. We'll work doubly hard cuz that's what we've had to do our whole lives. We'll keep hitting our head against the brick wall because they're finally gonna see us for who we are. Yeah. I'll overcome it by doing so well that I don't have to deal with that person. And you kind of compartmentalize it right. Like that's just one part of my job. I'm gonna focus on all the good things and all the good that I can accomplish. And then this other part like I'll just try to ignore it and move on. The biggest question is well if it was so bad for you why didn't you just leave. I mean, it's like asking a domestic violence victim the same question. Shouldn't we change the behavior so that it wouldn't even be the question of why you should consider leaving your job. The assumption is the behavior is there, so you need to go and avoid it. Right. Just go and, we will never suggest that for. A man, right? Right, when you think about us, we're at a level where we have a lot of financial options, we have career options. And for us it's a hard decision. Imagine the people where, I'm working two jobs or I'm I don't have childcare or I don't have any options. I can't get another job. I don't have time to interview for another job. Like how do you tell them that they should just go and find another job? I've sort come to the conclusion that we're. fooling ourselves in society that we have come far. Because people are like, well, we don't have all these stories. The reason we don't hear about them is because if you do have an issue, you're being forced into secret arbitration. Or you have to sign a non disclosure agreement. So they pay you some money and you promise never to say anything about it again. So nobody ever learns. I mean, the headlines for me were very public. So the story got out, but I signed a settlement agreement and so I don't talk about the details. But at least my story was out there. I'm working on Capitol Hill and doing advocacy work to try and get rid of these arbitration clauses so that we take it out of Secret chambers. Five years ago, when I sued, people didn't believe me. People said terrible things about me in the press. And the press just wrote it all up because, as you said, it's sensationalistic. Suddenly, I had people advising me not to look at my social media feeds. [ LAUGH ] Yeah, I stopped. But that's where you really see the reality of Where we are. You know, and it makes me realize again, how much work we have to do. Right. I think if I hadn't spoken up, I'd always wonder, like, should I have said something. And I see a lot of women come up to me and their like, finally. Somebody's talking about these issues that I felt so uncomfortable with. I think it started conversations at an organic level. But, you know, I have to be honest. There are mornings that I wake, and I mean, I don't regret a thing. But there are mornings that I wake up And feel like I'm not so sure I really want to be the face this issue everyday. Yeah, but I think people want to see both of us come out victorious in some way, having sacrificed so much, and having gone through so much, that we continue to be out there, that you've written a book. That I've written a book, and We positive about the future. I think it's inspiring to a lot of people, I think there is a part of me just want to kinda go to Hawaii and escape. Who doesn't? Exactly. [ LAUGH ] Live a simple life and just. I know. And I get asked that question a lot, like, why do you just do that? Why you're just have what happened to you and then just move on, and I mean it's a complicated question but first and foremost because I felt this sense of duty. Right. To try and make it better for the future. And [ UNKNOWN ] just go home at night and look at the faces of my children. And know that I wanna make it better for them And that was my number one concern in my whole story was how is this going to affect my kids? And it's turned out to have empowered them. And in the end, that's all that matters to me singularly when I go home at night. Was making sure that I had done something that would be empowering to them. 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