23 Aug Ellen Pao shares her story “This Is How Sexism Works in Silicon Valley…”

“Taking your seat at the table doesn’t work so well, I thought, when no one wants you there.” 
Ellen Pao’s lawsuit may have failed, but she put Silicon Valley on notice and arguably, her suit is part of the reason that we are having much more honest conversations around sexism in Tech. We can not even begin to imagine the stress and struggle that came with choosing to file and fight a battle with a huge, powerful firm. We can only thank her for raising her voice.

Now she’s sharing her story in The Cut…and it’s a whooper. Hearing things from her side, AND what she’s doing now to help change a dysfunctional, biased, startup ecosystem has us cheering for her and Project Include.

“I could have received millions from Kleiner if I would just have signed a non-disparagement contract; I turned it down so I could finally share my story, which I have been doing by speaking at events across the country and through Project Include — a nonprofit I co-founded to give everyone a fair shot to succeed in tech. I started it with an impressive group of women from the tech industry, many of whom shared similarly painful experiences.”

Below is the first paragraph of her story and link to the original:
In December 2010, Sheryl Sandberg gave a talk about women’s leadership in which she mentioned “sitting at the table.” Women, she said, have to pull up a chair and sit at the conference-room table rather than clinging to the edges of the room, “because no one gets to the corner office by sitting on the side.”

Less than a year later, I would take those words to heart. I had been working for six years at the Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a junior partner and chief of staff for managing partner John Doerr. Kleiner was then one of the three most powerful venture-­capital firms in the world. One day, I was part of a small group flying from San Francisco to New York on the private jet of another managing partner, Ted Schlein. I was the first to arrive at Hayward Airport. The main cabin of the plane was set up with four chairs in pairs facing each other. Usually the most powerful seat faces forward, looking at the TV screen, with the second most powerful next to it. Then came the seats facing backward. I was sure the white men booked on the flight (Ted, senior partner Matt Murphy, a tech CEO, and a tech investor) would be taking those four seats and I would end up on the couch in back. But Sheryl’s words echoed in my mind, and I moved to one of the power seats — the fourth, backward-facing seat, but at the table nonetheless.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE (REALLY, YOU SHOULD)!